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No trust in ourselves, but in God, who will punish all nations, <span class="bld"><a href="/context/jeremiah/9-23.htm" title="Thus said the LORD, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches:...">Jeremiah 9:23-26</a></span>. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span> <span class="bld">Oh that my head were waters!</span> Heb. <span class="ital">Who will give</span>, &c.? by way of inquiry, because the Hebrews do want the imperative mood. The prophet in this chapter principally bewailing his poor countrymen’s calamity, whom Its therefore calls <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="bld">the daughter of his people, </span> he expresseth the greatness and excess of his sorrows, by wishing that his brains were as it were dissolved into water, (for the word is singular,) as if he wished it were all one water, signifying plenty, and that his eyes might distil tears like a fountain; the same word in the Hebrew for <span class="ital">eye</span> signifies a fountain; noting the continuance of it, as not to be drawn dry, expressed by <span class="ital">day</span> and <span class="ital">night</span>, apprehending it a misery so great, as never sufficiently to be bewailed. See <span class="bld"><a href="/luke/19-41.htm" title="And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it,">Luke 19:41</a></span>. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="bld">The slain; </span> or that are to be slain, viz. by the Babylonians; a prophetical style; as sure to be slain as if they were slain already. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><A name="2"></a> <div class="versenum"><a href="/jeremiah/9-2.htm">Jeremiah 9:2</a></div><div class="verse">Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men; that I might leave my people, and go from them! for they <i>be</i> all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men.</div> He proceeds in his lamentation, which in the former verse he did, by way of compassion, in this in a way of indignation, Wishing for some retiring place, or sorry shed, or night cottage; <span class="bld">See Poole "<a href="/isaiah/24-20.htm" title="The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall be removed like a cottage; and the transgression thereof shall be heavy on it; and it shall fall, and not rise again.">Isaiah 24:20</a>"</span>; though it were but some mean and sorry lint in the wilderness, as David, <span class="bld"><a href="/psalms/55-6.htm" title="And I said, Oh that I had wings like a dove! for then would I fly away, and be at rest.">Psalm 55:6</a>,7</span>, such as might but shelter him from the injuries of the weather: LXX., in some remotest station or corner, where he might not be an eye-witness of their miseries to grieve him so at the heart, <span class="bld"><a href="/psalms/119-136.htm" title="Rivers of waters run down my eyes, because they keep not your law.">Psalm 119:136</a>,158</span>; see <span class="bld"><a href="/2_peter/2-7.htm" title="And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked:">2 Peter 2:7</a>,8</span>; and where he might hope to find better entertainment from the savage beasts than from his own countrymen. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="bld">They be all adulterers, </span> i.e. for the most part, <span class="bld"><a href="/jeremiah/5-8.htm" title="They were as fed horses in the morning: every one neighed after his neighbor's wife.">Jeremiah 5:8</a></span>, both properly and metaphorically, being full of idolatrous practices; or, there is no integrity found among them. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="bld">An assembly of treacherous men; </span> that deal perfidiously with God and man in all the concerns they are conversant about, <span class="bld"><a href="/isaiah/1-4.htm" title="Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel to anger, they are gone away backward.">Isaiah 1:4</a></span>. And though the word here for assembly is most ordinarily used for a <span class="ital">holy assembly</span>, <span class="bld"><a href="/leviticus/23-36.htm" title="Seven days you shall offer an offering made by fire to the LORD: on the eighth day shall be an holy convocation to you; and you shall offer an offering made by fire to the LORD: it is a solemn assembly; and you shall do no servile work therein.">Leviticus 23:36</a> <a href="/numbers/29-35.htm" title="On the eighth day you shall have a solemn assembly: you shall do no servile work therein:">Numbers 29:35</a></span>, which causeth some to understand it of their being most vile when they should be most devout; yet here it most naturally signifies a kind of combination among them, as such that have conspired one among another to act all manner of villanies. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><A name="3"></a> <div class="versenum"><a href="/jeremiah/9-3.htm">Jeremiah 9:3</a></div><div class="verse">And they bend their tongues <i>like</i> their bow <i>for</i> lies: but they are not valiant for the truth upon the earth; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they know not me, saith the LORD.</div> <span class="bld">Bend, </span> Heb. <span class="ital">tread</span>, because bows are usually kneeled or trod upon when they are bent, <span class="bld">Jeremiah 1 14 51:3</span>. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="bld">Like their bow; </span> their tongues are here compared to a bow, and lies to arrows, because as a bow shoots out arrows, so doth the tongue words, <span class="bld"><a href="/psalms/64-3.htm" title="Who whet their tongue like a sword, and bend their bows to shoot their arrows, even bitter words:">Psalm 64:3</a></span>. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="bld">For lies, </span> i.e. all reproachful, false, and noxious words, to the damage of one another; and so bending may be preparing, framing, and contriving that mischief which they purpose to vent with their tongues, <span class="bld"><a href="/context/psalms/52-2.htm" title="The tongue devises mischiefs; like a sharp razor, working deceitfully....">Psalm 52:2-4</a> 64:3</span>, as <span class="ital">bending</span> is preparing the bow to do execution with the arrow. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="bld">They are not valiant for the truth; </span> equity, justice; they are as eager in the ways of falsehood as men engaged in war, but show no valour in maintaining the truth. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="bld">Upon the earth, </span> i.e. no truth in the earth in them, as we use to express ourselves; or rather more genuinely in the land wherein they live, they have no courage in what is good. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="bld">They proceed from evil to evil; </span> either in kind or in degree; they go on from bad to worse, <span class="bld"><a href="/2_timothy/3-13.htm" title="But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.">2 Timothy 3:13</a></span>, which speaks little hopes of their repentance; the ground of all which is said here to be, their <span class="ital">not knowing of God</span>, as in the next clause, <span class="bld"><a href="/judges/2-10.htm" title="And also all that generation were gathered to their fathers: and there arose another generation after them, which knew not the LORD, nor yet the works which he had done for Israel.">Judges 2:10</a>,11 <a href="/1_samuel/2-12.htm" title="Now the sons of Eli were sons of Belial; they knew not the LORD.">1 Samuel 2:12</a></span>. The heart cannot work strongly after God where there be but mean apprehensions of him. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><A name="4"></a> <div class="versenum"><a href="/jeremiah/9-4.htm">Jeremiah 9:4</a></div><div class="verse">Take ye heed every one of his neighbour, and trust ye not in any brother: for every brother will utterly supplant, and every neighbour will walk with slanders.</div> <span class="bld">Take ye heed every one of his neighbour; </span> better rendered friend, or companion, as <span class="bld"><a href="/2_samuel/16-17.htm" title="And Absalom said to Hushai, Is this your kindness to your friend? why went you not with your friend?">2 Samuel 16:17</a></span>, and in the next verse; showing the general corruption will be so malignant, that one friend will betray another; no faith in friends. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="bld">Will utterly supplant; </span> wholly given to it; Heb. <span class="ital">supplanting will supplant</span>; or, <span class="ital">treading down treadeth down</span>; trampling them under their feet, noting their oppression, which they exercise all manner of ways, as in the next verse, both by fraud and force. Like the interpretation that Esau puts upon Jacob, <span class="bld"><a href="/genesis/27-36.htm" title="And he said, Is not he rightly named Jacob? for he has supplanted me these two times: he took away my birthright; and, behold, now he has taken away my blessing. And he said, Have you not reserved a blessing for me?">Genesis 27:36</a></span>; not only such as are near in habitation, pretending neighbourhood and friendship; but near in relation, even a <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="bld">brother</span> will circumvent; no respect to blood, arguing them to be monstrous in nature, putting off humanity. The word is here in allusion to Jacob, who had his name from <span class="ital">supplanting</span>; a metaphor taken from the <span class="ital">sole of the foot</span>, <span class="bld"><a href="/genesis/25-26.htm" title="And after that came his brother out, and his hand took hold on Esau's heel; and his name was called Jacob: and Isaac was three score years old when she bore them.">Genesis 25:26</a></span>. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="bld">Walk with slanders; </span> carrying tales and reports up and down, whether true or false, to the disturbance of the peace of neighbourhood, <span class="bld"><a href="/jeremiah/6-28.htm" title="They are all grievous rebels, walking with slanders: they are brass and iron; they are all corrupters.">Jeremiah 6:28</a></span>, and against the law of God, <span class="bld"><a href="/leviticus/19-16.htm" title="You shall not go up and down as a talebearer among your people: neither shall you stand against the blood of your neighbor; I am the LORD.">Leviticus 19:16</a></span>. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><A name="5"></a> <div class="versenum"><a href="/jeremiah/9-5.htm">Jeremiah 9:5</a></div><div class="verse">And they will deceive every one his neighbour, and will not speak the truth: they have taught their tongue to speak lies, <i>and</i> weary themselves to commit iniquity.</div> <span class="bld">They will deceive, </span> Heb. <span class="ital">mock</span>, or <span class="ital">deride</span>; they are scoffers. <span class="ital">They have taught their tongue to speak lies</span>; they have so framed their tongues to it by custom and constant use, that lying is become so familiar to them that they cannot leave it. The same word is applied to the wild ass, used or taught to the wilderness, <span class="bld"><a href="/jeremiah/2-24.htm" title="A wild ass used to the wilderness, that snuffs up the wind at her pleasure; in her occasion who can turn her away? all they that seek her will not weary themselves; in her month they shall find her.">Jeremiah 2:24</a> 13:23</span>. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="bld">Weary themselves to commit iniquity; </span> they use a great deal of industry, diligence, and contrivance in it, <span class="bld"><a href="/psalms/7-14.htm" title="Behold, he travails with iniquity, and has conceived mischief, and brought forth falsehood.">Psalm 7:14</a> <a href="/isaiah/5-18.htm" title="Woe to them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart rope:">Isaiah 5:18</a></span>. They spare for no labour and feel no weariness in it, whereby they are become expert. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><A name="6"></a> <div class="versenum"><a href="/jeremiah/9-6.htm">Jeremiah 9:6</a></div><div class="verse">Thine habitation <i>is</i> in the midst of deceit; through deceit they refuse to know me, saith the LORD.</div> This God speaks to the prophet, either to inform him that there is no hope of this people’s reformation, <span class="bld"><a href="/jeremiah/8-5.htm" title="Why then is this people of Jerusalem slid back by a perpetual backsliding? they hold fast deceit, they refuse to return.">Jeremiah 8:5</a></span>; therefore he expresseth a deceitful people by the abstract, <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="bld">deceit, </span> i.e. nothing among them but deceit one to another, and hypocrisy towards me, as <span class="bld"><a href="/psalms/109-2.htm" title="For the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of the deceitful are opened against me: they have spoken against me with a lying tongue.">Psalm 109:2</a></span>, and vanity for vain men, <span class="bld"><a href="/job/35-13.htm" title="Surely God will not hear vanity, neither will the Almighty regard it.">Job 35:13</a></span>; or to caution and advise him how to behave himself among such a people, that he be very wary he be not insnared by them, <span class="bld"><a href="/jeremiah/12-6.htm" title="For even your brothers, and the house of your father, even they have dealt treacherously with you; yes, they have called a multitude after you: believe them not, though they speak fair words to you.">Jeremiah 12:6</a></span>. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="bld">They refuse to know me; </span> either hoping to shift well enough by their several means they think to use, they are careless of turning to me, <span class="bld"><a href="/jeremiah/8-5.htm" title="Why then is this people of Jerusalem slid back by a perpetual backsliding? they hold fast deceit, they refuse to return.">Jeremiah 8:5</a></span>; or by hearkening to their false prophets, who have all along deceived them, they obstinately reject my ways and counsels, <span class="bld"><a href="/context/psalms/36-1.htm" title="The transgression of the wicked said within my heart, that there is no fear of God before his eyes....">Psalm 36:1-4</a> 82:5</span>. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><A name="7"></a> <div class="versenum"><a href="/jeremiah/9-7.htm">Jeremiah 9:7</a></div><div class="verse">Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts, Behold, I will melt them, and try them; for how shall I do for the daughter of my people?</div> <span class="bld">I will melt them, and try them; </span> the same metaphor used <span class="bld"><a href="/jeremiah/6-29.htm" title="The bellows are burned, the lead is consumed of the fire; the founder melts in vain: for the wicked are not plucked away.">Jeremiah 6:29</a></span>; try them by melting them, i.e. either I will try what lesser afflictions will do before I do utterly destroy them; or rather, I will bring judgment upon them, the fire and fury of the Chaldean war, that shall clear away their dross from among them, and purge away those deceits in which they trust, that fire remnant may be purified, <span class="bld"><a href="/daniel/11-35.htm" title="And some of them of understanding shall fall, to try them, and to purge, and to make them white, even to the time of the end: because it is yet for a time appointed.">Daniel 11:35</a></span>; as when the dross is separated from metals, the rest remains pure: see on <span class="bld"><a href="/isaiah/1-25.htm" title="And I will turn my hand on you, and purely purge away your dross, and take away all your tin:">Isaiah 1:25</a></span>. <span class="ital">How shall I do</span>? q. d. There is no remedy, I have tried all other means, and they have been ineffectual, any people will take no wanting; they are grown to such a height of impiety, that I can do no less, though they are any people, <span class="bld"><a href="/hosea/6-4.htm" title="O Ephraim, what shall I do to you? O Judah, what shall I do to you? for your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew it goes away.">Hosea 6:4</a></span>. Or God doth expostulate with them, How can you expect that I should treat you otherwise, that have so provoked me, and whose impieties have redounded so much to any dishonour? <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><A name="8"></a> <div class="versenum"><a href="/jeremiah/9-8.htm">Jeremiah 9:8</a></div><div class="verse">Their tongue <i>is as</i> an arrow shot out; it speaketh deceit: <i>one</i> speaketh peaceably to his neighbour with his mouth, but in heart he layeth his wait.</div> <span class="bld">Their tongue is as an arrow:</span> before, <span class="bld"><a href="/jeremiah/9-3.htm" title="And they bend their tongues like their bow for lies: but they are not valiant for the truth on the earth; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they know not me, said the LORD.">Jeremiah 9:3</a></span>, it was compared to a bow, i.e. ready prepared, and furnished with materials contriving their wickedness, <span class="bld"><a href="/psalms/11-2.htm" title="For, see, the wicked bend their bow, they make ready their arrow on the string, that they may privately shoot at the upright in heart.">Psalm 11:2</a></span>; and here to an arrow shot out, actually executing what they have designed. Some translate it <span class="ital">a murdering arrow. It speaketh deceit</span>; never speaking what they mean, that thereby they may the easier deceive the credulous; a double tongue, speaking fair when they mean to destroy, <span class="bld"><a href="/psalms/55-21.htm" title="The words of his mouth were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart: his words were softer than oil, yet were they drawn swords.">Psalm 55:21</a></span>, as the next words explain it, intending to do the greatest mischief when they speak fairest. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="bld">In heart he layeth his wait, </span> Heb. <span class="ital">in midst of him</span>, i.e. in his very inwards, with his whole heart he contrives mischief. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><A name="9"></a> <div class="versenum"><a href="/jeremiah/9-9.htm">Jeremiah 9:9</a></div><div class="verse">Shall I not visit them for these <i>things</i>? saith the LORD: shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?</div> See <span class="bld"><a href="/jeremiah/5-9.htm" title="Shall I not visit for these things? said the LORD: and shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?">Jeremiah 5:9</a>,29</span>. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><A name="10"></a> <div class="versenum"><a href="/jeremiah/9-10.htm">Jeremiah 9:10</a></div><div class="verse">For the mountains will I take up a weeping and wailing, and for the habitations of the wilderness a lamentation, because they are burned up, so that none can pass through <i>them</i>; neither can <i>men</i> hear the voice of the cattle; both the fowl of the heavens and the beast are fled; they are gone.</div> The prophet having, <span class="bld"><a href="/jeremiah/9-1.htm" title="Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!">Jeremiah 9:1</a></span>, taken up a lamentation for the slaughter of the people, he now reassumes it for the desolation of the whole land, every part of it being to be laid waste: see <span class="bld"><a href="/jeremiah/4-23.htm" title="I beheld the earth, and, see, it was without form, and void; and the heavens, and they had no light.">Jeremiah 4:23</a>,26</span>. And it either sets forth the greatness of his grief, that shall reach to he very mountains, as the words may be read; or rather, the cause of his mourning, because he presently adds, for <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="bld">the habitations of the wilderness.</span> Of the wilderness; plain, or valley, as it often signifies; so the word is used <span class="bld"><a href="/isaiah/63-13.htm" title="That led them through the deep, as an horse in the wilderness, that they should not stumble?">Isaiah 63:13</a>,14</span>; or, <span class="ital">pleasant plains</span>. The country of Judea being mountainous, these plains and valleys were their chief places for pasturage, vhich dealt greatly aggravate the devastation; these shall be burnt up, the herbage so burnt that it shall be left utterly barren, like a parched heath, <span class="bld"><a href="/jeremiah/9-12.htm" title="Who is the wise man, that may understand this? and who is he to whom the mouth of the LORD has spoken, that he may declare it, for what the land perishes and is burned up like a wilderness, that none passes through?">Jeremiah 9:12</a></span>. The <span class="ital">mountains</span> shall not be able to secure them, nor the <span class="ital">valleys</span> to feed them. <span class="ital">None can pass through them</span>; either there being no path; the LXX. render it, <span class="ital">on the paths of the wilderness</span>; or none to pass to and fro, and so leave it desolate; or so parched and waste that none can pass through it, so far are they from being inhabited, <span class="bld"><a href="/jeremiah/2-6.htm" title="Neither said they, Where is the LORD that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, that led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and of pits, through a land of drought, and of the shadow of death, through a land that no man passed through, and where no man dwelled?">Jeremiah 2:6</a></span>. <span class="ital">Neither can men hear the voice of the cattle</span>; there, where once all sorts of cattle and fowls in great plenty where wont to feed and graze, there is not so much as the chirping of a bird, the bleating of a sheep or lowing of an ox to be heard: see <span class="bld"><a href="/context/jeremiah/23-10.htm" title="For the land is full of adulterers; for because of swearing the land mourns; the pleasant places of the wilderness are dried up, and their course is evil, and their force is not right....">Jeremiah 23:10-12</a> 50:3</span>. They are said to be fled and gone; either the enemy hath swept away all, or they have forsaken the land, because there was no food, <span class="bld"><a href="/jeremiah/12-4.htm" title="How long shall the land mourn, and the herbs of every field wither, for the wickedness of them that dwell therein? the beasts are consumed, and the birds; because they said, He shall not see our last end.">Jeremiah 12:4</a></span>. A figurative expression of a universal desolation. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><A name="11"></a> <div class="versenum"><a href="/jeremiah/9-11.htm">Jeremiah 9:11</a></div><div class="verse">And I will make Jerusalem heaps, <i>and</i> a den of dragons; and I will make the cities of Judah desolate, without an inhabitant.</div> <span class="bld">Heaps, </span> viz. of stones and rubbish. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="bld">A den of dragons; </span> noting a desolate place, not any longer fit for fine habitation of mankind, as the next words do speak; but for hideous beasts; as they had made use of the temple for a <span class="ital">den of thieves</span>, <span class="bld"><a href="/jeremiah/7-11.htm" title="Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, even I have seen it, said the LORD.">Jeremiah 7:11</a></span>. The same also he afterwards threatens on Babylon herself, <span class="bld"><a href="/jeremiah/51-37.htm" title="And Babylon shall become heaps, a dwelling place for dragons, an astonishment, and an hissing, without an inhabitant.">Jeremiah 51:37</a></span>. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><A name="12"></a> <div class="versenum"><a href="/jeremiah/9-12.htm">Jeremiah 9:12</a></div><div class="verse">Who <i>is</i> the wise man, that may understand this? and <i>who is he</i> to whom the mouth of the LORD hath spoken, that he may declare it, for what the land perisheth <i>and</i> is burned up like a wilderness, that none passeth through?</div> <span class="bld">Who is the wise man, that may understand this, </span> viz. the ground of all these evils? q.d. Is there not a wise man among you, that will concern himself and search into the cause of all these threatened judgments, which hath provoked God to so great displeasure? See <span class="bld"><a href="/hosea/14-9.htm" title="Who is wise, and he shall understand these things? prudent, and he shall know them? for the ways of the LORD are right, and the just shall walk in them: but the transgressors shall fall therein.">Hosea 14:9</a></span>. It is a question that implies there is none, or very few, that consider common calamities in the causes of them; but rather say of judgments, it is a <span class="ital">chance</span>, <span class="bld"><a href="/1_samuel/6-9.htm" title="And see, if it goes up by the way of his own coast to Bethshemesh, then he has done us this great evil: but if not, then we shall know that it is not his hand that smote us: it was a chance that happened to us.">1 Samuel 6:9</a></span>. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><A name="13"></a> <div class="versenum"><a href="/jeremiah/9-13.htm">Jeremiah 9:13</a></div><div class="verse">And the LORD saith, Because they have forsaken my law which I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice, neither walked therein;</div> Either this and the next verse refer to the former, viz. because there are none can give the reason why the land perisheth, therefore God will; or else they refer to <span class="bld"><a href="/jeremiah/9-15.htm" title="Therefore thus said the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink.">Jeremiah 9:15</a>,16</span>, as showing the causes of those judgments threatened; for either of the references do not alter the sense: see <span class="bld"><a href="/jeremiah/5-19.htm" title="And it shall come to pass, when you shall say, Why does the LORD our God all these things to us? then shall you answer them, Like as you have forsaken me, and served strange gods in your land, so shall you serve strangers in a land that is not yours.">Jeremiah 5:19</a></span>: this verse contains negative reasons. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="bld">They have forsaken my law; </span> he chargeth them with their apostacy, and refusing to obey his precepts, and conform their conversation to them. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="bld">Which I set before them:</span> lest they should plead they were obscure and hard to be understood, therefore he tells them he had made it plain to them, they could not be ignorant of it, except it were out of wilfulness and obstinacy: the like expression <span class="bld"><a href="/deuteronomy/11-32.htm" title="And you shall observe to do all the statutes and judgments which I set before you this day.">Deu 11:32</a></span>. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><A name="14"></a> <div class="versenum"><a href="/jeremiah/9-14.htm">Jeremiah 9:14</a></div><div class="verse">But have walked after the imagination of their own heart, and after Baalim, which their fathers taught them:</div> <span class="bld">Imagination, </span> or stubbornness and obstinacy: see <span class="bld"><a href="/jeremiah/7-24.htm" title="But they listened not, nor inclined their ear, but walked in the counsels and in the imagination of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward.">Jeremiah 7:24</a></span>. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="bld">Baalim:</span> see <span class="bld"><a href="/jeremiah/2-23.htm" title="How can you say, I am not polluted, I have not gone after Baalim? see your way in the valley, know what you have done: you are a swift dromedary traversing her ways;">Jeremiah 2:23</a></span>. The prophet doth not charge them with new crimes, but with their tenacious sticking to their idolatry. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="bld">Which their fathers taught them:</span> see <span class="bld"><a href="/jeremiah/7-18.htm" title="The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings to other gods, that they may provoke me to anger.">Jeremiah 7:18</a></span>. It seems they might partly thank their education for it, as well as their own natural perverseness: hence we should learn to follow God’s counsel in the Scriptures, and not blindly follow our fathers’ counsel, precepts, or examples, or our own will, which is the worst guide. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><A name="15"></a> <div class="versenum"><a href="/jeremiah/9-15.htm">Jeremiah 9:15</a></div><div class="verse">Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will feed them, <i>even</i> this people, with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink.</div> <span class="bld">Even this people:</span> this supplement <span class="ital">even</span> shows that it is spoken emphatically, though they be a people that presume to be my peculiar. <span class="ital">Wormwood; worms</span>, Dutch Annotations. A plant to purify and cleanse them, say some; but this doth not seem to be spoken in favour to them; therefore rather some poisonous plant, which may agree to any other destructive herb as well as wormwood, and this the Hebrew word doth intimate, to which purpose the <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="bld">water of gall</span> is mentioned in the next words; both joined together <span class="bld"><a href="/deuteronomy/29-18.htm" title="Lest there should be among you man, or woman, or family, or tribe, whose heart turns away this day from the LORD our God, to go and serve the gods of these nations; lest there should be among you a root that bears gall and wormwood;">Deu 29:18</a></span>; possibly the one pointing at their drink, the other at their bread; both metaphorically to be understood, of which see on <span class="bld"><a href="/jeremiah/8-14.htm" title="Why do we sit still? assemble yourselves, and let us enter into the defended cities, and let us be silent there: for the LORD our God has put us to silence, and given us water of gall to drink, because we have sinned against the LORD.">Jeremiah 8:14</a></span>. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><A name="16"></a> <div class="versenum"><a href="/jeremiah/9-16.htm">Jeremiah 9:16</a></div><div class="verse">I will scatter them also among the heathen, whom neither they nor their fathers have known: and I will send a sword after them, till I have consumed them.</div> <span class="bld">I will scatter them also among the heathen; </span> either you shall wander up and down among strangers, like Cain’s curse; or rather, you shall have no friend abroad, but be sold as so many slaves from person to person. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="bld">Whom neither they nor their fathers have known; </span> part of the curse threatened <span class="bld"><a href="/deuteronomy/28-64.htm" title="And the LORD shall scatter you among all people, from the one end of the earth even to the other; and there you shall serve other gods, which neither you nor your fathers have known, even wood and stone.">Deu 28:64</a></span>. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="bld">And I will send a sword after them:</span> neither shall this serve their turn, but I will follow them with the sword till they be destroyed; probably meant of those that might escape out of Jerusalem, and flee into Egypt, the Chaldeans should pursue them thither, and either take or slay them there, i.e. such of them as were appointed for destruction; for otherwise they were not all consumed, a full end was not to be made, as is promised, <span class="bld"><a href="/jeremiah/5-10.htm" title="Go you up on her walls, and destroy; but make not a full end: take away her battlements; for they are not the LORD's.">Jeremiah 5:10</a></span>. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><A name="17"></a> <div class="versenum"><a href="/jeremiah/9-17.htm">Jeremiah 9:17</a></div><div class="verse">Thus saith the LORD of hosts, Consider ye, and call for the mourning women, that they may come; and send for cunning <i>women</i>, that they may come:</div> <span class="bld">Consider ye; </span> either in how sad a condition you are, what circumstances you are under; or rather, bethink yourselves what course to take: and therefore he puts them upon mourning and bewailing their condition, intimated by the following expression. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="bld">The mourning women; </span> a sort of persons, and principally women, as more apt for passions in this kind, which they had among them, <span class="bld"><a href="/2_chronicles/35-25.htm" title="And Jeremiah lamented for Josiah: and all the singing men and the singing women spoke of Josiah in their lamentations to this day, and made them an ordinance in Israel: and, behold, they are written in the lamentations.">2 Chronicles 35:25</a></span>; whose work it was, either to compose funeral elegies, or panegyrics in praise of the dead, and to act them in some mournful manner, as tearing their hair, and beating their breasts, with other mourning postures, or to sing them in some doleful tone, thereby artificially to provoke and excite both passions and expressions of grief in the friends of the deceased, rather wringing out tears than shedding them, in which probably they made greater seeming lamentations than those that did really mourn, as being most concerned; not that God calls upon them to do this as approving the formality, (though this foolish custom had obtained in most ages and countries,) any more than other customs that were made use of by way of illustration; as the <span class="ital">Olympic games</span>, and possibly that practice mentioned <span class="bld"><a href="/1_corinthians/15-29.htm" title="Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead?">1 Corinthians 15:29</a></span>; but makes use of it, as being customary, either to excite them to and put them upon true repentance, or to convince them hereby that they were not able themselves sufficiently to bewail so great calamities as were coming upon them, intimating hereby that he would give them occasion for the most unfeigned weeping and lamentation. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="bld">Cunning women; </span> such as are most skilful in it, <span class="bld"><a href="/amos/5-16.htm" title="Therefore the LORD, the God of hosts, the LORD, said thus; Wailing shall be in all streets; and they shall say in all the highways, Alas! alas! and they shall call the farmer to mourning, and such as are skillful of lamentation to wailing.">Amos 5:16</a></span>; <span class="ital">wisdom</span> being taken for skill in any arts, as <span class="bld"><a href="/exodus/31-3.htm" title="And I have filled him with the spirit of God, in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship,">Exodus 31:3</a></span>, and elsewhere. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><A name="18"></a> <div class="versenum"><a href="/jeremiah/9-18.htm">Jeremiah 9:18</a></div><div class="verse">And let them make haste, and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids gush out with waters.</div> <span class="bld">Let them make haste:</span> as by the calling for their artificial mourners he did intimate the greatness of the misery that was coming upon them, that with all, their art they could not sufficiently bewail it; so here, by making haste, he intimates the near approach of it, that it was even at the doors. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="bld">Take up a wailing for us; </span> pitch upon some form of mourning that may be suitable to our condition. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="bld">Our eyelids gush out with waters:</span> this and the former are each of them a hyperbolical expression, and yet are too little to bewail the greatness of the judgment, which suits with the prophet’s lamentation, <span class="bld"><a href="/jeremiah/9-1.htm" title="Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!">Jeremiah 9:1</a></span>. The prophet would herein intimate that they that were so stupid as to hear the prophets denouncing their judgments with dry eyes, though he wished them to have been <span class="ital">fountains of tears</span>, shall now suddenly feel that they shall have cause enough to send for all the helps, not only real, but artificial, to stir up their mournings. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><A name="19"></a> <div class="versenum"><a href="/jeremiah/9-19.htm">Jeremiah 9:19</a></div><div class="verse">For a voice of wailing is heard out of Zion, How are we spoiled! we are greatly confounded, because we have forsaken the land, because our dwellings have cast <i>us</i> out.</div> <span class="bld">Is heard out of Zion, </span> i.e. Jerusalem, spoken in the present tense, after the prophetical style, being a frequent way of the prophet’s expressing the certainty of a thing. <span class="ital">How are we spoiled</span>! how great is our misery! or, how come we to be in such a desolate condition? possibly expressions of the artificial mourners, or rather their real sense of it, now it is all too late. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="bld">We are greatly confounded:</span> whether this be the complaint of the country people forced to flee from their habitation to Jerusalem for shelter, or of Jerusalem itself, that could expect no less, it filled them with great consternation, that they who thought their houses should have continued for ever, because of God’s promise, <span class="bld"><a href="/psalms/132-10.htm" title="For your servant David's sake turn not away the face of your anointed.">Psalm 132:10</a></span>, &c., must now forsake them, <span class="bld"><a href="/leviticus/18-25.htm" title="And the land is defiled: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof on it, and the land itself vomits out her inhabitants.">Leviticus 18:25</a></span>; either their persons carried out into captivity, or have them utterly demolished by the enemy. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><A name="20"></a> <div class="versenum"><a href="/jeremiah/9-20.htm">Jeremiah 9:20</a></div><div class="verse">Yet hear the word of the LORD, O ye women, and let your ear receive the word of his mouth, and teach your daughters wailing, and every one her neighbour lamentation.</div> <span class="bld">Yet, </span> or <span class="ital">therefore, hear the word of the Lord</span>, i.e. do not think I speak words out of my own mind or fancy, but what I speak is from the Lord. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="bld">O ye women; </span> either those hired women mentioned before, or rather the women of the land; for God would have it not a mercenary, but a real mourning; and he mentioneth women, <span class="p"><br /><br /></span>1. To upbraid the men with their stupidity. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span>2. As being more apt to grieve, thereby to express the readiness that he would have the land to be in for mourning. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span>3. Because of the decay and want there would be of men, as is expressed in the next verse, by reason partly of the slaughter, and partly of the captivity; therefore here is mention of women with reference to <span class="ital">children</span> in the next verse, after whom their bowels would yearn; and daughters, either the scholars of the mourning women, or rather, with reference to young men, unto whom they might be given in marriage. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span>4. Because the female sex is least able to help themselves in a common calamity. Or, <span class="p"><br /><br /></span>5. Because they would be least solicitous, but would indulge their delicacies, pride, sloth, and wantonness, <span class="bld"><a href="/isaiah/32-9.htm" title="Rise up, you women that are at ease; hear my voice, you careless daughters; give ear to my speech.">Isaiah 32:9</a>,11</span>. <span class="ital">Every one her neighbour</span>, Heb. <span class="ital">a woman her friend</span>; namely, that the grief might spread the further, and become deeper; for affections and passions, of what kind soever, are augmented by company: it notes how large and universal the mourning shall be, <span class="bld"><a href="/amos/5-16.htm" title="Therefore the LORD, the God of hosts, the LORD, said thus; Wailing shall be in all streets; and they shall say in all the highways, Alas! alas! and they shall call the farmer to mourning, and such as are skillful of lamentation to wailing.">Amos 5:16</a></span>. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><A name="21"></a> <div class="versenum"><a href="/jeremiah/9-21.htm">Jeremiah 9:21</a></div><div class="verse">For death is come up into our windows, <i>and</i> is entered into our palaces, to cut off the children from without, <i>and</i> the young men from the streets.</div> <span class="bld">Death is come up; </span> the unavoidableness of the ruin is expressed metaphorically, <span class="bld"><a href="/ezekiel/21-14.htm" title="You therefore, son of man, prophesy, and smite your hands together. and let the sword be doubled the third time, the sword of the slain: it is the sword of the great men that are slain, which enters into their privy chambers.">Ezekiel 21:14</a> <a href="/jeremiah/6-5.htm" title="Arise, and let us go by night, and let us destroy her palaces.">Jeremiah 6:5</a></span>, most likely alluding to the violent and universal storming of a city, <span class="bld"><a href="/jeremiah/5-10.htm" title="Go you up on her walls, and destroy; but make not a full end: take away her battlements; for they are not the LORD's.">Jeremiah 5:10</a></span>, wherein there is no respect had to sex, youth, or age. Several other allusions. See English Annotations. The Chaldeans are here understood by death, as bringing death wherever they come; a metonymy of the effect. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="bld">To cut off the children from without; </span> no safety within or without; the enemy shall cut off all, not only those at home, but even those that are conversing or playing in the streets, which most commonly young men and children are, <span class="bld"><a href="/jeremiah/6-11.htm" title="Therefore I am full of the fury of the LORD; I am weary with holding in: I will pour it out on the children abroad, and on the assembly of young men together: for even the husband with the wife shall be taken, the aged with him that is full of days.">Jeremiah 6:11</a></span>. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><A name="22"></a> <div class="versenum"><a href="/jeremiah/9-22.htm">Jeremiah 9:22</a></div><div class="verse">Speak, Thus saith the LORD, Even the carcases of men shall fall as dung upon the open field, and as the handful after the harvestman, and none shall gather <i>them</i>.</div> <span class="bld">Speak, Thus saith the Lord; </span> lest they should think these things would never be, cease not to tell them from me that they shall certainly come to pass, viz. what was said before, and what is said now in this verse (these words, <span class="ital">Speak, Thus saith the Lord</span>, being best read in a parenthesis). <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="bld">The carcasses of men, </span> Heb. <span class="ital">a carcass of a man</span>, noting here and there a scattered carcass. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="bld">Shall fall as dung upon the open field; </span> as Jezebel was, <span class="bld"><a href="/2_kings/9-37.htm" title="And the carcass of Jezebel shall be as dung on the face of the field in the portion of Jezreel; so that they shall not say, This is Jezebel.">2 Kings 9:37</a></span>, exposed to all contempt, strewed up and down on the superficies of the earth, Heb. <span class="ital">face of the field</span>, and be offensive by their stench to all that pass by, <span class="bld"><a href="/jeremiah/44-12.htm" title="And I will take the remnant of Judah, that have set their faces to go into the land of Egypt to sojourn there, and they shall all be consumed, and fall in the land of Egypt; they shall even be consumed by the sword and by the famine: they shall die, from the least even to the greatest, by the sword and by the famine: and they shall be an execration, and an astonishment, and a curse, and a reproach.">Jeremiah 44:12</a></span>. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="bld">As the handful after the harvest man; </span> either laid in heaps by death, as the harvestman doth his cocks of hay or sheaves of corn; or rather, they shall be no more regarded than a few scattered ears that drop out of the reaper’s hand, which either lie on the ground, and are eaten by birds, or trod to dirt by beasts; thus God would pour contempt upon them, which must needs be grievous to so proud a people as the Jews were. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="bld">None shall gather them; </span> none shall have so much respect to them, or compassion of them, as to afford burial, <span class="bld"><a href="/jeremiah/8-2.htm" title="And they shall spread them before the sun, and the moon, and all the host of heaven, whom they have loved, and whom they have served, and after whom they have walked, and whom they have sought, and whom they have worshipped: they shall not be gathered, nor be buried; they shall be for dung on the face of the earth.">Jeremiah 8:2</a></span>. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><A name="23"></a> <div class="versenum"><a href="/jeremiah/9-23.htm">Jeremiah 9:23</a></div><div class="verse">Thus saith the LORD, Let not the wise <i>man</i> glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty <i>man</i> glory in his might, let not the rich <i>man</i> glory in his riches:</div> The Jews did glory in the counsel of their <span class="ital">wise men</span>, the strength of the <span class="ital">soldiers</span>, and the wealth of their cities; but here God takes them off from their vain confidences, that neither their <span class="ital">counsels</span> and <span class="ital">policy</span>, <span class="bld"><a href="/ecclesiastes/9-11.htm" title="I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happens to them all.">Ecclesiastes 9:11</a></span>, nor their <span class="ital">forces and arms</span>, <span class="bld"><a href="/psalms/33-16.htm" title="There is no king saved by the multitude of an host: a mighty man is not delivered by much strength.">Psalm 33:16</a>,17</span>, nor their <span class="ital">wealth</span> or <span class="ital">riches</span>, <span class="bld"><a href="/proverbs/11-4.htm" title="Riches profit not in the day of wrath: but righteousness delivers from death.">Proverbs 11:4</a> <a href="/ezekiel/7-19.htm" title="They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed: their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the LORD: they shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill their bowels: because it is the stumbling block of their iniquity.">Ezekiel 7:19</a></span>, should be able to deliver them from being either destroyed or carried captive by the Chaldeans. In these, or some of these, men are apt to put their confidences, and neglect God their only succour in distress; and therefore he puts them upon that in the next verse. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><A name="24"></a> <div class="versenum"><a href="/jeremiah/9-24.htm">Jeremiah 9:24</a></div><div class="verse">But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I <i>am</i> the LORD which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these <i>things</i> I delight, saith the LORD.</div> <span class="bld">Understandeth and knoweth me:</span> whether we make any curious distinction between <span class="ital">understanding</span> God, as if that be more speculative, whereby we rightly apprehend his nature; and <span class="ital">knowing</span> God, as if that be more practical, as directing the conversation; we need not here inquire; yet certainly both centre in this, that we so know and understand God as to trust in him and depend on him alone in all conditions. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="bld">Which exercise loving-kindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth; kindness, </span> as it relates to his own people, <span class="bld"><a href="/psalms/5-12.htm" title="For you, LORD, will bless the righteous; with favor will you compass him as with a shield.">Psalm 5:12</a></span>; <span class="ital">judgment</span>, with reference to his punishing the wicked; <span class="ital">righteousness</span>, namely, as he deals justly and uprightly with both, <span class="bld"><a href="/psalms/92-15.htm" title="To show that the LORD is upright: he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him.">Psalm 92:15</a></span>. The meaning here, I conceive is to show God’s orderly governing and disposing of things in the world in his distributive justice, that all things are right and equal. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="bld">In these things I delight; </span> both in himself and others, <span class="bld"><a href="/psalms/11-7.htm" title="For the righteous LORD loves righteousness; his countenance does behold the upright.">Psalm 11:7</a></span>. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><A name="25"></a> <div class="versenum"><a href="/jeremiah/9-25.htm">Jeremiah 9:25</a></div><div class="verse">Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will punish all <i>them which are</i> circumcised with the uncircumcised;</div> <span class="bld">I will punish, </span> viz. by the Babylonians, all them which are circumcised: q.d. Do not think to insist upon your external privilege of <span class="ital">circumcision</span>, that you are Abraham’s natural seed, and thereby distinguished from other nations, as you sometimes were wont to do of the <span class="ital">temple</span>, that you had God in the midst of you. Do not think that shall privilege you: for you shall see it shall not be long ere I bring the Chaldeans upon those other nations, which either are circumcised in the flesh as well as you, and upon you also, who are uncircumcised in heart as well as they: or whether circumcision was lost, as being cast off by them, and so they were indeed uncircumcised; God tells them they shall fare alike: hence in the next verse he ranks Judah next to Egypt among the other uncircumcised nations; for he looks to the circumcision of the heart, not of the body; to inward worship, not outward only; therefore some read it the <span class="ital">circumcised in uncirumcision</span>. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><A name="26"></a> <div class="versenum"><a href="/jeremiah/9-26.htm">Jeremiah 9:26</a></div><div class="verse">Egypt, and Judah, and Edom, and the children of Ammon, and Moab, and all <i>that are</i> in the utmost corners, that dwell in the wilderness: for all <i>these</i> nations <i>are</i> uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel <i>are</i> uncircumcised in the heart.</div> <span class="bld">In the utmost corners:</span> some refer this to the place of their habitation, as in corners, and remote parts of the wilderness, as it were separated from other nations, and therefore might think themselves furthest remote from danger; but some rather choose to refer it to their manners, as in cutting the corners of their hair, which was forbidden the Jews, <span class="bld"><a href="/leviticus/19-27.htm" title="You shall not round the corners of your heads, neither shall you mar the corners of your beard.">Leviticus 19:27</a></span>. The like description in <span class="bld"><a href="/jeremiah/25-23.htm" title="Dedan, and Tema, and Buz, and all that are in the utmost corners,">Jeremiah 25:23</a></span>. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><span class="bld">Uncircumcised in the heart:</span> see the foregoing verse. God regards not the outward sign, but principally respects the circumcision of the heart. Here ends that sermon that began at Jer. vii. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><div id="botbox"><div class="padbot"><div align="center">Matthew Poole's Commentary<br /><br />Text Courtesy of <a href="//biblesupport.com" target="_top">BibleSupport.com</a>. 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