Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Jeremiah 4:27 - 4:27
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
The devastation of Judah, though not its utter annihilation, is irrevocably decreed, and cannot be turned away by any meretricious expedients. - Jer 4:27. "For thus saith Jahveh, A waste shall the whole land be, yet will I not make an utter end. Jer 4:28. For this shall the earth mourn, and the heaven above darken, because I have said it, purposed it, and repent it not, neither will I turn back from it. Jer 4:29. For the noise of the horseman and bowman every city flees; they come into thickets, and into clefts of the rock they go up; every city is forsaken, and no man dwells therein. Jer 4:30. And thou, spoiled one, what wilt thou do? Though thou clothest thyself in purple, though thou deckest thee with ornaments of gold, though thou tearest open thine eyes with paint, in vain thou makest thyself fair; the lovers despise thee, they seek thy life. Jer 4:31. For I hear a voice as of a woman in travail, anguish as of one who bringeth forth her first-born, the voice of the daughter of Zion; she sigheth, she spreadeth out her hands: Woe is me! for my soul sinketh powerless beneath murderers."
Jer 4:27-29
Jer 4:27 and Jer 4:28 confirm and explain what the prophet has seen in spirit in Jer 4:23-26. A waste shall the land become; but the wasting shall not be a thorough annihilation, not such a destruction as befell Sodom and Gomorrah. עָשָׂה , as in Nah 1:8., Isa 10:23, and freq. This limitation is yet again in v. Jer 5:10, Jer 5:18 made to apply to Jerusalem, as it has done already to the people at large. It is founded on the promise in Lev 26:44, that the Lord will punish Israel with the greatest severity for its stubborn apostasy from Him, but will not utterly destroy it, so as to break His covenant with it. Accordingly, all prophets declare that after the judgments of punishment, a remnant shall be left, from which a new holy race shall spring; cf. Amo 9:8; Isa 6:13; Isa 11:11, Isa 11:16; Isa 10:20., Mic 2:12; Mic 5:6; Zep 3:13, etc. "For this" refers to the first half of Jer 4:27, and is again resumed in the עַל כִּי following: for this, because Jahveh hath purposed the desolation of the whole land. The earth mourns, as in Hos 4:3, because her productive power is impaired by the ravaging of the land. The heaven blackens itself, i.e., shrouds itself in dark clouds (1Ki 18:45), so as to mourn over the desolated earth. The vividness of the style permits "have decreed it" to be appended as asyndeton to "I have said it," for the sake of greater emphasis. God has not only pronounced the desolation of the land, but God's utterance in this is based upon a decree which God does not repent, and from which He will not turn back. The lxx have placed the זַמֹּתִי after נִחַמְתִּי, and have thus obtained a neater arrangement of the clauses; but by this the force of expression in "I have said it, decreed it," is weakened. In Jer 4:29 the desolation of the land is further portrayed, set forth in Jer 4:30 as inevitable, and exhibited in its sad consequences in Jer 4:31. On the approach of the hostile army, all the inhabitants flee into inaccessible places from the clatter or noise of the horsemen and archers. He that casts the bow, the bowman; cf. Psa 78:9. כָּל־הָעִיר means, in spite of the article, not the whole city, but every city, all cities, as may be gathered from the בָּהֵן, which points back to this. So frequently before the definite noun, especially when it is further defined by a relative clause, as e.g., Exo 1:22; Deu 4:3; 1Sa 3:17; cf. Ew. §290, c. For the first כָּל־הָעִירthe lxx have πᾶσα ἡ χώρα, and accordingly J. D. Mich., Hitz., and Graf propose to amend to כָּל־הָאָרֶץ, so as to avoid "the clumsy repetition." But we cannot be ruled here by aesthetic principles of taste. Clearly the first "every city" means the populace of the cities, and so בָּאוּ is: they (i.e., the men) come, pouring forth. עָבִים is not here clouds, but, according to its etymology, to be dark, means the dark thickets or woods; cf. the Syr. ̀āb, wood. כֵּפִים, rocks, here clefts in the rocks, as is demanded by the בְּ. For this state of things, cf. Isa 2:19, Isa 2:21, and the accounts of Jdg 6:2; 1Sa 13:6, where the Israelites hide themselves from the invading Midianites in caves, ravines, thorn-thickets, rocks, and natural fastnesses.