Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Jeremiah 4:30 - 4:30
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
In vain will Jerusalem attempt to turn away calamity by the wiles of a courtesan. In Jer 4:31 the daughter of Zion is addressed, i.e., the community dwelling around the citadel of Zion, or the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the capital of the kingdom, regarded as a female personality (as to בַּת־צִיֹּון, see on Isa 1:8). "Spoiled one" is in apposition not to the אֲתְּי, but to the person in the verb; it is regarded as adverbial, and so is without inflexion: if thou art spoiled, like עָרֹום, Job 24:7, Job 24:10; cf. Ew. §316, b. The following clauses introduced by כִּי are not so connected with the question, what wilt thou do? as that כִּי should mean that: what wilt thou do, devise to the end that thou mayest clothe thee? (Graf); the כִּי means if or though, and introduces new clauses, the apodosis of which is: "in vain," etc. If thou even clothest thyself in purple. שָׁנִי, the crimson dye, and stuffs or fabrics dyed with it, see in Exo 25:4. פּוּךְ is a pigment for the eye, prepared from silver-glance, sulphur-antimony - the Cohol, yet much esteemed by Arab women, a black powder with a metallic glitter. It is applied to the eyelids, either dry or reduced to a paste by means of oil, by means of a blunt-pointed style or eye-pencil, and increases the lustre of dark eyes so that they seem larger and more brilliant. See the more minute account in Hillel, on the eye-paint of the East, in ref. to 2Ki 9:30. קָרַע, tear asunder, not, prick, puncture, as Ew., following J. D. Mich., makes it. This does not answer the mode of using the eye-paint, which was this: the style rubbed over with the black powder is drawn horizontally through between the closed eyelids, and these are thus smeared with the ointment. This proceeding Jeremiah sarcastically terms rending open the eyes. As a wife seeks by means of paint and finery to heighten the charms of her beauty in order to please men and gain the favour of lovers, so the woman Jerusalem will attempt by like stratagems to secure the favour of the enemy; but in vain like Jezebel in 2Ki 9:30. The lovers will despise her. The enemies are called lovers, paramours, just as Israel's quest for help amongst the heathen nations is represented as intrigue with them; see on Jer 2:33, Jer 2:36.