to commiserate · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
Jerusalem
יְר֣וּשָׁלִַ֔םye.Ru.sha.Lim
H3389
Jerushalaim or Jerushalem · proper noun, a place name
bemoan
יָנ֣וּדya.Nud
H5110
to nod · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
aside
יָס֔וּרya.Sur
H5493
to turn off (literal or figurative) · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
ask
לִשְׁאֹ֥לlish.'Ol
H7592
to inquire · preposition + verb, qal infinitive construct
doest
לְשָׁלֹ֖םle.sha.Lom
H7965
safe · preposition + noun, common masculine singular absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Isaiah 51:19 These two things are come unto thee; who shall be sorry for thee? desolation, and destruction, and the famine, and the sword: by whom shall…
Nahum 3:7 And it shall come to pass, that all they that look upon thee shall flee from thee, and say, Nineveh is laid waste: who will bemoan her? when…
Jeremiah 21:7 And afterward, saith the LORD, I will deliver Zedekiah king of Judah, and his servants, and the people, and such as are left in this city fr…
Psalms 69:20 Reproach hath broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I…
Exodus 18:7 And Moses went out to meet his father in law, and did obeisance, and kissed him; and they asked each other of their welfare; and they came i…
1 Samuel 17:22 And David left his carriage in the hand of the keeper of the carriage, and ran into the army, and came and saluted his brethren.
1 Samuel 25:5 And David sent out ten young men, and David said unto the young men, Get you up to Carmel, and go to Nabal, and greet him in my name:
Job 19:21 Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O ye my friends; for the hand of God hath touched me.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Jeremiah 15:1-9
We scarcely find any where more pathetic expressions of divine wrath against a provoking people than we have here in these verses. The prophet had prayed earnestly for them, and found some among them to join with him; and yet not so much as a reprieve was gained, nor the least mitigation of the judgment; but this answer is given to the prophet's prayers, that the decree had gone forth, was irreversible, and would shortly be executed. Observe here,
I. What the sin was upon which this severe sentence was grounded. 1. It is in remembrance of a former iniquity; it is because of Manasseh, for that which he did in Jerusalem, Jer 15:4. What that was we are told, and that it was for it that Jerusale…
go aside . . . how thou doest--Who will turn aside (in passing by) to salute thee (to wish thee "peace")?
John Gill on Jeremiah 15:5
For who shall have pity upon thee, O Jerusalem?.... The inhabitants of it; their sins being so many, and so heinous, and so aggravated, and so deserving of punishment, that none could pity their case, or have a heart of compassion towards them, or even spare reproaching them: or "who shall bemoan thee?" sympathize and condole with thee, or speak a comfortable word to thee, or seek to alleviate thy grief and sorrow: or "who shall go aside to ask how thou doest?" or "of thy peace?" (c) shall not think it worth their while to go a step out of their way, or turn into a house, and inquire of thy welfare, or salute thee.
(c) "ad petendum de pace tua", Pagninus; "ad interrogandum te de paca tua"…
Jeremiah 15:5-6
5. For who shall have pity upon thee, O Jerusalem? or who shall bemoan thee? or who shall go aside to ask how thou doest?
5. Nam quis parcet tibi Jerusalem (vel, quis miserebitur tui? sed chml proprie est ignoscere vel parcere; hic tamen accipitur pro indulgere vel misereri: quis ergo miserebitur tui Jerusalem?) et quis consolabitur te? et quis locum mutabit ad inquirendum de pace tibi? (hoc est, tua: jungamus et alterum versum:)
6. Thou hast forsaken me, saith the LORD, thou art gone backward: therefore will I stretch out my hand against thee, and destroy thee; I am weary with repenting.
6. Tu reliquisti me, dieit Jehova; retrorsum abiisti; ideo extendam manum meam super…
The Church Fathers
(Verse 5.) Who will have pity on you, Jerusalem? Or who will grieve for you? Or who will go to ask for your peace? For no one can, having offended God, ask for forgiveness for the sins; for neither can a creature be as merciful as its creator, nor can it be as distant from foreigners as the Lord is inclined to spare his own people.
We wish to understand the words spoken to Jerusalem with much menace, which run thus: "Who will spare you, O Jerusalem? Or who will be sorrowful for you? Or who will turn aside to ask after your peace? You have turned away from me, says the Lord. You shall go backward, and I will stretch out my hand against you and destroy you, and I will no longer let you go. And I will scatter them in a dispersion." Then: "I have been made childless." Perplexity has seized me. I take as an illustration a man who has been declared an enemy of the one who reigns upon the earth, because for such a person it is not permitted even to impart mercy, lest anyone seem to give offense to the king who has condemned him. And it is not permitted even to show mercy to such a one; some go still further and do not even show sorrow over him, lest by showing sorrow they seem to be displeased with the sentence passed by the king. If you have grasped this, look with me at the one condemned by God on account of his own many sins, and consider such a person: though there are legions of angels appointed to help the nature of human beings, he is pitied by none. For each of the angels, seeing that the one who has condemned him is God, that the one from whom he has turned away is the Creator, that the nature of the sins is such that the good God was compelled — so to speak — to bring the verdict against the one who has sinned, each of those who see does not spare, does not show sorrow, does not pity, does not turn back to intercede for peace toward such a one. Let this Jerusalem, then (for so it shall be spoken according to the letter), have sinned against my Jesus, and have done such things, that Jesus should say concerning her: "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often would I have gathered your children as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not. Behold, your house is left to you." Let this Jerusalem be forsaken, as she has been forsaken. Let the angels who ever help Jerusalem — through whom also the law of Moses was ordained, "ordained through angels by the hand of a mediator" — let them forsake Jerusalem and say: her sins have become great, they have killed Jesus, they have laid their hands upon Christ. As long as the sins were still smaller, we could still make request and intercede concerning them, we could spare Jerusalem;…
In Jer 15:5-9 we have a still further account of this appalling judgment and its causes. The grounding כּי in Jer 15:5 attaches to the central thought of Jer 15:4. The sinful people will be given up to all the kingdoms of the earth to be ill used, for no one will or can have compassion on Jerusalem, since its rejection by God is a just punishment for its rejection of the Lord (Jer 15:6). "Have pity" and "bemoan" denote loving sympathy for the fall of the unfortunate. חמל, to feel sympathy; נוּד, to lament and bemoan. סוּר, to swerve from the straight way, and turn aside or enter into any one's house; cf. Gen 19:2., Exo 3:3, etc. ל שׁאל לשׁלום, to inquire of one as to his health, cf. Exo 18:7…
