Matthew Henry on Jeremiah 4:19–end
The prophet is here in an agony, and cries out like one upon the rack of pain with some acute distemper, or as a woman in travail. The expressions are very pathetic and moving, enough to melt a heart of stone into compassion: My bowels! my bowels! I am pained at my very heart; and yet well, and in health himself, and nothing ails him. Note, A good man, in such a bad world as this is, cannot but be a man of sorrows. My heart makes a noise in me, through the tumult of my spirits, and I cannot hold my peace. Note, The grievance and the grief sometimes may be such that the most prudent patient man cannot forbear complaining.
Now, what is the matter? What is it that puts the good man into such ag…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Jeremiah 4:21
Judah in perplexity asks, How long is this state of things to continue?
John Gill on Jeremiah 4:21
How long shall I see the standard,.... "Ensign" or "banner" displayed; either by the watchmen placed on high hills or towers, who, when they see the enemy approaching, lift up their ensign or banner, and blow with their trumpets, to give the people warning and notice of it, and to call them to battle, and that they might prepare for the same, as Kimchi observes; or else by the Chaldean army, which came with colours flying, trumpets blowing, and set in array for battle, which was very terrible, as an army with banners is, Sol 6:4,
and hear the sound of the trumpet? either of the watchmen giving notice of danger, and summoning to battle, or of the enemy preparing to attack; see 1 Corinthians…
Read the whole note in the consoleJohn Calvin on Jeremiah 4:21
Jeremiah 4:21
21. How long shall I see the standard, and hear the sound of the trumpet?
21. Usquequo videbo vexillum? audiam vocem (vel, clangorem) tubae?
He concludes that part of his discourse, which, as we have said, he embellished with figurative terms, in order more fully to rouse slow and torpid minds: but he confirms what he said at the beginning of the last verse
(Jeremiah 4:20)
"Distress has been summoned upon distress."
He indeed repeats in other words the same thing, How long shall I see the standard, he says, and hear the sound of the trumpet? that is, "You are greatly deceived, if ye think that your enemies, after having for a short time marched through the land, will retur…
