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 4:26
fruitful place--Hebrew, Carmel.
a wilderness--Hebrew, "the wilderness," in contrast to "the fruitful place"; the great desert, where Carmel was, there is now the desert of Arabia [MAURER].
cities--in contrast to the fruitful place or field.
John Gill on Jeremiah 4:26
I beheld, and, lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness,.... Or, "I beheld, and, lo, Carmel was a wilderness"; which was a particular part of the land of Israel, and was very fertile, and abounded in pastures and fruit trees, and yet this, as the rest, became desolate as a wilderness; see Isaiah 32:15 though it may be put for the whole land, which was very fruitful; and so the Targum,
"I saw, and, lo, the land of Israel, which was planted as Carmel, was turned to be as a wilderness:''
and all the cities thereof; not of Carmel only, but of the whole land:
were broken down at the presence of the Lord, and by his fierce anger; for though this was done by the Chaldeans, yet it was by the will…
Read the whole note in the consoleJohn Calvin on Jeremiah 4:23-26
Jeremiah 4:23-26
23. I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was without form, and void; and the heavens, and they had no light.
23. Vidi terram, et ecce vasta et deformis, et coelos, et nulla lux eorum:
24. I beheld the mountains, and, lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved lightly.
24. Vidi montes, et ecce contremiscentes (contremiscebant), et omnes colles movebantur:
25. I beheld, and, lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens were fled.
25. Vidi, et ecce nullus homo, et omnes aves coelorum evolaverant:
26. I beheld, and, lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness, and all the cities thereof were broken down at the presence of the Lord, and by his fierce anger.
26. Vidi, et…
