Matthew Henry on Jeremiah 48:14–end
The destruction is here further prophesied of very largely and with a great copiousness and variety of expression, and very pathetically and in moving language, designed not only to awaken them by a national repentance and reformation to prevent the trouble, or by a personal repentance and reformation to prepare for it, but to affect us with the calamitous state of human life, which is liable to such lamentable occurrences, and with the power of God's anger and the terror of his judgments, when he comes forth to contend with a provoking people. In reading this long roll of threatenings, and meditating on the terror of them, it will be of more use to us to keep this in our eye, and to get our…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Jeremiah 48:37
(See on Jer 47:5; Isa 15:2-3).
upon all . . . hands--that is, arms, in which such cuttings used to be made in token of grief (compare Zac 13:6).
John Gill on Jeremiah 48:37
For every head shall be bald, and every beard clipped,.... Men, in times of mourning, used to pluck off the hairs of their head till they made them bald, and shaved their beards; which, as Kimchi says, were the glory of their faces; see Isaiah 15:2;
upon all the hands shall be cuttings: it was usual with the Heathens to make incisions in the several parts of their bodies, particularly in their hands and arms, with their nails, or with knives, in token of mourning; which are forbidden the Israelites, Deuteronomy 14:1;
and upon the loins sackcloth; this is a well known custom for mourners, to put off their clothes, and put on sackcloth; all these things are mentioned, to show how great was t…
Read the whole note in the consoleJohn Calvin on Jeremiah 48:37
Jeremiah 48:37
37. For every head shall be bald, and every beard clipped: upon all the hands shall be cuttings, and upon the loins sackcloth.
37. Quia omni capiti calvitium, et omni barbae rasura (ad verbum diminutio; rg significat diminuere, sed hic accipitur, pro rasura,) et super omnes manus incisiones, et super lumbos saccus.
The Prophet describes at large a very great mourning. They were wont in great sorrow to pull off their hair, to shave their beard, and to put on sackcloth, or to gird it round their loins, and also to cut their hands with a knife or with their nails. As these things were signs of grief; Jeremiah puts them all together, in order to show that the calamity of Moab w…
