Jeremiah 9:20 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Jeremiah 9:20
Yet hear the word of the LORD, O ye women, and let your ear receive the word of his mouth, and teach your daughters wailing, and every one her neighbour lamentation.
a daughter (used in the same wide sense as other terms… · noun, common feminine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine plural
wailing
נֶ֔הִיNe.hi
H5092
an elegy · noun, common masculine singular absolute
one
וְאִשָּׁ֥הve.'i.Shah
H802
a woman · conjunction + noun, common feminine singular absolute
neighbour
רְעוּתָ֖הּre.'u.Tah
H7468
a female associate · noun, common feminine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person feminine singular
lamentation
קִינָֽהki.Nah
H7015
a dirge (as accompanied by beating the breasts or on in… · noun, common feminine 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
Luke 23:27-30 And there followed him a great company of people, and of women, which also bewailed and lamented him.
Isaiah 32:9-13 Rise up, ye women that are at ease; hear my voice, ye careless daughters; give ear unto my speech.
Job 22:22 Receive, I pray thee, the law from his mouth, and lay up his words in thine heart.
Isaiah 3:16 Moreover the LORD saith, Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with stretched forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing…
Jeremiah 9:17-18 Thus saith the LORD of hosts, Consider ye, and call for the mourning women, that they may come; and send for cunning women, that they may co…
Isaiah 3:4 And I will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Jeremiah 9:12-22
Two things the prophet designs, in these verses, with reference to the approaching destruction of Judah and Jerusalem: - 1. To convince people of the justice of God in it, that they had by sin brought it upon themselves and that therefore they had no reason to quarrel with God, who did them no wrong at all, but a great deal of reason to fall out with their sins, which did them all this mischief. 2. To affect people with the greatness of the desolation that was coming, and the miserable effects of it, that by a terrible prospect of it they might be awakened to repentance and reformation, which was the only way to prevent it, or, at least, mitigate their own share in it. This being designed,
I…
Yet--rather, "Only" [HENDERSON]. This particle calls attention to what follows.
teach . . . daughters wailing--The deaths will be so many that there will be a lack of mourning women to bewail them. The mothers, therefore, must teach their daughters the science to supply the want.
John Gill on Jeremiah 9:20
Yet hear the word of the Lord, O ye women,.... Not the mourning women, but others who had lost their husbands and their children, and had just reason for real mourning; and therefore they are called upon to it, not only because they were more tenderhearted than men, as Kimchi observes; or because they were more attentive to the hearing of the word of God than men; but because of the paucity of men, such numbers being slain in the siege, and by the sword; and of the loss the women had sustained, see Jeremiah 9:22,
and let your ear receive the word of his mouth; by his prophets; so the Targum,
"let your ear hearken to the words of his prophets:''
and teach your daughters wailing. The Arabic…
Jeremiah 9:20-21
20. Yet hear the word of the LORD, O ye women, and let your ear receive the word of his mouth, and teach your daughters wailing, and every one her neighbour lamentation.
20. Itaque audite mulieres sermonem Jehovae, et percipiant aures vestrae sermonem oris ejus, et docete filias vestras luctum, et unaquaeque (mulier, ad verbum) sociam (vel, propinquam) suam planctum:
21. For death is come up into our windows, and is entered into our palaces, to cut off the children from without, and the young men from the streets.
21. Quia ascendit mors in fenestras nostras, intravit in palatia nostra ad excidendum infantem e platea (e via publica) electos (hoc est adolescentes, etiam in…
The Church Fathers
(Verse 20, 21.) Therefore, listen, women, to the word of the Lord, and let your ears receive the speech of His mouth, and teach your daughters lamentation, and each one her neighbor mourning. For death has entered through our windows, it has come into our houses: to destroy the children from outside, the young men from the streets. In the previous chapter, He had said: call for the mourning women to come, and send for the wise women, and let them hurry: now He speaks as if they were present, in condemnation of the priests and the teachers and all men: so that when they cease from teaching, these women may hear the word of the Lord, and receive the words of His mouth, and teach their daughters and neighbors the causes of mourning and the reasons for tears: For death has entered through our windows, it has come into our houses. Although it can be understood spiritually, because through all the senses death enters the soul's destruction of sins; yet it can also be understood about the attack of the Babylonians: that their strength and swiftness in fighting is so great that they do not wait to unlock doors; but they climb through windows and rooftops, to lay waste to the houses of Jerusalem. And the children who are outside perish, and leave Jerusalem; and the young ones, to whom John also writes, who do not enter through the narrow and restricted path that leads to life; but they walk through the streets, of which it is written: How broad and spacious is the path that leads to death (Matthew 7:13).
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Minstrel — (Matt. 9:23), a flute-player. Such music was a usual accompaniment of funerals. In 2 Kings 3:15 it denotes a player on a stringed instrument.
Ear, The · Should: Receive the word of God — Should: Receive the word of God
Woman · Often engaged in: Attending funerals as mourners — Often engaged in: Attending funerals as mourners
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Death comes in through (in at) the windows, not because the doors are to be thought of as barricaded (Hitz.), but as a thief in the night, i.e., suddenly, in an unexpected way. Perhaps Jeremiah was here thinking of Joe 2:9. And comes into the palaces, i.e., spares no house, but carries off high and low. The second clause is not to be very closely joined with the first, thus: Death comes into the houses and palaces, to sweep the children from off the streets; this would be self-contradictory. We must rather repeat "comes" from the first clause: He comes to sweep off the streets the child at play. That is: In the houses and palaces, as upon the streets and highways, he will seize his prey.
Tyndale Open Study Notes on Jeremiah 9:20-21
Because of the many deaths in the city, not enough professional mourners were available. The women were urged to quickly teach their daughters to be skilled mourners.
Rashi on Jeremiah 9:20
from the streets Heb. מחוץ, from the street. Comp. (I Kings 20:34) “And you shall make yourself streets in Damascus.”
