Matthew Henry on Jeremiah 9:1-11
The prophet, being commissioned both to foretel the destruction coming upon Judah and Jerusalem and to point out the sin for which that destruction was brought upon them, here, as elsewhere, speaks of both very feelingly: what he said of both came from the heart, and therefore one would have thought it would reach to the heart.
I. He abandons himself to sorrow in consideration of the calamitous condition of his people, which he sadly laments, a one that preferred Jerusalem before his chief joy and her grievances before his chief sorrows.
1. He laments the slaughter of the persons, the blood shed and the lives lost (Jer 9:1): "O that my head were waters, quite melted and dissolved with grief,…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Jeremiah 9:6
Thine--God addresses Jeremiah, who dwelt in the midst of deceitful men.
refuse to know me--Their ignorance of God is wilful (Jer 9:3; Jer 5:4-5).
John Gill on Jeremiah 9:6
Thine habitation is in the midst of deceit,.... In the midst of a people of deceit, as Kimchi and Ben Molech. These are the words of the Lord to the prophet, showing what a people he dwelt among, and had to do with; how cautiously and prudently he should act; how little they were to be trusted to and depended upon; and what little hope there was of bringing them to true repentance, since there was so much deceit and hypocrisy among them. The Targum interprets the words not of the habitation of the prophet, but of the people, thus,
"they sit in the house of their own congregation, and talk of their iniquities deceitfully;''
and so Jarchi,
"while they are sitting they devise deceitful devic…
Read the whole note in the consoleJohn Calvin on Jeremiah 9:6
Jeremiah 9:6
6. Thine habitation is in the midst of deceit; through deceit they refuse to know me, saith the LORD.
6. Tu habitas in dolo (hoc est, inter homines dolosos; nam subaudiendum est nomen, quemadmodum soepe alibi vidimus genitivum casum poni pro epitheto, et subaudiri nomen substantivum; Tu igitur habitas inter homines dolosos;) in dolo renuunt cognoscere me, dicit Jehova.
The Prophet here introduces God as the speaker, that the Jews might know that they had not to do with mortal man. For they might, according to their usual perverseness, have raised this objection, "Thou indeed severely condemnest us, and treatest us reproachfully; but who has made thee our judge?" Lest then the…
