Jeremiah 9:20

20 Mourning women! Oh, listen to God's Message! Open your ears. Take in what he says. Teach your daughters songs for the dead and your friends the songs of heartbreak.

Jeremiah 9:20 Meaning and Commentary

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 version, "a mournful song"; but not the daughters of the mourning women are meant; but the real daughters of those who had lost their husbands or children; since it follows: and everyone her neighbour lamentation;
signifying that the mortality among them would be very universal, not a family escaping; which is described in the next verses. This wailing and lamentation was made by responses, according to the Jews; for they say ^F4,

``what is lamentation? when one speaks, and all the rest answer after her, as it is written in ( Jeremiah 9:20 ) .''

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FOOTNOTES:

F4 Misn. Moed Katon, c. 3. sect. 9.

Jeremiah 9:20 In-Context

18 Tell them to hurry - to help us express our loss and lament, Help us get our tears flowing, make tearful music of our crying.

19 Listen to it! Listen to that torrent of tears out of Zion: 'We're a ruined people, we're a shamed people! We've been driven from our homes and must leave our land!'"

20 Mourning women! Oh, listen to God's Message! Open your ears. Take in what he says. Teach your daughters songs for the dead and your friends the songs of heartbreak.

21 Death has climbed in through the window, broken into our bedrooms. Children on the playgrounds drop dead, and young men and women collapse at their games.

22 Speak up! "God's Message: "'Dead bodies everywhere, scattered at random like sheep and goat dung in the fields, Like wheat cut down by reapers and left to rot where it falls.'"