Jeremiah 9:20

20 But even now, give ear to the word of the Lord, O you women; let your ears be open to the word of his mouth, training your daughters to give cries of sorrow, everyone teaching her neighbour a song of grief.

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 Let them quickly make cries of sorrow for us, so that drops may be flowing from our eyes till they are streaming with water.

19 For a sound of weeping goes up from Zion, a cry, How has destruction come on us? we are overcome with shame because we have gone away from our land; he has sent us out from our house.

20 But even now, give ear to the word of the Lord, O you women; let your ears be open to the word of his mouth, training your daughters to give cries of sorrow, everyone teaching her neighbour a song of grief.

21 For death has come up into our windows, forcing its way into our great houses; cutting off the children in the streets and the young men in the wide places.

22 The bodies of men will be falling like waste on the open fields, and like grain dropped by the grain-cutter, and no one will take them up.