Jeremiah 4:29

29 Every city flees at the sound of the horseman and archer. They enter the thickets and climb among the rocks. Every city is abandoned; no inhabitant is left.

Jeremiah 4:29 Meaning and Commentary

Jeremiah 4:29

The whole city shall flee
Or, "every city"; for not Jerusalem only is meant, but every city, or the inhabitants of every city; and so the Targum paraphrases it,

``all the inhabitants of the land,''

who would be put into a panic, and flee: "for" or at the noise of the horsemen and bowmen;
of which the army of the enemy would greatly consist: it intimates that the inhabitants of Judea would not stand a battle; but at hearing the sound of the trampling of the horses, and the clattering of the bows and arrows, that the men upon them had, they would flee at once: they shall go into the thickets, and climb upon the rocks;
that is, either the horsemen and bowmen, who would pursue the inhabitants into those places: or rather the inhabitants themselves, who would flee thither to hide themselves from their enemies; namely, get into woods and forests, and among the thick trees, and cover themselves; and upon the highest mountains and rocks, and into the holes and caverns of them, and secure themselves from the enemy; see ( Matthew 24:16 ) , the word for "thickets" signifies "clouds" ^F9; and Kimchi interprets it of places as high as the clouds, as the tops of some mountains are, so that going up to them is like entering into the clouds; and which are sometimes covered with thick trees, and look like clouds; but the Targum explains it of woods or forests: every city shall be forsaken;
of its inhabitants: and not a man dwell therein;
as the prophet had seen in his vision, ( Jeremiah 4:25 ) , this was to be when a full end was made, not by the Babylonians, but by the Romans.

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FOOTNOTES:

F9 (Mybeb) "in nubes", Munster, Tigurine version, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Schmidt.

Jeremiah 4:29 In-Context

27 For this is what the LORD says: “The whole land will be desolate, but I will not finish its destruction.

28 Therefore the earth will mourn and the heavens above will grow dark. I have spoken, I have planned, and I will not relent or turn back.”

29 Every city flees at the sound of the horseman and archer. They enter the thickets and climb among the rocks. Every city is abandoned; no inhabitant is left.

30 And you, O devastated one, what will you do, though you dress yourself in scarlet, though you adorn yourself with gold jewelry, though you enlarge your eyes with paint? You adorn yourself in vain; your lovers despise you; they want to take your life.

31 For I hear a cry like a woman in labor, a cry of anguish like one bearing her first child— the cry of the Daughter of Zion gasping for breath, stretching out her hands to say, “Woe is me, for my soul faints before the murderers!”