Jeremiah 9:20

20 Women, hear the LORD's word. Listen closely to the word from his mouth: teach your daughters to mourn; teach each other to grieve.

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 Hurry! Let them weep for us so that our eyes fill up with tears and water streams down.

19 The sound of sobbing is heard from Zion: "We're devastated! We're so ashamed! We have to leave the land and abandon our homes!"

20 Women, hear the LORD's word. Listen closely to the word from his mouth: teach your daughters to mourn; teach each other to grieve.

21 Death has climbed through our windows; it has entered our fortresses to eliminate children from the streets, the youth from the squares.

22 Declare what the LORD says: Dead bodies will lie like dung on the fields, like bundles of grain after the harvest, with no one to pick them up.