Jeremiah 9:20

20 Now hear the word of the Lord, you women. Pay attention to^[a] the word of His mouth. Teach your daughters a lament and one another a dirge,

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 come quickly to raise a lament over us so that our eyes may overflow with tears, our eyelids soaked with weeping.

19 For a sound of lamentation is heard from Zion: How devastated we are. We are greatly ashamed, for we have abandoned the land; our dwellings have been torn down.

20 Now hear the word of the Lord, you women. Pay attention to the word of His mouth. Teach your daughters a lament and one another a dirge,

21 for Death has climbed through our windows; it has entered our fortresses, cutting off children from the streets, young men from the squares.

22 Speak as follows: This is what the Lord says: Human corpses will fall like manure on the surface of the field, like newly cut grain after the reaper with no one to gather [it].

Footnotes

• [a] Lit Your ears must receive