Jeremiah 9:18

18 Let them come quickly and wail over us till our eyes overflow with tears and water streams from our eyelids.

Jeremiah 9:18 in Other Translations

KJV
18 And let them make haste, and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids gush out with waters.
ESV
18 let them make haste and raise a wailing over us, that our eyes may run down with tears and our eyelids flow with water.
NLT
18 Quick! Begin your weeping! Let the tears flow from your eyes.
MSG
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.
CSB
18 Let them come quickly to raise a lament over us so that our eyes may overflow with tears, our eyelids soaked with weeping.

Jeremiah 9:18 Meaning and Commentary

Jeremiah 9:18

And let them make haste, and take up a wailing for us
Deliver out a mournful song, as the Arabic version; setting forth their miseries and distresses, and affecting their minds with them. The prophet puts himself among the people, as being a party concealed in their sufferings, and sympathizing with them, as well as to show the certainty of then and how soon they would be involved in them: that our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids gush out with
waters;
or balls of the eye, as the Targum and Kimchi; these hyperbolical expressions are used to express the greatness of the calamity, and that no mourning was equal to it; see ( Jeremiah 9:1 ) .

Jeremiah 9:18 In-Context

16 I will scatter them among nations that neither they nor their ancestors have known, and I will pursue them with the sword until I have made an end of them.”
17 This is what the LORD Almighty says: “Consider now! Call for the wailing women to come; send for the most skillful of them.
18 Let them come quickly and wail over us till our eyes overflow with tears and water streams from our eyelids.
19 The sound of wailing is heard from Zion: ‘How ruined we are! How great is our shame! We must leave our land because our houses are in ruins.’ ”
20 Now, you women, hear the word of the LORD; open your ears to the words of his mouth. Teach your daughters how to wail; teach one another a lament.

Cross References 1

  • 1. S Psalms 119:136; Lamentations 3:48; Jeremiah 14:17
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