Jeremiah 9:18

18 And let them hasten, and let them lift up wailing over us, so that our eyes may melt [with] tears, and our eyelids may flow [with] water.

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 and I will scatter them among the nations that they have not known, they and their ancestors, and I will send the sword after them until I bring them to an end."

17 Thus says Yahweh of hosts: "Consider closely, and call for the wailing women, so that they come, and for the skillful women, so that they come.

18 And let them hasten, and let them lift up wailing over us, so that our eyes may melt [with] tears, and our eyelids may flow [with] water.

19 For a sound of wailing is heard from Zion, 'How we are devastated! We are very ashamed because we have left the land, because they have overthrown our dwelling places.'

20 For hear, [O] women, the word of Yahweh, and let your ear receive the word of his mouth, and teach your daughters a lamentation, and each woman her neighbor a lament.