Jeremiah 9:20

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.

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 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.

21 For death has come into our windows, it has entered into our fortresses, to cut off [the] children from [the] streets, [the] young men from [the] public squares.

22 Speak, 'thus {declares} Yahweh: "The dead body of the human will fall like dung upon the surface of the field, and like cut grain behind the reaper, and there is no [one who] gathers." '"