Jeremiah 9:18

18 "Let them make haste and take up a wailing for us, That our ¹eyes may shed tears And our eyelids 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 "I will scatter them among the nations, whom neither they nor their fathers have known; and I will send the sword after them until I have annihilated them."

17 Thus says the LORD of hosts, "Consider and call for the mourning women, that they may come; And send for the wailing women, that they may come!

18 "Let them make haste and take up a wailing for us, That our eyes may shed tears And our eyelids flow with water.

19 "For a voice of wailing is heard from Zion, 'How are we ruined! We are put to great shame, For we have left the land, Because they have cast down our dwellings.' "

20 Now hear the word of the LORD , O you women, And let your ear receive the word of His mouth; Teach your daughters wailing, And everyone her neighbor a dirge.

Cross References

• 1. Isaiah 22:4; Jeremiah 9:1; Jeremiah 14:17