For thus saith the Lord God, how much more
If the Lord would not be entreated by such good men as those mentioned, for a land that had sinned against him, to whom he only sends some one of the above judgments, either famine, or noisome beasts, or the sword, or the pestilence, how much more inexorable and deaf to all entreaties must he be; or if anyone of those judgments makes so great a desolation in the land, then how much greater must that detraction be, when I send my four sore judgments on Jerusalem:
or "evil" F1 ones; as they are to men, though righteously inflicted by the Lord; when all these four are sent together, what a devastation must they make! namely, the sword, and the famine, and the, noisome beast, and the pestilence,
to cut off from it man and beast;
three of them, it is evident, were sent upon Jerusalem at the time of its siege by Nebuchadnezzar, the sword, famine, and pestilence; and no doubt the other, even the noisome beasts; and if not literally, yet figuratively, for Nebuchadnezzar himself is compared to a lion, ( Jeremiah 4:7 ) ( 50:17 ) .