Jeremiah 18:16

16 To make their land become a desolation, A hissing age-during, Every passer by it is astonished, And bemoaneth with his head.

Jeremiah 18:16 Meaning and Commentary

Jeremiah 18:16

To make their land desolate
Not that this was the intention either of those that led them out of the right way into those wrong paths, or of them that went into them; but so it was eventually; this was the issue of things; their idolatry and other sins were the cause of their land being desolate; through the ravage of the enemy, let in upon them by way of judgment; and through the destruction of men by them; so that there were few or none to cultivate and manure it: [and] a perpetual hissing;
to be hissed at perpetually by the enemy, whenever they passed by it, and observed its desolation; thereby expressing their hatred at its inhabitants; their joy at its desolation; and their satisfaction in it, which would be for ever; or, as Kimchi interprets, a long time. This is the present case of the Jews; and has been ever since their destruction by the Romans; and will be until the fulness of the Gentiles is gathered in: everyone that passeth thereby shall be astonished:
to see the desolations made, and the strange alterations in a place once so famous for fruitfulness and number of inhabitants: and wag his head;
either out of pity, or rather in a way of derision and exultation; see ( Lamentations 2:15 Lamentations 2:16 ) .

Jeremiah 18:16 In-Context

14 Doth snow of Lebanon Cease from the rock of the field? Failed are the cold strange waters that flow?

15 But My people have forgotten Me, to a vain thing they make perfume, And they cause them to stumble in their ways -- paths of old, To walk in paths -- a way not raised up,

16 To make their land become a desolation, A hissing age-during, Every passer by it is astonished, And bemoaneth with his head.

17 As an east wind I scatter them before an enemy, The neck, and not the face, I shew them, In the day of their calamity.'

18 And they say, Come, And we devise against Jeremiah devices, For law doth not perish from the priest, Nor counsel from the wise, Nor the word from the prophet, Come, and we smite him with the tongue, And we do not attend to any of his words.