Jeremiah 4:16 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Make ye mention to the nations Tell the nations that now inhabit the cities of the ten tribes, that the Chaldean army is approaching, that they may provide for their own safety. Behold, publish against Jerusalem Let her be made acquainted with what is coming upon her. Let her have notice beforehand, that she may be warned. That watchers come from a far country That is soldiers from Chaldea, that will watch all opportunities to do mischief. By watchers, some think, are meant those scouts who usually precede an army, and announce its approach, whom Cesar, in his Commentaries, calls antecessores, or antecursores. But Blaney and others are of opinion that besiegers are intended, placing sentinels round the city to prevent any from coming in or going out, and keeping the place in continual alarm by shouts of war. As keepers of the field, &c. Those couriers or spies of the Chaldean army will be as diligent in their observation of Judah and Jerusalem, or those besiegers will as strictly watch her on all sides, as the keepers of a field watch the cattle, or the vineyards and fruits thereof, under their care. “As in the East,” says Sir John Chardin, in a MS. note on this place, quoted by Harmer, “pulse, roots, &c., grow in open and unenclosed fields, when they begin to be fit to be gathered, they place guards; if near a great road, more; if distant, fewer, who place themselves in and round about these grounds, as is practised in Arabia,” chap. 5. obser. 15.