Jeremiah 9:2 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

O that I had in the wilderness, &c. The prophet here wishes that he had a lodging-place, or tent, such as travellers in this country were wont to lodge in when they travelled over the deserts, professing that he would rather pass his days in such a habitation in some desert place, than at Jerusalem, which was filled with wicked men. That I may leave my people and go from them Not chiefly because of the ill usage he met with among them, but rather because his righteous soul was vexed from day to day, as Lot's was in Sodom, with the wickedness of their conversation, 2 Peter 3:7-8. It made him even weary of his life to see them dishonouring God and destroying themselves. Time was when the place where God had chosen to put his name, there were the desire and delight of good men. David, in the wilderness, longed to be again in the courts of God's house; but now Jeremiah, in the courts of God's house, (for there he was when he said this,) wishes himself in a wilderness! Those have made themselves very vile and very miserable, that have made God's people and ministers weary of them, and desirous to get from among them. It may not be improper to observe here, that “travellers in the East are not, nor ever were, accommodated at inns on the road, after the manner of the European nations. In some places indeed there are large public buildings provided for their reception, which they call caravansaries; but these afford merely a covering, being absolutely without furniture; and the traveller must carry his own provisions and necessaries along with him, or he will not find any. Nor are even these empty mansions always to be met with; so that if the weary traveller at night comes into a town where there is no caravansary, or πανδοχειον, as it is called Luke 10:34, he must take up his lodging in the street, unless some charitable inhabitant will be pleased to receive him into his house, as we find Judges 19:15. And if he passes through the desert, it is well for him if he can light upon a cave, or a hut, which some one before him may have erected for a temporary shelter. And this last is what I conceive to be here meant by מלון ארחים, a solitary and not very comfortable situation, but yet preferable to the chagrin of living continually in the society of men of profligate manners.” Blaney. For they be all adulterers The expression seems here to be metaphorical, implying that they were apostates from God, to whose service they were engaged by the most solemn covenant, like that which obliges a wife to be faithful to her husband. See note on Jeremiah 2:2; and compare Matthew 16:4; James 4:4.