The lamentation of the daughter of Zion, the Jewish Church, at the devastation of the land, and her humble prayer to God for mercy.
Grievous - Rather, “mortal,” i. e., fatal, incurable.
A grief - Or, “my grief.”
tabernacle - i. e., “tent.” Jerusalem laments that her tent is plundered and her children carried into exile, and so “are not,” are dead Matthew 2:18, either absolutely, or dead to her in the remote land of their captivity. They can aid the widowed mother no longer in pitching her tent, or in hanging up the curtains round about it.
Therefore they shall not prosper - Rather, “therefore they have not governed wisely.” “The pastors,” i. e., the kings and rulers Jeremiah 2:8, having sunk to the condition of barbarous and untutored men, could not govern wisely.
The “great commotion” is the confused noise of the army on its march (see Jeremiah 8:16).
Dragons - i. e., jackals; see the marginal reference.
At the rumour of the enemy’s approach Jeremiah utters in the name of the nation a supplication appropriate to men overtaken by the divine justice.
With judgment - In Jeremiah 30:11; Jeremiah 46:28, the word “judgment” (with a different preposition) is rendered “in measure.” The contrast therefore is between punishment inflicted in anger, and that inflicted as a duty of justice, of which the object is the criminal’s reformation. Jeremiah prays that God would punish Jacob so far only as would bring him to true repentance, but that he would pour forth his anger upon the pagan, as upon that which opposes itself to God Jeremiah 10:25.