The field. — i.e., the open country. To pass beyond the walls of the beleaguered city would be full of danger. The warning has its parallel in Matthew 24:17-18. In the same chapter we find also an echo of the prophet’s reference to the pangs of childbirth (Matthew 24:8).
Fear is on every side. — The words are more notable than they seem. They impressed themselves on the prophet’s mind, and became to him as a watchword. So, in Jeremiah 20:3, he gives them as a name (Magor-missabib) to Pashur, and apparently (as in Jeremiah 20:10) it was used as a cry of derision against himself.