Then will I cause to cease... the voice of mirth. — The special imagery of the picture of desolation is characteristic of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 16:9; Jeremiah 25:10; Jeremiah 33:11). No words could paint the utter break-up of the life of the nation more forcibly. Nothing is heard but wailing and lamentation, or, more terrible even than that, there is the utter silence of solitude. The capacity for joy and the occasions for rejoicing (comp. 1Ma. 9:39 for the bridal rejoicings of Israel) belong alike to the past.
Shall be desolate. — The same word as in the “waste places” of Isaiah 51:3; Isaiah 58:12; it is used in Ezekiel 13:4 for the haunts of the “foxes,” or rather the “jackals” of the “deserts,” but always of places that, having been once inhabited, have fallen into ruins (Leviticus 26:31).