Jeremiah 4:23 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

I beheld; either I Jeremiah saw all this in a vision, or I fancied and framed such an idea of it in my mind; it seems to be impressed upon my thoughts graphically, as in a map, in such a rueful manner; for in this and the three following verses he doth, as one transported with sorrow, elegantly and hyperbolically describe the phaenomenon, face or appearance of it. It was without form and void; the land was so squalid and so ruined, that he fancieth it to be like the first chaos, for which reason possibly he calls Judea the earth, in allusion to Genesis 1:2; and herein implying that Judah's sins were such, that they had even overturned the course of nature, being laid waste and desolate, not of inhabitants only, but of all things that might tend either to ornament or use, without men, without houses, without fruits, without beasts or birds for food or service, Jeremiah 4:25,26. They had no light; some say being obnubilated and darkened by the abundance of smoke that would ascend from the desolating fires of towns and cities, Isaiah 9:18,19, of which you may read in the history of this breaking in of the Chaldeans. But he seems to proceed rather in his metaphor of the chaos, it being an expression whereby the Scripture doth set forth the saddest desolations, Isaiah 13:9, &c.; Ezekiel 32:7, &c.; Joel 2:10,30,31; every thing above and below seemed to be in a mournful posture, wrapt up in dismal blackness.