When thou art spoiled; which will certainly come upon thee; or when this destruction shall come upon thee, which is very near thee. What wilt thou do? viz. when thou, O daughter of Zion, as Jeremiah 4:31, art besieged by the Babylonians, what course wilt thou take? It is not to be avoided. A kind of an insulting way of speech, as it were upbraiding them with their pride and confidence: q.d. Your condition is desperate. Crimson, or scarlet, 2 Samuel 1:24: see on See Poole on "Isaiah 1:18". Though thou deckest thee with ornaments; though thou dost superinduce those ornaments, or jewels of gold, that may reader thy attire the most rich and splendid, 2 Samuel 1:24. Though thou rentest thy face with painting: it is observed that they that paint much make their skins withered. Face, Heb. eyes, the wantonness thereof being possibly set out more by painting; see Isaiah 3:16; or rather, face and eyes, being sometimes put one for the other see 1 Samuel 16:12 Isaiah 25:8, compared with Revelation 21:4. In vain shalt thou make thyself fair; all thy tricking up thyself, thinking thereby to ingratiate thyself with the Chaldeans, will be to no purpose, for they will work thy ruin, as in the close of the verse, and Jeremiah 19:7. Thy lovers will despise thee; they will slight thee more than ever; they that have doted on time, thy unchaste paramours, their lust being satisfied, shall abhor thee; see 2 Samuel 13:15; and the pronoun, being not in the original, it may signify that no lovers at all will look after thee; thou shalt be cast off by all. See thus of Tyre, Isaiah 23:15,16. Those that were in confederacy with thee, and thy professed friends, Hosea 2:5, shall not only forsake time, but join with thine enemies to destroy thee, Lamentations 1:2. And thus is Babylon to be dealt withal, Revelation 17:16,17. The sense is, That notwithstanding all thy allurings and enticements, either to obtain the help of thy friends and allies the Egyptians, whom thou takest to be thy lovers, and didst forsake me to cleave to them, or to stop the fury of thine enemies, the Chaldeans; (possibly alluding to Jezebel's practice, in painting herself to stop the fury of Jehu, 2 Kings 9:30 O yet shall it advantage thee nothing; thou shalt be no more regarded than a forsaken strumpet, Ezekiel 16:36,37 Eze 23
Related Commentaries of Jeremiah 4:30
Jeremiah 4:30
30 And when thou art spoiled, what wilt thou do? Though thou clothest thyself with crimson, though thou deckest thee with ornaments of gold, though thou rentest thy faced with painting, in vain shalt thou make thyself fair; thy lovers will despise thee, they will seek thy life.