My bowels, &c.— My bowels, my bowels! I am pained at the centre, or, in the midst, of my heart; my heart is tumultuous within me. This terrific vision is full of the divinest enthusiasm. The calamities described are presented to the mind in such lively colours, the images are so crouded, and arranged with so much art, and the breaks and apostrophes are so animated, that we seem to be involved in the same scene of misery with the prophet. The reader will observe, that the destruction of the land by the Chaldeans, spoken of in the 20th verse, is painted, Jeremiah 4:23; Jeremiah 4:26 in the same colours, as if universal nature was about to fall again into its original chaos. See Bishop Lowth. We may read Jeremiah 4:20. Breach hits upon breach, or destruction dashes upon destruction, &c. Jeremiah compares the cities of Judah, at the end of this verse, to tents; and he expresses the facility wherewith the enemy made himself master of them, by that of the taking up or overturning a tent.
Related Commentaries of Jeremiah 4:19
Jeremiah 4:19-20
19 My bowels, my bowels! I am pained at my veryc heart; my heart maketh a noise in me; I cannot hold my peace, because thou hast heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war.
20 Destruction upon destruction is cried; for the whole land is spoiled: suddenly are my tents spoiled, and my curtains in a moment.