Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Jeremiah 30:5
For thus saith the LORD; We have heard a voice of trembling, of fear, and not of peace.
5. We have heard of peace ] Jehovah is quoting the words of consternation which He hears the people uttering; but more probably the words “Thus saith the Lord” are the insertion of a scribe, and it is really the people who are speaking.
of fear, and not of peace ] mg. (better) there is fear, and no peace.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
5 22. See introd. note to section. For a parallel in the character of the description in Jer 30:5-11, Dr. compares Isa 13:6-15 (the overthrow of Babylon) followed by Isa 14:1 f. (the deliverance of Israel); also Isa 24:14-15; Isa 24:23; Isa 25:1-5.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Better, as in the margin. The prophet places his hearers in the center of Babylon, and describes it as convulsed with terror as the armies of Cyrus draw near. The voice of trembling is the war-cry of the advancing host: while fear and no peace implies that even among the exiles there is only alarm at the prospect of the city, where they had so long dwelt, being destroyed.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 5. We have heard a voice of trembling] This may refer to the state and feelings of the people during the war which Cyrus carried on against the Babylonians. Trembling and terror would no doubt affect them, and put an end to peace and all prosperity; as they could not tell what would be the issue of the struggle, and whether their state would be better or worse should their present masters fall in the conflict. This is well described in the next verse, where men are represented as being, through pain and anguish, like women in travail. See the same comparison Isa 13:6-8.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
God here speaketh, but whether personating other nations or the Jewish nation is not agreed, nor yet whether this text refers to the times of the Messiah, when the nations should tremble, or the time when Darius invaded Babylon, or the times of Gog and Magog, (of which read Eze 38) or the time when the Chaldeans invaded Judah: this last seemeth most probable, and that God by this intended only to rouse the Jews out of their security, and put them off from expecting peace according to the flatteries of the false prophets, assuring them that the times that were coming next were not times of peace, but such as should make them tremble.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
5. We have heard . . . tremblingGodintroduces the Jews speaking that which they will be reduced to atlast in spite of their stubbornness. Threat and promise are combined:the former briefly; namely, the misery of the Jews in the Babyloniancaptivity down to their “trembling” and “fear”arising from the approach of the Medo-Persian army of Cyrus againstBabylon; the promise is more fully dwelt on; namely, their”trembling” will issue in a deliverance as speedy as is thetransition from a woman’s labor pangs to her joy at giving birth to achild (Jer 30:6).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
For thus saith the Lord,…. Yet what follows are the words of others; wherefore some supply it, “for thus saith the Lord, the nations shall say” p; so Kimchi and Ben Melech interpret it as what the Gentiles will say in the times of the Messiah; but it might be better supplied, “ye shall say”; that is, Israel and Judah; to whom the words of the Lord are spoken in Jer 30:3; or else the Lord here represents his people, saying:
we have heard a voice of trembling, ear, and not of peace; which is to be understood, of the fear and dread injected into them by the Babylonians when they besieged their city, and burned that, and their temple; nor of the fear and dread which came upon the Babylonians at the taking of their city by Cyrus, upon which followed the deliverance of the Jews. Kimchi interprets this of something yet future, the war of Gog and Magog, which he supposes wilt be when their Messiah comes; and Jarchi sans it is so understood in their Midrash Agadah. This distress, I think, refers to the slaying of the witnesses, and to that hour of temptation which shall come upon all the earth to try the inhabitants of it; and which will be followed with the destruction of antichrist; and that will make way for the call and conversion of the Jews.
p “Gentes dicturae sunt”, Vatablus.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Now he says, Thus saith Jehovah, A cry, or, the voice of trembling, or of fear, have we heard. The word חרדה, cherede, is thought to mean properly that dread which makes the whole body to tremble, and is therefore rendered trembling. God speaks, and yet in the person of the people. Why? In order to expose their insensibility; for as they were obstinate in their wickedness, so they were not terrified by threatenings, however many and dreadful. God dictated words for them, for they were altogether void of feeling. We now see why God assumed the person of those who were secure, though Jeremiah daily represented to them God’s vengeance as near at hand. The meaning is, that though the people were asleep in their sins, and thought themselves beyond the reach of danger, even when God was displeased with them, yet the threatenings by which God sought to lead them to repentance would not be in vain. Hence God says, We have heard the voice of fear; that is, “Deride and scoff as you please, or remain insensible in your delusions, so as to disregard as the drunken what is said, being destitute of feeling, reason, and memory, yet God will extort from you this confession, this voice of trembling and fear.”
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(5, 6) Thus saith the Lord; We have heard a voice of trembling . . .There is a strange mingling of the divine and human elements in these words. The prophet speaks with the sense that the words are not his own, and yet what he utters is, at first, the expression of his own horror and astonishment at the vision of woe that is opening before his eyes. He sees, as it were, the famine-stricken people, their faces gathering blackness, the strong men giving way to a womans anguish, wailing with their hands on their loins. In horror rather than in scorn, he asks the question, What means all this? Are these men in the pangs of childbirth? (Comp. Jer. 4:31; Jer. 6:24; Jer. 13:21.) In Lam. 2:19-22 we have a fuller picture of a like scene. By some commentators the three verses (5-7) are referred to the alarm caused in Babylon by the advance of Cyrus, and that day is the day of his capture of the city, but there seems no sufficient reason for such an interpretation.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
JUDGMENT ON THE NATIONS, Jer 30:4-7.
5. A voice of trembling, etc. This comforting prophecy has a most dramatic beginning. This verse seems to be located in the very darkest hour of their national night. The excitement and alarm consequent on the approach of the Medo-Persian army is here depicted. Though this coming was to work deliverance, yet at the first it produces only fear and apprehension.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Jer 30:5 For thus saith the LORD; We have heard a voice of trembling, of fear, and not of peace.
Ver. 5. We have heard a voice of trembling. ] We were at first in a pitiful plight, scil., when the city was taken and the temple burnt (and this is elegantly here set forth, and in the two next verses); but better times are at hand:
“ Flebile principium melior fortuna sequetur. ”
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Jer 30:5-7
5For thus says the LORD,
‘I have heard a sound of terror,
Of dread, and there is no peace.
6’Ask now, and see
If a male can give birth.
Why do I see every man
With his hands on his loins, as a woman in childbirth?
And why have all faces turned pale?
7’Alas! for that day is great,
There is none like it;
And it is the time of Jacob’s distress,
But he will be saved from it.
Jer 30:5 I have heard The MT has the PLURAL. This may reflect the Us of Gen 1:26; Gen 3:22; Gen 11:7; Isa 6:8. This could reflect
1. YHWH and His angelic council (cf. 1Ki 22:19-23; Job 2:1-6)
2. a rare and late Hebrew grammatical form for emphasis called the PLURAL OF MAJESTY
3. a precursor of the concept of a Triune God (i.e., Trinity, see Special Topic below)
The UBS Text Project gives we (MT) a B rating (some doubt).
SPECIAL TOPIC: THE TRINITY
Jer 30:6 if a male can give birth Ancient women gave birth by kneeling at a birthing stone. The men of Judah were so frightened they looked as if they were giving birth (cf. Jer 6:24; Jer 22:23). This metaphor of birthing is used in the NT to describe the birth pain of the New Age (cf. Rom 8:22).
Jer 30:7-8 that day is. . . on that day Notice that to one group (Israel and Judah) it is a day of restoration, and to the other (i.e., Babylon) it is a day of judgment. See Special Topic: That Day .
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
a voice: Jer 4:15-20, Jer 6:23, Jer 6:24, Jer 8:19, Jer 9:19, Jer 25:36, Jer 31:15, Jer 31:16, Isa 5:30, Isa 59:11, Amo 5:16-18, Amo 8:10, Zep 1:10, Zep 1:11, Luk 19:41-44, Luk 21:25, Luk 21:26, Luk 23:29-30
of fear, and not of peace: or, there is fear, and not peace, Jer 46:5
Reciprocal: 2Ki 19:3 – This day Isa 19:16 – like Isa 29:22 – Jacob shall Jer 22:23 – how Jer 46:9 – Lydians
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Jer 30:5. Have heard a voice means the Lord heard the mournful complaints of his people in Babylonian captivity and had compassion on them.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Jer 30:5-22. Description of the peoples terror (Jer 30:5 mg.) at the Day of Yahweh (Amo 5:18); but this Day shall bring deliverance from the (heathen) yoke (Jer 30:8), and Israel shall have (religious) freedom under the future Davidic king. The gathered people shall be delivered from fear (like a protected flock, Isa 17:2); the heathen nations shall be destroyed, Israel escaping with proper chastisement only (Jer 10:24). At present, Zion is sorely wounded (Jer 30:13 as mg.1), and forsaken of her old allies (lovers, Jer 30:14; cf. Jer 4:30; Jer 22:20). Her condition is deserved, yet because she is so helpless (therefore, Jer 30:16) her foes shall be overthrown, and she shall be healed; the city shall be rebuilt upon its mound, and the palace inhabited as usual (Jer 30:18 mg.). There shall be joy (Psa 126:1 f.) at the restoration of her numbers, and her former glory; for she will be in the care of Yahweh (before me, Jer 30:20; cf. Psa 102:28), and under a native ruler (Deu 17:15), with priestly rights of access to Yahweh (Eze 44:13, Num 16:5), such as none would presumptuously claim. Jer 30:23 f. is an eschatological fragment (found elsewhere as in mg.) which describes the destruction of the wicked within the Jewish nation.
Jer 30:5 ff. The Day of Yahweh is a frequent idea of prophecy to denote the dramatic intervention of Yahweh in human history, cf. Isa 13:6 ff., where there is the same figure as here of men overcome in travail-like anguish.
Jer 30:8. Cf. Isa 10:27; thy in both cases should be his; cf. LXX.
Jer 30:9. A return of the original David is not meant, but the coming of an idealised descendant; cf. Hos 3:5.
Jer 30:10 f. (LXX omits) as Jer 46:27 f.; see Isa 41:8 f. for thought and phrasing.
Jer 30:20. The term for congregation is characteristic of the post-exilic period, when Israel had become a Church instead of a State.
Jer 30:21. It is difficult for us to realise, in view of the Christian sense of direct fellowship with God in Christ, the old idea of the peril of any approach to deity.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
30:5 For thus saith the LORD; We have heard a {b} voice of trembling, of fear, and not of peace.
(b) He shows that before this deliverance will come, the Chaldeans would be extremely afflicted by their enemies, and that they would be in such perplexity and sorrow as a woman in her travail as Isa 13:8 .
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
A time of great terror, dread, and unrest was coming. Men would behave as though they were in labor; they would hold themselves in pain as women do when they are about to give birth. This is a picture of powerlessness and panic.