Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Jeremiah 9:17
Thus saith the LORD of hosts, Consider ye, and call for the mourning women, that they may come; and send for cunning [women], that they may come:
17. cunning ] i.e. skilled. Cp. Gen 25:27; 1Sa 16:18 ; 2Ch 26:15.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
17, 18. “There are in every city and community women exceedingly cunning in this business. When a fresh company of sympathisers comes in, these women ‘make haste’ to ‘take up a wailing’ that the newly come may the more easily unite their tears with the mourners. They know the domestic history of each person, and immediately strike up an impromptu lamentation, in which they introduce the names of their relations who have recently died, touching some tender chord in every heart.” Thomson, p. 103, and see Jer 16:5.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
17 22. See summary introducing the section.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Verse 17. Call for the mourning women] Those whose office it was to make lamentations at funerals, and to bewail the dead, for which they received pay. This custom continues to the present in Asiatic countries. In Ireland this custom also prevails, which no doubt their ancestors brought from the east. I have often witnessed it, and have given a specimen of this elsewhere. See the note on Mt 9:23. The first lamentations for the dead consisted only in the sudden bursts of inexpressible grief, like that of David over his son Absalom, 2Sa 19:4. But as men grew refined, it was not deemed sufficient for the surviving relatives to vent their sorrows in these natural, artless expressions of wo, but they endeavoured to join others as partners in their sorrows. This gave rise to the custom of hiring persons to weep at funerals, which the Phrygians and Greeks borrowed from the Hebrews. Women were generally employed on these occasions, because the tender passions being predominant in this sex, they succeeded better in their parts; and there were never wanting persons who would let out their services to hire on such occasions. Their lamentations were sung to the pipe as we learn from Mt 9:23. See the funeral ceremonies practiced at the burial of Hector, as described by Homer: –
‘ ,
, ‘ ,
,
‘ , .
IL. lib. xxiv., ver. 719.
“Arrived within the royal house, they stretched
The breathless Hector on a sumptuous bed,
And singers placed beside him, who should chant
The strain funereal; they with many a groan
The dirge began; and still at every close
The female train with many a groan replied.”
COWPER.
St. Jerome tells us that even to his time this custom continued in Judea; that women at funerals, with dishevelled hair and naked breasts, endeavoured in a modulated voice to invite others to lament with them. The poem before us, from the seventeenth to the twenty-second verse, is both an illustration and confirmation of what has been delivered on this subject, and worthy of the reader’s frequent perusal, on account of its affecting pathos, moral sentiments, and fine images, particularly in the twenty-first verse, where death is described in as animated a prosopopoeia as can be conceived. See Lowth’s twenty-second Prelection, and Dodd. The nineteenth verse is supposed to be the funeral song of the women.
“How are we spoiled!
We are greatly confounded!
For we have forsaken the land;
Because they have destroyed our dwellings.”
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Consider ye; either in how sad a condition you are, what circumstances you are under; or rather, bethink yourselves what course to take: and therefore he puts them upon mourning and bewailing their condition, intimated by the following expression.
The mourning women; a sort of persons, and principally women, as more apt for passions in this kind, which they had among them, 2Ch 35:25; whose work it was, either to compose funeral elegies, or panegyrics in praise of the dead, and to act them in some mournful manner, as tearing their hair, and beating their breasts, with other mourning postures, or to sing them in some doleful tone, thereby artificially to provoke and excite both passions and expressions of grief in the friends of the deceased, rather wringing out tears than shedding them, in which probably they made greater seeming lamentations than those that did really mourn, as being most concerned; not that God calls upon them to do this as approving the formality, (though this foolish custom had obtained in most ages and countries,) any more than other customs that were made use of by way of illustration; as the Olympic games, and possibly that practice mentioned 1Co 15:29; but makes use of it, as being customary, either to excite them to and put them upon true repentance, or to convince them hereby that they were not able themselves sufficiently to bewail so great calamities as were coming upon them, intimating hereby that he would give them occasion for the most unfeigned weeping and lamentation.
Cunning women; such as are most skilful in it, Amo 5:16; wisdom being taken for skill in any arts, as Exo 31:3, and elsewhere.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
17. mourning womenhired toheighten lamentation by plaintive cries baring the breast, beatingthe arms, and suffering the hair to flow dishevelled (2Ch 35:25;Ecc 12:5; Mat 9:23).
cunningskilled inwailing.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Thus saith the Lord of hosts, consider ye,…. The punishment that was just coming upon them, as Kimchi; or the words that the Lord was about to say unto them; as follows:
and call for the mourning women, that they may come; the same with the “praeficae” among the Romans; persons that were sent for, and hired by, the relations of the dead, to raise up their mourning; and who, by their dishevelled hair, naked breasts, and beatings thereon, and mournful voice, and what they said in their doleful ditties in praise of the dead, greatly moved upon the affections of the surviving relatives, and produced tears from them. This was a custom that early prevailed among the Jews, and long continued with them; and was so common, that, according to the Misnic doctors c, the poorest man in Israel, when his wife died, never had less than two pipes, and one mourning woman; [See comments on Mt 9:23]. Now, in order to show what a calamity was coming on them, and what mourning there would be, and what occasion for it; the Lord by the prophet, not as approving, but deriding the practice, bids them call for the mourning women to assist them in their lamentations:
and send for cunning women, that they may come; such as were expert in this business, and could mimic mourning well, and had the art of moving the affections with their voice and gestures.
c Miss. Cetubot, c. 4. sect. 4.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Vs. 17-22: A LAMENTATION FOR JERUSALEM
1. Here is a call for professional mourners to take up a lamentation of wailing until it is joined by the whole land, (vs. 17-18).
2. A mournful song is heard in Zion – of ruin, confusion, abandonment and exile, (vs. 19; Jer 14:17; Isa 22:4; comp Amo 5:16-17).
3. Jeremiah pictures death as a thief – climbing into the windows of houses and palaces to cut off the people in the very prime of life, (vs. 21; Jer 15:7-9).
4. The dead will fall as manure upon the field, and like grain left behind by the reapers; there will be no one left to bury them! (vs. 22; Jer 16:4; Jer 25:33; Isa 5:25).
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
In this passage, as in many others, the Prophet endeavors by a striking representation really to touch the hearts of his people, for he saw that they were extremely refractory, insensible, and secure. Since then the threatenings of God were either wholly despised, or had not sufficiently moved the hearts of the people, it was necessary to set forth God’s judgments as present. Therefore the Prophet gives a striking description of what takes place in times of mourning. At the same time he seems to condemn indirectly the Jews for not knowing, through God’s word, that there was a calamity at hand: for God’s word ought indeed to be like a mirror, by which men ought to see God’s goodness in his promises and also his judgment in his threatenings. As then all prophecies were deemed as fables by the people, it was not without some degree of derision that he addressed them in this manner, —
Hearken ye, and call for mourners, that they may come An absurd and a foolish custom has prevailed almost in all ages to hire women as mourners, whom they called proeficoe; they were employed to mourn for others. Heirs no doubt hired these foolish women, in order to shew their reigned piety; they spoke in praise of the dead, and shewed how great a loss was their death. The Prophet does not commend this custom; and we ought to know that Scripture often takes similes from the vices of men, as from filth and dirt. If then any one concludes from these winds of Jeremiah, that lamentations at funerals are not to be condemned, this would be foolish and puerile. The Prophet, on the contrary, does here reprove the Jews, because they heedlessly disregarded all God’s threatenings, and were at the same time soft and tender at those foolish exhibitions, and all mourned at the sight of those women who were hired to lament; as the case is at this time, when a faithful teacher reprobates the prevailing folly of the Papists. For when the unprincipled men, who occupy the pulpits under the Papacy, speak with weeping, though they produce not a syllable from God’s word, but add some spectacle or phantom, by producing the image of the Cross or some like thing, they touch the feelings of the vulgar and cause weeping, according to what actors do on the stage. As then the Papists are seized as it were with an insane feeling, when their deceivers thus gesticulate, so a faithful teacher may say to them, “Let any one come and set before your eyes the image of a dead man, or say, that you must all shortly die and be like the earcase shewn to you, and ye will cry and weep; and yet ye will sot consider how dreadful God’s judgment is, which I declare to you: I shew to you faithfully from the law, from the prophets, and from the Gospel; how dreadful is God’s vengeance, and set before you what ye deserve; yet none of you are moved; but my doctrine is a mockery to you, and also my reproofs and threatenings: go then to your prophets, who shew you pictures and the like trumperies.” So the Prophet says now, “I see that I can do you no good; the Lord will therefore give you no teachers but women.” Of what sort? Even such, he says, as lament, or are hired to mourn.
We now then perceive why the Prophet speaks of hired women. Attend ye, he says; and why? They ought indeed to have been attentive to or to understand (for בן ben, means properly to understand, and in Hithpael it signifies to consider) his words; but as he saw that he was ridiculed or despised, and that all the threatenings which proceeded from God were esteemed as fables, he now says, “Consider ye and call for your lamenters: — as I see such perverseness in you, be taught at least by those women who are commonly invited to lament, and who sell their tears!” Send, he says, for the skilfu1, that they may come By these words he intended more clearly to express, that the calamity which the people feared not was not far distant.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
2. Death throughout the land (Jer. 9:17-22)
TRANSLATION
(17) Thus says the LORD of hosts: Consider and call for the mourning women that they might come and unto the wise women send that they might come. (18) And let them hurry and lift up over us wailing that our eyes may flow with tears and our eyelids stream with water. (19) For a sound of wailing is heard from Zion. How sad it is! We have been despoiled! We are put to great shame; for we have forsaken the land; for they have cast down our dwellings. (20) For hear the word of the LORD, O women, and let your ear receive the word of His mouth, and teach your daughters wailing and every one her neighbor lamentation. (21) For death has come up into our windows, it has entered into our palaces, to cut down children in the street, young men in the broad places. (22) Speak thus! (oracle of the LORD): The carcasses of men shall fall like dung upon the surface of the field and like sheaves behind the reaper; and there is no one to gather them.
COMMENTS
In view of the impending national disaster, Jeremiah calls for professional mourning women to come and bewail the death of the nation. Such women were wise or skillful in the ways of leading public lamentation (Jer. 9:17). By helping others to weep and thus give vent to their emotions these women rendered a public service. One can find some measure of relief from anguish and sorrow only as he openly and outwardly expresses it. Jeremiah can seem to hear the wailing coming forth from Zion of Jerusalem. The people have been despoiled and humiliated. They have been forced to forsake the land of their birth. Their homes have been cast down by the enemy. They are confounded and confused (Jer. 9:19). Jeremiah calls upon the women who had been so zealous in the worship of false gods to give heed to the word of God. The day is soon approaching when the women of the nation would have to teach their daughters how to lament. So great will be the national tragedy that there will not be sufficient professional mourners. All the women will have to become involved (Jer. 9:20).
Why this need for universal lamentation? Death will reign supreme in the land in that day. Death creeps through the windows of homes and palaces. The Grim Reaper stalks the streets and broadplaces or market places of the city. Innocent children are cut down, young men in the flower of their youth (Jer. 9:21). The figure of death entering through the windows was a common one in the ancient Near East. In the Ugaritic epic of Baal, death is also described as entering by the window. Baal gave orders that no window was to be made in his palace until he had beaten his rival Moth, the god of death. After the victory over Moth, Baal issued a new order to the craftsman to construct a window. Apparently the entrance of death by the windows eventually became a common figure of speech in the Canaanite and Hebrew languages.
The picture of death throughout the land reaches its climax in Jer. 9:22. The first phrase, Speak thus! is abrupt and forceful and serves to arrest the attention of the hearer and draw his attention to this last dramatic announcement. The carcasses of the men of Judah who fall in battle will be left unburied. The dead bodies will be scattered over the surface of the ground like fertilizer spread by a farmer. A reaper in his haste to glean the harvest leaves many handfuls of grain in the field to rot. So would it be with the bodies of the dead. Those who survive the battles will be too few in number and too fearful to venture forth from the walled cities to give the fallen a decent burial (Jer. 9:22).
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(17) Mourning women . . . cunning women.Eastern funerals were, and are, attended by mourners, chiefly women, hired for the purpose. Wailing was reduced to an art, and they who practised it were cunning. There are the mourners that go about the streets (Ecc. 12:5), those that are skilful of lamentation (Amo. 5:16), those that mourned for Jehoiakim (Jer. 22:18), those that wept and wailed greatly in the house of Jairus (Mar. 5:38). They are summoned as to the funeral, not of a friend or neighbour, but of the nation.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
17-20. Consider ye, and call To heighten the poetical effect of this passage Jehovah calls for the mourning women; those women who among the Orientals are hired to make lamentation, because “skilled in the arts of woe,” and so here called cunning. (See Miss ROGER’S Domestic Life in Palestine. pp. 181-184. for a very vivid picture of these mourning ceremonies at the present time.) Here every impressive feature of such a picture is blended: the office of the women themselves, their character, their words, the effect of their lamentations, and finally their fewness as compared with the greatness of the woe, so that they are called upon to teach their arts to others.
Teach your daughters wailing, and every one her neighbour lamentation The ravages of death have overstepped the resources of mourning, as in the times of fearful pestilence.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
17. Because they have forsaken my law Thus far the challenge to attention: now follows the formal and fearful statement of the people’s sin and misery. They had openly and wilfully and persistently disobeyed the laws of Jehovah. They had deliberately prostituted themselves to the service of Baalim, (see Jer 2:8; Jer 2:23,) and hence the penalty threatened in the law (Lev 26:33) will be inflicted.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Jer 9:17. Consider ye, &c. The first lamentations for the dead consisted only in the sudden bursts of insuppressible grief, like that of David over his son Absalom, 2Sa 19:4. But, as men grew refined, it was not deemed sufficient for the surviving relation to vent his sorrows in these natural and artless expressions of woe; but, unsatisfied with the genuine language of sighs and tears, he endeavoured not only to vent his sorrow by terms of grief, but likewise joined others as partners in his sorrow, and strove to extort tears from the surrounding crowd. This was practised by David in his lamentation for Abner, 2Sa 3:32-34. This ostentation of grief gave rise to the custom of hiring persons to weep at funerals, which the Phrygians and Greeks borrowed from the Hebrews. Women were generally employed on these occasions, either because it was an office more suitable to the softness of a female mind, or because, the tenderer passions being predominant in that sex, they succeeded better in their parts; nor were there ever wanting artists well instructed in the discipline of mourning, and ready to hire out their lamentations and tears on any emergency. It is the chief excellence of other arts to imitate nature; it was likewise esteemed so in this. Their funeral dirges, therefore, were composed in imitation of those which had been poured forth by genuine and sincere grief. Their sentences were short, querulous, pathetic, simple, and unadorned; somewhat laboured indeed, because they were composed in metre, and to be sung to the pipe, as we learn from Mat 9:23 and from Homer, where, speaking of Hector’s funeral, he says,
A melancholy choir attend around, With plaintive sighs, and music’s solemn sound: Alternately they sing, alternate flow Th’ obedient tears, melodious in their woe. See POPE’S ILIAD, Book 24. ver. 900 and the Note.
St. Jerome tells us, that even to his time this custom continued in Judaea; that women at funerals, with dishevelled hair and naked breasts, endeavoured in a modulated voice to unite others in lamentation with them. There are several traces of this custom to be met with among the prophets, who frequently delivered their predictions of approaching calamities, not without a singular elegance, in the form of funeral dirges. The poem before us, from this to the 22nd verse, is both an illustration and confirmation of what has been delivered upon this subject, and worthy of the reader’s frequent perusal, on account of its affecting pathos, moral sentiments, and fine images; particularly in the 21st verse, where death is described in as animated a prosopopoeia as can be conceived. See Lowth’s 22nd Prelection, and Calmet.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Perhaps these mourning women means true weepers, and the cunning women those which were counterfeit. And the counterfeit would have found cause to change their cries into real sorrow, had they foreseen the greatness of the calamities coming upon them. Death entering into the windows, became an affliction, light, and patiently to be borne, as it related to the present life, compared to what the Prophet described, of the miseries at the siege, and in the captivity. See Lam 4 throughout.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Jer 9:17 Thus saith the LORD of hosts, Consider ye, and call for the mourning women, that they may come; and send for cunning [women], that they may come:
Ver. 17. Consider ye. ] Intelligentes estote. Is not your hard heartedness such as that ye need such a help to do that wherein you should be forward and free hearted? The Hollanders and French fast, saith one, a but, without exprobration be it spoken, they had need to send for mourning women, that by their cunning they may be taught to mourn.
And call for the mourning women.
“ Cantabit maestis tibia funeribus. ” – Ovid.
“He will play with the pipe by a gloomy funeral.”
a Spec. Bel. Sac., 209.
b Ut flerent oculos erudiere suos. – Ovid.
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Jer 9:17-22
17Thus says the LORD of hosts,
Consider and call for the mourning women, that they may come;
And send for the wailing women, that they may come!
18Let them make haste and take up a wailing for us,
That our eyes may shed tears
And our eyelids flow with water.
19For a voice of wailing is heard from Zion,
‘How are we ruined!
We are put to great shame,
For we have left the land,
Because they have cast down our dwellings.’
20Now hear the word of the LORD, O you women,
And let your ear receive the word of His mouth;
Teach your daughters wailing,
And everyone her neighbor a dirge.
21For death has come up through our windows;
It has entered our palaces
To cut off the children from the streets,
The young men from the town squares.
22Speak, Thus says the LORD,
‘The corpses of men will fall like dung on the open field,
And like the sheaf after the reaper,
But no one will gather them.’
Jer 9:17-22 This is a funeral dirge (cf. Jer 9:20), personifying death. Notice the two terms for professional mourners.
1. the mourning women – BDB 884, KB 1096, Polel PARTICIPLE
2. the wailing women – BDB 314, KB 314
Notice the number of commands.
1. Jer 9:17
a. consider – BDB 106, KB 122, Hithpolel IMPERATIVE
b. call – BDB 894, KB 1128, Qal IMPERATIVE
c. come – BDB 97, KB 112, Qal IMPERFECT used in a JUSSIVE sense
d. send – BDB 1018, KB 1511, Qal IMPERATIVE
e. come – same as c
2. Jer 9:18
a. let them make haste – BDB 554, KB 553, Piel IMPERFECT used in a JUSSIVE sense
b. let them take up a wailing for us – BDB 669, KB 724, Qal IMPERFECT used in a JUSSIVE sense
c. let our eyes shed tears – BDB 432, KB 434, Qal IMPERFECT used in a JUSSIVE sense (NRSV)
d. let our eyelids flow with water – BDB 633, KB 683, Qal IMPERFECT used in a JUSSIVE sense (NRSV)
3. Jer 9:20
a. hear the word of the LORD – BDB 1033, KB 1570, Qal IMPERATIVE
b. let your ear receive the word of His mouth – BDB 542, KB 534, Qal IMPERFECT used in a JUSSIVE sense
c. teach. . . – BDB 540, KB 531, Piel IMPERFECT
4. Jer 9:22 – speak – BDB 180, KB 210, Piel IMPERATIVE
Jer 9:17 the wailing women In the Ancient Near East (ANE) professional mourners were used at funerals (cf. Amo 5:16). Here it is a literary way to highlight the fact that death is coming.
In Jer 9:20 the daughters are going to be taught how to wail. This is either an allusion to the fact that the mothers passed on their idolatry to their daughters or that there will be so many dead people that more and more wailers will be needed.
Jer 9:19 This verse expresses the content of their lamentations.
1. we are ruined (cf. Jer 4:13; Deu 28:29)
2. we are put to great shame
3. we have left the land (cf. Jer 7:15)
4. our homes are destroyed
Jer 9:20 This verse is addressed to the professional mourners of Jer 9:17. See note at Jer 9:17.
Jer 9:21 For death has come up through our windows This personification of death (cf. personification of Sheol and death in Hab 2:5) as coming through the windows is very similar to (1) the Canaanite myth of Ba’al being killed by the god of the underworld, Mot, in the Ugaritic literature found at Ras-Shamra or (2) the Mesopotamian myth of a demon who climbs through the windows to kill. This may be an allusion by the prophet to the type of mythology (Canaanite fertility worship, see Special Topic at Jer 2:20) to which the people of God were listening.
To cut off the children. . .The young men The last two lines of Jer 9:21 are a way of saying (1) that death is no respecter of persons or (2) that death will cut off the next generation.
Jer 9:22 The corpses of men will fall like dung on the open field This is a common metaphor of death in Jeremiah (cf. Jer 7:33; Jer 8:2; Jer 16:4; Jer 26:23; Deu 28:26).
And like the sheaf after the reaper This is possibly the origin of the modern metaphor of death as the grim reaper, but please note that God, not the evil one, is in control of death (i.e., the death angel of Exodus 12).
Thus saith, &c. This (verses: Jer 9:17-20) develops the calamity, for which this chapter gives the reason.
mourning women. A class still hired for the purpose. Compare 2Sa 1:24. 2Ch 35:25. Ecc 12:5. Mat 9:23. Mar 5:38.
cunning = skilful (in this business).
call: 2Ch 35:25, Job 3:8, Ecc 12:5, Amo 5:16, Amo 5:17, Mat 9:23, Mar 5:38
the mourning women: Those whose office it was to sing mournful dirges, and make public lamentations at funerals.
Reciprocal: 2Sa 1:17 – lamented Ezr 2:65 – two hundred Isa 51:19 – who shall Jer 6:26 – make thee Jer 7:29 – and take Jer 9:20 – and teach Jer 48:17 – bemoan Lam 1:2 – weepeth Lam 2:18 – let tears Eze 19:1 – take Eze 21:6 – Sigh Eze 27:2 – General Eze 28:12 – take up Eze 32:16 – General Joe 1:8 – Lament Mic 2:4 – and lament Mat 2:18 – lamentation Mat 11:17 – piped Luk 8:52 – all
Jer 9:17. Josephus mentions hired mourners” who were employed in ancient times by unfortunate people who thought their circumstances were unusually distressing. It was in allusion to this practice that Jeremiah mentioned the mourning women, though he uses it figuratively and in prediction of the sad state of affairs soon to come upon the nation. Cunning is from Chakam, which Strong defines, wise, (i.e., intelligent, skillful or artful).” The idea is that the condition awaiting the nation will be so pitiable that it will require a wise person to describe it fully.
Jer 9:17. Consider ye, and call for the mourning women Consider the evil circumstances you are in, which call for mourning and lamentation: and since you yourselves are not sufficiently affected with the dangers that threaten you, send for those women whose profession it is to mourn at funerals, and upon other sorrowful occasions, and let their lamentations excite true sorrow in you. The prophet seems here to compare the Jewish state to a person dead, and going to be buried, and therefore calls upon the people to send for those who used to be hired to make lamentations and wailings at funerals. The reader will observe, it was an ancient custom of the Hebrews, at funerals, and on other like occasions, to make use of hired mourners, whose profession it was to exhibit in public all the signs and gestures of immoderate and frantic grief, and by their loud outcries and doleful songs to excite a real passion of sorrow in others. Women were generally employed in this office, either because it was an office more suitable to the softness of a female mind, or because the more tender passions being predominant in that sex, they succeeded better in their parts; nor were there ever wanting those artists well instructed in the discipline of mourning, and ready to hire out their lamentations and tears on any emergency. It was the chief excellence of other arts to imitate nature; it was likewise esteemed so in this; their funeral dirges, therefore, were composed in imitation of those which had been poured forth by genuine and sincere grief. Their sentences were short, querulous, pathetic, simple, and unadorned; somewhat laboured indeed, because they were composed in metre, and to be sung to the pipe, as we learn from Mat 9:23; and from Homer, where, speaking of Hectors funeral, he says, ,
, ,
, . ILIAD, . 720.
A melancholy choir attend around, With plaintive sighs, and musics solemn sound; Alternately they sing, alternate flow Th obedient tears, melodious in their wo. See POPES IL., book 24. ver. 900.
Jerome tells us, in his comment on this verse, that the practice was continued in Judea down to his days; That women, at funerals, with dishevelled hair, and naked breasts, endeavoured, in a modulated voice, to unite others in lamentation with them. Frequent allusions to this custom are to be met with in Scripture, particularly 2Ch 35:25, where the singing men and singing women are said to have made it a constant rule, after King Josiahs death, to commemorate that excellent prince in all their future dirges or lamentations, as one in whom the public in general had sustained an irreparable loss. Such were the mourners, mentioned Ecc 12:5, and said to go about the streets; and those whom Amos calls, , skilful of lamentation; Amo 5:16. And such no doubt were the minstrels and the people making a noise; , whom our Saviour found in the house of the ruler of the synagogue, whose daughter was just dead; who, St. Mark says, wept and wailed greatly, , Mar 5:38. There are especially several traces of this custom to be met with in the prophets, who frequently delivered their predictions of approaching calamities in the form of funeral dirges. The poem before us, from Jer 9:19-22, is both an illustration and confirmation of this, and worthy of the readers frequent perusal, on account of its affecting pathos, moral sentiments, and fine images; particularly in Jer 9:21, where death is described in as animated a prosopopia as can be conceived. See Lowths Prelec., Calmet, and Blaney.
9:17 Thus saith the LORD of hosts, Consider ye, and call for {n} the skilful women, that they may come; and send for skilful [women], that they may come:
(n) Seeing you cannot lament your own sins, call for those foolish women, whom of a superstition you have to lament for the dead, that they by their feigned tears may provoke you to some sorrow.
A dirge over Jerusalem 9:17-22
What follows is a brilliant prophetic elegy. It contains two pronouncements from the Lord (Jer 9:17-22).
The Lord instructed Jeremiah to summon the professional mourners (Heb. meqonenoth) to come forward.
"In the Middle East even today, on the occasion of deaths or calamities, mourning is carried out by professional women who follow the funeral bier uttering a high-pitched shriek. Some of the Egyptian tomb paintings depict boatloads of professional mourners with their hair and garments disheveled accompanying a corpse on its way to a burial." [Note: Thompson, p. 316.]
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)