Jeremiah 10:20

My tabernacle is spoiled, and all my cords are broken: my children are gone forth of me, and they are not: there is none to stretch forth my tent any more, and to set up my curtains.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(20) My tabernacle . . .—The tent which had been the home of Israel is destroyed, the cords that fastened it to the ground are broken, the children that used to help their mother in arranging the tent and its curtains “are not,” i.e. (as in Genesis 42:36; Jeremiah 31:15; Matthew 2:18), they are either dead or in exile. There is something significant in the fact that the destruction of the city is represented under the imagery of that of a tent. The daughter of Zion has, as it were, been brought back to her nomadic state.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

10:17-25 The Jews who continued in their own land, felt secure. But, sooner or later, sinners will find all things as the word of God has declared, and that its threatenings are not empty terrors. Submission will support the believer under every grief allotted to him; but what can render the load of Divine vengeance easy to be borne by those who fall under it in sullen despair? Those cannot expect to prosper, who do not, by faith and prayer, take God with them in all their ways. The report of the enemy's approach was very dreadful. Yet the designs which men lay deep, and think well formed, are dashed to pieces in a moment. Events are often overruled, so as to be quite contrary to what we intended and expected. If the Lord has directed our steps into the ways of peace and righteousness, let us entreat him to enable us to walk therein. Say not, Lord, do not correct me; but, Lord, do not correct me in anger. We may bear the smart of God's rod, but we cannot bear the weight of his wrath. Those who restrain prayer, prove that they know not God; for those who know him will seek him, and seek his favour. If even severe corrections lead sinners to be convinced of wholesome truths, they will have abundant cause for gratitude. And they will then humble themselves before the Lord.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

tabernacle - i. e., "tent." Jerusalem laments that her tent is plundered and her children carried into exile, and so "are not," are dead Matthew 2:18, either absolutely, or dead to her in the remote land of their captivity. They can aid the widowed mother no longer in pitching her tent, or in hanging up the curtains round about it.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

20. tabernacle is spoiled—metaphor from the tents of nomadic life; as these are taken down in a few moments, so as not to leave a vestige of them, so Judea (Jer 4:20).

cords—with which the coverings of the tent are extended.

curtains—tent-curtains.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

He proceeds in his prosopopoeia to bring in the land, or the inhabitants thereof, enumerating their calamities, and by a metaphor sets out the overthrow of the land, or Jerusalem, by the breaking of the

cords of a tabernacle, the use whereof is to fasten it on every side to stakes in the ground, which cords being broken the tabernacle falls, implying all the supports of city and country were gone, nothing but desolation to be expected. See Jeremiah 4:20.

My children are gone forth of me; either the inhabitants of the land, or the lesser cities, being frequently called daughters, viz. the Chaldeans have snatched them away from me, and carried them into captivity.

They are not; of the phrase and meaning of it see Jeremiah 31:15. There is none to stretch forth my tent any more, i.e. it is irrevocable, I am without all help, either for defence or beauty, or any thing to regain my pristine state, which he chooseth to describe hereby, continuing this metaphor rather than any other, of a shepherd’s tent; possibly insinuating the ground of it to arise principally from their pastors, the neglect both of their civil and ecclesiastical governors, which the next verse favours.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

My tabernacle is spoiled,.... Not the temple at Jerusalem only, rather Jerusalem itself, as Kimchi; or the whole land, as the Targum,

"my land is wasted:''

the allusion is to the tents of shepherds, and denotes the unstable condition of the Jewish nation:

and all my cords are broken: all the rest of the cities of the land are destroyed, as Kimchi; and so the Targum,

"my cities are spoiled:''

as the cords are what the parts of the tabernacle or tent are fastened and kept together with, they may intend the strength of the nation, which lay in its wealth, its fortresses, and the numbers of its people, now weakened, loosed, and broke.

My children are gone forth of me; into captivity, as the Targum interprets it; the prophet, representing Jerusalem, and the cities of Judah. The Septuagint adds, "and my sheep"; keeping on the metaphor of a shepherd, his tent, and flock.

And they are not; either not in the world, being destroyed by one judgment or another; or rather not in their own land, being carried captive.

There is none to stretch forth my tent any more, and to set up my curtains; which shows the great destruction and desolation of the land, and its inhabitants, that there would be none to set up a shepherd's tent; perhaps the rebuilding of Jerusalem, and the rest of the cities, may be meant.

Geneva Study Bible

{m} My tabernacle is laid waste, and all my cords are broken: my children are gone from me, and they are not: there is none to stretch forth my tent any more, and to set up my curtains.

(m) He shows how Jerusalem will lament.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

20. The land is likened to a tent overthrown and injured beyond repair.

curtains] See on Jeremiah 4:20.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 20. - My tabernacle; rather, my tent. It is very striking how present to the minds of the Israelites was the consciousness of their pastoral origin. Hence the cry, "To your tents, O Israel" (1 Kings 12:16); comp. also, "And the children of Israel dwelt in their tents, as aforetime" (2 Kings 13:5). My cords ... my curtains. The "cords ' are those which, by being fastened to poles and stakes, keep the tent steady; the "curtains," of course, are the covering of the tent (comp. Isaiah 54:2). Jeremiah 10:20

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The captivity of the people, their lamentation for the devastation of the land, and entreaty that the punishment may be mitigated. - Jeremiah 10:17. "Gather up thy bundle out of the land, thou that sittest in the siege. Jeremiah 10:18. For thus hath Jahveh spoken: Behold, I hurl forth the inhabitants of the land this time, and press them hard, that they may find them. Jeremiah 10:19. Woe is me for my hurt! grievous is my stroke! yet I:think: This is my suffering, and I will bear it! Jeremiah 10:20. My tent is despoiled, and all my cords are rent asunder. My sons have forsaken me, and are gone: none stretches forth my tent any more, or hangs up my curtains. Jeremiah 10:21. For the shepherds are become brutish, and have not sought Jahveh; therefore they have not dealt wisely, and the whole flock is scattered. - Jeremiah 10:22. Hark! a rumour: behold, it comes, and great commotion from the land of midnight, to make the cities of Judah a desolation, an abode of jackals. - Jeremiah 10:23. I know, Jahveh, that the way of man is not in himself, nor in the man that walketh to fix his step. Jeremiah 10:24. Chasten me, Jahveh, but according to right; not in Thine anger, lest Thou make me little. Jeremiah 10:25. Pour out Thy fury upon the peoples that know Thee not, and upon the races that call not upon Thy name! for they have devoured Jacob, have devoured him and made an end of him, and laid his pastures waste."

Jeremiah 10:17-20

In Jeremiah 10:17 the congregation of the people is addressed, and captivity in a foreign land is announced to them. This announcement stands in connection with Jeremiah 9:25, in so far as captivity is the accomplishment of the visitation of Judah threatened in Jeremiah 9:24. That connection is not, however, quite direct; the announcement is led up to by the warning against idolatry of vv. 1-16, inasmuch as it furnishes confirmation of the threat uttered in Jeremiah 10:15, that the idols shall perish in the day of their visitation, and shows besides how, by its folly in the matter of idolatry, Judah has drawn judgment down on itself. The confession in Jeremiah 10:21 : the shepherds are become brutish, points manifestly back to the description in Jeremiah 10:14 of the folly of the idolaters, and exhibits the connection of Jeremiah 10:17-25 with the preceding warning against idolatry. For "gather up," etc., Hitz. translates: gather thy trumpery from the ground; so that the expression would have a contemptuous tone. But the meaning of rubbish cannot be proved to belong to כּנעה; and the mockery that would lie in the phrase is out of place. כּנעה, from Arab. kǹ, contrahere, constipare, means that which is put together, packed up, one's bundle. The connection of אסף and מארץ is pregnant: put up thy bundle and carry it forth of the land. As N. G. Schroeder suspected, there is about the expression something of the nature of a current popular phrase, like the German Schnr dein Bndel, pack up, i.e., make ready fore the road. She who sits in the siege. The daughter of Zion is meant, but we must not limit the scope to the population of Jerusalem; as is clear from "inhabitants of the land," Jeremiah 10:18, the population of the whole land are comprised in the expression. As to the form יושׁבתי, see at Jeremiah 22:23. אספּי with dag. lene after the sibilant, as in Isaiah 47:2. "I hurl forth" expresses the violent manner of the captivity; cf. Isaiah 22:17. "This time;" hitherto hostile invasions ended with plundering and the imposition of a tribute: 2 Kings 14:14; 2 Kings 16:5; 2 Kings 18:13. - And I press them hard, or close them in, למען ימצאוּ. These words are variously explained, because there is no object expressed, and there may be variety of opinion as to what is the subject. Hitz., Umbr., Ng., take the verb find in the sense of feel, and so the object צרה would easily be supplied from the verb הצרתי: so that they may feel it, i.e., I will press them sensibly. But we cannot make sure of this meaning for מצא either from Jeremiah 17:9 or from Ecclesiastes 8:17, where know (ידע) and מצא are clearly identical conceptions. Still less is Graf entitled to supply as object: that which they seek and are to find, namely, God. His appeal in support of this to passages like Psalm 32:6; Deuteronomy 4:27 and Deuteronomy 4:29, proves nothing; for in such the object is manifestly suggested by the contest, which is not the case here. A just conclusion is obtained when we consider that הצרתי contains a play on בּמּצור in Jeremiah 10:17, and cannot be understood otherwise than as a hemming in by means of a siege. The aim of the siege is to bring those hemmed in under the power of the besiegers, to get at, reach them, or find them. Hence we must take the enemy as subject to "find," while the object is given in להם: so that they (the enemy) may find them (the besieged). Thus too Jerome, who translates the disputed verb passively: et tribulabo eos ut inveniantur; while he explains the meaning thus: sic eos obsideri faciam, sicque tribulabo et coangustabo, ut omnes in urbe reperiantur et effugere nequeant malum. Taken thus, the second clause serves to strengthen the first: I will hurl forth the inhabitants of this land into a foreign land, and none shall avoid this fate, for I will so hem them in that none shall be able to escape.

This harassment will bring the people to their senses, so that they shall humble themselves under the mighty hand of God. Such feelings the prophet utters at Jeremiah 10:19., in the name of the congregation, as he did in the like passage Jeremiah 4:19. As from the hearts of those who had been touched by their affliction, he exclaims: Woe is me for my breach! i.e., my crushing overthrow. The breach is that sustained by the state in its destruction, see at Jeremiah 4:6. נחלה, grown sick, i.e., grievous, incurable is the stroke that has fallen upon me. For this word we have in Jeremiah 15:18 אנוּשׁה, which is explained by "refuseth to be healed." ואני introduces an antithesis: but I say, sc. in my heart, i.e., I think. Hitz. gives אך the force of a limitation equals nothing further than this, but wrongly; and, taking the perf. אמרתּי as a preterite, makes out the import to be: "in their state of careless security they had taken the matter lightly, saying as it were, If no further calamity than this menace us, we may be well content;" a thought quite foreign to the context. For "this my suffering" can be nothing else than the "hurt" on account of which the speaker laments, or the stroke which he calls dangerous, incurable. אך has, besides, frequently the force of positive asseveration: yea, certainly (cf. Ew. 354, a), a force readily derived from that of only, nothing else than. And so here: only this, i.e., even this is my suffering. חלי, sickness, here suffering in general, as in Hosea 5:13; Isaiah 53:3., etc. The old translators took the Yod as pronoun (my suffering), whence it would be necessary to point חלי, like גּוי, Zephaniah 2:9; cf. Ew. 293, b, Rem. - The suffering which the congregation must bear consists in the spoliation of the land and the captivity of the people, represented in Jeremiah 10:20 under the figure of a destruction of their tent and the disappearance of their sons. The Chald. has fairly paraphrased the verse thus: my land is laid waste and all my cities are plundered, my people has gone off (into exile) and is no longer here. יצאני construed with the accus. like egredi urbem; cf. Genesis 54:4, etc. - From "my sons have forsaken me" Ng. draws the inference that Jeremiah 10:19 and Jeremiah 10:20 are the words of the country personified, since neither the prophet could so speak, nor the people, the latter being indeed identical with the sons, and so not forsaken, but forsaking. This inference rests on a mistaken view of the figure of the daughter of Zion, in which is involved the conception of the inhabitants of a land as the children of the land when personified as mother. Nor is there any evidence that the land is speaking in the words: I think, This is my suffering, etc. It is besides alleged that the words give no expression to any sense of guilt; they are said, on the contrary, to give utterance to a consolation which only an innocent land draws from the fact that a calamity is laid upon it, a calamity which must straightway be borne. This is neither true in point of fact, nor does it prove the case. The words, This is my suffering, etc., indicate resignation to the inevitable, not innocence or undeserved suffering. Hereon Graf remarks: "The suffering was unmerited, in so far as the prophet and the godly amongst the people were concerned; but it was inevitable that he and they should take it upon their shoulders, along with the rest." Asserted with so great width, this statement cannot be admitted. The present generation bears the punishment not only for the sins of many past generations, but for its own sins; nor were the godly themselves free from sin and guilt, for they acknowledge the justice of God's chastisement, and pray God to chasten them בּמשׁפּט, not in anger (Jeremiah 10:24). Besides, we cannot take the words as spoken by the prophet or by the godly as opposed to the ungodly, since it is the sons of the speaker ("my sons") that are carried captive, who can certainly not be the sons of the godly alone.