Jeremiah 18:22

Let a cry be heard from their houses, when thou shalt bring a troop suddenly upon them: for they have digged a pit to take me, and hid snares for my feet.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(22) Let a cry be heard from their houses.—i.e., let their city be taken by the enemy and the people suffer all the outrage and cruelty which their heathen invaders can inflict. What these were, the history of all wars, above all of Eastern wars, tells us but too plainly (2Kings 8:12; Hosea 13:16). Some of them, prisoners impaled or flayed alive, are brought vividly before our eyes by the Assyrian sculptures.

The “snares” are those of the bird-catcher (Psalm 140:5; Psalm 142:3).

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

18:18-23 When the prophet called to repentance, instead of obeying the call, the people devised devices against him. Thus do sinners deal with the great Intercessor, crucifying him afresh, and speaking against him on earth, while his blood is speaking for them in heaven. But the prophet had done his duty to them; and the same will be our rejoicing in a day of evil.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The sack of the city follows with all the horrible cruelties practiced at such a time.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

22. cry—by reason of the enemy bursting in: let their houses be no shelter to them in their calamities [Calvin].

digged … pit—(Jer 18:20; Ps 57:6; 119:85).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

That is, Let the enemy break into their houses, which are, in an ordinary course of providence, men’s castles and sanctuaries, and cause such shrieks as use to be heard in such cases, for their malicious seeking my life by all secret practices.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Let a cry be heard from their houses,.... A shrieking of women and children, not only for the loss of husbands and parents, but because of the entrance of the enemy into the city, and into their houses, to take away their lives and their substance; as follows:

when thou shalt bring a troop suddenly upon them; or an army, as the Targum; either the Chaldean army, or rather the Roman army:

for they have digged a pit to take me, and hid snares for my feet: and therefore it was a just retaliation, that a troop or army should suddenly come upon them, and seize their persons and substance; though Kimchi understands it, as before, of poison, which they would have given him; but Jarchi, of a suspicion and vile calumny they raised of him, that he was guilty of adultery with another man's wife; a "whore" being called a "deep ditch" by the wise man, Proverbs 23:27; and so it is in the Talmud (h).

(h) T. Bab. Kama, fol. 16. 2.

Geneva Study Bible

Let a cry be heard from their houses, when thou shalt bring a troop suddenly upon them: for they have digged a pit to take me, and hid snares for my feet.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

22. The havoc wrought in battle outside the walls is followed by the sacking of the houses of the city.

they have digged a pit … and hid snares] Cp. Psalm 57:6.

Jeremiah 18:22

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

To the terrors of the war and the siege is to be added the cry rising from all the houses into which hostile troops have burst, plundering and massacring. To lay snares, as in Psalm 140:6; Psalm 142:4. פּח is the spring of the bird-catcher.