Jeremiah 4:8

For this gird you with sackcloth, lament and howl: for the fierce anger of the LORD is not turned back from us.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(8) Gird you with sackcloth.—From the earliest times the outward sign of mourning, and therefore of repentance (Joel 1:8; Isaiah 22:12).

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

4:5-18 The fierce conqueror of the neighbouring nations was to make Judah desolate. The prophet was afflicted to see the people lulled into security by false prophets. The approach of the enemy is described. Some attention was paid in Jerusalem to outward reformation; but it was necessary that their hearts should be washed, in the exercise of true repentance and faith, from the love and pollution of sin. When lesser calamities do not rouse sinners and reform nations, sentence will be given against them. The Lord's voice declares that misery is approaching, especially against wicked professors of the gospel; when it overtakes them, it will be plainly seen that the fruit of wickedness is bitter, and the end is fatal.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Is not turned ... - As long as their sins are unrepented of, so long must their punishment continue.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

8. Nothing is left to the Jews but to bewail their desperate condition.

anger … not turned back—(Isa 9:12, 17, 21).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Gird you with sackcloth; the usual habit of mourners, especially in those days, Isaiah 22:12 Jeremiah 6:26: it is a calling upon them to repent.

Lament and howl: probably these expressions do import the several ways that men have to set forth their bitter complaints and sorrows of the mind, both by the gestures of the body, Jeremiah 2:37 Luke 18:13, and expressions of the tongue, Psalm 32:3 Isaiah 59:11.

Is not turned back from us; neither will it, until it have accomplished its ends, Jeremiah 30:24.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

For this gird you with sackcloth, lament and howl,.... That is, because of this destruction threatened, which was so near at hand, and so sure and certain:

for the fierce anger of the Lord is not turned back from us. The Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic versions, render it "from you" and some render it "from it" (u); from his purpose and design to destroy the Jews. Jarchi interprets this of Josiah, and his times, who, though he turned to the Lord with all his heart, yet the Lord turned not from the fierceness of his wrath and anger against Judah, 2 Kings 23:25.

(u) "ab illo", i.e. "ab illo proposito", Cocceius; "ab eo", Montanus.

Geneva Study Bible

For this gird you with sackcloth, lament and howl: for the fierce anger of the LORD is not turned back from us.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 8. - Is not turned back from us. As we in our folly believed (Jeremiah 2:35). Jeremiah 4:8

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

For this calamity the people was to mourn deeply. For the description of the mourning, cf. Joel 1:13; Micah 1:8. For the wrath of the Lord has not turned from us, as in blind self-delusion ye imagine, Jeremiah 2:35. The heath of Jahveh's anger is the burning wrath on account of the sins of Manasseh, with which the people has been threatened by the prophets. This wrath has not turned itself away, because even under Josiah the people has not sincerely returned to its God.