1883 Haydock Douay Rheims Bible
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| Jeremiah 4:1 | If thou wilt return, O Israel, saith the Lord, return to me: if thou wilt take away thy stumbling-blocks out of my sight, thou shalt not be moved. | Blocks; idols, (Calmet) and other occasions of sin. (Haydock) |
| Jeremiah 4:2 | And thou shalt swear: As the Lord liveth, in truth, and in judgement, and in justice: and the Gentiles shall bless him, and shall praise him. | Swear, when requisite. (Calmet) --- Thus thou wilt learn to confess one God. (Theodoret) --- If all were upright, oaths would be unnecessary, Matthew 5:34. But as they are not so, (Calmet) this may be a religious act. (Worthington) --- Justice. These three conditions are essential. (Haydock) --- Him; the people, (Calmet) or God. (St. Jerome) --- An oath must attest God, and be used when a thing is true and of moment. (Worthington) |
| Jeremiah 4:3 | For thus saith the Lord to the men of Juda and Jerusalem: *Break up anew your fallow ground, and sow not upon thorns: Osee 10:12. | Thorns. Your misconduct hinders your advancement. (Calmet) |
| Jeremiah 4:4 | Be circumcised to the Lord, and take away the foreskins of your hearts, ye men of Juda, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem: lest my indignation come forth like fire, and burn, and there be none that can quench it: because of the wickedness of your thoughts. | Hearts. Understand, and act with purity. (Haydock) |
| Jeremiah 4:5 | Declare ye in Juda, and make it heard in Jerusalem: speak, and sound with the trumpet in the land: cry aloud, and say: Assemble yourselves, and let us go into strong cities. | Cities. Nabuchodonosor is at hand. |
| Jeremiah 4:6 | Set up the standard in Sion. Strengthen yourselves, stay not, *for I bring evil from the north, and great destruction. Jeremias 1:14. | |
| Jeremiah 4:7 | The lion is come up out of his den, and the robber of nations hath roused himself: he is come forth out of his place, to make thy land desolate: thy cities shall be laid waste, remaining without an inhabitant. | Robber. Nabuchodonosor attacks unjustly, (Calmet) though he be God's scourge. |
| Jeremiah 4:8 | For this, gird yourselves with hair-cloth, lament and howl: for the fierce anger of the Lord is not turned away from us. | |
| Jeremiah 4:9 | And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord: That the heart of the king shall perish, and the heart of the princes: and the priests shall be astonished, and the prophets shall be amazed | Heart; counsel and vigour. --- Prophets of falsehood. |
| Jeremiah 4:10 | And I said: Alas, alas, alas, O Lord God, hast thou then deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying: You shall have peace: and behold the sword reacheth even to the soul? | Alas! Protestants, "Then I said: Ah! Lord God, surely thou hast deceived," etc., (Haydock) by permitting the people to follow false prophets, Isaias 61:17., and Psalm 43:19. |
| Jeremiah 4:11 | At that time it shall be said to this people, and to Jerusalem: A burning wind is in the ways that are in the desert of the way of the daughter of my people, not to fan, nor to cleanse. | Desert of Arabia. It may designate Nechao, (2 Paralipomenon 35:20.) who slew Josias, after whose death all fell to ruin. |
| Jeremiah 4:12 | A full wind from these places shall come to me: and now I will speak my judgments with them. | |
| Jeremiah 4:13 | Behold, he shall come up as clouds, and his chariots as a tempest: his horses are swifter than eagles: woe unto us, for we are laid waste. | |
| Jeremiah 4:14 | Wash thy heart from wickedness, O Jerusalem, that thou mayst be saved: how long shall hurtful thoughts abide in thee? | |
| Jeremiah 4:15 | For a voice of one declaring from Dan, and giving notice of the idol from Mount Ephraim. | Ephraim. At Bethel and Dan the calves were adored. (Calmet) --- But they were now no more. (Haydock) --- The irruption of Nabuchodonosor is announced. He set himself up for a god. |
| Jeremiah 4:16 | Say ye to the nations: Behold, it is heard in Jerusalem, that guards are coming from a far country, and give out their voice against the cities of Juda. | Guards. The Chaldeans will besiege the city, and prevent provisions from entering, 4 Kings 25:1. (Calmet) |
| Jeremiah 4:17 | They are set round about her, as keepers of fields: because she hath provoked me to wrath, saith the Lord. | |
| Jeremiah 4:18 | *Thy ways and thy devices have brought these things upon thee: this is thy wickedness, because it is bitter, because it hath touched thy heart. Wisdom 1:3.; Wisdom 1:5. | |
| Jeremiah 4:19 | My bowels, my bowels are in pain, the senses of my heart are troubled within me, I will not hold my peace, for my soul hath heard the sound of the trumpet, the cry of battle. | My. God, (St. Jerome) the people, (Grotius) or rather Jeremias speaks. |
| Jeremiah 4:20 | Destruction upon destruction is called for, and all the earth is laid waste: my tents are destroyed on a sudden, and my pavilions in a moment. | Moment. The cities are destroyed as easily as a tent. |
| Jeremiah 4:21 | How long shall I see men fleeing away, how long shall I hear the sound of the trumpet? | |
| Jeremiah 4:22 | For my foolish people have not known me: they are foolish and senseless children: they are wise to do evils, but to do good they have no knowledge. | Me, practically. They have not honoured me as they ought. (Calmet) --- If they were indeed devoid of sense, they would be excused. (Worthington) |
| Jeremiah 4:23 | I beheld the earth, and lo it was void, and nothing: and the heavens, and there was no light in them. | Void. Hebrew, "Thohu and bohu," like chaos, Genesis 1:2. (Haydock) |
| Jeremiah 4:24 | I looked upon the mountains, and behold they trembled: and all the hills were troubled. | |
| Jeremiah 4:25 | I beheld, and lo there was no man: and all the birds of the air were gone. | Gone. Beasts feel the wrath of God, and in a land uninhabited; not even birds will remain, Osee 4:3. (St. Jerome) |
| Jeremiah 4:26 | I looked, and behold Carmel was a wilderness: and all its cities were destroyed at the presence of the Lord, and at the presence of the wrath of his indignation. | Carmel: the beautiful country of Palestine, (Haydock) Jerusalem, (Theodoret) or the mountain so called. |
| Jeremiah 4:27 | For thus saith the Lord: All the land shall be desolate, but yet I will not utterly destroy. | Destroy, when Jechonias was led captive. God allowed the people still eleven years to repent; and he afterwards restored the Jews. (Calmet) --- He will never suffer his church to perish. (Worthington) |
| Jeremiah 4:28 | The earth shall mourn, and the heavens shall lament from above: because I have spoken, I have purposed, and I have not repented, neither am I turned away from it. | Repented. Only a finite being can do this. God's resolution is here unconditional and fixed. |
| Jeremiah 4:29 | At the voice of the horsemen, and the archer, all the city is fled away: they have entered into thickets, and have climbed up the rocks: all the cities are forsaken, and there dwelleth not a man in them. | |
| Jeremiah 4:30 | But when thou art spoiled, what wilt thou do? though thou clothest thyself with scarlet, though thou deckest thee with ornaments of gold, and paintest thy eyes with stibic-stone, thou shalt dress thyself out in vain: thy lovers have despised thee, they will seek thy life. | Stone, or antimony, like Jezabel, (4 Kings 9:30.) to darken and enlarge the eye-lids. --- Lovers. Infidel nations of Egypt, etc. |
| Jeremiah 4:31 | For I have heard the voice as of a woman in travail; anguishes, as of a woman in labour of a child. The voice of the daughter of Sion, dying away, spreading her hands: Woe is me, for my soul hath fainted because of them that are slain. | Child. Hebrew and Septuagint, "a first-born," when the pains are most acute. (Calmet) |