1883 Haydock Douay Rheims Bible

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Jeremiah 9:1 Who will give water to my head, and a fountain of tears to my eyes? and I will weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people.

To. Hebrew is more expressive. (Calmet) --- "Who will give my head waters, (Haydock) or change it into water, and my eyes into a fountain." (Calmet) --- Protestants, "Oh that my head were waters." (Haydock) --- The miseries of my people are so great, (Calmet) a few tears would not suffice to bewail them. (Worthington)
Jeremiah 9:2 Who will give me in the wilderness a lodging-place of wayfaring men, and I will leave my people, and depart from them? because they are all adulterers, an assembly of transgressors.

Men. Why cannot I retire (Menochius) from this scene of misery, or afford some consolation to the captives? Septuagint, "Who will give me the last station in the desert?" (Haydock)
Jeremiah 9:3 And they have bent their tongue, as a bow, for lies, and not for truth: they have strengthened themselves upon the earth, for they have proceeded from evil to evil, and me they have not known, saith the Lord.

Lies. They are bent on deceit (Calmet) and murder, (Haydock) ver. 8., and Psalm 63:4., and 119:2.
Jeremiah 9:4 Let every man take heed of his neighbour, and let him not trust in any brother of his: for every brother will utterly supplant, and every friend will walk deceitfully.

Deceitfully. A man must guard against his relations and domestics, Micheas 7:5., and Matthew 8:35. (Calmet)
Jeremiah 9:5 And a man shall mock his brother, and they will not speak the truth: for they have taught their tongue to speak lies: they have laboured to commit iniquity.

Iniquity. It is become natural to them. (St. Jerome) --- They cannot lay the blame on the violence of passion. They sin on purpose. (Calmet) --- Septuagint, "they have not left off, (6.) in order to be converted. Usury upon usury; fraud upon fraud; they," etc. (Haydock)
Jeremiah 9:6 Thy habitation is in the midst of deceit: through deceit they have refused to know me, saith the Lord.
Jeremiah 9:7 Therefore, thus saith the Lord of hosts: Behold I will melt, and try them: for what else shall I do before the daughter of my people?

Try them in the crucible of war, Jeremias 6:27. (Calmet)
Jeremiah 9:8 *Their tongue is a piercing arrow, it hath spoken deceit: with his mouth one speaketh peace with his friend, and secretly he lieth in wait for him.

Psalm 27:3.
Jeremiah 9:9 Shall I not visit them for these things, saith the Lord? or shall not my soul be revenged on such a nation?
Jeremiah 9:10 For the mountains I will take up weeping and lamentation, and for the beautiful places of the desert, mourning: because they are burnt up, for that there is not a man that passeth through them: and they have not heard the voice of the owner: from the fowl of the air to the beasts, they are gone away and departed.

Owner. Hebrew mikne, "cattle," or (Haydock) "substance." (St. Jerome) --- Departed. Beasts and birds will not continue long after men cease to cultivate the country. (Theodoret) (Chap. 4:25., and 12:4., and Sophonias 1:3.)
Jeremiah 9:11 And I will make Jerusalem to be heaps of sand, and dens of dragons: and I will make the cities of Juda desolate, for want of an inhabitant.

Sand. The stones were burnt to dust, 2 Esdras 4:2. (Calmet)
Jeremiah 9:12 Who is the wise man, that may understand this, and to whom the word of the mouth of the Lord may come, that he may declare this, why the land hath perished, and is burnt up like a wilderness, which none passeth through?
Jeremiah 9:13 And the Lord said: Because they have forsaken my law, which I gave them, and have not heard my voice, and have not walked in it.
Jeremiah 9:14 But they have gone after the perverseness of their own heart, and after Baalim, which their fathers taught them.
Jeremiah 9:15 Therefore, thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: *Behold I will feed this people with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink.

Jeremias 23:15. 		Gall. Hebrew rosh, "poison," etc., Deuteronomy 29:18. (Haydock)
Jeremiah 9:16 And I will scatter them among the nations, which they and their fathers have not known: and I will send the sword after them, till they be consumed.

Consumed. Jeremias 44:27. No country shall afford them protection. (Calmet) --- The richer sort were made captives, and most of the people destroyed, but not all, Jeremias 4:27. (Worthington)
Jeremiah 9:17 Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Consider ye, and call for the mourning women, and let them come: and send to them that are wise women, and let them make haste:

Wise, in composing or singing the Naenia, or mournful songs, recording the praises of the deceased. (Calmet) --- "This custom still subsists in Judea: women go about with dishevelled hair and naked breasts, with mournful tunes, exciting all to tears." (St. Jerome) --- Music was also used, Matthew 9:23. Thus feigned tears, at least, would supply the want of real ones.
Jeremiah 9:18 Let them hasten, and take up a lamentation for us: let our eyes shed tears, and our eyelids run down with waters.
Jeremiah 9:19 For a voice of wailing is heard out of Sion: How are we wasted and greatly confounded? because we have left the land, because our dwellings are cast down.
Jeremiah 9:20 Hear therefore, ye women, the word of the Lord: and let your ears receive the word of his mouth: and teach your daughters wailing: and every one her neighbour mourning.
Jeremiah 9:21 For death is come up through our windows, it is entered into our houses, to destroy the children from without, the young men from the streets.

For. This was the song. (Calmet) --- Streets. Death spares none. The least suspecting fall. (Haydock) --- It enters by the windows, if the doors be shut, Joel 2:8.
Jeremiah 9:22 Speak: Thus saith the Lord: Even the carcass of man shall fall as dung upon the face of the country, and as grass behind the back of the mower, and there is none to gather it.

Speak. Our editions of the Septuagint omit this word, though St. Jerome found it in his copies, (Calmet) and in Theodotion, expressed by "death;" while others rendered it, "speak," as the same letters dbr, may have both meanings, according as people may please to pronounce them. (St. Jerome) --- Grabe supplies, "by death. (22.) These things, says the Lord." (Haydock)
Jeremiah 9:23 Thus saith the Lord: *Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, and let not the strong man glory in his strength, and let not the rich man glory in his riches:

1 Corinthians 1:31.; 2 Corinthians 10:17.
Jeremiah 9:24 But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, for I am the Lord that exercise mercy, and judgment, and justice in the earth: for these things please me, saith the Lord.

Me. Virtue will save, when riches, etc., will prove useless. (Menochius) --- Phocilides, a pagan, said, (Calmet) "Boast not of wisdom, strength, or riches great. One God is wise, and potent too, and rich." (Haydock)
Jeremiah 9:25 Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, and I will visit upon every one that hath the foreskin circumcised.
Jeremiah 9:26 Upon Egypt, and upon Juda, and upon Edom, and upon the children of Ammon, and upon Moab, and upon all that have their hair polled round, that dwell in the desert: for all the nations are uncircumcised in the flesh, but all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in the heart.

Egypt. the uncircumcised shall be punished as well as Juda, if they transgress. Only the Jewish nation properly observed the right of circumcision generally, or at first. Others imitated them, but with various ceremonies. (Calmet, Diss.) (Ezechiel 31:18., and Judith 14:6.) --- Hyrcan obliged the Idumeans to receive circumcision. (Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 13:17.) --- Round. The Arabs, etc., Leviticus 19:27. (Calmet) --- Heart. All then became guilty, Romans 2:25. (Menochius) --- Neither these nations nor Juda was circumcised in heart, and of course were hypocrites. (Worthington)