17 Thus said Jehovah of Hosts: Consider ye, and call for mourning women, And they come, And to the wise women send, and they come, 18 And they hasten, and lift up for us a wailing. And run down our eyes do tears, And from our eyelids do waters flow. 19 For—a voice of wailing is heard from Zion: How have we been spoiled! We have been greatly ashamed, Because we have forsaken the land, Because they have cast down our tabernacles. 20 But hear, ye women, a word of Jehovah, And your ear receiveth a word of His mouth, And teach ye your daughters wailing, and each her neighbour lamentation.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Jeremiah 9:17-20
Commentary on Jeremiah 9:12-22
(Read Jeremiah 9:12-22)
In Zion the voice of joy and praise used to be heard, while the people kept close to God; but sin has altered the sound, it is now the voice of lamentation. Unhumbled hearts lament their calamity, but not their sin, which is the cause of it. Let the doors be shut ever so fast, death steals upon us. It enters the palaces of princes and great men, though stately, strongly built, and guarded. Nor are those more safe that are abroad; death cuts off even the children from without, and the young men from the streets. Hearken to the word of the Lord, and mourn with godly sorrow. This alone can bring true comfort; and it can turn the heaviest afflictions into precious mercies.