Matthew Henry

I will make them a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth because of what Manasseh son of Hezekiah king of Judah did in Jerusalem.

“The greatest part of a generation was worn off since Manasseh's time, yet his sin is brought into the account; as in Jerusalem's last ruin God brought upon it all the righteous blood shed on the earth, to show how heavy the guilt of blood…”

I will make their widows more numerous than the sand of the sea. I will bring a destroyer at noon against the mothers of young men.

“A dreadful slaughter is here described. First, The wives are deprived of their husbands: Their widows are increased above the sand of the seas, so numerous have they now grown.”

Woe to me, my mother, that you have borne me, a man of strife and conflict in all the land. I have neither lent nor borrowed, yet everyone curses me.

“He was a peaceable man, gave no provocation to any, nor was apt to resent the provocations given him, and yet a man of strife, not a man striving, but a man striven with; he was for peace, but, when he spoke, they were for…”

The LORD said: “Surely I will deliver you for a good purpose; surely I will intercede with your enemy in your time of trouble, in your time of distress.

“It is in the original expressed in the form of an oath: " If I take not care of thee, let me never be counted faithful; verily it shall go well with thy remnant, with the remainder of thy life" (for so the word signifies)…”

Can anyone smash iron—iron from the north—or bronze?

“They were continually clashing with him, and were rough and hard as iron; but Jeremiah, being armed with power and courage from on high, is as northern iron, which is naturally stronger, and as steel, which is hardened by art; and therefore they shall not…”

Your wealth and your treasures I will give up as plunder, without charge for all your sins within all your borders.

“And it is their own iniquity that herein corrects them: It is for all thy sins, even in all thy borders.”

I will deliver you from the hand of the wicked and redeem you from the grasp of the ruthless.”

“God will so deliver them as to preserve them to his heavenly kingdom ( 2 Tim. iv. 18 ), and that is deliverance enough. There are many things that appear very frightful that yet do not prove at all hurtful to a good man.”

For this is what the LORD says concerning the sons and daughters born in this place, and the mothers who bore them, and the fathers who fathered them in this…

“As for those that have wives and children, 1. They will have such a clog upon them that they cannot flee from those deaths.”

“Both great and small will die in this land. They will not be buried or mourned, nor will anyone cut himself or shave his head for them.

“He had little reason to lament those who died now just before the judgments entered which he saw at the door, but rather to think those happy who were seasonable taken away from the evil to come.”

You must not enter a house where there is feasting and sit down with them to eat and drink.

“God called aloud to weeping, and mourning, and fasting; he was coming forth against them in his judgments; and it was time for them to humble themselves; and it well became the prophet who gave them the warning to give them an example of taking…”

For this is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: I am going to remove from this place, before your very eyes and in your days, the…

“The voice of God's prophets was not heard, was not heeded, among them, and therefore no longer shall the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride, of the songs that used to grace the nuptials, be heard among them. Causes of Divine Judgments.”

When you tell these people all these things, they will ask you, ‘Why has the LORD pronounced all this great disaster against us? What is our guilt?

“Note, It is amazing to see how hardly sinners are brought to justify God and judge themselves when they are in trouble, and to own the iniquity and the sin that have procured them the trouble.”

So I will cast you out of this land into a land that neither you nor your fathers have known.

“There is a mixture of mercy and judgment in these verses, and it is hard to know to which to apply some of the passages here--they are so interwoven, and some seem to look as far forward as the times of the gospel.”

Yet behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when they will no longer say, ‘As surely as the LORD lives, who brought the Israelites up out of the land…

“They are cast out, but they are not cast off, they are not cast away. They shall be brought up from the land of the north, the land of their captivity, where they are held with a strong hand, and from all the lands whither…”

Instead they will say, ‘As surely as the LORD lives, who brought the Israelites up out of the land of the north and all the other lands to which He…

“In this there was more of pardoning mercy (the most glorious branch of divine mercy) than in that; for their captivity in Babylon had more in it of the punishment of sin than their bondage in Egypt; and therefore that which comforts Zion in her…”

“Therefore behold, I will inform them, and this time I will make them know My power and My might; then they will know that My name is the LORD.

“Note, So stupid are we that nothing less than the mighty hand of divine grace, known experimentally, can make us know rightly the name of God as it is revealed to us.”

“The sin of Judah is written with an iron stylus, engraved with a diamond point on the tablets of their hearts and on the horns of their altars.

“Their sin is deeply engraven as with a pen of iron in the tables of their hearts. They have a rooted affection to it; it is woven into their very nature; their sin is dear to them, as that is dear to us of which…”

Even their children remember their altars and Asherah poles by the green trees and on the high hills.

“It appears that they were full of them, and acquainted with them betimes, they talked of them so frequently, so familiarly, and with so much delight. They cannot plead that they repent, or are brought to a better mind.”

And you yourself will relinquish the inheritance that I gave you.

“Observe, (1.) Sin works a discontinuance of our comforts and deprives us of the enjoyment of that which God has given us. Yet, (2.)”

This is what the LORD says: “Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind, who makes the flesh his strength and turns his heart from the LORD.

“Nay, he is false and sinful, and has lost his integrity; so his being flesh signifies, Gen. vi. The great malignity there is in this sin; it is the departure of the evil heart of unbelief from the living God.”

But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in Him.

“Those who trust in God, and by faith derive strength and grace from him, shall not cease from yielding fruit; they shall still be enabled to do that which will redound to the glory of God, the benefit of others, and their own account.”

The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?

“It is folly to trust in man, for he is not only frail, but false and deceitful. We are apt to think that we trust in God, and are entitled to the blessings here promised to those who do so.”

O LORD, the hope of Israel, all who abandon You will be put to shame.

“Note, God is to all that are his a fountain of living waters. There is a fulness of comfort in him, an over-flowing ever-flowing fulness, like that of a fountain; it is always fresh, and clear, and clean, like spring water, while the pleasures of…”

Heal me, O LORD, and I will be healed; save me, and I will be saved, for You are my praise.

“"Lord, save me from them, and let me not fall into their wicked hands. Heal me, that is, sanctify me by thy grace; save me, that is, bring me to thy glory."”

But I have not run away from being Your shepherd; I have not desired the day of despair.

“Note, Those that are employed for God, though their success answer nor their expectations, must not therefore throw up their commission. but continue to follow God, though the storm be in their faces. He kept up his affection to the people.”