Jeremiah 18:16

Jer 18:16 To make their land desolate, [and] a perpetual hissing; every one that passeth thereby shall be astonished, and wag his head.

Ver. 16. To make their land desolate.] Not intentionally so; but yet eventually. Idolatry is a land desolating sin.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

18:16-17 The Lord pronounced sentence on Judah and Jerusalem. • their land will become desolate . . . I will scatter my people: In 605–586 BC, Judah and Jerusalem were progressively emptied of residents. • as the east wind scatters dust: During the summer, a strong hot wind from the east can blow sand and dust from the desert into Judah. • I will turn my back on them: The people would no longer experience a covenant relationship with the Lord.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

hissing-- (Kg1 9:8). In sign of contempt. That which was to be only the event is ascribed to the purpose of the people, although altogether different from what they would have been likely to hope for. Their purpose is represented as being the destruction of their country, because it was the inevitable result of their course of acting.

wag . . . head--in mockery (Kg2 19:21; Mat 27:39). As "wag . . . head" answers to "hissing," so "astonished" answers to "desolate," for which, therefore, MUNSTER and others rather translate, "an object of wonder" (Jer 19:8).

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 16. A perpetual hissing] שריקות sherikoth, a shrieking, hissing; an expression of contempt.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

The Prophet again denounces the punishment which they deserved, that desolation awaited the land. It would be, he says, their reward to have the land reduced to a solitude, and also to perpetual hissings. The word עולם oulam, which the Prophet had just used, is here also used, but in a different sense, for when he said, the paths of ages, he referred to past time, but now to a future time. As then the Jews had alienated themselves from the ways of ages, that is, from the eternal verity of God, so now he says, that their land would be for the hissings of ages, for the dreadful calamity now at hand would not be for a few years but to the end of the world.

And in the second clause he expresses more clearly what he meant by eternal hissings, that every one passing through it would be astonished and move or shake his head, as one does either in amazement, or in contempt, or in abhorrence; this kind of speaking often occurs in the Prophets. The land of Canaan, after having been given to the Jews, became as it were an extraordinary country, in which all kinds of opulence appeared, for God poured upon it the invaluable treasures of his bounty, so that the very sight of it filled all with admiration; on the other hand, it became the scene of horror and an object of hissing when God cursed it. A confirmation then follows —

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(16) Desolate . . . astonished.—Better, desolate in both clauses. The Hebrew verb is the same, and there is a manifest emphasis in the repetition which it is better to reproduce in English.

A perpetual hissing.—The Hebrew word is onomatopoetic, and expresses the inarticulate sounds which we utter on seeing anything that makes us shudder, rather than “hissing in its modern use as an expression of contempt or disapproval.

Wag his head.—Better, shake his head. The verb is not the same as that which describes the gesture of scorn in Psa_22:7; Psa_109:25; Lam_2:15; Zep_2:15, and describes pity or bemoaning rather than contempt. Men would not mock the desolation of Israel, but would gaze on it astounded and pitying, themselves also desolate.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Then said they, come, and let us devise devices against Jeremiah,.... Being enraged at the judgments threatened them, they propose to enter into a confederacy and consultation together, to think of ways and means to stop the mouth of the prophet, and even to take away his life; since he had told them that God had devised a device against them, they were for devising devices against him; that so they might walk after their own devices, without being teased and tormented with this prophet:

for the law shall not perish from the priest; whose business it is to teach it; we have other priests besides Jeremiah, and we shall seek the law at their mouths, and not at his; and perhaps these are the words of the priests themselves, the men of Anathoth; so Jarchi thinks; pleasing themselves with their character and office, and the perpetuity of it; that, notwithstanding what Jeremiah had said, there would be a constant succession of this order of then; nor should the law ever cease from being aught by them, to whose instruction men ought to listen, and not to such a prophet:

nor counsel from the wise; we have wise rulers and governors, counsellors of state, and members of the sanhedrim, and judges of all controversies, and who are capable of giving advice upon any occasion; nor shall we ever want such, to whose prudent counsel we do well to attend, and not to what this babbling man says; does he think to know better than our statesmen and sages, our counsellors in church and state?

nor the word from the prophet; we have prophets among us, that prophesy as well as he, and better things; and whose words of prophecy shall be fulfilled, when his will not; who assure us that we shall have peace and prosperity; and therefore let us not regard what this man says, or be intimidated by his threatenings:

come, and let us smite him with the tongue; by saying all the evil we can of him: by threatening him with pains and penalties; by loading him with reproaches and calumnies; by taking away his good name, and lessening his character and reputation among the people; and so the Targum,

"let us bear false witness against him;''

or, "let us smite him in the tongue" (c); cut it out, as Abarbinel; or stop his mouth, and hinder him from speaking any more in this manner to the people; or, "let us smite him for the tongue" (d); because of the words he says, or the prophecies he delivers out:

and let us not give heed to any of his words; or, "to all his words" (e); all which they reckoned his own, and not the words of the Lord. The Septuagint version is, "and we shall hear all his words"; we shall provoke him to say all he has to say, and shall hear and have enough out of his mouth to condemn him; and in all this, and in many other things that follow, Jeremiah was a type of Christ, to whom Jerom applies the whole passage.

(c) "in lingua", Montanus, Castalio. (d) Propter "linguam istam", Junius & Tremellius. (e) "ad omnia verba ejus", Gataker; "ad universa verba ejus", Pagninus, Montanus.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Hissing - Not derision, but the drawing in of the breath quickly as men do when they shudder.

Way his head - Or, “shake his head,” a sign among the Jews not of scorn but of pity. The desolation of the land of Israel is to fill people with dismay.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Head, through contempt (Calmet) and pity, Lamentations ii. 15.

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Not that this was finis operantis, their end which they aimed at, none wisheth ill or doth any thing designedly to bring evil upon himself; but it was finis operis the end these courses would certainly issue in, they would bring the land of Judah to desolations, and to be a reproach; so as strangers that were wont to admire at the prosperity of this people above any other people should stand astonished, and wag their heads at them in scorn and derision.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

16. Wag his head — Rather, shake his head, a sign, not of contempt, but pity.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The effect of this is to make the land of the transgressors an object of horror and astonishment (so render rather than desolate).

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Desolate - Not that this was the end they aimed at, but it was the end these courses would certainly issue in.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

hissing One who passes by ruins that he already saw with good buildings is accustomed to whistle.

will be astonished will wonder.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.