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Jeremiah 9

ירמיהו פרק ט׳

Section: נביאים · נביאים אחרונים | Book: Jeremiah | Chapter: 9 of 52 | Day: 222 of 742

Date: September 21, 2026

קלאוד על הנ״ך

Chapter 9 opens with the loneliest sentence in Sefer Yirmiyahu. Mi yitneni bamidbar melon orchim, who would give me in the wilderness a wayfarers’ lodging place, ve’e’ezvah et ami ve’elchah me’itam - that I might abandon my people and go from them. Radak captures the pathos exactly: the prophet longs to dwell in one of those rough shelters where travelers stop for a night, precisely because there he would never have to look at Yisrael again, ki lo yuchal lir’ot ra’atam - because he cannot bear to see their evil. This is not misanthropy but exhaustion. Yirmiyahu is the prophet who elsewhere pleads for his people even after being forbidden to pray for them, and here he asks for the one thing a navi can never have, which is distance. The reason follows immediately: ki chulam mena’afim, atzeret bogdim - they are all adulterers, an assembly of traitors. Radak reads atzeret as a gathering convened for a purpose, a congregation that assembles specifically in order to speak treachery and falsehood, siat shakrin in the Targum’s phrase, and he records his father’s alternative that bogdim here carries the sense of yoresh etzer, ruling authority - the traitors are the ones in charge. Either way the word atzeret is devastating, because it is the word Torah uses for a sacred assembly. The people still gather. They have simply changed what they gather for. What follows is the most sustained treatment of the sins of speech anywhere in Nevi’im, and its governing metaphor is military. Vayadrechu et leshonam kashtam sheker - they have bent their tongue, their bow, for falsehood. Rashi explains the verb with unusual technical precision: darichah is the word for preparing a bow to shoot, because the crossbow of his day was cocked by stepping on it with the foot, and so the prophet compares the tongue to a bow bent in treachery. Metzudat David draws out the consequence that makes the metaphor so apt: a bow kills at a distance, mimerchak, and so does lashon hara. The slanderer never has to see the man he destroys. Verse 7 completes the image with hetz shachut leshonam, a tongue that is a drawn or slaughtering arrow - Radak preserves both the ketiv shochet, one who kills, and the keri shachut, drawn taut, and notes the derivation Chazal used in Chullin to establish that shechitah means a drawing motion. And then the verse names the specific crime: befiv shalom et re’ehu yedaber uvekirbo yasim orbo - with his mouth he speaks peace to his fellow, and in his heart he lays his ambush. What Yirmiyahu diagnoses is not rudeness or crudeness. It is the weaponization of civility itself. Verse 2 makes explicit that this is not incidental: velo le’emunah gavru va’aretz, they have grown strong in the land but not for faithfulness, ki mera’ah el ra’ah yatza’u, they go out from evil to evil - which Radak reads in two directions at once, either from one sin to the next or from one punishment to the next, and in either case ve’oti lo yada’u, they never once stopped to know Me.

The social consequence is stated in verse 3 with a bitterness that borders on despair: ish mere’ehu hishameru ve’al kol ach al tivtachu - let every man beware of his friend, and trust no brother at all. Ki chol ach akov ya’akov. The pun is unmissable and it is meant to be. Radak notes that the root here carries the sense of tarmit ve’armah, deceit and cunning, citing vaya’kveni zeh pa’amayim, Esav’s cry that Yaakov had supplanted him twice; Rashi glosses it as arov ya’arov, he lies in ambush. The prophet has taken the name of the third patriarch, the father of the nation, and turned it into the verb for what brothers now do to one another. A society in which every ach is a ya’akov in this sense has lost the thing that makes it a nation and not merely a population. Verse 4 pushes further into the strange psychology of habitual lying: limdu leshonam daber sheker, they have trained their tongue to speak falsely, ha’avei nil’u - Rashi renders it as men who have wearied and labored themselves at the work of perverting their way. There is effort here, real exertion, spent entirely on distortion. And verse 5 names the terrible equilibrium that results: shivtecha betoch mirmah, your dwelling is in the midst of deceit, bemirmah me’anu da’at oti. Metzudat David puts it plainly - deceit surrounds them on every side until separation from it seems impossible, and they refuse to know Hashem because mirmah is simply more comfortable. Rashi’s reading is sharper still: bemirmah hechlifu yirati, they traded away the fear of Me for deceit. It was an exchange, and they made it knowingly. Against this Hashem answers not with immediate destruction but with hin’ni tzorfam uvechantim, behold I refine them and test them, ki eich e’eseh mipnei bat ami - for what else can I do because of the daughter of My people. Metzudat David unfolds the double bind with great tenderness: if I leave them sunk in sin they are still My people and deserve to be a holy nation, and if I destroy them utterly they are still My people and My mercy is upon them - therefore I will refine them in suffering to burn off the dross of iniquity, so that what survives comes out clean. The furnace is an act of love, which is the hardest thing the chapter asks the reader to believe.

Then the poetry turns from indictment to lament, and the landscape empties out. Al heharim esa vechi vanehi, over the mountains I will lift up weeping and wailing, and over the ne’ot midbar, the shepherds’ pastures, a kinah - for they are scorched, mibli ish over, with no man passing through, and no sound of cattle heard; from the birds of heaven to the beasts, nadedu halachu, they have fled and gone. Radak’s picture is precise and unbearable: not merely that the shepherds’ tents are gone, but that no man even passes by to graze a flock, and that birds have deserted because birds live where men live, where there is seed and fruit and blossom, so their absence is the surest sign that the human world has ended. Rashi and Radak both preserve the tradition of Rabbi Yehudah that for fifty-two years no man passed through Yehudah, from the exile of Tzidkiyahu until the decree of Koresh, with the hint encoded in the gematria of behemah. Yerushalayim becomes galim, heaps of stone, me’on tanim, a lair for jackals, and the cities of Yehudah a desolation without inhabitant. And at exactly this point the chapter stops describing and asks its central question, the question that gives the whole prophecy its architecture: mi ha’ish hechacham veyaven et zot, va’asher diber pi Hashem elav veyagidah - who is the wise man that can understand this, and to whom has the mouth of Hashem spoken that he may tell it, al mah avdah ha’aretz. Metzudat David hears the implied answer in the question itself: ein mi bahem yagid zot, there is no one among them who will say it. The catastrophe is fully visible and no one can read it. So Hashem Himself supplies the answer, and the answer is not idolatry, not injustice, not even the tongue - it is al ozvam et Torati asher natati lifneihem, because they abandoned My Torah which I set before them. Metzudat David draws the whole causal chain: they did not occupy themselves with Torah, and therefore they did not hear My voice in anything else, and therefore they did not walk in its ways, because had they learned it, hama’or shebah machzir otam lemutav, its light would have turned them back to the good - and precisely because they did not, they arrived at all these transgressions and the land perished for their sin. Radak’s comment on lifneihem is a single quiet phrase that lands like a verdict: lo bashamayim hi velo me’ever layam hi. It was never far off. It was set right in front of them.

The lament that follows is one of the most theatrically staged passages in Tanakh. Kir’u lamekonenot utevo’enah ve’el hachachamot shilchu - call for the professional mourning women and let them come, send for the skilled women. Radak explains that the chachamot are those expert in the words of hesped and kinah, and Metzudat David describes their craft as the ability to arrange words of grief swiftly enough to break the hearts of those who hear. The grotesque and brilliant thing about the summons is its tense: the mourning women are called before the dead have fallen. Grief is being rehearsed. And then, in verse 19, the rehearsal becomes a curriculum - velamednah bnoteichem nehi ve’ishah re’utah kinah, teach your daughters wailing and each woman her neighbor a lamentation. Lament is to be transmitted the way Torah is transmitted, mother to daughter, woman to woman, because there will be more than one generation that needs it. Verse 20 supplies the reason with an image that has never lost its horror: ki alah mavet bechalonenu, death has climbed up through our windows and entered our palaces, to cut off the infant from the street and the young men from the squares. Radak explains the mechanics of the metaphor - a palace has its gates barred, and its windows are left open precisely because they are too high to be entered - and reads it as the shock of a catastrophe that arrives by the one route no one thought to guard, even though the true prophets had been announcing it the whole time. Metzudat David adds the detail that finishes the picture: the streets were where the children played, and now no one plays there. Verse 21 leaves the bodies where they fell, kedomen al pnei hasadeh uche’amir me’acharei hakotzer ve’ein me’asef, like dung on the field and like a forgotten sheaf behind the reaper with none to gather - and Metzudat David explains the ein me’asef with terrible ordinariness: no one brings them to burial, because the survivors are too frightened to come out of hiding.

And out of that field of unburied bodies the chapter delivers its closing word, which is also the most quoted passage in Sefer Yirmiyahu: al yithalel chacham bechochmato ve’al yithalel hagibor bigvurato al yithalel ashir be’oshro, ki im bezot yithalel hamit’halel haskel veyado’a oti. The placement is everything. Wisdom, strength and wealth are named because, as Radak observes with great worldliness, these are exactly the three things that ordinarily do save a man - the clever man escapes by his stratagems, the strong man by his arm, the rich man ransoms himself from the enemy with his money - and the prophet is telling a doomed city that this time none of the three will work. Rashi reads it as direct rebuke to a specific self-image: do not boast saying we are wise, when you have rejected My word - what wisdom is left to you? But the verse does not end in negation. Ki im bezot, but in this: haskel veyado’a oti, understanding and knowing Me. And critically, the verse then defines what knowing God actually consists of, and the definition is not mystical: ki ani Hashem oseh chesed mishpat utzdakah ba’aretz ki ve’eleh chafatzti. Radak draws the conclusion that has shaped Jewish thought ever since - that yediat Hashem means walking in His ways, doing chesed and mishpat and tzedakah, and he proves it from the verse about Yoshiyahu, dan din ani ve’evyon, halo hi hada’at oti - he judged the cause of the poor and the needy, is that not the knowledge of Me? Radak then quotes the Rambam at length, who reads these two verses in the Moreh as the culminating statement of the whole enterprise: neither wealth of possessions nor bodily health nor even the moral virtues are the perfection worth boasting of, but only the knowledge of God, and that knowledge is completed by imitating His middot - chesed as generosity beyond what is owed, tzedakah as giving each what is fitting, mishpat as judging rightly - and the word ba’aretz is there to teach that His providence extends to the earth as it does to the heavens. The chapter’s last word then closes the loop back to its first. Hinei yamim ba’im ufakadeti al kol mul be’orlah - I will punish every one circumcised in his foreskin, and the list runs Mitzrayim, Yehudah, Edom, Ammon, Moav and the desert-dwellers with their temples clipped, with Yehudah set jarringly second among the nations. Ki chol hagoyim arelim vechol beit Yisrael arlei lev. Radak spells out why the list is arranged this way: the nations were never commanded regarding milah at all, so their uncircumcision is not the charge - they are listed for Yisrael’s sake, to say that Yisrael has made itself indistinguishable from them. The sign cut into the flesh was given as a berit and an ot so that they would remember always that they are separate; once they mixed among the nations and learned their deeds, the sign in the body no longer signifies anything. This is where the tongue that was bent like a bow, the brother who supplants his brother, the Torah set before them and abandoned, and the wise man who does not understand all converge. What is uncircumcised in this chapter is not the body. It is the heart, and it is the heart that verses 22 and 23 finally ask to be opened.

פרק ט׳ · Chapter 9

פסוק א׳ · Verse 1

Hebrew:

מִֽי־יִתְּנֵ֣נִי בַמִּדְבָּ֗ר מְלוֹן֙ אֹֽרְחִ֔ים וְאֶֽעֶזְבָה֙ אֶת־עַמִּ֔י וְאֵלְכָ֖ה מֵאִתָּ֑ם כִּ֤י כֻלָּם֙ מְנָ֣אֲפִ֔ים עֲצֶ֖רֶת בֹּגְדִֽים׃

English:

Oh, to be in the desert, At an encampment for wayfarers! Oh, to leave my people, To go away from them— For they are all adulterers, A band of rogues.

The chapter opens with the prophet's cry of exhaustion: who would give me a wayfarers' lodging place in the wilderness, that I might abandon my people and go from them, for they are all adulterers, an assembly of traitors. Metzudat David pictures the melon orchim concretely as a roadside shelter where travelers stop for the night, and Radak explains why Yirmiyahu wants it - so that he will never again have to look at Yisrael, since he cannot bear to see their evil. Rashi and Metzudat David both read atzeret as a gathering or company of traitors, and Radak sharpens it further: they assemble together precisely in order to speak treachery and falsehood, though he also records his father's reading that bogdim here denotes those who hold ruling power.
▶Commentaries (1)
רש״יRashi
עצרת בוגדים. כנסיות בוגדים:
a company of traitors Companies of traitors.

פסוק ב׳ · Verse 2

Hebrew:

וַֽיַּדְרְכ֤וּ אֶת־לְשׁוֹנָם֙ קַשְׁתָּ֣ם שֶׁ֔קֶר וְלֹ֥א לֶאֱמוּנָ֖ה גָּבְר֣וּ בָאָ֑רֶץ כִּי֩ מֵרָעָ֨ה אֶל־רָעָ֧ה ׀ יָצָ֛אוּ וְאֹתִ֥י לֹא־יָדָ֖עוּ נְאֻם־יְהֹוָֽה׃

English:

They bend their tongues like bows; They are valorous in the land For treachery, not for honesty; They advance from evil to evil. And they do not heed Me —declares GOD.

The chapter's governing metaphor arrives: they have bent their tongue, their bow, for falsehood, and grown strong in the land but not for faithfulness. Rashi explains darichah with technical precision as the word for cocking a bow, which in his day was done by treading on it with the foot, and Metzudat David draws out why the image fits so exactly - a bow kills from a distance, mimerchak, and so does the slandering tongue. Radak offers two readings of going out from evil to evil: either from one sin to the next, so that their whole lives are occupied with evil deeds, or from one punishment to the next, blight one year and locusts another - and in neither case did they give their hearts a single hour to know Hashem.
▶Commentaries (1)
רש״יRashi
וידרכו. לשון זה נופל בהזמנת הקשת לירות חץ וקשת הי' ארבלישט"א בלעז וברגלים דורכין אותה לכך קורא אותה דריכה והנביא המשיל לשונם לקשת שקר שדרכו לשונם קשת בשקר: מרעה אל רעה. מעבירה אל עבירה:
They have directed Lit. trodden. This expression is appropriate for the preparation of the bow to shoot an arrow, and a bow (קשת) is (arbalete in French), and they tread it with their feet. Therefore, he calls it treading, and the prophet compared their tongue to a treacherous bow, for they directed their tongue like a treacherous bow. from evil to evil From sin to sin.

פסוק ג׳ · Verse 3

Hebrew:

אִ֤ישׁ מֵרֵעֵ֙הוּ֙ הִשָּׁמֵ֔רוּ וְעַל־כׇּל־אָ֖ח אַל־תִּבְטָ֑חוּ כִּ֤י כׇל־אָח֙ עָק֣וֹב יַעְקֹ֔ב וְכׇל־רֵ֖עַ רָכִ֥יל יַהֲלֹֽךְ׃

English:

Each of you, beware of your friend! Trust not even your kinsfolk! For every sibling takes advantage, Every friend deals basely.

The social fabric collapses: let each man beware his neighbor and trust no brother, for every brother utterly supplants and every friend goes about as a talebearer. The pun on Yaakov's name is deliberate and devastating - Radak explains akov ya'akov as tarmit ve'armah, deceit and cunning, citing Esav's cry vaya'kveni zeh pa'amayim, while Rashi glosses it as arov ya'arov, he lies in ambush. Metzudat David adds the practical counsel that follows: guard yourselves from one another so as not to reveal the secrets of your heart.
▶Commentaries (1)
רש״יRashi
עקוב יעקב. ארוב יארוב:
forges plans He lays traps.

פסוק ד׳ · Verse 4

Hebrew:

וְאִ֤ישׁ בְּרֵעֵ֙הוּ֙ יְהָתֵ֔לּוּ וֶאֱמֶ֖ת לֹ֣א יְדַבֵּ֑רוּ לִמְּד֧וּ לְשׁוֹנָ֛ם דַּבֶּר־שֶׁ֖קֶר הַעֲוֵ֥ה נִלְאֽוּ׃

English:

They cheat each other, They will not speak truth; They have trained their tongues to speak falsely; They wear themselves out working iniquity.

The corruption is now shown to require effort: each man mocks his fellow, none will speak truth, they have trained their tongue to speak falsehood and wearied themselves at iniquity. Rashi reads ha'avei nil'u as men who tired and toiled themselves in order to twist their way, and Metzudat David explains limdu leshonam as habituation - they have so accustomed the tongue to lying that falsehood has become its natural motion. The picture is of real exertion spent entirely on distortion.
▶Commentaries (1)
רש״יRashi
העוה נלאו. יגעו וטרחו לעוות את דרכם: העוה. כמו הכבד את לבו (שמות ח׳:י״א) להעוות:
they commit iniquity [until] they are weary They wearied themselves and toiled to pervert their way. העוה is like (Exod. 8:11) "and making heavy (והכבּד) his heart," to commit iniquity.

פסוק ה׳ · Verse 5

Hebrew:

שִׁבְתְּךָ֖ בְּת֣וֹךְ מִרְמָ֑ה בְּמִרְמָ֛ה מֵאֲנ֥וּ דַעַת־אוֹתִ֖י נְאֻם־יְהֹוָֽה׃ {ס}         

English:

You dwell in the midst of deceit. In their deceit, they refuse to heed Me —declares GOD.

Deceit is no longer an act but an environment: your dwelling is in the midst of deceit, and through deceit they refuse to know Me. Metzudat David explains that mirmah surrounds them on every side until separation from it seems impossible, and they refuse the knowledge of God simply because deceit is more comfortable to them; Rashi's reading is sharper - bemirmah hechlifu yirati, they traded the fear of Me away for deceit. Radak takes the verse as addressed to the prophet himself, asking what his dwelling among a people of deceit can possibly accomplish when he cannot turn them back.
▶Commentaries (1)
רש״יRashi
שבתך בתוך מרמה. כשהן יושבים חושבין מחשבות מרמה ובמרמה החליפו יראתי ומאנו דעת אותי: במרמה. בשביל המרמה:
Your habitation is in the midst of deceit When they sit, they devise plans of deceit, and with deceit they have exchanged fear of Me and refused to know Me. because of deceit Heb. בּמרמה.

פסוק ו׳ · Verse 6

Hebrew:

לָכֵ֗ן כֹּ֤ה אָמַר֙ יְהֹוָ֣ה צְבָא֔וֹת הִנְנִ֥י צוֹרְפָ֖ם וּבְחַנְתִּ֑ים כִּי־אֵ֣יךְ אֶֽעֱשֶׂ֔ה מִפְּנֵ֖י בַּת־עַמִּֽי׃

English:

Assuredly, thus said GOD of Hosts: Lo, I shall smelt and assay them— For what else can I do because of My poor people?

God's response is not annihilation but the furnace: behold I refine them and test them, for what else can I do because of the daughter of My people. Rashi identifies the refining as yissurin, suffering, and Metzudat David unfolds the double bind with real tenderness - if I leave them sunk in sin they are still My congregation and fit to be a holy people, and if I destroy them utterly they are still My congregation and My mercy is upon them, so I will refine them in suffering to burn off the dross of iniquity and leave them clean. Radak frames it as an experiment whose outcome is genuinely open: I will see through these troubles whether dross remains or whether they come out as choice silver.
▶Commentaries (1)
רש״יRashi
הנני צורפם. ביסורין: מפני בת עמי. מן קדם חובי כנישתא דישראל:
I will refine them with torments. because of the daughter of My people Because of the sins of the congregation of Israel.

פסוק ז׳ · Verse 7

Hebrew:

חֵ֥ץ (שוחט) [שָׁח֛וּט] לְשׁוֹנָ֖ם מִרְמָ֣ה דִבֵּ֑ר בְּפִ֗יו שָׁל֤וֹם אֶת־רֵעֵ֙הוּ֙ יְדַבֵּ֔ר וּבְקִרְבּ֖וֹ יָשִׂ֥ים אׇרְבּֽוֹ׃

English:

Their tongue is a sharpened arrow, They use their mouths to deceive. They speak to their fellows in friendship, But lay an ambush for them in their hearts.

The bow image is completed with an arrow: their tongue is a shachut arrow, and they speak deceit - with his mouth a man speaks peace to his fellow while in his heart he sets his ambush. Radak preserves both readings, the ketiv shochet, one who slaughters, and the keri shachut, drawn taut on the whetstone, and notes that Chazal derived from this very phrase in Chullin that shechitah denotes a drawing motion; Rashi likewise offers both drawn and cutting. What Metzudat David and Radak both stress is the specific crime named here - not crude hostility but the weaponizing of civility itself, friendship spoken aloud over an ambush laid within.
▶Commentaries (1)
רש״יRashi
חץ שחוט לשונם. משוך כמו זהב שחוט (מלכים א י׳:ט״ז) וכן ושחטה שטים (הושע ה׳:ב׳) טריי"ט בלעז לישנא אחרינא ל' שחיטה ממש טראנקא"ט בלעז וכן חברו מנחם וכן ת"י כגיר די מחריף: ובקרבו. ת"י ובמעוהי:
Their tongue is a deadly arrow Heb. שחוט, drawn. Comp. (I Kings 10:16) "malleable gold" (שחוט). Also, (Hos. 5:2) "And the extent of their turning away (ושחטה)," (tirer in French), pulling. Another explanation is that it is actually an expression of slaughter (tranchant in French, cutting). In this manner Menahem classified it (Machbereth Menahem p. 172), and in this manner Jonathan rendered it: כּגיר די מחרף, like a sharpened arrow. but in his heart lit. in his midst. Jonathan renders: in his innards.

פסוק ח׳ · Verse 8

Hebrew:

הַעַל־אֵ֥לֶּה לֹא־אֶפְקׇד־בָּ֖ם נְאֻם־יְהֹוָ֑ה אִ֚ם בְּג֣וֹי אֲשֶׁר־כָּזֶ֔ה לֹ֥א תִתְנַקֵּ֖ם נַפְשִֽׁי׃ {ס}         

English:

Shall I not punish them for such deeds? —says GOD— Shall I not bring retribution On such a nation as this?

The refrain that closed the parallel indictment in chapter 5 returns: shall I not punish them for these things, shall My soul not take vengeance on a nation such as this. Metzudat David reads it as a rhetorical impossibility - could it be that I would not attend to deeds like these to exact payment? Radak notes only a grammatical detail, that this instance adds the word bam where the two earlier occurrences of the refrain do not, though the meaning is identical.

פסוק ט׳ · Verse 9

Hebrew:

עַל־הֶ֨הָרִ֜ים אֶשָּׂ֧א בְכִ֣י וָנֶ֗הִי וְעַל־נְא֤וֹת מִדְבָּר֙ קִינָ֔ה כִּ֤י נִצְּתוּ֙ מִבְּלִי־אִ֣ישׁ עֹבֵ֔ר וְלֹ֥א שָׁמְע֖וּ ק֣וֹל מִקְנֶ֑ה מֵע֤וֹף הַשָּׁמַ֙יִם֙ וְעַד־בְּהֵמָ֔ה נָדְד֖וּ הָלָֽכוּ׃

English:

For the mountains I take up weeping and wailing, For the pastures in the wilderness, a dirge. They are laid waste; nobody passes through, And no sound of cattle is heard. Birds of the sky and beasts as well Have fled and are gone.

The prophecy turns from indictment to lament, and the landscape empties: I lift up weeping and wailing over the mountains and a kinah over the wilderness pastures, for they are scorched with no man passing through, no sound of cattle, and from the birds of heaven to the beasts all have fled. Radak's picture is merciless in its logic - not only are the shepherds' tents gone, but no man even passes by to graze a flock, and the birds have deserted because birds live where men live, where there is seed and fruit and blossom. Rashi and Radak both preserve Rabbi Yehudah's tradition that for fifty-two years no man passed through Yehudah, from the exile of Tzidkiyahu until the decree of Koresh, hinted in the gematria of the word behemah.
▶Commentaries (1)
רש״יRashi
על ההרים. על חורבן ההרים: ועל נאות מדבר. נוה רועים שבמדברות נאות ל' נוה וכן נאות אלהים (תהילים פ״ג:י״ג) וכן לביתך נאוה קודש (שם צג): נצתו. לשון ציה וכן נצתה: נדדו הלכו. סופן לילך, חמשים ושתים שנה לא עבר איש ביהודה מגלות צדקיהו עד פקודת כורש מלך פרס חמשים ושתים שנה היו ורמז לדבר ועד בהמה חשבונה בגימטריא נ"ב והחשבון מכוון במסכת מגילה:
for the mountains i.e., for the destruction of the mountains. for the dwellings of the wilderness The dwelling of the shepherds in the wilderness. נאות is an expression of a dwelling. Comp. (Psalms 83: 13) "the dwellings (נאות) of God," also (ibid. 93:5) "to Your house, the dwelling (נאוה) of sanctity." they are withered Heb. נצתו. An expression of aridness. Comp. (v. 11) "withered (נצתה)." have fled and are gone i.e., they are destined to go. For fifty-two years no one passed through Judah; from the exile of Zedekiah until the order of Cyrus, king of Persia, were fifty-two years. An allusion to the matter [is that the numerical value for] "and the beast" (בּהמה) amounts to fifty-two, and the computation is exact, in Tractate Megillah [should read: Yoma 54a].

פסוק י׳ · Verse 10

Hebrew:

וְנָתַתִּ֧י אֶת־יְרוּשָׁלַ֛͏ִם לְגַלִּ֖ים מְע֣וֹן תַּנִּ֑ים וְאֶת־עָרֵ֧י יְהוּדָ֛ה אֶתֵּ֥ן שְׁמָמָ֖ה מִבְּלִ֥י יוֹשֵֽׁב׃ {ס}         

English:

I will turn Jerusalem into rubble, Into dens for jackals; And I will make the towns of Judah A desolation without inhabitants.

The desolation reaches the capital: I will make Yerushalayim heaps of stone, a lair for jackals, and the cities of Yehudah a desolation without inhabitant. Rashi and Radak explain galim as the rubble piles left when houses and walls are torn down, and Metzudat David adds why jackals in particular - it is their habit to den among heaps of stones. The final phrase, mibli yoshev, is explained by Metzudat David with a single clause: because all of them will go into exile.
▶Commentaries (1)
רש״יRashi
לגלים. דגורין:
heaps Heb. דגורין heaps.

פסוק י״א · Verse 11

Hebrew:

מִֽי־הָאִ֤ישׁ הֶחָכָם֙ וְיָבֵ֣ן אֶת־זֹ֔את וַאֲשֶׁ֨ר דִּבֶּ֧ר פִּֽי־יְהֹוָ֛ה אֵלָ֖יו וְיַגִּדָ֑הּ עַל־מָה֙ אָבְדָ֣ה הָאָ֔רֶץ נִצְּתָ֥ה כַמִּדְבָּ֖ר מִבְּלִ֥י עֹבֵֽר׃ {ס}         

English:

Is anybody so wise As to understand this? To whom has GOD’s mouth spoken, So that it can be related: Why is the land in ruins, Laid waste like a wilderness, With none passing through?

This is the hinge of the chapter and one of the great questions of Nevi'im: who is the wise man that can understand this, and to whom has the mouth of Hashem spoken that he may tell it - why has the land perished, scorched like a wilderness with none passing through? Rashi splits the question in two, the wise man who might grasp it by his own understanding and the prophet to whom God has spoken it, and Radak reads the same division: the wise man understands from within himself while the prophet declares the answer as it was given him from God's mouth. Metzudat David hears the sting in the question itself - ein mi bahem yagid zot, there is no one among them who will say it. The catastrophe is fully visible and no one can read it.
▶Commentaries (1)
רש״יRashi
מי [האיש] החכם. שיבין זאת ומי הנביא אשר דבר פי ה' אליו: ויגידה. ומי יגיד על מה אבדה הארץ ובא כל הפורענות הזה:
Who is the man so wise Who will understand this, and who is the prophet to whom the mouth of the Lord has spoken, that he may declare it? And who will declare why the land is ruined and all this retribution has come?

פסוק י״ב · Verse 12

Hebrew:

וַיֹּ֣אמֶר יְהֹוָ֔ה עַל־עׇזְבָם֙ אֶת־תּ֣וֹרָתִ֔י אֲשֶׁ֥ר נָתַ֖תִּי לִפְנֵיהֶ֑ם וְלֹא־שָׁמְע֥וּ בְקוֹלִ֖י וְלֹא־הָ֥לְכוּ בָֽהּ׃

English:

GOD replied: Because they forsook the Teaching I had set before them. They did not obey Me and they did not follow it,

God Himself answers the question, and the answer is not idolatry or injustice but abandonment of Torah: because they forsook My Torah which I set before them, and did not listen to My voice, and did not walk in it. Metzudat David draws the whole causal chain - they did not occupy themselves with Torah, therefore they did not hear His voice in anything else, therefore they did not walk in its ways, for had they learned it, hama'or shebah, the light within it, would have turned them back to the good; and precisely because they did not, they arrived at all these transgressions and the land perished for their sin. Radak's comment on lifneihem is a single quiet phrase that lands like a verdict: lo bashamayim hi velo me'ever layam hi - it was never far off, it was set right in front of them.

פסוק י״ג · Verse 13

Hebrew:

וַיֵּ֣לְכ֔וּ אַחֲרֵ֖י שְׁרִר֣וּת לִבָּ֑ם וְאַֽחֲרֵי֙ הַבְּעָלִ֔ים אֲשֶׁ֥ר לִמְּד֖וּם אֲבוֹתָֽם׃ {פ}

English:

but followed their own willful heart and followed the Baalim, as their ancestors had taught them.

The consequence of abandoning Torah is stated as a positive substitution: they walked after the stubbornness of their heart and after the Baalim which their fathers taught them. Metzudat David defines shrirut libam as whatever the heart saw and desired, and glosses limdum as habituation rather than formal instruction - the fathers accustomed them to it. Radak makes the mechanism explicit: they saw their fathers serving the Baalim and served them in turn, and those fathers were the wicked generations that preceded them, so the sin is inherited by example rather than by choice.

פסוק י״ד · Verse 14

Hebrew:

לָכֵ֗ן כֹּה־אָמַ֞ר יְהֹוָ֤ה צְבָאוֹת֙ אֱלֹהֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל הִנְנִ֧י מַאֲכִילָ֛ם אֶת־הָעָ֥ם הַזֶּ֖ה לַעֲנָ֑ה וְהִשְׁקִיתִ֖ים מֵי־רֹֽאשׁ׃

English:

Assuredly, thus said GOD of Hosts, the God of Israel: I am going to feed that people wormwood and make them drink a bitter draft.

The sentence is passed in the language of poison: I am feeding this people wormwood and giving them the water of rosh to drink. Rashi identifies la'anah as a bitter herb and mei rosh as snake venom, while Radak notes that rosh is pressed from a plant of that name and adds the tradition that it is called rosh because it is commonly extracted from the head of an adder. Metzudat David reduces the metaphor to its plain meaning - I will bring upon them troubles of every kind.
▶Commentaries (1)
רש״יRashi
לענה. עשב מר: מי ראש. ארס נחש:
with wormwood Bitter grass. poisonous water Snake venom.

פסוק ט״ו · Verse 15

Hebrew:

וַהֲפִֽצוֹתִים֙ בַּגּוֹיִ֔ם אֲשֶׁר֙ לֹ֣א יָדְע֔וּ הֵ֖מָּה וַאֲבוֹתָ֑ם וְשִׁלַּחְתִּ֤י אַֽחֲרֵיהֶם֙ אֶת־הַחֶ֔רֶב עַ֥ד כַּלּוֹתִ֖י אוֹתָֽם׃ {פ}

English:

I will scatter them among nations that they and their ancestors never knew; and I will dispatch the sword after them until I have consumed them.

Exile follows the poison: I will scatter them among nations which neither they nor their fathers knew, and send the sword after them until I have consumed them. Metzudat David reads the two halves as one continuous pursuit - they will flee and be dispersed here and there, and to those very places I will send the enemy's sword after them, so that flight itself offers no refuge. Radak, unwilling to let ad kaloti otam stand as total annihilation, glosses it with one word: rubam, most of them - the remnant clause that governs the whole book is quietly preserved even here.

פסוק ט״ז · Verse 16

Hebrew:

כֹּ֤ה אָמַר֙ יְהֹוָ֣ה צְבָא֔וֹת הִתְבּ֥וֹנְנ֛וּ וְקִרְא֥וּ לַמְקוֹנְנ֖וֹת וּתְבוֹאֶ֑ינָה וְאֶל־הַחֲכָמ֥וֹת שִׁלְח֖וּ וְתָבֽוֹאנָה׃

English:

Thus said GOD of Hosts: Listen! Summon the dirge-singers, let them come; Send for the skilled women, let them come.

The chapter now stages its lament: summon the mekonenot, the professional mourning women, and send for the chachamot, the skilled women, and let them come. Radak explains that the chachamot are those expert in the words of hesped and kinah, and Metzudat David describes their craft precisely - they are practiced at arranging words of grief and sorrow swiftly enough to break the hearts of those who hear. Both read hitbonenu as a command to grasp what is coming, which means the mourners are being called before anyone has died. Grief is being rehearsed in advance.

פסוק י״ז · Verse 17

Hebrew:

וּתְמַהֵ֕רְנָה וְתִשֶּׂ֥נָה עָלֵ֖ינוּ נֶ֑הִי וְתֵרַ֤דְנָה עֵינֵ֙ינוּ֙ דִּמְעָ֔ה וְעַפְעַפֵּ֖ינוּ יִזְּלוּ־מָֽיִם׃

English:

Let them quickly start a wailing for us, That our eyes may run with tears, Our pupils flow with water.

The summons continues in the voice of those who will need it: let them hurry and raise a wailing over us, that our eyes may run down with tears and our eyelids flow with water. Metzudat David explains the purpose of hiring professional wailers - so that our own hearts will be stirred and our eyes will finally weep, which implies a grief so numbed it needs to be induced from outside. Radak notes that Yirmiyahu speaks here on behalf of all Yisrael, and that the image of tears is intensified to the point where the eye itself seems to melt and pour down.

פסוק י״ח · Verse 18

Hebrew:

כִּ֣י ק֥וֹל נְהִ֛י נִשְׁמַ֥ע מִצִּיּ֖וֹן אֵ֣יךְ שֻׁדָּ֑דְנוּ בֹּ֤שְׁנֽוּ מְאֹד֙ כִּֽי־עָזַ֣בְנוּ אָ֔רֶץ כִּ֥י הִשְׁלִ֖יכוּ מִשְׁכְּנוֹתֵֽינוּ׃ {ס}         

English:

For the sound of wailing Is heard from Zion: How we are despoiled! How greatly we are shamed! Ah, we must leave our land, Abandon our dwellings!

The reason for the mourning is now heard as a voice from Tzion itself: how we are despoiled, how greatly ashamed, for we have left the land and they have cast down our dwellings. Radak explains why Tzion is named specifically - as long as Yerushalayim stood, the people believed the ruined cities would eventually be rebuilt, as had happened in the days of Sancheriv when everything fell but Yerushalayim held; once Yerushalayim itself was taken there was no remedy left. Rashi offers two readings of hishlichu mishkenoteinu, that the dwellings cast out their inhabitants or that the enemy cast the dwellings to the ground, and Metzudat David and Radak both hear in the first the echo of velo taki ha'aretz etchem, the land vomiting out its people.
▶Commentaries (1)
רש״יRashi
כי השליכו משכנותינו. את שוכניהם ויש עוד לומר כי השליכו האויבים את משכנותינו לארץ:
they have cast down our dwellings Heb. השליכו משכנותינו, [our dwellings] have cast out their inhabitants. We can also explain: For the enemies have cast our dwellings to the ground.

פסוק י״ט · Verse 19

Hebrew:

כִּֽי־שְׁמַ֤עְנָה נָשִׁים֙ דְּבַר־יְהֹוָ֔ה וְתִקַּ֥ח אׇזְנְכֶ֖ם דְּבַר־פִּ֑יו וְלַמֵּ֤דְנָה בְנֽוֹתֵיכֶם֙ נֶ֔הִי וְאִשָּׁ֥ה רְעוּתָ֖הּ קִינָֽה׃

English:

Hear, O women, the word of GOD, Let your ears receive the divine word, And teach your daughters wailing, And one another lamentation.

The lament becomes a curriculum: hear the word of Hashem, O women, and teach your daughters wailing, and each woman her neighbor a lamentation. The instruction is transmitted the way Torah is transmitted, mother to daughter and woman to woman, because more than one generation will need it. Radak explains why the women are addressed - because hesped and nehi belong chiefly to women, who are more tender of heart than men - and Metzudat David clarifies that the divine word being heard is the announcement that the calamity is already appointed to come.

פסוק כ׳ · Verse 20

Hebrew:

כִּי־עָ֤לָֽה מָ֙וֶת֙ בְּחַלּוֹנֵ֔ינוּ בָּ֖א בְּאַרְמְנוֹתֵ֑ינוּ לְהַכְרִ֤ית עוֹלָל֙ מִח֔וּץ בַּחוּרִ֖ים מֵרְחֹבֽוֹת׃

English:

For death has climbed through our windows, Has entered our fortresses, To cut off babes from the streets, Young men from the squares.

One of the most haunting images in Tanakh: death has climbed up through our windows and entered our palaces, to cut off the child from the street and the young men from the squares. Radak explains the mechanics that make the metaphor work - a palace bars its gates, and its windows are left permanently open precisely because they are too high for anyone to enter through - so death arrives by the one route no one thought to guard, which is his image for a catastrophe that comes suddenly upon a people who would not listen to the true prophets even as they announced it. Metzudat David reads it as the futility of every stratagem: we shut the gates and it made no difference. Both note the terrible specificity of the last clause - the street was where the children played, and now no one plays there.
▶Commentaries (1)
רש״יRashi
להכרית עולל מחוץ. מן השוק כמו וחוצות תשים לך בדמשק (מלכים א כ):
from the streets Heb. מחוץ, from the street. Comp. (I Kings 20:34) "And you shall make yourself streets in Damascus."

פסוק כ״א · Verse 21

Hebrew:

דַּבֵּ֗ר כֹּ֚ה נְאֻם־יְהֹוָ֔ה וְנָֽפְלָה֙ נִבְלַ֣ת הָאָדָ֔ם כְּדֹ֖מֶן עַל־פְּנֵ֣י הַשָּׂדֶ֑ה וּכְעָמִ֛יר מֵאַחֲרֵ֥י הַקֹּצֵ֖ר וְאֵ֥ין מְאַסֵּֽף׃ {ס}         

English:

Speak thus—says GOD: People’s carcasses shall lie Like dung upon the fields, Like sheaves behind the reaper, With none to pick them up.

The bodies are left where they fell: human corpses like dung upon the field and like a sheaf behind the reaper, with none to gather. Radak sharpens the second image - not merely a sheaf lying behind the reaper but one the reaper forgot and left, so the dead are like the forgotten, with no one to bury them. Metzudat David explains the ein me'asef with devastating ordinariness: no one carries the slain to a grave because the survivors are too frightened to come out of hiding.

פסוק כ״ב · Verse 22

Hebrew:

כֹּ֣ה ׀ אָמַ֣ר יְהֹוָ֗ה אַל־יִתְהַלֵּ֤ל חָכָם֙ בְּחׇכְמָת֔וֹ וְאַל־יִתְהַלֵּ֥ל הַגִּבּ֖וֹר בִּגְבוּרָת֑וֹ אַל־יִתְהַלֵּ֥ל עָשִׁ֖יר בְּעׇשְׁרֽוֹ׃

English:

Thus said GOD: Let not the wise glory in their wisdom; Let not the strong glory in their strength; Let not the rich glory in their riches.

Out of that field of unburied bodies comes the most quoted passage in Sefer Yirmiyahu: let not the wise glory in his wisdom, nor the mighty in his might, nor the rich in his riches. The placement is everything, and Radak explains why these three in particular - because in the ordinary way of the world these are exactly what does save a man, the clever escaping by his stratagems, the strong by his arm, the rich ransoming himself from the enemy with his money - and the prophet is telling a doomed city that this time none of the three will work. Rashi turns it into direct rebuke of a self-image: do not boast saying we are wise, when you have rejected My words - what wisdom is left to you? Metzudat David reduces it to the bare fact that none of the three can save a soul.
▶Commentaries (1)
רש״יRashi
אל יתהלל חכם. אל תתהללו לומר חכמים אנחנו הנה בדברי מאסתם וחכמת מה לכם אם השכלתם וידעתם אותי אז תתהללו בחכמתכם:
Let not the wise man boast Do not boast, saying, "We are wise." Behold, you have rejected My words, so what wisdom do you have? If you understand and know Me, then you can boast of your wisdom.

פסוק כ״ג · Verse 23

Hebrew:

כִּ֣י אִם־בְּזֹ֞את יִתְהַלֵּ֣ל הַמִּתְהַלֵּ֗ל הַשְׂכֵּל֮ וְיָדֹ֣עַ אוֹתִי֒ כִּ֚י אֲנִ֣י יְהֹוָ֔ה עֹ֥שֶׂה חֶ֛סֶד מִשְׁפָּ֥ט וּצְדָקָ֖ה בָּאָ֑רֶץ כִּֽי־בְאֵ֥לֶּה חָפַ֖צְתִּי נְאֻם־יְהֹוָֽה׃ {ס}         

English:

But only in this should one glory: In being earnestly devoted to Me. For I GOD act with kindness, Justice, and equity in the world; For in these I delight —declares GOD.

The answer, and one of the summits of Tanakh: but in this let him who glories glory - understanding and knowing Me, for I am Hashem who does chesed, mishpat and tzedakah in the earth, for in these I delight. The verse does not leave yediat Hashem mystical: Radak defines it as walking in His ways to do chesed, mishpat and tzedakah, proving it from the verse about Yoshiyahu, dan din ani ve'evyon halo hi hada'at oti - he judged the cause of the poor and needy, is that not the knowledge of Me? Radak then quotes the Rambam at length, who reads these verses in the Moreh as the culminating statement of human perfection: not wealth, not bodily health, not even the moral virtues, but knowledge of God completed by imitation of His middot - chesed as generosity beyond what is owed, tzedakah as giving each what befits him, mishpat as judging rightly - with the word ba'aretz teaching that His providence reaches the earth as it does the heavens. Metzudat David reads the three attributes as chesed toward those who love Him, mishpat to exact payment from the wicked, and tzedakah to receive those who return.
▶Commentaries (1)
רש״יRashi
השכל. כמו הכבד (שמות ח יא) (אגטליינ"ט בלע"ז):
that he understands Heb. השכיל, like (Exod. 8:11) "making heavy (הכבד)" (Enteliant in O.F.).

פסוק כ״ד · Verse 24

Hebrew:

הִנֵּ֛ה יָמִ֥ים בָּאִ֖ים נְאֻם־יְהֹוָ֑ה וּפָ֣קַדְתִּ֔י עַל־כׇּל־מ֖וּל בְּעׇרְלָֽה׃

English:

Lo, days are coming—declares GOD—when I will take note of everyone circumcised in the foreskin:

The chapter's closing oracle: days are coming when I will punish every one who is circumcised in his foreskin. Rashi reads the paradoxical phrase as circumcised men who nevertheless have an orlah - even an orlat lev, an uncircumcised heart - and adds that the nations will certainly be punished too. Radak explains the compressed grammar, that mul refers to Yisrael who are circumcised and be'orlah to the nations listed next, and notes that these particular nations are named for Yisrael's sake, since they were the ones who wronged Yisrael and were themselves later destroyed by Nevuchadnetzar.
▶Commentaries (1)
רש״יRashi
על כל מול בערלה. על כל מול שיש לו ערלה אפילו ערלת לב:
every circumcised one for his uncircumcision Every circumcised one who has a foreskin, even an uncircumcised heart, and surely I will punish the heathens.

פסוק כ״ה · Verse 25

Hebrew:

עַל־מִצְרַ֣יִם וְעַל־יְהוּדָ֗ה וְעַל־אֱד֞וֹם וְעַל־בְּנֵ֤י עַמּוֹן֙ וְעַל־מוֹאָ֔ב וְעַל֙ כׇּל־קְצוּצֵ֣י פֵאָ֔ה הַיֹּשְׁבִ֖ים בַּמִּדְבָּ֑ר כִּ֤י כׇל־הַגּוֹיִם֙ עֲרֵלִ֔ים וְכׇל־בֵּ֥ית יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל עַרְלֵי־לֵֽב׃ {פ}

English:

of Egypt, Judah, Edom, the Ammonites, Moab, and all the desert dwellers who have the hair of their temples clipped. For all these nations are uncircumcised, but all the House of Israel are uncircumcised of heart.

The list is jarring by design - Mitzrayim, Yehudah, Edom, Ammon, Moav and the desert-dwellers with clipped temples - with Yehudah set second among the nations, for all the nations are uncircumcised and all the House of Yisrael are uncircumcised of heart. Radak spells out why the nations are listed at all, since they were never commanded regarding milah: they appear in order to say that Yisrael has made itself indistinguishable from them, for the sign cut into the flesh was given as a berit and an ot so that they should remember always that they are set apart, and once they mixed among the nations and learned their deeds the sign in the body signifies nothing. Rashi identifies these as the neighbors of Eretz Yisrael who were punished shortly after her, and both he and Metzudat David explain ketzutzei pe'ah as those pushed off to the far edge, dwelling scattered in the wilderness.
▶Commentaries (1)
רש״יRashi
על מצרים וגו'. שכיני א"י היו ולקו אחריה בסמוך לה כמו שכתוב (ביחזקאל כט) ומפרש בסדר עולם: קצוצי פאה. ל' קצה המוקצין בפאת מדבר:
Egypt etc. These were the neighbors of Eretz Israel, and they were punished shortly after her, as it is written in Ezekiel (29), and explained in Seder Olam (ch. 26). cast off to the corners Heb. פאה, an expression of an end, those cast off to the corner of the desert.

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