5 For thus says Yahweh, Don't enter into the house of mourning, neither go to lament, neither bemoan them; for I have taken away my peace from this people, says Yahweh, even loving kindness and tender mercies.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
As Jeremiah was forbidden at the beginning of the chapter to take a wife, for a dreadful devastation of the whole land was very nigh; so now God confirms what he had previously said, that so great would be the slaughter, that none would be found to perform the common office of lamenting the dead: at the same time he intimates now something more grievous, -- that they who perished would be unworthy of any kind office. As he had said before, "Their carcases shall be cast to the "beasts of the earth and to the birds of heaven;" so now in this place he intimates, that their deaths would be so ignominious, that they would be deprived of the honor of a grave, and would be buried, as it is said in another place, like asses. But when God forbids his Prophet to mourn, we are not to understand that he refers to excess of grief, as when God intends to moderate grief, when he takes away from us our parents, or our relatives, or our friends; for the subject here is not the private feeling of Jeremiah. God only declares that the land would be so desolate that hardly one would survive to mourn for the dead. He says, Enter not into the house of mourning Some render mrzh, merezach, a funeral feast; and it is probable, nay, it may be gathered from the context, that such feasts were made when any one was dead. [1] And the same custom we see has been observed by other nations, but for a different purpose. When the Romans celebrated a funeral feast, their object was to shake off grief, and in a manner to convert the dead into gods. Hence Cicero condemns Vatinius, because he came clothed in black to the feast of Q. Arius, (Orat. pro L. Mur.) and elsewhere he says, that Tuberonis was laughed at and everywhere repulsed, because he covered the beds with goat's skins, when Q. Maximus made a feast at the death of his uncle Africanus. Then these feasts were among the Romans full of rejoicing; but among the Jews, as it appears, when they lamented the dead, who were their relatives, they invited children and widows, in order that there might be some relief to their sorrow. However this may be, God intimates by this figurative language, that the Jews, when they perished in great numbers, would be deprived of that common practice, because they were unworthy of having any survivors to bewail them. Neither go, he says, to lament, nor be moved on their account [2] and why? For I have taken away my peace from this people, that is, all prosperity; for under the term, peace, the Jews included whatever was desirable. God then says, that he had taken away peace from them, and his peace, because he had pronounced that wicked nation accursed. He then adds, that he had taken away his kindness and his mercies. [3] For the Prophet might have raised an objection and said, that this was not consistent with the nature of God, who testifies that he is ready to shew mercy; but God meets this objection and intimates, that there was now no place for kindness and mercy, for the impiety of the people had become past all hope. It follows --
1 - The word is of a general import, to cry aloud or to shout, either for grief or for joy: it is here for grief, and in Amos 6:7, for joy. The literal rendering here is, "Enter not the house of shouting." The version of the Septuagint is wide of the mark, "Enter not into their bacchanalian assembly, (thiason.)" The Syriac omits the word, and the Vulgate and Targum have "feast." -- Ed.
2 - The verb means to move, or to nod, either in contempt or in sympathy. The latter is the meaning here: hence to condole is the sense. He was not to go for the purpose of lamenting the dead, or of condoling with the living. To "mourn" is the Septuagint, a word of a similar meaning with the preceding; more correct is to "console," as given by the Vulqate and the Targum. -- Ed.
3 - These words are omitted by the Septuagint, but given by the other versions, and are left out in no copies. The "and" before "kindness" is found in two MSS., and in the Syriac, but not in the Vulgate: it seems necessary. The passage I thus render, -- For withdrawn have I my peace From this people, saith Jehovah, My mercy also and my compassions. There is here a reason given for the preceding prohibitions: the Prophet was to shew no favor, no kindness to the people, and no sympathy with them: for God had withdrawn from them his "peace," which means here his favor, and also his mercy or his benignity, as some render the word, and his compassions. -- Ed.
Enter not into the house of mourning - The public calamities are too great to permit individual losses to come into consideration.
For thus saith the LORD, (b) Enter not into the house of mourning, neither go to lament nor bemoan them: for I have taken away my peace from this people, saith the LORD, [even] lovingkindness and mercies.
(b) Signifying that the affliction would be so great that one would not have leisure to comfort another.
For thus saith the Lord, enter not into the house of mourning,.... On account of his dead relations or neighbours; since they were taken away from the evil to come, and therefore no occasion to mourn for them: moreover, this was to show the certainty of what is before and after said; that, at the time of the general calamity predicted, there would be no lamentation made for the dead. R. Joseph Kimchi says the word here used signifies, in the Arabic (w) language, a lifting of the voice, either for weeping, or for joy (x); and Jarchi, out of the ancient book Siphri, interprets it a "feast"; and it is rendered a "banquet" in Amos 6:7, and so may here design a mourning feast, such as were used at funerals, called by the Greeks and by the Latins "parentalia", as Jerom observes. Neither go to lament nor bemoan them; neither go to the house of mourning, or the mourning feast; to the houses of the deceased, to condole the surviving relations, and to express sorrow for the dead, by shedding tears, and shaking the head, or by any other gesture or ceremony after mentioned,
For I have taken away my peace from this people, saith the Lord; all peace or prosperity is of God, and therefore called his, and which he can take away from a people when he pleases; and having determined to take it away from this people because of their sins, he is said to have done it, it being as certain as if it was done:
even lovingkindness and mercies; all benefits, which flowed from his favour, love, and mercy, as the whole of their prosperity did.
(w) "magna et vehementi voce praeditus", Golius ex Giggeio, col. 979. (x) So the word is used in the Chaldee language: as Schindler observes in Lex. col. 1722.
(Ezekiel 24:17, Ezekiel 24:22-23).
house of mourning-- (Mark 5:38). Margin, "mourning-feast"; such feasts were usual at funerals. The Hebrew means, in Amos 6:7, the cry of joy at a banquet; here, and Lamentations 2:19, the cry of sorrow.
The command not to go into a house of mourning (מרזח, loud crying, cry of lament for one dead, see on Amos 6:7), not to show sympathy with the survivors, is explained by the Lord in the fearfully solemn saying: I withdraw from this people my peace, grace, and mercy. שׁלום is not "the inviolateness of the relation between me and my people" (Graf), but the pace of God which rested on Judah, the source of its well-being, of its life and prosperity, and which showed itself to the sinful race in the extension to them of grace and mercy. The consequence of the withdrawal of this peace is the death of great and small in such multitudes that they can neither be buried nor mourned for (Jeremiah 16:6). התגּדד, but one's self, is used in Deuteronomy 14:1 for נתן שׂרט, to make cuts in the body, Leviticus 19:28; and קרח, Niph., to crop one's self bald, acc. to Deuteronomy 14:1, to shave a bare place on the front part of the head above the eyes. These are two modes of expressing passionate mourning for the dead which were forbidden to the Israelites in the law, yet which remained in use among the people, see on Leviticus 19:28 and Deuteronomy 14:1. להם, for them, in honour of the dead.
Enter not - Do not go to comfort such as mourn for any relations dead, (for their feastings upon those occasions were upon a consolatory account) those that die are most happy, for I will take away the peace of this people, and deprive them of all my mercy and loving - kindness.
*More commentary available at chapter level.