17 They shall eat up your harvest, and your bread, (which) your sons and your daughters should eat. They shall eat up your flocks and your herds. They shall eat up your vines and your fig trees. They shall beat down your fortified cities, in which you trust, with the sword.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
He continues to speak in a similar way of the cruelty of their enemies; as though he said that victory was already in their hand, for they were the scourges of God. He does not then set before the Jews the troubles of war, but speaks of them as conquered; and he only shews that the Chaldeans would be cruel in the use they would make of their victory. He takes it as granted that the Chaldeans would be conquerors, for they would come armed from above: and he makes this addition, -- that they would act cruelly and in an unusual manner towards the vanquished Jews. Hence he says, They will eat (it will eat, for he changes the number, though the sense remains the same [1] ) thine harvest and thy bread; that is, all that thou gatherest shall become a prey to thine enemies; for by harvest and bread he means every kind of provision. Then he adds, thy sons and thy daughters, which was still worse; it is indeed hard to be deprived of food, but it is still more dreadful for parents to see their children slain before them. The Prophet however says, that such would be the barbarity of their enemies, that they would not spare even boys and girls. He further mentions herds and flocks; and then he adds the vine and the fig-tree; as though he said, nothing would be safe among the Jews, for their enemies would plunder everything, and that being not content with meat and drink, they would kill their very infants. And further, as the Jews had fortified cities, and were on that account insolent towards the prophets, their vain pride is here brought down; for he says, that their fortified cities would be reduced to poverty; and he adds, in which thou trustest All these, he says, shall fall by the sword; for this last word, vchrv, becherab, applies to the whole verse, and to each part of it; as though he had said, "By the right of the sword shall the conquerors lay waste thy whole country, even all thy possessions; yea, and they shall slay thy sons and thy daughters." It follows --
1 - According to the Hebrew, the verbs, except the second, are all in the singular number. The Septuagint have pluralized them, but the singular is retained by the Vulgate, the Targum, and the Syriac. It is the "nation" described in the 15th verse. The second verb may be rendered in a passive sense, and the meaning will be more appropriate, -- And it will devour thy harvest and thy food, Devoured shall be thy sons and thy daughters; It will devour thy sheep and thy ox, It will devour thy wine and thy fig-tree; It will wholly desolate thy fortified cities, In which thou trustest, by the sword. The language used here, and in the 15th verse, is remarkably like that of Moses in Deuteronomy 28:48-52. The second line may be deemed parenthetic. It is better to preserve the poetic singular in sheep, ox, vine, and fig-tree. As it is a reduplicate verb, entire desolation is intended, and that by the "sword" in destroying all the occupants of fortified cities. Venema, and others, as well as Calvin, connect the "sword" with all the preceding clauses; but this is not necessary, nor is it indeed suitable. -- Ed.
Or,
It shall eat "thine harvest and thy bread:"
They shall eat "thy sons and thy daughters."
It shall eat thy sheep and thy cattle:
It shall eat "thy vines and thy fig-trees."
They shall impoverish - Or, It shall batter thy "fortified cities, wherein thou" trustest, with weapons of war. There is probably reference here to an instrument like a battering-ram, with which the Assyrians beat down the walls of their enemies.
And they shall eat up thine harvest,.... The standing corn in the fields, cut it down, and give it as fodder to their horses, which is usually done by armies; or the increase of the earth, when gathered into the barn, which so great an army would consume:
and thy bread; which includes all kind of provisions:
which thy sons and thy daughters should eat; which is an aggravation of the calamity and misery, that that should become the prey of their enemies, which they with so much labour and pains had provided for their children, who would now be deprived of it, and suffer want, The Targum renders it,
"shall kill thy sons and thy daughters;''
that is, with the sword; and so Kimchi interprets it; and so other versions read, "they shall eat up, or devour, thy sons and thy daughters" (z); the sword ate them up, or devoured them; and they who besieged them were the cause or occasion of their being eaten literally, even by their own parents; see Lamentations 2:20,
they shall eat up thy flocks and thy herds; their sheep and oxen, as the Targum interprets it:
they shall eat up thy vines and thy fig trees: that is, the fruit of them, as the same paraphrase explains it:
they shall impoverish thy fenced cities, wherein thou trustedst, with the sword; that is, such strong and fortified cities as Jerusalem, and others, in which the Jews trusted they should be safe from their enemies; these the Chaldeans would enter into, kill with the sword those they found in garrisons, demolish the fortifications, take away what wealth and riches were laid up there, and so impoverish them, and render them weak and defenceless. The Targum of this clause is,
"shall destroy the fortified cities of thy land, in which thou trustedst thou shouldest be safe from those that kill with the sword.''
(z) "vorabunt filios tuos et filias tuas", Calvin; "devorabunt", Vatablus; "comedent filios tuos et filias tuas", Pagninus, Montanus, Cocceius.
This people will devour the harvest and the bread, the children, the cattle, and the best fruits of the land. Devour, here as often, in the wider sense, destroy; cf. e.g., Jeremiah 3:24 and Jeremiah 10:25, where the first half of the present verse is compressed into the words: they ate up Jacob. We need not wait to refute Hitz.'s absurd remark, that the author imagined the enemy, the assumed Scythians, to be cannibals. In the second half of the verse the words, "the fenced cities wherein thou trustest,"are a reminiscence of Deuteronomy 28:52; and hence we may see, that while our prophet is describing the enemy in Jeremiah 5:15-18, Moses' threatening, Deuteronomy 28:49-52, was in his mind. רשׁשׁ, break in pieces, as in Malachi 1:4. With the sword, i.e., by force of arms; the sword, as principal weapon, being named, instead of the entire apparatus of war. In Jeremiah 5:18 the restriction of Jeremiah 5:10 (cf. Jeremiah 4:27) is repeated, and with it the threatening of judgment is rounded off.
*More commentary available at chapter level.