Jeremiah 4:27

"For thus saith Jehovah, The whole land shall be a desolation; yet will I not make a full end. For this shall the earth mourn, and the heavens above be black; because I have spoken it, I have purposed it, and I have not repented, neither will I turn back from it. Every city fleeth for the noise of the horsemen and the bowmen; they go into the thickets, and climb up upon the rocks: every city is forsaken, and not a man dwelleth therein. And thou, when thou art made desolate, what wilt thou do? Though thou clothest thyself with scarlet, though thou deckest thee with ornaments of gold, thou enlargest thine eyes with paint, in vain dost thou make thyself fair; thy lovers despise thee, they seek thy life. For I have heard a voice as of a woman in travail, the anguish as of her that bringeth forth her first child, the voice of the daughter of Zion, that gaspeth for breath, that spreadeth her hands, saying, Woe is me now! for my soul fainteth before the murderers."

Of very great interest is the promise of God in Jeremiah 4:27 that he will not make a full end of Judah. Not so for Nineveh. God promised to make a "Full end of her place" (Nahum 1:8); and that was surely her fate, because when Alexander the Great encamped his army near the ancient ruins of Nineveh, he did not even know that a city had ever been there!

Ash complained that the optimistic note of Jeremiah 4:27 "seems out of place, and some scholars suggest omitting the not. This would seem more harmonious with Jeremiah 4:28!"[19] All such scholar objections are founded upon the rationalistic prejudice that the same author could not prophecy both doom and deliverance at the same time. We reject that whole prejudice out of hand. It is just another one of the false rules followed by radical critics. Did not Jesus Christ himself prophecy heaven and hell in the same breath? Of course he did.

It was absolutely necessary that Jeremiah should have mentioned this hope in Jeremiah 4:27 that Judah would not be completely destroyed. Isaiah, who preceded Jeremiah, had named one of his sons Shear-Jashub, meaning, "A remnant shall return" (Isaiah 7:3; 10:21);[20] and therefore at the very moment of his announcing the end of Judah was by all considerations exactly the right time for Jeremiah to have reiterated the promise that a remnant would return. This alone was the device by which God would at last fulfill all of the glorious promises to the patriarchs. It would have been criminal to have left it out of this context in which we find it.

Cook called Jeremiah 4:27b "One of the most striking points of the prophecy."[21]

"And when thou art made desolate ..." (Jeremiah 4:30). The extremity of Judah's punishment is depicted in these last verses.

Through her behavior in courting lovers Judah has become tainted with mortal disease, and by using the figure of a fatal miscarriage, the prophet depicts the nation moribund and gasping spasmodically with arms outstretched, crying `The murderers have killed me!' Like the wanton she had become, Judah is here shown paying the price of her iniquity.[22]

Robinson has an interesting comment on the contrasting figures employed here by Jeremiah to describe the helplessness of Judah before the invading Babylonians:

"Jeremiah 4:30 and Jeremiah 4:31 there is an effective contrast between the gaily decked prostitute and the travailing woman, though both figures are used to express the same fact, Jerusalem's helplessness before the invader, either to allure or to withstand."[23]

"I heard a voice ..." (Jeremiah 4:31). "The cry is of one whose agony is unbearable. Jerusalem is in her death throes."[24] The tragic picture developed in this chapter of the conquest of Judah is not merely a masterpiece; but it is the most tragic picture ever presented of the pitiful end of rebellion against the Creator, whether of an individual, or of a nation. The extremely sorrowful emotions of the great prophet himself seem to wrap every line of the revelation here in tears. Something of this same deep emotion also belonged to Jesus Christ when he wept over the city of Jerusalem upon the occasion of his sentencing her to death, "Because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation!"