Verse 4
"And these are the words that Jehovah spake concerning Israel and concerning Judah. For thus saith Jehovah: We have heard a voice of trembling, of fear, and not of peace. Ask ye now, and see whether a man doth travail with child; wherefore do I see every man with his hands on his loins, as a woman in travail, and all faces are turned into paleness? Alas, for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob's trouble; but he shall be saved out of it."
"Alas for that day ..." (Jeremiah 30:7). Payne Smith, and others have understood this day to be the day when the armies of the Medo-Persians approached Babylon to destroy it;[12] but we cannot believe that was "the day of Jacob's trouble." That was evidently the day of Babylon's trouble!
"That day is great ... there is none like it ..." (Jeremiah 30:7) The unique day in view here, it appears to us, must be understood as the Judgment of the Great Day. See Amos 5:18f and the first two chapters of Zephaniah. The great day mentioned here is not the day of the destruction of Jerusalem, nor the day of the destruction of Babylon. "It is the Day of the Lord, a significant eschatological theme."[13] Keil agreed with this, pointing out that the passage is an imitation of Joel 2:2. where that prophet, for the first time presents the idea of the great day of Judgment to come on all nations."[14]
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