Jeremiah 20:16

(16) The cities which the Lord overthrew.—The verb is the same as that used in Genesis 19:29, and the reference is clearly to the “cities of the plain,” whose destruction is there described. The reference to them in Deuteronomy 32:32; Isaiah 1:9-10, shows that they had already become familiar to men as the great representative instances both of evil and its punishment.

The cry . . . the shouting.—The former word describes the wail of lamentation, the latter the shout of an invading army.