Jeremiah 4:19

LAMENT FOR THE COMING DESOLATION AND RUIN, Jeremiah 4:19-31.

19. My bowels, my bowels Again is the course of thought interrupted by an expression of Jeremiah’s personal experiences. For it is much better to interpret these as the words of Jeremiah than of the people. But the prophet stands for all the friends of God. What he says in his own character, and for himself, expands into an expression in behalf of the people. He passes, in his own thought, perhaps unconsciously, from individual suffering to national desolation. Hence, the expression in Jeremiah 4:20, “my tents.”

I am pained The original word here is, with little doubt, a mongrel form. It is an instance exceeding rare of the Keri having affected the form of the Kethib. The form is probably from חול , ( chul,) “to writhe in pain.”