The Pulpit Commentary on Jeremiah 4:23

The Pulpit Commentary · Joseph S. Exell and contributors · Public domain

I beheld. The prophet is again the speaker, but in a calmer mood. God's judgment has been pronounced, and it is not for him to rebel. He has now simply to record the vision of woe which has been granted him.

He foresees the utter desolation into which not only the land of Judah, but the earth in general, will be brought, and which reminds him of nothing so much as the "waste and wild" condition of the earth previous to the first creative word.

But why is "the earth" mentioned in this connection? Because the judgment upon Judah is but one act in the great general judgment which, when completed, will issue in a fresh order of things (comp. Isaiah 3:14, Isaiah 3:15, where side by side are mentioned Jehovah's judgment of "the peoples" and of "his people," and Isaiah 24:1-23; where the judgment upon the enemies of Israel is interwoven with the judgment upon "the earth").

Without form, and void; rather, waste and wild (to represent in some degree the characteristic assonance of the original—tohu va-bohu); more literally, immovable and lifeless. It is the phrase used in Genesis L 2 for primeval chaos.

Tohu and bohu occur in parallel lines in Isaiah 34:11, to express utter desolation; tohu alone five times in the Book of Isaiah, and once in Job. They had no light. The heavens were in the same condition as on the third day, subsequently to the creation of the heavens, but prior to that of the luminaries.

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