The LORD shall bring thee, and thy king which thou shalt set over thee, unto a nation which neither thou nor thy fathers have known; and there shalt thou serve other gods, wood and stone.

The Lord shall bring thee, and thy king, whom thou shalt have appointed over thee, into a nation which thou and thy fathers know not: and there thou shalt serve strange gods, wood and stone.

'Jehovah doth cause thee to go, and thy king whom thou raisest up over thee, unto a nation which thou hast not known, thou and thy fathers, and thou hast served there other gods, wood and stone;

And you, and the king whom you have put over you, will the Lord take away to a nation strange to you and to your fathers; there you will be servants to other gods of wood and stone.

May the Lord lead you and your king, whom you will have appointed over yourself, into a nation which you and your fathers have not known. And there you will serve foreign gods, of wood and of stone.

Abducet Jehova te et regem tuum quem constitues super te, ad gentem quam non nosti tu et patres tui: colesque ibi deos alienos, lignum et lapidem.

The Lord shall bring thee, and thy king. The fulfillment of this prophecy at length taught the Jews, though too late, that it was no empty threat, merely for the purpose of frightening them; and this also applies to the other predictions. For, on account of the great distance from them, the Jews would never have supposed that the Assyrians and Chaldeans were God's scourges, as they actually found them to be; because they placed no faith in the words of Moses. Much less credible was it to them that the king, whom they had appointed, should be dragged as a prisoner to distant countries. And surely this was a very sad and formidable punishment, since all their safety depended on the stability of their kingly government. Thus Jeremiah magnifies this evil above all others, that the Christ of God, who was the breath of the Church, and under whose shadow they hoped to be everywhere safe, should be taken. [1] (Lamentations 4:20.) And this was fulfilled in the case of Jeconiah, as well as in that of Jehoiachin and Zedekiah. Let us, therefore, learn not to measure God's judgments by our own reason, but to tremble at them, although they are hidden from us. All aggravation of their captivity is also added, i e., that they should be oppressed by such tyranny as to be compelled to serve wood and stone. Dull and stupid as they were, still they ought to have retained their abomination of such gross wickedness. Hence it might be gathered that they would not be reduced to such a necessity except by the terrible vengeance of God. For although they had been attracted by the superstitions of the Gentiles, so as eagerly to run after them, still, after they were deprived of the worship of God, and had undergone the yoke of the wretched and ungodly servitude which was imposed on them, the foulness of idolatry must have been more fully understood. There is also an antithesis implied in these words, viz., that because they had refused to submit themselves to the true God, and to obey His Law, they should become the slaves of idols.

Footnotes

1 - "The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the Lord, was taken in their pits, of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall lie among the heathen." -- Lamentations 4:20.

Can any thing be conceived more dreadful than the calamities threatened in these verses?

The LORD shall bring thee, and thy (p) king which thou shalt set over thee, unto a nation which neither thou nor thy fathers have known; and there shalt thou serve other gods, wood and stone.
(p) As he did Manasseh, Joiakim, Zedekiah and others.

And the Lord shall bring thee, and thy king which thou shall set over thee,.... This was fulfilled both in Jehoiachin and in Zedekiah, kings of Judah, who were carried captive to Babylon, by Nebuchadnezzar, 2-Kings 24:15,
unto a nation which neither thou nor thy fathers have known; the land of Babylon, which was at a distance from them, and is represented in Scripture as afar off, Jeremiah 5:15; and which the Jews, not being a trading people, or dealing in merchandise in foreign parts, were unacquainted with:
and there shall thou serve other gods, wood and stone; which they were obliged to do in Babylon, of which it seems best to understand it; for though it may be interpreted of their compliance with the image worship of the Papists in their present condition, as the former clause may be of their rulers and governors, included in the name of king, carried captive by the Romans; who were a nation as little, if not less known than the Babylonians: but the former sense seems to suit best here, as this does with Deuteronomy 28:64; where the language is somewhat different, and very appropriate. The Targum of Jonathan is,"shall pay tribute to those that worship idols of wood and stone.''

The Lord shall bring thee, and thy king, &c.--This shows how widespread would be the national calamity; and at the same time how hopeless, when he who should have been their defender shared the captive fate of his subjects.
there shalt thou serve other gods, wood and stone--The Hebrew exiles, with some honorable exceptions, were seduced or compelled into idolatry in the Assyrian and Babylonish captivities (Jeremiah 44:17-19). Thus, the sin to which they had too often betrayed a perverse fondness, a deep-rooted propensity, became their punishment and their misery.

Thy king - The calamity shall be both universal, which even thy king shall not be able to avoid, much less the subjects, who have far less advantage and opportunity for escape; and irrecoverable, because he who should protect or rescue them is lost with them, Lamentations 4:10. Wood and stone - So what formerly was their choice and delight now becomes their plague and misery. And this doubtless was the condition of many Israelites under the Assyrian and Balylonish captivities.