20 My tent is destroyed, and all my cords are broken: my children are gone forth from me, and they are no more: there is none to spread my tent any more, and to set up my curtains.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
This metaphor may have been taken from shepherds, and it seems suitable here; yet the prophets often compare the Church to a tent. Though indeed it is said elsewhere that the Church is built on the holy mountains, (Psalm 87:1) and great firmness is ascribed to it, yet, as to its external condition, it may justly be said to be like a tent, for there is no fixed residence for God's children on earth, for they are often constrained to ehange their place; and hence Paul speaks of the faithful as unsettled. (1-Corinthians 4:11.) But as, in the next verse, mention is made of shepherds, the Prophet seems here to refer to the tents of shepherds. Though indeed he takes hereafter the similitude more generally, or in a wider sense, yet there is no reason why he should not allude to the shepherds of whom he afterwards speaks, and yet retain the metaphor which so often occurs in all the prophets. He then says that his tent was pulled down, and that all his cords were broken Some take the tent for the city of Jerusalem, but this is a strained view, and unsuitable. We have already said that the Prophet speaks here in the name of the whole people; and it is the same as though he compared the people to a man dwelling with his family in a tent. He adds, My children are gone forth from me The people then complain that they were deprived of all their children; nor was this all, but they were scattered here and there, which was worse than if they had been taken away by death. He afterwards says, And there is no one to extend my tent, and to set up my curtains Jeremiah shews that the people would be so bereaved as to have none to bring them any assistance, though in much want of it. No one then thought that such a thing would take place, and Jeremiah was held in contempt, and some raged against him, and yet He shewed what would be. And that what he said might be more forcible, and produce a stronger effect, he speaks in their name, like a poet in a play, who describes a miser, and mentions things suitable to his character, making use of such words and actions, so that he cannot but see, as it were in a mirror, his own disposition and conduct. So also the Prophet does here; for when He saw that the stupid people could not be moved by the simple truth, he told them what they all ought to have felt in their liearts, and to have testified by their mouths, -- that they were solitary, deserted by all who belonged to them, and that there was no one to bring them any help. [1] But he pursues, as we have said, the same metaphor. It follows --
1 - I should render the verse as follows -- My tent, it is laid waste, And all my curtains, they are broken; My sons, they have left me, and there are none of them; No one extends any more my tent, and sets up my curtains. When the noun precedes its verb in Hebrew, I consider that it ought commonly to be rendered as above. "There are none of them," that is, with me; not that they "were not," that is, that they were dead. -- Ed.
tabernacle - i. e., "tent." Jerusalem laments that her tent is plundered and her children carried into exile, and so "are not," are dead Matthew 2:18, either absolutely, or dead to her in the remote land of their captivity. They can aid the widowed mother no longer in pitching her tent, or in hanging up the curtains round about it.
My tabernacle is spoiled - The city is taken, and all our villages ruined and desolated.
(m) My tabernacle is laid waste, and all my cords are broken: my children are gone from me, and they [are] not: [there is] none to stretch forth my tent any more, and to set up my curtains.
(m) He shows how Jerusalem will lament.
My tabernacle is spoiled,.... Not the temple at Jerusalem only, rather Jerusalem itself, as Kimchi; or the whole land, as the Targum,
"my land is wasted:''
the allusion is to the tents of shepherds, and denotes the unstable condition of the Jewish nation:
and all my cords are broken: all the rest of the cities of the land are destroyed, as Kimchi; and so the Targum,
"my cities are spoiled:''
as the cords are what the parts of the tabernacle or tent are fastened and kept together with, they may intend the strength of the nation, which lay in its wealth, its fortresses, and the numbers of its people, now weakened, loosed, and broke.
My children are gone forth of me; into captivity, as the Targum interprets it; the prophet, representing Jerusalem, and the cities of Judah. The Septuagint adds, "and my sheep"; keeping on the metaphor of a shepherd, his tent, and flock.
And they are not; either not in the world, being destroyed by one judgment or another; or rather not in their own land, being carried captive.
There is none to stretch forth my tent any more, and to set up my curtains; which shows the great destruction and desolation of the land, and its inhabitants, that there would be none to set up a shepherd's tent; perhaps the rebuilding of Jerusalem, and the rest of the cities, may be meant.
tabernacle is spoiled--metaphor from the tents of nomadic life; as these are taken down in a few moments, so as not to leave a vestige of them, so Judea (Jeremiah 4:20).
cords--with which the coverings of the tent are extended.
curtains--tent-curtains.
My tabernacle - He describes the overthrow of the land, or Jerusalem, by the breaking of the cords of a tabernacle, the use whereof is to fasten it on every side to stakes in the ground, which cords being broken the tabernacle falls.
*More commentary available at chapter level.