Teks -- Jeremiah 9:17 (NET)

9:17 The Lord who rules over all told me to say to this people, “Take note of what I say. Call for the women who mourn for the dead! Summon those who are the most skilled at it!”

Tafsiran/Catatan -- Catatan Kata/Frasa (per frasa)

Wesley: Jer 9:17 - Women

Who were hired to tear their hair, and beat their breasts, with other mourning postures, a foolish custom which has obtained in most ages and countries.

Wesley: Jer 9:17 - Cunning

Such as are most skilful in it.

JFB: Jer 9:17 - mourning women

Hired to heighten lamentation by plaintive cries baring the breast, beating the arms, and suffering the hair to flow dishevelled (2Ch 35:25; Ecc 12:5; Mat 9:23).

JFB: Jer 9:17 - cunning

Skilled in wailing.

Clarke: Jer 9:17 - Call for the mourning women

Call for the mourning women - Those whose office it was to make lamentations at funerals, and to bewail the dead, for which they received pay. This custom continues to the present in Asiatic countries. In Ireland this custom also prevails, which no doubt their ancestors brought from the east. I have often witnessed it, and have given a specimen of this elsewhere. See the note on Mat 9:23. The first lamentations for the dead consisted only in the sudden bursts of inexpressible grief, like that of David over his son Absalom, 2Sa 19:4. But as men grew refined, it was not deemed sufficient for the surviving relatives to vent their sorrows in these natural, artless expressions of wo, but they endeavored to join others as partners in their sorrows. This gave rise to the custom of hiring persons to weep at funerals, which the Phrygians and Greeks borrowed from the Hebrews. Women were generally employed on these occasions, because the tender passions being predominant in this sex, they succeeded better in their parts; and there were never wanting persons who would let out their services to hire on such occasions. Their lamentations were sung to the pipe as we learn from Mat 9:23. See the funeral ceremonies practiced at the burial of Hector, as described by Homer: -

Οἱ δ ’ επει εισαγαγον κλυτα δωματα, τον μεν επειτ

Τρητοις εν λεχεεσσι θεσαν, παρα δ ’ εἱσαν αοιδους

Θρηνων εξαρχους, οἱ τε στονοεσσαν αοιδη

Οἱ μεν αρ ’ εθρηνεον, επι δε στεναχοντο γυναικες.

Il. lib. 24., ver. 719

"Arrived within the royal house, they stretche

The breathless Hector on a sumptuous bed

And singers placed beside him, who should chan

The strain funereal; they with many a groa

The dirge began; and still at every clos

The female train with many a groan replied.

Cowper

St. Jerome tells us that even to his time this custom continued in Judea; that women at funerals, with dishevelled hair and naked breasts, endeavored in a modulated voice to invite others to lament with them. The poem before us, from the seventeenth to the twenty-second verse, is both an illustration and confirmation of what has been delivered on this subject, and worthy of the reader’ s frequent perusal, on account of its affecting pathos, moral sentiments, and fine images, particularly in the twenty-first verse, where death is described in as animated a prosopopoeia as can be conceived. See Lototh’ s twenty-second Prelection, and Dodd. The nineteenth verse is supposed to be the funeral song of the women

"How are we spoiled

We are greatly confounded

For we have forsaken the land

Because they have destroyed our dwellings."

Calvin: Jer 9:17 - Hearken ye, and call for mourners, that they may come

In this passage, as in many others, the Prophet endeavors by a striking representation really to touch the hearts of his people, for he saw that they were extremely refractory, insensible, and secure. Since then the threatenings of God were either wholly despised, or had not sufficiently moved the hearts of the people, it was necessary to set forth God’s judgments as present. Therefore the Prophet gives a striking description of what takes place in times of mourning. At the same time he seems to condemn indirectly the Jews for not knowing, through God’s word, that there was a calamity at hand: for God’s word ought indeed to be like a mirror, by which men ought to see God’s goodness in his promises and also his judgment in his threatenings. As then all prophecies were deemed as fables by the people, it was not without some degree of derision that he addressed them in this manner, —

Hearken ye, and call for mourners, that they may come An absurd and a foolish custom has prevailed almost in all ages to hire women as mourners, whom they called proeficoe; they were employed to mourn for others. Heirs no doubt hired these foolish women, in order to shew their reigned piety; they spoke in praise of the dead, and shewed how great a loss was their death. The Prophet does not commend this custom; and we ought to know that Scripture often takes similes from the vices of men, as from filth and dirt. If then any one concludes from these winds of Jeremiah, that lamentations at funerals are not to be condemned, this would be foolish and puerile. The Prophet, on the contrary, does here reprove the Jews, because they heedlessly disregarded all God’s threatenings, and were at the same time soft and tender at those foolish exhibitions, and all mourned at the sight of those women who were hired to lament; as the case is at this time, when a faithful teacher reprobates the prevailing folly of the Papists. For when the unprincipled men, who occupy the pulpits under the Papacy, speak with weeping, though they produce not a syllable from God’s word, but add some spectacle or phantom, by producing the image of the Cross or some like thing, they touch the feelings of the vulgar and cause weeping, according to what actors do on the stage. As then the Papists are seized as it were with an insane feeling, when their deceivers thus gesticulate, so a faithful teacher may say to them, “Let any one come and set before your eyes the image of a dead man, or say, that you must all shortly die and be like the earcase shewn to you, and ye will cry and weep; and yet ye will sot consider how dreadful God’s judgment is, which I declare to you: I shew to you faithfully from the law, from the prophets, and from the Gospel; how dreadful is God’s vengeance, and set before you what ye deserve; yet none of you are moved; but my doctrine is a mockery to you, and also my reproofs and threatenings: go then to your prophets, who shew you pictures and the like trumperies.” So the Prophet says now, “I see that I can do you no good; the Lord will therefore give you no teachers but women.” Of what sort? Even such, he says, as lament, or are hired to mourn.

We now then perceive why the Prophet speaks of hired women. Attend ye, he says; and why? They ought indeed to have been attentive to or to understand (for בן ben, means properly to understand, and in Hithpael it signifies to consider) his words; but as he saw that he was ridiculed or despised, and that all the threatenings which proceeded from God were esteemed as fables, he now says, “Consider ye and call for your lamenters: — as I see such perverseness in you, be taught at least by those women who are commonly invited to lament, and who sell their tears!” Send, he says, for the skilfu1, that they may come By these words he intended more clearly to express, that the calamity which the people feared not was not far distant.

TSK: Jer 9:17 - call // the mourning women

call : 2Ch 35:25; Job 3:8; Ecc 12:5; Amo 5:16, Amo 5:17; Mat 9:23; Mar 5:38

the mourning women : Those whose office it was to sing mournful dirges, and make public lamentations at funerals.

Tafsiran/Catatan -- Catatan Kata/Frasa (per Ayat)

Poole: Jer 9:17 - Consider ye // The mourning women // Cunning women

Consider ye either in how sad a condition you are, what circumstances you are under; or rather, bethink yourselves what course to take: and therefore he puts them upon mourning and bewailing their condition, intimated by the following expression.

The mourning women a sort of persons, and principally women, as more apt for passions in this kind, which they had among them, 2Ch 35:25 ; whose work it was, either to compose funeral elegies, or panegyrics in praise of the dead, and to act them in some mournful manner, as tearing their hair, and beating their breasts, with other mourning postures, or to sing them in some doleful tone, thereby artificially to provoke and excite both passions and expressions of grief in the friends of the deceased, rather wringing out tears than shedding them, in which probably they made greater seeming lamentations than those that did really mourn, as being most concerned; not that God calls upon them to do this as approving the formality, (though this foolish custom had obtained in most ages and countries,) any more than other customs that were made use of by way of illustration; as the Olympic games , and possibly that practice mentioned 1Co 15:29 ; but makes use of it, as being customary, either to excite them to and put them upon true repentance, or to convince them hereby that they were not able themselves sufficiently to bewail so great calamities as were coming upon them, intimating hereby that he would give them occasion for the most unfeigned weeping and lamentation.

Cunning women such as are most skilful in it, Amo 5:16 ; wisdom being taken for skill in any arts, as Exo 31:3 , and elsewhere.

Haydock: Jer 9:17 - Wise

Wise, in composing or singing the Nזnia, or mournful songs, recording the praises of the deceased. (Calmet) ---

"This custom still subsists in Judea: women go about with dishevelled hair and naked breasts, with mournful tunes, exciting all to tears." (St. Jerome) ---

Music was also used, Matthew ix. 23. Thus feigned tears, at least, would supply the want of real ones.

Gill: Jer 9:17 - Thus saith the Lord of hosts, consider ye // and call for the mourning women, that they may come // and send for cunning women, that they may come

Thus saith the Lord of hosts, consider ye,.... The punishment that was just coming upon them, as Kimchi; or the words that the Lord was about to say unto them; as follows:

and call for the mourning women, that they may come; the same with the "praeficae" among the Romans; persons that were sent for, and hired by, the relations of the dead, to raise up their mourning; and who, by their dishevelled hair, naked breasts, and beatings thereon, and mournful voice, and what they said in their doleful ditties in praise of the dead, greatly moved upon the affections of the surviving relatives, and produced tears from them. This was a custom that early prevailed among the Jews, and long continued with them; and was so common, that, according to the Misnic doctors ^c, the poorest man in Israel, when his wife died, never had less than two pipes, and one mourning woman; See Gill on Mat 9:23. Now, in order to show what a calamity was coming on them, and what mourning there would be, and what occasion for it; the Lord by the prophet, not as approving, but deriding the practice, bids them call for the mourning women to assist them in their lamentations:

and send for cunning women, that they may come; such as were expert in this business, and could mimic mourning well, and had the art of moving the affections with their voice and gestures.