41 Kerioth is taken, and the strong places have been forced, and the hearts of Moab's men of war in that day will be like the heart of a woman in birth-pains.
Their hearts will be full of fear; pains and sorrows will overcome them; they will be in pain like a woman in childbirth; they will be shocked at one another; their faces will be like flames.
For this cause I am full of bitter grief; pains like the pains of a woman in childbirth have come on me: I am bent down with sorrow at what comes to my ears; I am shocked by what I see.
Put the question and see if it is possible for a man to have birth-pains: why do I see every man with his hands gripping his sides, as a woman does when the pains of birth are on her, and all faces are turned green?
See, he will come up like an eagle in flight, stretching out his wings against Bozrah: and the hearts of Edom's men of war on that day will be like the heart of a woman in birth-pains.
Now why are you crying so loudly? is there no king in you? has destruction come on your wise helper? so that pains have taken you like the pains of a woman in childbirth: Be in pain, make sounds of grief, O daughter of Zion, like a woman in childbirth: for now you will go out of the town, living in the open country, and will come even to Babylon; there you will have salvation; there the Lord will make you free from the hands of your haters.
As a woman with child, whose time is near, is troubled, crying out in her pain; so have we been before you, O Lord. We have been with child, we have been in pain, we have given birth to wind; no salvation has come to the earth through us, and no children have come into the world.
A voice has come to my ears like the voice of a woman in birth-pains, the pain of one giving birth to her first child, the voice of the daughter of Zion, fighting for breath, stretching out her hands, saying, Now sorrow is mine! for my strength is gone from me before the takers of life.
The king of Babylon has had news of them, and his hands have become feeble: trouble has come on him and pain like the pain of a woman in childbirth.
Babylon's men of war have kept back from the fight, waiting in their strong places; their strength has given way, they have become like women: her houses have been put on fire, her locks are broken.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Jeremiah 48
Commentary on Jeremiah 48 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 48
Moab is next set to the bar before Jeremiah the prophet, whom God has constituted judge over nations and kingdoms, from his mouth to receive its doom. Isaiah's predictions concerning Moab had had their accomplishment (we had the predictions Isa. 15 and 16 and the like Amos 2:1), and they were fulfilled when the Assyrians, under Salmanassar, invaded and distressed Moab. But this is a prophecy of the desolations of Moab by the Chaldeans, which were accomplished under Nebuzaradan, about five years after he had destroyed Jerusalem. Here is,
Jer 48:1-13
We may observe in these verses,
Jer 48:14-47
The destruction is here further prophesied of very largely and with a great copiousness and variety of expression, and very pathetically and in moving language, designed not only to awaken them by a national repentance and reformation to prevent the trouble, or by a personal repentance and reformation to prepare for it, but to affect us with the calamitous state of human life, which is liable to such lamentable occurrences, and with the power of God's anger and the terror of his judgments, when he comes forth to contend with a provoking people. In reading this long roll of threatenings, and meditating on the terror of them, it will be of more use to us to keep this in our eye, and to get our hearts thereby possessed with a holy awe of God and of his wrath, than to enquire critically into all the lively figures and metaphors here used.