And you, O devastated one, what will you do, though you dress yourself in scarlet, though you adorn yourself with gold jewelry, though you enlarge your eyes with paint? You adorn yourself in vain; your lovers despise you; they want to take your life.
The Prophet boldly ridicules the Jews, in order to cast down their pride and haughtiness. It was indeed his object to check that pride with which they were elated against God. The Prophet could not have done this without assuming a higher strain than usual, and by rendering his discourse more striking by using metaphorical words.
The prophet is here in an agony, and cries out like one upon the rack of pain with some acute distemper, or as a woman in travail. The expressions are very pathetic and moving, enough to melt a heart of stone into compassion: My bowels! my bowels! I am pained at my very heart; and yet well, and in health himself, and nothing ails him.
Commenting on Jeremiah 4:19-31
And when thou art spoiled, what wilt thou do?.... Or, "O thou spoiled" (k), wasted, and undone creature, how wilt thou help thyself? by what means dost thou think thou canst be delivered? it suggests that her ruin was inevitable; that she could not be recovered from it by herself, or any other: though thou clothest thyself with crimson; and so look like some rich...