Alas! That day is so great there is none like it; it is a time of distress for Jacob; yet he shall be saved out of it.
The Prophet goes on in this verse to describe the grievousness of that punishment for which the people felt no concern, for they disregarded all threatenings, as I have already said, and had now for many years hardened themselves so as to deem as nothing so many dreadful things. This, then, was the reason why he dwelt so much on this denunciation, and exclaimed, Alas!
Here, I. Jeremiah is directed to write what God had spoken to him, which perhaps refers to all the foregoing prophecies. He must write them and publish them, in hopes that those who had not profited by what he said upon once hearing it might take more notice of it when in reading it they had leisure for a more considerate review.
Commenting on Jeremiah 30:1-9
Alas! for that day is great,.... For sorrow and distress: so that none is like it; such were the times of Jerusalem's siege and destruction by the Romans; and which was an emblem of those times of trouble from antichrist in the latter day; see Mat 24:21; it is even the time of Jacob's trouble: of the church and people of God, the true Israel...