For the mountains will I take up a weeping and wailing, and for the habitations of the wilderness a lamentation, because they are burned up, so that none can pass through them; neither can men hear the voice of the cattle; both the fowl of the heavens and the beast are fled; they are gone.
The Prophet had exhorted others to lament and to bewail. He now comes forth as though none had ears to attend to his admonition. As then he himself undertakes to mourn and to lament, he no doubt indirectly condemns the insensibility of the whole people. He saw by the spirit of prophecy, that all the rest thought what he said incredible and therefore fabulous.
The prophet, being commissioned both to foretel the destruction coming upon Judah and Jerusalem and to point out the sin for which that destruction was brought upon them, here, as elsewhere, speaks of both very feelingly: what he said of both came from the heart, and therefore one would have thought it would reach to the heart. I.
Commenting on Jeremiah 9:1-11
For the mountains will I take up a weeping and wailing,.... Because of the desolation of them; because no pasture upon them, nor flocks feeding there; or "concerning" them, as the Arabic version; or "upon" them (y), in order to cause the lamentation to be heard the further; but the former sense seems best, as appears by what follows.