(34) Then will I cause to cease . . . the voice of mirth.--The special imagery of the picture of desolation is characteristic of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 16:9; Jeremiah 25:10; Jeremiah 33:11). No words could paint the utter break-up of the life of the nation more forcibly. Nothing is heard but wailing and lamentation, or, more terrible even than that, there is the utter silence of solitude. The capacity for joy and the occasions for rejoicing (comp. 1 Maccabees 9:39 for the bridal rejoicings of Israel) belong alike to the past.

Shall be desolate.--The same word as in the "waste places" of Isaiah 51:3; Isaiah 58:12; it is used in Ezekiel 13:4 for the haunts of the "foxes," or rather the "jackals" of the "deserts," but always of places that, having been once inhabited, have fallen into ruins (Leviticus 26:31).

Verse 34. - The land shall be desolate; rather, shall become a waste. The curse denounced upon the disobedient people in Leviticus 26:31, 33 (for another parallel between this chapter and Leviticus 26, see ver. 23). In both passages the word for "waste" is khorbah, which, as Dr. Payne Smith remarks, is "used only of places which, having once been inhabited, have then fallen into ruin." Hebrew is rich in synonyms for the idea of "desolation."

7:29-34 In token both of sorrow and of slavery, Jerusalem must be degraded, and separated from God, as she had been separated to him. The heart is the place in which God has chosen to put his name; but if sin has the innermost and uppermost place there, we pollute the temple of the Lord. The destruction of Jerusalem appears here very terrible. The slain shall be many; they having made it the place of their sin. Evil pursues sinners, even after death. Those who will not, by the grace of God, be cured of vain mirth, shall, by the justice of God, be deprived of all mirth. How many ruin their health and property without complaining, when engaged in Satan's service! May we learn to relish holy joys, and to sit loose to all others though lawful.Then will I cause to cease from the cities of Judah, and from the streets of Jerusalem,.... Signifying that the devastation should not only be in and about Jerusalem, but should reach all over the land of Judea; since in all cities, towns, and villages, would cease

the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness; upon any account whatever; and, instead of that, mourning, weeping, and lamentation:

the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride; no marrying, and giving in marriage, and so no expressions of joy on such occasions; and consequently no likelihood, at present, of repeopling the city of Jerusalem, and the other cities of Judah:

for the land shall be desolate; without people to dwell in it, and till it. The Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic versions, read, "the whole land".