Jer 15:10 | KD | STEP | "Woe is me, my mother, that thou hast born me, a man of strive and contention to all the earth! I have not lent out, nor have men lent to me; all curse me. Jer 15:11. Jahveh saith, Verily I strengthen thee to thy good; verily I cause the enemy to entreat thee in the time of evil and of trouble. Jer 15:12. Does iron break, iron from the north and brass? Jer 15:13. Thy substance and thy treasures give I for a prey without a price, and that for all thy sins, and in all thy borders, Jer 15:14. And cause thine enemies bring it into a land which thou knowest not; for fire burneth in mine anger, against you it is kindled." Woe is me, exclaims Jeremiah in , that my mother brought me forth! The apostrophe to his mother is significant of the depth of his sorrow, and is not to be understood as if he were casting any reproach on his mother; it is an appeal to his mother to share with him his sorrow at his lot. This lament is consequently very different from Job’s cursing of the day of his birth, Job 3:1. The apposition to the suffix "me," the man of strife and contention, conveys the meaning of the lament in this wise: me, who must yet be a man, with whom the whole world strives and contends. Ew. wrongly render it: "to be a man of strife," etc.; for it was not his mother’s fault that he became such an one. The second clause intimates that he has not provoked the strife and contention. נשׁה, lend, i.e., give on loan, and with בּ, to lend to a person, lend out; hence נשׁה, debtor, and נשׁה בו, creditor, Isa 24:2. These words are not an individualizing of the thought: all interchange of friendly services between me and human society is broken off (Hitz.). For intercourse with one’s fellow-men does not chiefly, or in the foremost place, consist in lending and borrowing of gold and other articles. Borrowing and lending is rather the frequent occasion of strife and ill-will; and it is in this reference that it is here brought up. Jeremiah says he has neither as bad debtor or disobliging creditor given occasion to hatred and quarrelling, and yet all curse him. This is the meaning of the last words, in which the form מקללוני is hard to explain. The rabbinical attempts to clear it up by means of a commingling of the verbs קלל and קלה are now, and reasonably, given up. Ew. ( Gram . §350, c ) wants to make it מקללנני; but probably the form has arisen merely out of the wrong dividing of a word, and ought to be read כּלּהם קללוּני. So read most recent scholars, after the example of J. D. Mich.; cf. also Böttcher, Grammat . ii. S. 322, note. It is true that we nowhere else find כּלּהם; but we find an analogy in the archaic כּלּהם . In its favour we have, besides, the circumstance, that the heavy form הם is by preference appended to short words; see Böttcher, as above, S. 21.

‏ Jeremiah 15:10

Jer 15:10 "Woe is me, my mother, that thou hast born me, a man of strive and contention to all the earth! I have not lent out, nor have men lent to me; all curse me. Jer 15:11. Jahveh saith, Verily I strengthen thee to thy good; verily I cause the enemy to entreat thee in the time of evil and of trouble. Jer 15:12. Does iron break, iron from the north and brass? Jer 15:13. Thy substance and thy treasures give I for a prey without a price, and that for all thy sins, and in all thy borders, Jer 15:14. And cause thine enemies bring it into a land which thou knowest not; for fire burneth in mine anger, against you it is kindled."

Woe is me, exclaims Jeremiah in Jer 15:10, that my mother brought me forth! The apostrophe to his mother is significant of the depth of his sorrow, and is not to be understood as if he were casting any reproach on his mother; it is an appeal to his mother to share with him his sorrow at his lot. This lament is consequently very different from Job’s cursing of the day of his birth, Job 3:1. The apposition to the suffix "me," the man of strife and contention, conveys the meaning of the lament in this wise: me, who must yet be a man, with whom the whole world strives and contends. Ew. wrongly render it: "to be a man of strife," etc.; for it was not his mother’s fault that he became such an one. The second clause intimates that he has not provoked the strife and contention. נשׁה, lend, i.e., give on loan, and with בּ, to lend to a person, lend out; hence נשׁה, debtor, and נשׁה בו, creditor, Isa 24:2. These words are not an individualizing of the thought: all interchange of friendly services between me and human society is broken off (Hitz.). For intercourse with one’s fellow-men does not chiefly, or in the foremost place, consist in lending and borrowing of gold and other articles. Borrowing and lending is rather the frequent occasion of strife and ill-will; ^{▼▼Calvin aptly remarks: Unde enim inter homines et lites et jurgia, nisi quia male inter ipsos convenit, dum ultro et citro negotiantur?} and it is in this reference that it is here brought up. Jeremiah says he has neither as bad debtor or disobliging creditor given occasion to hatred and quarrelling, and yet all curse him. This is the meaning of the last words, in which the form מקללוני is hard to explain. The rabbinical attempts to clear it up by means of a commingling of the verbs קלל and קלה are now, and reasonably, given up. Ew. (Gram. §350, c) wants to make it מקללנני; but probably the form has arisen merely out of the wrong dividing of a word, and ought to be read כּלּהם קללוּני. So read most recent scholars, after the example of J. D. Mich.; cf. also Böttcher, Grammat. ii. S. 322, note. It is true that we nowhere else find כּלּהם; but we find an analogy in the archaic כּלּהם . In its favour we have, besides, the circumstance, that the heavy form הם is by preference appended to short words; see Böttcher, as above, S. 21.