Thus saith Jehovah of hosts Consider, and call for the mourning women, that they may come, and send for the skilful women, that they may come;
God tells the prophet to send for the women whose trade is grief. Jerusalem is about to need them. So why does God call for hired weeping? And what use is a wail ordered in advance?
The call for mourners does not stand alone. It comes after the prophet has poured out his own grief and started to announce judgment.
From verse 18 to verse 2 of chapter 9 the prophet lays open the depth of his grief. From verse 3 of Jeremiah 9 he announces judgment. That judgment will also reach the nations around them.
The "mourning women" and "skillful women" of the verse held a real job. Grief in Israel was loud and public, and God tested it for what was real.
It was the habit of the Hebrews, as it still is in the East, to make a great demonstration of their mourning. They would beat their breasts, cover their heads, and fast. They put dust and ashes on their heads, neglected their hair, and wore dull-coloured clothes. They tore their clothes, wore sackcloth, and so on... At a death professional mourners were hired, mostly women... God does not want grieving people to be without feeling. The Lord wept at the grave of Lazarus. But He wants what is real in everything. He had to say to His people, "Rend your hearts and not your garments." Joel 2:13.
A few verses later the prophet gives the reason. Death climbs in where a family thought itself safe. One writer also notes something unsettling about these women.
Verses 17-22. The time of wailing and mourning is at hand. "For death has come up into our windows; it has entered our palaces, cutting off the children from the streets and the young men from the squares." Pestilence was to sweep over them and enter their homes. So came the call to the professional wailers to sing the mournful songs of death. These wailing women are also called "wise women." They dabbled in magic and the occult, in contacting spirits, and in fortune-telling.
The call is urgent, and the scale of the coming death explains why. By verse 22 the dead lie ungathered.
They had good reason to call (v. 17) for mourning women, and to call in haste. Men will fall like the handful left behind the reaper, and no one will be there to gather them (v. 22).
The same writer shows what happens when deaths come faster than mourning can keep up.
When deaths are few there may be time to mourn with one and another, but when death is in every house it is too late.
The verse calls these women "skillful," and skill is where the danger lies. Weeping that starts as real sympathy can end as a paid performance.
Those examples of mourning were sincere, but real grief, which grows out of sympathy for a neighbour, was twisted into shallow professionalism. Mourning became an art, and some won a reputation for their skill (Amos 5:16). Mourning women held themselves ready to come and take up a wailing for the departed (Jer. 9:17-18), sometimes expressing themselves in elegies (2 Chron. 35:25).
The chapter does not end in the wailing. In the middle of the chapter he lifts the reader's eyes to something that survives the ruin.
In the two verses between (vv. 23-24), Jeremiah, true to his name, lifts up the blessed Lord before the eyes of faith. He says: "Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the Lord".
- Sentence. The call for mourners follows a sentence already passed. From verse 3 Jeremiah announces judgment, and it reaches the nations around too.
- Summons. The "mourning women" were paid professionals. Hired weeping was normal. God's order to send for them means funerals are coming.
- Scale. The dead will outnumber the mourners. Men fall like grain behind the reaper, and no one gathers them. When death is in every house, it is too late to mourn.
- Sincerity. Skilled mourning can slide from real sympathy into performance. God does not ask grieving people to feel nothing. He asks for torn hearts, not torn clothes.
- Substance. The chapter's answer is not better mourning but a better boast: knowing the God who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth.
and let them make haste, and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids pour forth waters.
Jeremiah 9 turns from God's charge against a lying people to the sound of a funeral: hire the wailing women, hurry, and get the whole nation weeping. But can bought tears stand in for a broken heart, and what does God want from grief?
The call for wailing women follows a charge, not a private loss. One writer traces the chapter's order: deceit, then judgment, then the hurried call for mourners.
The rest of the chapter (verses 18 to the end) and the first eight verses of Jeremiah 9 set out the prophet's distress. He grieved over the deceitful malice of the Lord's people, which kept them from knowing Him. Then, from verse 9, follows their judgment under the Lord's angry displeasure. Well might they call (verse 17) for mourning women, and in haste. Men shall fall like the handful left behind the reaper, but in their case with no one to gather them.
These wailing women worked a trade. One writer describes the disaster they were called to sing over, and the other business they were known for.
The time of wailing and mourning is at hand. "For death has come up into our windows, it has entered our palaces, cutting off the children from the streets and the young men from the squares." A plague was to sweep over them and enter their homes. So the call goes out to the professional wailers to sing the mournful songs of death. These wailing women are also called "wise women," for they dabbled in magic and the occult, in familiar spirits and fortune-telling.
Mourning among the Hebrews was loud and visible, and hired mourners were part of it. One writer sets that custom beside what God asks for instead.
It was the habit of the Hebrews, as it still is in the East, to make a great show of their mourning. They would beat their breasts, cover their heads, fast, put dust and ashes on their heads, tear their clothes, wear sackcloth, and so on… At a death people hired professional mourners, mostly women: "Call for the mourning women to come… let them make haste and raise a wailing over us." Jeremiah 9:17-18. God does not want grieving people to be without feeling: the Lord wept at the grave of Lazarus, but He would have reality in everything. He had to say to His people, "Rend your hearts and not your garments." Joel 2:13.
Another writer traces where that custom ended up:
Mourning sank into an art, and some grew famous for their skill (Amos 5:16). Mourning women stayed ready to come and take up a wailing for the dead (Jer. 9:17-18), sometimes in the form of poems of grief (2 Chron. 35:25).
Against the paid wailers stands the prophet himself. No one had to hire his tears, and one writer turns that into a question for everyone who carries God's message.
The prophet feels every word he says… As we tell lost sinners of their condition, do we feel the terror of the message? Something like Paul when he says, "knowing the fear of the Lord." Then would not something of the divine compassion work through our soul, pleading, begging, even weeping over them? See how Jeremiah in the ninth chapter looks on the sins of these people, whom he could also condemn most sternly. "Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!" Here is no indifference, but sorrow. It is human sorrow, and it sometimes led the beloved prophet even to complain of God. Yet the divine pity works through it.
God has called His people to weep at other times too. One writer says what He wanted those tears to do.
The Lord was not indifferent to Israel's plight, for He called "for weeping and mourning, for baldness and wearing sackcloth." He wanted His people to feel how serious their departure from Him was. He wanted them to return to Him in true sorrow and repentance.
- Cause — The chapter exposes deceit and malice that kept the people from knowing God. Judgment stands at the door.
- Call — So the order goes out in haste: hire the trained mourners. Death has come up into the windows and reached the houses.
- Counterfeit — Grief you can hire, you can also fake. Mourning sank into an art, and some grew famous for their skill.
- Content — God does not ask for numbness, but He does ask for reality: hearts torn open, not clothes.
- Consequence — Jeremiah's tears show what real sorrow looks like. God still looks for that feeling in those who carry His message.