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| 7. Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it; it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble; but he shall be saved out of it. | 7. Heus, quia magnus hic dies a non esse sicut ipsum (hoc est, ut non sit similis, ut nunquam fuerit similis) et tempus afflictionis (vel, augustiae), hoc ipsi Jacob. (hoc est, populo Israelitico) et ab ea servabitur. |
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! great is that day: “great” is to be taken for dreadful; and he adds, so that there is none like it It was a dreadful spectacle to see the city destroyed, and the Temple partly pulled down and partly consumed by fire: the king, with all the nobility, was driven into exile, his eyes were put out, and his children were slain; and he was afterwards led away in a manner so degraded, that to die a hundred times would have been more desirable than to endure such indignity. Hence the Prophet does not say without reason, that that day would be great, so that none would be like it: and he said this, to shake away the torpidity of the people, for they thought that the holy city, which God had chosen for his habitation, could not fall, nor the Temple perish, he further says, that it would be a time of distress to the people. But at the end of the verse he gives them a hope of God’s mercy, even deliverance from this distress. We now, then, see the design of the Prophet in these verses. 33 “That day” in this verse, and “that day” in the following verse, seem to be the same. Then הוי must not be rendered “Alas,” but “Ho!” or “Hark!” according to its most common meaning. The passage from verse the 4th (Jeremiah 30:4,) to the end of this, including the beginning of the 8th (Jeremiah 30:8), may be thus rendered, —
4. Even these are the words which Jehovah hath said respecting Israel and respecting Judah:
5. Verily thus hath Jehovah said — (The voice of trembling have we heard, Of fear and not of peace:
6. Ask ye now and see, Does a man travail with child? How is it? I see every man With his hands on his loins like a woman in travail, And turned are all faces to paleness:)
7. Hark! for great shall be that day, none like it; Though a time of distress shall be to Jacob, Yet from it shall he be saved:
8. And it shall be in that day, saith Jehovah of hosts, That I shall break, etc.. etc..
The parenthesis accounts for what is said at the end of the 7th verse (Jeremiah 30:7) and is intended as a contrast with the great day of deliverance that is promised. — Ed. — There will be no Lecture tomorrow on account of the Consistory.
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