9:2 O that I had in the wilderness a {b} lodging place of wayfaring men; that I might leave my people, and go from them! for they [are] all {c} adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men.
(b) He shows that there was more peace and greater safety for him to dwell among the wild beasts than among this wicked people except that God has given him this charge.
(c) Utterly turned from God.
9:2 A lodging place - Some retiring place, though it were but some mean hut in the wilderness.
9:1-11 Jeremiah wept much, yet wished he could weep more, that he might rouse the people to a due sense of the hand of God. But even the desert, without communion with God, through Christ Jesus, and the influences of the Holy Spirit, must be a place for temptation and evil; while, with these blessings, we may live in holiness in crowded cities. The people accustomed their tongues to lies. So false were they, that a brother could not be trusted. In trading and bargaining they said any thing for their own advantage, though they knew it to be false. But God marked their sin. Where no knowledge of God is, what good can be expected? He has many ways of turning a fruitful land into barrenness for the wickedness of those that dwell therein.
