Following the words from the Lord that Jeremiah has spoken in Jeremiah 4:5–7, these may now be Jeremiah’s own words to the people of Judah.1 He is calling on the people to respond to the Lord by entering into a time of mourning. They are to put on sackcloth and to lament and wail.
These are the actions of mourners and that is the only suitable response to the disaster that is coming. The people had expressed the belief that surely the Lord will not come in judgment (Jeremiah 3:4–5), but the reality is that the fierce anger of the Lord has not turned back from us
.2 By using the word us,
Jeremiah may even be identifying himself as part of the people, making his call for a response even more passionate and urgent. The call is for people to mourn because judgment is inevitable, but even now there is a glimmer of hope. Those who listen to Jeremiah and begin to mourn will have to recognize that the source of the threat is indeed the Lord himself, and therefore, that they must turn to him in repentance. Since the threatened destruction has not yet come, it might not yet be too late to escape it.3
8 For this put on sackcloth, lament and wail, for the fierce anger of the LORD has not turned back from us.”