Jeremiah 49:29

49:28-33 Nebuchadnezzar would make desolation among the people of Kedar, who dwelt in the deserts of Arabia. He who conquered many strong cities, will not leave those unconquered that dwell in tents. He will do this to gratify his own covetousness and ambition; but God orders it for correcting an unthankful people, and for warning a careless world to expect trouble when they seem most safe. They shall flee, get far off, and dwell deep in the deserts; they shall be dispersed. But privacy and obscurity are not always protection and security.

The Kedarenes were a people whose business chiefly lay in feeding flocks, and of which their substance consisted; and they mostly dwelt in tents, which they removed from place to place, for the sake of pasturage for their flocks; hence they were sometimes called Scenites, and sometimes Nomades; see Psalm 120:5 ; but now both their habitations, such as they were, and their flocks too, wherein lay their riches, would be taken away from them: they shall take to themselves their curtains, and all their vessels, and their camels; their curtains made of skins of beasts, of which their tents were made; or with which they were covered to protect them from the inclemencies of the weather; and all the furniture of them, their household goods; their vessels for domestic use; and utensils for their calling and employment; and their camels, which were much used in those countries for travelling from place to place; on which they put their tents, curtains, and vessels, when they removed from one pasturage to another; these they, not the Kedarenes, should take to themselves, and flee with them; but the Chaldeans should seize on them for themselves, as their booty and prey: and they shall cry unto them, fear is on every side; or, "magormissabib", "a fear all round", Jeremiah 20:3; this is the word the Chaldeans shall use, and with it frighten the Kedarenes out of their tents; or by the sound of their trumpets, the alarm of war, and by their shouts and cries, and the clashing of their arms, t

Verse 29. - All the possessions of the nomad are here mentioned - first his tents and his flocks; then the hangings of which the tent is composed ( Jeremiah 4:20 ; Jeremiah 10:20 ), and the vessels which it contains; and finally the camels which the Arab rides, not to mention their other uses. All this shall be ruthlessly appropriated by the Chaldean invaders. Fear is on every side. Again Jeremiah's motto recurs (see on Jeremiah 6:25). It expresses here, not the war cry itself, but the result produced by it. Jeremiah 49:29

That is, the Chaldeans shall take away the Kedarens’ tents ; for they being a people whose cattle were their livelihood, had no fixed houses, but tents, which were movable habitations, covered with skins of beasts; and the curtains which they used to draw before those tents, and served them as sides, as gable ends of houses serve us; and all the furniture of their tents or tabernacles, and their cattle; and either their enemies should fright them with terrible noises and outcries, or they should themselves cry out that they were surrounded with objects of fear.

29. tents—in which they dwelt, from which they are called Scenites, that is, tent dwellers. curtains—namely, with which the tents were covered (Jer 4:20; 10:20; Ps 104:2). they shall cry unto them, Fear, &c.—The foe, on crying, Fear …, shall discomfit them (the Kedarenes) by their mere cry.

"Concerning Kedar and the Kingdoms of Hazor, which Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon smote." (The Kethib נבוּכדראצּור is perhaps merely an error in transcription occasioned by the occurrence of the preceding חצור). Kedar, the Kedarenes, a Bedouin nation descended from Ishmael, dwelling in tents throughout the region between Arabia Petraea and Babylonia (see on Genesis 25:13 and Ezekiel 27:21 ), is here, no doubt, a general name for all the nomadic tribes and shepherd nations of Arabia. Hazor elsewhere occurs only as the name of various cities in Palestine ( Joshua 11:1 ; Joshua 15:23 , Joshua 15:25 ; Joshua 19:23 ; Nahum 11:33 ), of which we need not think here, since it is Arabians who are spoken of. No locality or region of this name in Arabia is known. Jeremiah appears to have formed the name for the purpose of designating those Arabians who dwelt in חצרים, "courts" or "villages," and who thus differed from the Bedouins proper, or nomads and dwellers in tents; cf. Isaiah 42:11 with Genesis 25:16 . The settled Arabians are to this day called Hadarijeh, in contrast with Wabarijeh, who dwell in tents. "Hadar, חצר, is the settled dwelling-place, in contrast with bedû, the steppe, where the tents are pitched, sometimes here, sometimes there, and only for a time" (Delitzsch on Isaiah 42:11 ). "The kingdoms of Hazor" are the regions of the settled tribes, ruled by their own princes or sheiks; cf. Jeremiah 25:24 . (Note: According to Mrc. v. Niebuhr, Gesch. Ass. u.