Jeremiah 4:29
The whole city shall flee for the noise of the horsemen and bowmen; they shall go into thickets, and climb up upon the rocks: every city shall be forsaken, and not a man dwell therein.
The whole city shall flee,.... Or, "every city"; for not Jerusalem only is meant, but every city, or the inhabitants of every city; and so the Targum paraphrases it,
"all the inhabitants of the land,''
who would be put into a panic, and flee: "for" or
at the noise of the horsemen and bowmen; of which the army of the enemy would greatly consist: it intimates that the inhabitants of Judea would not stand a battle; but at hearing the sound of the trampling of the horses, and the clattering of the bows and arrows, that the men upon them had, they would flee at once:
they shall go into the thickets, and climb upon the rocks; that is, either the horsemen and bowmen, who would pursue the inhabitants into those places: or rather the inhabitants themselves, who would flee thither to hide themselves from their enemies; namely, get into woods and forests, and among the thick trees, and cover themselves; and upon the highest mountains and rocks, and into the holes and caverns of them, and secure themselves from the enemy; see Matthew 24:16, the word for "thickets" signifies "clouds" {i}; and Kimchi interprets it of places as high as the clouds, as the tops of some mountains are, so that going up to them is like entering into the clouds; and which are sometimes covered with thick trees, and look like clouds; but the Targum explains it of woods or forests:
every city shall be forsaken; of its inhabitants:
and not a man dwell therein; as the prophet had seen in his vision, Jeremiah 4:25, this was to be when a full end was made, not by the Babylonians, but by the Romans.
{i} Mybeb "in nubes", Munster, Tigurine version, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Schmidt.