(5) All the strength.--i.e., the treasure or "substance" of the city.

Verse 5. - The strength; rather, the stores. The labors; rather, the fruits of labor; i.e. the profits.

20:1-6 Pashur smote Jeremiah, and put him in the stocks. Jeremiah was silent till God put a word into his mouth. To confirm this, Pashur has a name given him, Fear on every side. It speaks a man not only in distress, but in despair; not only in danger, but in fear on every side. The wicked are in great fear where no fear is, for God can make the most daring sinner a terror to himself. And those who will not hear of their faults from God's prophets, shall be made to hear them from their consciences. Miserable is the man thus made a terror to himself. His friends shall fail him. God lets him live miserably, that he may be a monument of Divine justice.Moreover, I will deliver all the strength of this city,.... The fortifications of it; its towers, as the Syriac version; the riches of it, as the Targum; all its magazines and stores, in which its strength lay:

and all the labours thereof; all the fruit of their labours; all their wealth and riches got by labour; all their goods in trade; all their manufactures and merchandise:

and all the precious things thereof; all their plate and jewels, the rich furniture of their houses, and whatsoever was laid up in their treasures as rare and valuable:

and all the treasures of the kings of Judah will I give into the hand of their enemies; which they in successive reigns had been laying up in store for years together; see Isaiah 39:6;

which shall spoil them, and take them, and carry them to Babylon; make a prey of them, seize them as their property, and carry them away with them.