Jeremiah 50:6

50:6 “My people have been lost sheep.

Their shepherds ¹  have allow them to go astray.

They have wandered around in the mountains.

They have roamed from one mountain and hill to another. ² 

They have forgotten their resting place.

Jeremiah 50:17

50:17 “The people of Israel are like scattered sheep

which lions have chased away.

First the king of Assyria devoured them. ³ 

Now last of all King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon has gnawed their bones. ⁴ 

[50:6]  ¹ sn The shepherds are the priests, prophets, and leaders who have led Israel into idolatry (2:8).

[50:6]  ² sn The allusion here, if it is not merely a part of the metaphor of the wandering sheep, is to the worship of the false gods on the high hills (2:20, 3:2).

[50:17]  ³ sn The king of Assyria devoured them. This refers to the devastation wrought on northern Israel by the kings of Assyria beginning in 738 b.c. when Tiglath Pileser took Galilee and the Transjordanian territories and ending with the destruction and exile of the people of Samaria by Sargon in 722 b.c.

[50:17]  ⁴ tn The verb used here only occurs this one time in the Hebrew Bible. It is a denominative from the Hebrew word for “bones” (עֶצֶם, ’etsem). BDB 1126 s.v. עֶָצַם, denom Pi, define it as “break his bones.” HALOT 822 s.v. II עָצַם Pi defines it as “gnaw on his bones.”