Matthew Poole and continuators on Jeremiah 10:20

20 My tabernacle is spoiled, and all my cords are broken; my children are gone forth of me and they are not: there is none to stretch forth my tent any more, and to set up my curtains.

He proceeds in his prosopopeia to bring in the land, or the inhabitants thereof enumerating their Calamities, and by a metaphor sets out the overthrow of the land, or Jerusalem, by the breaking of the cords of a Tabernacle, the use whereof is to fasten it on every side to Stakes in the ground, which cords being broken the Tabernacle falls, implying all the supports of City and Country were gone, nothing but desolation to be expected, See chap. 4.20.

Either the inhabitants of the land or the lesser Cities, being frequently called daughters, viz. the Chaldeans, have snatched them away from me, and carried them into Captivity.

Of the phrase and meaning of it, see chap. 31.15.

i. e. 'Tis irrevocable; I am without all help either for Defence or Beauty, or any thing to regain my pristine state, which he chuseth to describe hereby continuing this Metaphor rather than any other, of a Sheph[illegible: 3 letters]s Tent; possibly insinuating the ground of it to arise princip[illegible: 2 letters]ly from their Pastors, the neglect both of their Civil and Ecclesiastical Governours which the next verse favours.