Matthew Poole and continuators on Jeremiah 2:6

6 Neither said they , where is the LORD that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, that led us through the wilderness, through a land of desarts , and of pits : through a land of drought , and of the shadow of death , through a land that no man passed through, and where no man dwelt ?

i. e. With themselves, thought not.

The expression may have some respect to the scituation of the place, as lying lower then Canaan, but the design is to reprove their sloath, and stupidity, charging herein their Apostasie, not upon their ignorance, but wilfulness, their deliverance from Egypt, and therefore is it here-mentioned, being such a deliverance, as never greater was wrought for any People, wherein there was so much of his Power, and Love seen, they never regarded the operations of his hands, never concerned themselves about what God had done for them, ver. 8. which should have engaged them to a more close cleaving to him.

Desolate places, chap. 50.13. and then what follows is to amplifie the greatness of their dangers in the Wilderness, and therein the greatness of their deliverance.

Either those natural dangerous pits, that were there; or put for the grave, where Passengers are so often buryed quick in the heaps of sand suddenly blown up by the wind; or threatning in every respect nothing but death, which may be implied in that expression of the shadow of death in this verse, which may allude to several kinds, or fears of death in passing through a wilderness. See in the Synopsis.

Where they had no water but by miracle, the LXX render it a Land without water.

See in the word Pits; the LXX render it a Land without fruit bringing forth nothing, that might have a tendency to the support of Life, therefore nothing but death could be expected, and besides, it yeilding so many venemous Creatures, as Scorpions, and Serpents, &c. as also the many Enemies, that they went in continual danger of; all which could not but look formidable, and as the shadow of death.

As having in it no accommodation for Travel, much less for habitation: In these respects may it well be called, a wast howling Wilderness, Deut. 32.10.

Marginal references: Isa. 63.9, 11, 13. Hos. 13.4.