Matthew Poole and continuators on Jeremiah 50:6

6 My people hath been lost sheep , their shepherds have caused them to go astray , they have turned them away on the mountains : they have gone from mountain to hill , they have forgotten their resting place .

All men are compared to sheep that go astray, Isa. 53.6. here it is applied to the Iews who are called the Lords people by reason of the ancient Covenant God made with their Fathers they are said to be lost either with respect to their Captivity being cast out of the Land which God gave them for Pastures, or in respect of their Idolatry.

Their Civil and Ecclesiastical Governours have been a cause of it. The former by their wicked commands forcing them to Idolatry and Superstition, or at least by their wicked Example setting them an Example, and by their ill government conniving at them in their Idolatrous practices for which they are gone into Captivity. Their Priests, and Ecclesiastical Governours, teaching them such practices and incouraging them by their own examples, and promising them impunity, and security in them.

Either they have bin a cause of their offering Sacrifices to idols upon the Mountains, or of their being carried into Captivity over the Mountains.

Either wandring up and down in a strange land, or in their way thither, or running from one species of Idolatry to another.

They have forgotten the land of Canaan which I gave them for a resting place after their toilsome travail in the Wilderness, or (as some would have it) they have forgotten we who am their rest.

Marginal references: Heb. place to lye down in.