Charles Ellicott Commentary Jeremiah 12:11

"They have made it a desolation; it mourneth unto me, being desolate; the whole land is made desolate, because no man layeth it to heart." — Jeremiah 12:11 (ASV)

They have made it desolate. —The Hebrew is impersonal. “One has made it ...,” i.e., it is made desolate. As in other poetry of strong emotion, the prophet dwells with a strange solemn iteration on the same sound—“desolate,” “desolate,” “desolate”—three times in the same breath. The Hebrew word shemâma, so uttered, must have sounded like a wail of lamentation.

Because no man layeth it to heart. —Better, no man laid it ... The neglect of the past was bearing fruit in the misery of the present.