Charles Ellicott Commentary Jeremiah 48:6

"Flee, save your lives, and be like the heath in the wilderness." — Jeremiah 48:6 (ASV)

Be like the heath in the wilderness. —Here, as in Jeremiah 17:6, the stunted solitary shrub in the desert is taken as the type of desolation. The Septuagint, which adopts the meaning in Jeremiah 17:6, here strangely enough gives as a wild ass in the wilderness. Psalms 11:1 gives us an example of a like comparison. Here probably there is, as before, a paronomasia on the name of the Moabite city Aroer, which closely resembles the Hebrew word for “heath.” In thus finding an ominous significance in the names of cities, Jeremiah follows in the wake of Micah 1:0.