1The Word of Jehovah also came unto me, saying, 2You shall not take a wife for yourself, nor shall you have sons or daughters in this place. 3For thus says Jehovah concerning the sons and concerning the daughters who are born in this place, and concerning their mothers who bore them, and concerning their fathers who begot them in this land: 4They shall die from deaths of diseases; they shall not be mourned, nor shall they be buried. But they shall be as dung on the face of the earth. They shall be destroyed by the sword and by famine; and their carcasses shall be food for the birds of the heavens and for the beasts of the earth. 5For thus says Jehovah, Do not enter into the house of mourning; do not go to weep nor bemoan them. For I have taken away My peace from this people, says Jehovah, even lovingkindness and mercies. 6Both the great and the small shall die in this land. They shall not be buried, nor shall men mourn for them, nor cut themselves, nor make themselves bald for them. 7Nor shall anyone break bread for them in mourning, to comfort them for the dead. Nor shall anyone give them the cup of comfort to drink for their father or for their mother. 8Also you shall not go into the house of feasting, to sit with them to eat and to drink. 9For thus says Jehovah of Hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will cause the voice of mirth to cease out of this place before your eyes, and in your days, and the voice of gladness, and the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride. 10And it shall be, when you proclaim to this people all these words, and they shall say to you, Why has Jehovah pronounced all this great evil against us? Or what is our iniquity, or what is our sin that we have sinned against Jehovah our God? 11Then you shall say to them, Because your fathers have forsaken Me, says Jehovah, and have walked after other gods, and have served them, and have bowed down to them, and have forsaken Me, and have not kept My Law. 12And you have done worse than your fathers; for behold, you walk, each one, after the stubbornness of his evil heart, and do not listen to Me. 13Therefore I will cast you out of this land into a land that you do not know, neither you nor your fathers; and there you shall serve other gods day and night; where I will not grant you favor. 14Therefore behold, the days are coming, says Jehovah, that it shall no more be said, As Jehovah lives, who brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt; 15but rather, As Jehovah lives, who brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the lands where He had driven them. For I will bring them back into their land that I gave to their fathers. 16Behold, I will send for many fishermen, says Jehovah, and they will fish for them. And afterwards I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them from every mountain and from every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks. 17For My eyes are on all their ways; they are not hidden from My face, nor is their iniquity hidden from My eyes. 18And first I will repay double their iniquity and their sin, because they have defiled My land, they have filled My inheritance with the carcasses of their detestable and abominable things. 19O Jehovah, my strength and my fortress, and my refuge in the day of affliction, the nations shall come to You from the ends of the earth, and shall say, Surely our fathers have inherited lies, vanity, and things wherein there is no profit. 20Shall a man make gods unto himself, and they are no gods? 21Therefore behold, this once I will make them know; I will cause them to know My hand and My might; and they shall know that My name is Jehovah.
Jamieson Fausset Brown Bible Commentary 2 CONTINUATION OF THE PREVIOUS PROPHECY. (Jer. 16:1-21)
in this place--in Judea. The direction to remain single was (whether literally obeyed, or only in prophetic vision) to symbolize the coming calamities of the Jews (
Ezek 24:15-
Ezek 24:27) as so severe that the single state would be then (contrary to the ordinary course of things) preferable to the married (compare
1Cor 7:8,
1Cor 7:26,
1Cor 7:29;
Matt 24:19;
Luke 23:29).
4 grievous deaths--rather, "deadly diseases" (
Jer 15:2).
not . . . lamented--so many shall be the slain (
Jer 22:18).
dung-- (
Ps 83:10).
5 (
Ezek 24:17,
Ezek 24:22-
Ezek 24:23).
house of mourning-- (
Mark 5:38). Margin, "mourning-feast"; such feasts were usual at funerals. The Hebrew means, in
Amos 6:7, the cry of joy at a banquet; here, and
Lam 2:19, the cry of sorrow.
6 cut themselves--indicating extravagant grief (
Jer 41:5;
Jer 47:5), prohibited by the law (
Lev 19:28).
bald-- (
Jer 7:29;
Isa 22:12).
7 tear themselves--rather, "break bread," namely, that eaten at the funeral-feast (
Deut 26:14;
Job 42:11;
Ezek 24:17;
Hos 9:4). "Bread" is to be supplied, as in
Lam 4:4; compare "take" (food) (
Gen 42:33).
give . . . cup of consolation . . . for . . . father--It was the Oriental custom for friends to send viands and wine (the "cup of consolation") to console relatives in mourning-feasts, for example, to children upon the death of a "father" or "mother."
8 house of feasting--joyous: as distinguished from mourning-feasts. Have no more to do with this people whether in mourning or joyous feasts.
9 (
Jer 7:34;
Jer 25:10;
Ezek 26:13).
10 (
Deut 29:24;
1Kgs 9:8-9).
11 (
Jer 5:19;
Jer 13:22;
Jer 22:8-
Jer 22:9).
12 ye--emphatic: so far from avoiding your fathers' bad example, ye have done worse (
Jer 7:26;
1Kgs 14:9).
imagination--rather, "stubborn perversity."
that they may not hearken--rather, connected with "ye"; "ye have walked . . . so as not to hearken to Me."
13 serve other gods--That which was their sin in their own land was their punishment in exile. Retribution in kind. They voluntarily forsook God for idols at home; they were not allowed to serve God, if they wished it, in captivity (
Dan 3:12;
Dan 6:7).
day and night--irony. You may there serve idols, which ye are so mad after, even to satiety, and without intermission.
14 Therefore--So severe shall be the Jews' bondage that their deliverance from it shall be a greater benefit than that out of Egypt. The consolation is incidental here; the prominent thought is the severity of their punishment, so great that their rescue from it will be greater than that from Egypt [CALVIN]; so the context,
Jer 16:13,
Jer 16:17-
Jer 16:18, proves (
Jer 23:7-
Jer 23:8;
Isa 43:18).
15 the north--Chaldea. But while the return from Babylon is primarily meant, the return hereafter is the full and final accomplishment contemplated, as "from all the lands" proves. "Israel" was not, save in a very limited sense, "gathered from all the lands" at the return from Babylon (see on
Jer 24:6;
Jer 30:3;
Jer 32:15).
16 send for--translate, "I will send many"; "I will give the commission to many" (
2Chr 17:7).
fishers . . . hunters--successive invaders of Judea (
Amos 4:2;
Hab 1:14-
Hab 1:15). So "net" (
Ezek 12:13). As to "hunters," see
Gen 10:9;
Mic 7:2. The Chaldees were famous in hunting, as the Egyptians, the other enemy of Judea, were in fishing. "Fishers" expresses the ease of their victory over the Jews as that of the angler over fishes; "hunters," the keenness of their pursuit of them into every cave and nook. It is remarkable, the same image is used in a good sense of the Jews' restoration, implying that just as their enemies were employed by God to take them in hand for destruction, so the same shall be employed for their restoration (
Ezek 47:9-
Ezek 47:10). So spiritually, those once enemies by nature (fishermen many of them literally) were employed by God to be heralds of salvation, "catching men" for life (
Matt 4:19;
Luke 5:10;
Acts 2:41;
Acts 4:4); compare here
Jer 16:19, "the Gentiles shall come unto thee" (
2Cor 12:16).
17 (
Jer 32:19;
Pro 5:21;
Pro 15:3).
their iniquity--the cause of God's judgments on them.
18 first . . . double--HORSLEY translates, "I will recompense . . . once and again"; literally, "the first time repeated": alluding to the two captivities--the Babylonian and the Roman. MAURER, "I will recompense their former iniquities (those long ago committed by their fathers) and their (own) repeated sins" (
Jer 16:11-
Jer 16:12). English Version gives a good sense, "First (before 'I bring them again into their land'), I will doubly (that is, fully and amply,
Jer 17:18;
Isa 40:2) recompense."
carcasses--not sweet-smelling sacrifices acceptable to God, but "carcasses" offered to idols, an offensive odor to God: human victims (
Jer 19:5;
Ezek 16:20), and unclean animals (
Isa 65:4;
Isa 66:17). MAURER explains it, "the carcasses" of the idols: their images void of sense and life, Compare
Jer 16:19-
Jer 16:20.
Lev 26:30 favors this.
19 The result of God's judgments on the Jews will be that both the Jews when restored, and the Gentiles who have witnessed those judgments, shall renounce idolatry for the worship of Jehovah. Fulfilled partly at the return from Babylon, after which the Jews entirely renounced idols, and many proselytes were gathered in from the Gentiles, but not to be realized in its fulness till the final restoration of Israel (Isa. 2:1-17).
20 indignant protest of Jeremiah against idols.
and they (are) no gods-- (
Jer 2:11;
Isa 37:19;
Gal 4:8). "They" refers to the idols. A man (a creature himself) making God is a contradiction in terms. Vulgate takes "they" thus: "Shall man make gods, though men themselves are not gods?"
21 Therefore--In order that all may be turned from idols to Jehovah, He will now give awful proof of His divine power in the judgments He will inflict.
this once--If the punishments I have heretofore inflicted have not been severe enough to teach them.
my name . . . Lord--Jehovah (
Ps 83:18): God's incommunicable name, to apply which to idols would be blasphemy. Keeping His threats and promises (
Exod 6:3).
The the Septuagint omits the first four verses, but other Greek versions have them.
