Chapter Sixteen

1–9. God’s judgment upon the people of Judah. 10–13. An explanation of the cause of God’s anger. 24–21. The future salvation of the people and the punishment that precedes it.

Jer 16:1-9. As a sign of the sad fate of the Jewish people, Jeremiah must not establish a family. He must also break the friendly ties which he had in the people, because Jehovah is withdrawing His friendship from the people.

Jeremiah 16:2. Do not take a wife, and do not have sons or daughters in this place. Family life could have brought comfort to the prophet, hated in Israelite society, but according to God’s decree, he must also renounce this comfort.

Jeremiah 16:6. Both great and small shall die in this land; they shall not be buried, and no one shall lament for them or make incisions for them or shave their heads for them. “Great and small”—that is, noble and common people. “Shave their heads”—more precisely, from the Hebrew: to make cuts on the body (cf. Jer 41:5) and then to shave the head bald (Jer 47:5; Isa 22:12). Both practices were forbidden by the Law of Moses (Lev 19:27 and following; Lev 21:5), yet were practiced among the Hebrews. The prophet is forbidden to take part in the lamentation of any family over the death of a member of that family. This will be a sign that soon the dead will not be lamented and will not even be buried because it will be impossible to do so: the surviving Jews will have to think only of themselves.

Jeremiah 16:7. Neither shall they break bread for them in mourning, to comfort them for the dead; nor shall they give them the cup of comfort to drink for their father or for their mother. After a funeral, friends would send bread and wine to the bereaved family to sustain those who had buried the dead and who, naturally, had not eaten food during this time (Prov 31:6).

Jeremiah 16:10. And when you tell this people all these words, and they say to you, “Why has the Lord decreed all this great evil upon us? What is our guilt, and what is our sin that we have committed against the Lord our God?”— Jeremiah 16:11. Then you shall say to them: Because your fathers forsook Me, says the Lord, and went after other gods, and served them, and worshiped them, and did not keep My law. Jeremiah 16:12. And you have done even worse than your fathers, for each of you walks according to the stubbornness of his evil heart, so as not to listen to Me. Jeremiah 16:13. Therefore I will cast you out of this land into the land which you have not known, neither you nor your fathers; and there you shall serve other gods day and night, because I will not show you favor. The cause of God’s anger against the people is their unfaithfulness to Jehovah. The contemporaries of Jeremiah have acted even worse toward God than their ancestors, and for this the Lord will drive them out of Palestine into a distant land. Jer 16:14-21. But the more grim the fate awaiting the Jews now, the more magnificent will be the salvation that they receive later from Jehovah. At the sight of this salvation, even the pagans will turn to the true God! But for now, while the Jewish people must drain the cup of punishment to the dregs.

Jeremiah 16:14. Therefore behold, days are coming, says the Lord, when it will no longer be said: “As the Lord lives who brought up the sons of Israel out of the land of Egypt”— Once the deliverance of Israel from Egyptian captivity affected the souls of the Hebrews so greatly that they swore by the name of the One who accomplished this great miracle.

Jeremiah 16:15. But rather: “As the Lord lives who brought up the sons of Israel out of the land of the north and out of all the lands where He has driven them”: for I will bring them back to their land, which I gave to their fathers. In time, a new miracle—the deliverance of the Jews from Babylonian captivity—will have an even stronger effect on the Jews, and they will mention in their oaths the One who will deliver them from this, the Babylonian, captivity.

Jeremiah 16:16. Behold, I will send many fishers, says the Lord, and they will fish for them; and afterward I will send many hunters, and they will hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and from the crevices of the rocks. Fishers and hunters—these are the Chaldeans, who sometimes captured the population of the Kingdom of Judah in great masses, as fishermen draw fish in nets, and sometimes hunted individual Jews hidden in the mountains (cf. Hab 1:15).

Jeremiah 16:18. And I will recompense their wickedness and their sin twofold, because they have defiled My land with the carcasses of their detestable things and have filled My inheritance with their abominations. “First”—more precisely from the Hebrew: first (cf. Isa 65:7)—that is, before the promises of verses 14–15 are fulfilled. “For their double sin.” The sin of the Jews is called double or two-fold to indicate the intensity of this sin (cf. Isa 40:2). “Carcasses of the vile.” Idols are called carcasses to indicate their uncleanness, since a corpse was the greatest uncleanness in the eyes of a Jew. Special Remarks—see after Chapter 17.