NOTES for Jer 16:1-21

¹The word of the LORD came also unto me, saying,

²Thou shalt not take thee a wife, neither shalt thou have sons or daughters in this place.

³For thus saith the LORD concerning the sons and concerning the daughters that are born in this place, and concerning their mothers that bare them, and concerning their fathers that begat them in this land;

⁴They shall die of grievous deaths; they shall not be lamented; neither shall they be buried; but they shall be as dung upon the face of the earth: and they shall be consumed by the sword, and by famine; and their carcases shall be meat for the fowls of heaven, and for the beasts of the earth.

⁵For thus saith the LORD, Enter not into the house of mourning, neither go to lament nor bemoan them: for I have taken away my peace from this people, saith the LORD, even lovingkindness and mercies.

⁶Both the great and the small shall die in this land: they shall not be buried, neither shall men lament for them, nor cut themselves, nor make themselves bald for them:

⁷Neither shall men tear themselves for them in mourning, to comfort them for the dead; neither shall men give them the cup of consolation to drink for their father or for their mother.

⁸Thou shalt not also go into the house of feasting, to sit with them to eat and to drink.

⁹For thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will cause to cease out of this place in your eyes, and in your days, the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride.

¹⁰And it shall come to pass, when thou shalt shew this people all these words, and they shall say unto thee, Wherefore hath the LORD pronounced all this great evil against us? or what is our iniquity? or what is our sin that we have committed against the LORD our God?

¹¹Then shalt thou say unto them, Because your fathers have forsaken me, saith the LORD, and have walked after other gods, and have served them, and have worshipped them, and have forsaken me, and have not kept my law;

¹²And ye have done worse than your fathers; for, behold, ye walk every one after the imagination of his evil heart, that they may not hearken unto me:

¹³Therefore will I cast you out of this land into a land that ye know not, neither ye nor your fathers; and there shall ye serve other gods day and night; where I will not shew you favour.

¹⁴Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that it shall no more be said, The LORD liveth, that brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt;

¹⁵But, The LORD liveth, that brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the lands whither he had driven them: and I will bring them again into their land that I gave unto their fathers.

¹⁶Behold, I will send for many fishers, saith the LORD, and they shall fish them; and after will I send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks.

¹⁷For mine eyes are upon all their ways: they are not hid from my face, neither is their iniquity hid from mine eyes.

¹⁸And first I will recompense their iniquity and their sin double; because they have defiled my land, they have filled mine inheritance with the carcases of their detestable and abominable things.

¹⁹O LORD, my strength, and my fortress, and my refuge in the day of affliction, the Gentiles shall come unto thee 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, I will this once cause them to know, I will cause them to know mine hand and my might; and they shall know that my name is The LORD.

By refusing family life and children, Jeremiah plainly shows the people that the people, having turned away from the Giver of life, have chosen the path of death and have thereby doomed themselves to destruction. Accordingly, those who have turned away from the One who led the people out of bondage in Egyptian exile condemn themselves to a new bondage in a foreign land.

Jeremiah's readiness to give up the continuation of his family line on earth gives us a glimpse into his inner world. The prophet is capable not only of denouncing, but also of sharing the bitter lot of the people; he is ready to accept sufferings that he personally has not deserved, but that have fallen to the share of his wandering brothers. No, the prophet does not denounce sinners from above or from the sidelines, but from the very midst of those who remain dear to him.

And now, in the midst of denunciations, the Lord says that in time He will bring the children of Israel out of the lands into which He drove them from the land of their fathers. And we see that He is still the same One, merciful and caring for people, as other pages of Scripture show Him to be. Healing the land from defilement, He cuts the body like a surgeon in order to remove the source of disease. He performs actions that cause pain so that the people will not perish completely.

By cleansing the world from defilement, He gives not only the Israelites but all nations the opportunity to reject the falsehood and death that have saturated the life of many generations of their ancestors and have been inherited by them as "tradition." But dead "traditions" cannot stand before the Source of life.

Other notes

For Jer 16:1-21