Jeremiah 16:1-21
1 The word of the LORD came also unto me, saying,
2 Thou shalt not take thee a wife, neither shalt thou have sons or daughters in this place.
3 For 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;
4 They 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.
5 For thus saith the LORD, Enter not into the house of mourning,a neither go to lament nor bemoan them: for I have taken away my peace from this people, saith the LORD, even lovingkindness and mercies.
6 Both 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:
7 Neither shall men tearb 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.
8 Thou shalt not also go into the house of feasting, to sit with them to eat and to drink.
9 For 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.
10 And 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?
11 Then 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;
12 And ye have done worse than your fathers; for, behold, ye walk every one after the imaginationc of his evil heart, that they may not hearken unto me:
13 Therefore 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.
14 Therefore, 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;
15 But, 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.
16 Behold, 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.
17 For mine eyes are upon all their ways: they are not hid from my face, neither is their iniquity hid from mine eyes.
18 And 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.
19 O 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.
20 Shall a man make gods unto himself, and they are no gods?
21 Therefore, 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.d
Jeremiah 16:1 to Jeremiah 17:18. The Coming Distress a Penalty for Sin. The prophet is forbidden to found a family, because of the coming sorrows (cf. 1 Corinthians 7:29 ff.), in which death will be too common even for due mourning and burial. He is to stand aloof from the ordinary expressions of grief (Jeremiah 16:5) or social joy (Jeremiah 16:8 f.; cf. Jeremiah 7:34), as a sign that Yahweh will make both to cease in the universal disaster. The reason for this great suffering is the sin of disloyalty to Yahweh, who will fling out His people (like a javelin, 1 Samuel 20:33) to a land of other gods (Jeremiah 16:13; cf. 1 Samuel 26:19). The two following verses (Jeremiah 16:14 f.), which promise a future restoration, are inserted from Jeremiah 23:7 f., and interrupt the present context. The fishers and the hunters whom Yahweh will send, to net in shoals or hunt down singly, are Judah's invaders, from whom there is no escape. The heavy penalty (double as in Isaiah 40:2) has been provoked by the peculiar insult to Yahweh of the sin of idolatry (Jeremiah 16:18). The prophet breaks off to anticipate the day when Yahweh shall be known by all the peoples, who will abandon their no-gods (Jeremiah 16:19). Judah's sin is ineffaceably written on her heart; the projections at the corner of their (mg.) altars (Exodus 27:2) bear the blood of heathen sacrifice; therefore shall Judah be spoiled and her people become exiles (Jeremiah 17:1). The rest of this section (Jeremiah 17:5) is an editorial collection of more or less disconnected sayings, probably by Jeremiah. The fine contrast in Jeremiah 17:5 is probably the source of Psalms 13 f. The confession of inner weakness in Jeremiah 17:9 may belong to the prophet's prayer for healing in Jeremiah 17:14 ff. (with Jeremiah 17:10 cf. Jeremiah 11:20; Jeremiah 32:19). Jeremiah 17:11 is a proverb based on the alleged habits of the partridge, the point being that the adopted brood at last forsakes its pretended mother. Unbroken confidence in Yahweh is expressed in Jeremiah 17:12 f., and the prophet prays that he be not forsaken in his prophetic task; he disclaims any malicious joy in his prophecies of evil, but asks to be justified (Jeremiah 17:14).
Jeremiah 16:5. On mourning the dead, see p. 110, HDB, Mourning, EBi., Mourning Customs, and cf. Jeremiah 41:5; Jeremiah 47:5; Deuteronomy 14:1, etc.
Jeremiah 16:13. For such tacit recognition of heathen deities, combined with practical monotheism, see the contemporary Deuteronomy 6:4; Deuteronomy 6:14.
Jeremiah 16:18. carcases: a term of contempt for idols; omit first with LXX.
Jeremiah 17:1. pen of iron: i.e. an iron instrument used for carving on rock; cf. Job 19:24.
Jeremiah 17:2. whilst. Asherim: probably a gloss, after which we should proceed, upon the spreading (green) trees, upon the high hills, the mountain in the field. As it stands, the last phrase must be taken as a title of Jerusalem (but see on Jeremiah 21:13).
Jeremiah 17:3 f.: partly found as an insertion, Jeremiah 15:13 f.
Jeremiah 17:4. thou. discontinue is not the Hebrew; a slight emendation gives, Thou shalt let thy hand fall.
Jeremiah 17:6. heath: supposed to be the dwarf juniper tree.
Jeremiah 17:11. fool: denoting moral rather than intellectual inferiority.
Jeremiah 17:12, hardly likely to be Jeremiah's, refers to the Temple.
Jeremiah 17:13. written in earth: i.e. transient, in contrast with what is carved on rock. living waters: Jeremiah 2:13.
Jeremiah 17:15. cf. Isaiah 5:19.
Jeremiah 16:16. A slight vowel change (with some VSS) would turn from being a shepherd into because of evil, a parallel to the following clause.