Jeremiah 16:10-13

B. Instructions for the Prophet Jeremiah 16:10-13

TRANSLATION

(10) And it shall come to pass when you declare to this people all these things that they will say unto you: For what reason does the LORD speak against us all this great evil? What is our iniquity and what is our sin that we have committed against the LORD our God? (11) You shall say unto them: Because your fathers forsook Me (oracle of the LORD) and went after other gods and served them and bowed down to them; and forsook Me and did not keep My law. (12) But you have done greater wickedness than your fathers; and behold, you are continuing to walk each man after the stubbornness of his evil heart so that You do not listen unto Me. (13) So I will hurl you from this land unto a land which you have not known, neither you nor your fathers. There you shall serve other gods by day and by night, because I will not give grace to you.

COMMENTS

Provoked by the strange anti-social behavior of the prophet the people become defiant. Two rhetorical questions are asked not for the sake of information but for protestation. Why do you bring your message of doom? What sin have we committed? (Jeremiah 16:10). As is frequent in the Book of Malachi the people are challenging the message of God's prophet by means of questions. Either these people were self-righteous and totally blind to their iniquity or else they were attempting to bluff the prophet into silence by this brazen challenge. If the latter was their aim then they failed. Jeremiah had a ready answer. The history of Israel had been one continuous record of apostasy (Jeremiah 16:11). But the present generation is worse than their predecessors (Jeremiah 16:12). Contrary to the optimistic analyses of some historians one generation may be worse than another in the sight of God. The fathers who had sinned against God in the wilderness were denied access to Canaan. The apostate sons of the present generation would be denied the privilege of remaining in Canaan. The greater guilt of the present generation may lie in the fact that they had the advantage of greater revelation. They had been warned by countless prophets. They had seen the wrath of God poured out upon their sister kingdom to the north. Still they persisted in apostasy. For this reason God would hurl them from their land as a man hurls a javelin into the air. Sarcastically Jeremiah adds that there in that foreign land they can serve idols to their heart's content. God will not show favor to His people by delivering them from the hand of their enemies (Jeremiah 16:13).