XVI. (1) THE WORD OF THE LORD CAME ALSO UNTO ME. — The formula introduces a new and distinct message, extending to Jeremiah 17:18, and it is one even more terrible in its threatenings than any that have preceded it. There is nothing in its contents to fix the date with any certainty, but we may thi... [ Continue Reading ]
THOU SHALT NOT TAKE THEE A WIFE... — The words came to an Israelite and to a priest with a force which we can hardly understand. With them marriage, and the hopes which it involved, was not only a happiness but a duty, and to be cut off from it was to renounce both, because the evil that was coming... [ Continue Reading ]
OF GRIEVOUS DEATHS. — Literally, _deaths from diseases,_ including, perhaps, famine (as in Jeremiah 14:18), as contrasted with the more immediate work of the sword. THEY SHALL NOT BE LAMENTED. — Among a people who attached such importance to the due observance of funeral obsequies as the Jews did,... [ Continue Reading ]
THE HOUSE OF MOURNING. — Better, _mourning-feast._ The word is found only here and in Amos 6:7, where it is translated “banquet.” So the Vulg. gives here _domus convivii,_ and the LXX. the Greek word for a “drinking party.” The word literally means a “shout,” and is so far applicable to either joy o... [ Continue Reading ]
NOR CUT THEMSELVES, NOR MAKE THEMSELVES BALD. — Both practices were forbidden by the Law (Leviticus 19:28; Leviticus 21:5; Deuteronomy 14:1), probably in order to draw a line of demarcation between Israel and the nations round, among whom such practices prevailed (1 Kings 18:28). Both, however, seem... [ Continue Reading ]
NEITHER SHALL MEN TEAR THEMSELVES. — The marginal reading, “Neither shall men _break bread for them,_” as in Isaiah 58:7; Lamentations 4:4, gives the true meaning. We are entering upon another region of funeral customs, reminding us of some of the practices connected with the “wakes” of old English... [ Continue Reading ]
INTO THE HOUSE OF FEASTING. — Literally, _the house of drinking, i.e.,_ in this case, as interpreted by the next verse, of festive and mirthful gathering. This prohibition follows _à fortiori_ from the other. If it was unmeet for the prophet to enter into the house of mourning, much more was he to h... [ Continue Reading ]
THE VOICE OF MIRTH... — The words had been used once before (Jeremiah 7:34), and will meet us yet again (Jeremiah 25:10; Jeremiah 33:11), but they gain rather than lose in their solemnity by this verbal iteration.... [ Continue Reading ]
WHAT IS OUR INIQUITY?... — Now, as before (Jeremiah 5:19), the threatenings of judgment are met with words of real or affected wonder. “What have we done to call for all this? In what are we worse than our fathers, or than other nations?” All prophets had more or less to encounter the same hardness.... [ Continue Reading ]
IMAGINATION. — Better, as before, _stubbornness. _... [ Continue Reading ]
THERE SHALL YE SERVE OTHER GODS DAY AND NIGHT. — The words are spoken in the bitterness of irony: “You have chosen to serve the gods of other nations here in your own land; therefore, by a righteous retribution, you shall serve them in another sense, as being in bondage to their worshippers, and nei... [ Continue Reading ]
BEHOLD, THE DAYS COME... — Judgment and mercy are tempered in the promise. Here the former is predominant. Afterwards, in Jeremiah 23:5, where it is connected with the hope of a personal Deliverer, the latter gains the ascendant. As yet the main thought is that the Egyptian bondage shall be as a lig... [ Continue Reading ]
I WILL SEND FOR MANY FISHERS... — The words refer to the threat, not to the promise. The “fishers,” as in Amos 4:2; Habakkuk 1:15, are the invading nations, surrounding Judah and Jerusalem as with a drag-net, and allowing none to escape. The process is described under this very name of “drag-netting... [ Continue Reading ]
MINE EYES ARE UPON ALL THEIR WAYS. — The context shows that here also the thought is presented on its severer side. The sins of Israel have not escaped the all-seeing eye of Jehovah.... [ Continue Reading ]
I WILL RECOMPENSE THEIR INIQUITY AND THEIR SIN DOUBLE. — A restitution, or fine, to double the amount of the wrong done was almost the normal standard of punishment under the Law of Moses (Exodus 22:4; Exodus 22:7). The words threaten accordingly a full punishment according to the utmost rigour. In... [ Continue Reading ]
O LORD, MY STRENGTH, AND MY FORTRESS. — The words speak of a returning confidence in the prophet’s mind, and find utterance in what is practically (though the Hebrew words are not the same) an echo of Psalms 18:2, or more closely of Psalms 28:1; Psalms 28:8; Psalms 59:17; 2 Samuel 22:3. THE GENTILES... [ Continue Reading ]
I WILL THIS ONCE CAUSE THEM TO KNOW... — The warning comes with all the emphasis of iteration, _this once._ As in a way without a parallel, once for all, they should learn that the name of the God they had rejected was Jehovah, the Eternal (Exodus 3:14), unchangeable in His righteousness. The though... [ Continue Reading ]