God’s message to the unmarried prophet
16
📚The word of the LORD came again to me, saying, 2 📚“You must not marry, or have sons or daughters in this place. 3 📚For thus says the LORD concerning the sons and the daughters who are born in this place, and concerning their mothers who gave them birth, and concerning their fathers who begot them in this land: 4 📚They will die of deadly diseases. They will not be lamented, and they will not be buried, but will be like refuse on the surface of the ground. They will be consumed by sword and famine, and their corpses will be food for the birds of the sky, and for the beasts of the earth. 5 📚“For thus says the LORD: Do not enter the house of mourning, or go to lament or mourn them; for I have taken away my peace, loving kindness and mercy from this people, says the LORD.
16:5 Ezek 24:16-17, 22, 23. God would not enter into the common events of the life of His rebellious people any more, and would not permit Jeremiah to do so (vs 6-9). They deserved only punishment and destruction and that is what He appointed for them.⚜
6 📚Both the great and the small will die in this land. They will not be buried, and people will not lament for them, or cut themselves, or shave their heads for them, 7 📚And people will not break bread in mourning for them, to comfort them for the dead, and people will not give them a comforting cup to drink for their father or for their mother.
8 📚“You also must not go into the house of feasting, to sit with them to eat and to drink. 9 📚For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: See, in your sight and in your days I will put a stop to the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride.
10 📚“And it will come about, when you tell this people all these words, and they say to you, ‘Why has the LORD proclaimed all this great disaster against us?’ Or, ‘What is our iniquity, or what is our sin that we have committed against the LORD our God?’
16:10 Apart from the full enlightenment of God’s Spirit it is impossible for a people or an individual to see sin as God sees it (Jer 5:19; Mal 1:6-7; 2:17; 3:7-8). Judah’s people sunk so low in wickedness, unbelief, and rebellion, they wondered what God had against them to punish them so greatly. This is the spiritual blindness of fallen mankind. People usually tend to think they are far better than they really are.⚜
11 📚Then you shall say to them, ‘Because your fathers have forsaken me, says the LORD, and have followed other gods and served them and worshipped them, and have forsaken me and have not kept my law; 12 📚and you have done worse than your fathers, for, see, every one of you follows the imagination of his evil heart 📖, that they may not listen to me. 13 📚Therefore I will throw you out of this land into a land that you do not know, neither you nor your fathers. And there you will serve other gods day and night. There I will not show you favour.
16:11-13 God gives a full answer to the people’s question. Their ancestors were bad enough. They were worse.⚜
16:13 They rejected the true God and chose the gods of other nations, so God would see to it that they got their fill of that.⚜
14 📚“Therefore, see, the days are coming, says the LORD, when it will no longer be said, ‘The LORD lives, who brought the children of Israel up out of the land of Egypt’, 15 📚But, ‘The LORD lives, who brought the children of Israel up from the land of the north, and from all the lands where he had driven them.’ And I will bring them back into their land that I gave to their fathers.
16:14-15 Suddenly in denunciation and words concerning punishment and destruction there comes this sweet promise for the future. How like God to do this!⚜
16 📚“See, I will send for many fishermen, says the LORD, and they will fish for them; and afterwards I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks.
16:16 The promise of v 15 would not be fulfilled for more than 70 years. Now Judah’s people must face God’s anger.⚜
17 📚For my eyes are on all their ways. They are not hidden from my face, and their wickedness is not hidden from my eyes. 18 📚And first I will repay them double for their wickedness and their sin, because they have defiled my land, they have filled my inheritance with the carcasses of their detestable and abominable idols”.
16:18 Let us learn once and for all what the true God thinks of idolatry.⚜
19 📚O LORD, my strength, and my fortress,
and my refuge 📖 in the day of affliction,
the Gentiles 📖 will come to you from the ends
of the earth, and will say,
“Surely our fathers have inherited lies,
vanity, and profitless things”.
20 📚Will a man make gods for himself?
But they are not gods.
16:19-20 Jeremiah speaks.⚜
21 📚“Therefore, see, this time I will cause them
to know; I will cause them to know 📖
my hand and my might,
and they will know that my name is
the LORD.