13 and I will cast you forth out of this land, into a land that ye know not, ye nor your fathers; and there shall ye serve other gods day and night: because I will shew you no favour.
I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that ye shall soon utterly perish from off the land whereunto ye pass over the Jordan to possess it: ye shall not prolong your days on it, but shall be utterly destroyed. And Jehovah will scatter you among the peoples, and ye shall be left a small company among the nations to which Jehovah will lead you. And ye shall there serve gods, the work of men's hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.
(for all these abominations have the men of the land done, who were before you, and the land hath been made unclean); that the land vomit you not out, when ye make it unclean, as it vomited out the nation that was before you.
And it shall come to pass, that as Jehovah rejoiced over you to do you good and to multiply you, so Jehovah will rejoice over you to cause you to perish, and to destroy you; and ye shall be plucked from off the land whereunto thou goest to possess it. And Jehovah will scatter thee among all peoples, from one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth; and thou shalt there serve other gods, whom thou hast not known, neither thou nor thy fathers, wood and stone. And among these nations shalt thou have no rest, neither shall the sole of thy foot have a resting-place, and Jehovah shall give thee there a trembling heart, languishing of the eyes, and pining of the soul.
But if thy heart turn away, so that thou wilt not hear, but shalt be drawn away, and thou shalt bow down to other gods and serve them; I denounce unto you this day that ye shall surely perish; ye shall not prolong your days upon the land whereunto thou passest over the Jordan to possess it.
But it shall come to pass, that as every good word hath been fulfilled to you, that Jehovah your God spoke to you, so will Jehovah bring upon you every evil word, until he have destroyed you from off this good land which Jehovah your God hath given you; when ye transgress the covenant of Jehovah your God which he commanded you, and go and serve other gods, and bow yourselves unto them, so that the anger of Jehovah shall be kindled against you, and ye shall perish quickly from off the good land which he hath given unto you.
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Commentary on Jeremiah 16 Keil & Delitzsch Commentary
Jeremiah 16:1-17:4
The Course to be Pursued by the Prophet in Reference to the Approaching Overthrow of the Kingdom of Judah. - The ruin of Jerusalem and of Judah will inevitably come. This the prophet must proclaim by word and deed. To this end he is shown in Jeremiah 16:1-9 what relation he is to maintain towards the people, now grown ripe for judgment, and next in Jeremiah 16:10-15 he is told the cause of this terrible judgment; then comes an account of its fulfilment (Jeremiah 16:16-21); then again, finally, we have the cause of it explained once more (Jeremiah 17:1-4).
The course to be pursued by the prophet with reference to the approaching judgment. - Jeremiah 16:1. "And the word of Jahveh cam to me, saying: Jeremiah 16:2. Thou shalt not take thee a wife, neither shalt thou have sons or daughters in this place. Jeremiah 16:3. For thus hath Jahveh said concerning the sons and the daughters that are born in this place, and concerning their mothers that bear them, and concerning their fathers that beget them in this land: Jeremiah 16:4. By deadly suffering shall they die, be neither lamented or buried; dung upon the field shall they become; and by sword and by famine shall they be consumed, and their carcases shall be meat for the fowls of the heavens and the beasts of the field. Jeremiah 16:5. For thus hath Jahveh said: Come not into the house of mourning, and go not to lament, and bemoan them not; for I have taken away my peace from this people, saith Jahveh, grace and mercies. Jeremiah 16:6. And great and small shall die in this land, not be buried; they shall not lament them, nor cut themselves, nor make themselves bald for them. Jeremiah 16:7. And they shall not break bread for them in their mourning, to comfort one for the dead; nor shall they give to any the cup of comfort for his father and his mother. Jeremiah 16:8. And into the house of feasting go not, to sit by them, to eat and to drink. Jeremiah 16:9. For thus hath spoken Jahveh of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I cause to cease out of this place before 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."
What the prophet is here bidden to do and to forbear is closely bound up with the proclamation enjoined on him of judgment to come on sinful Judah. This connection is brought prominently forward in the reasons given for these commands. He is neither to take a wife nor to beget children, because all the inhabitants of the land, sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, are to perish by sickness, the sword, and famine (Jeremiah 16:3 and Jeremiah 16:4). He is both to abstain from the customary usages of mourning for the dead, and to keep away from mirthful feasts, in order to give the people to understand that, by reason of the multitude of the dead, customary mourning will have to be given up, and that all opportunity for merry-making will disappear (Jeremiah 16:5-9). Adapting thus his actions to help to convey his message, he will approve himself to be the mouth of the Lord, and then the promised divine protection will not fail. Thus closely is this passage connected with the preceding complaint and reproof of the prophet (Jeremiah 15:10-21), while it at the same time further continues the threatening of judgment in Jeremiah 15:1-9. - With the prohibition to take a wife, cf. the apostle's counsel, 1 Corinthians 7:26. "This place" alternates with "this land," and so must not be limited to Jerusalem, but bears on Judah at large. ילּדים , adject. verbale , as in Ex. 1:32. The form ממותי is found, besides here, only in Ezekiel 28:8, where it takes the place of מותי , Jeremiah 16:10. תחלאים ממותי , lit., deaths of sicknesses or sufferings, i.e., deaths by all kinds of sufferings, since תחלאים is not to be confined to disease, but in Jeremiah 14:18 is used of pining away by famine. With "they shall not be lamented," cf. Jeremiah 25:33; Jeremiah 8:2; Jeremiah 14:16; Jeremiah 7:33.
The command not to go into a house of mourning ( מרזח , loud crying, cry of lament for one dead, see on Amos 6:7), not to show sympathy with the survivors, is explained by the Lord in the fearfully solemn saying: I withdraw from this people my peace, grace, and mercy. שׁלום is not "the inviolateness of the relation between me and my people" (Graf), but the pace of God which rested on Judah, the source of its well-being, of its life and prosperity, and which showed itself to the sinful race in the extension to them of grace and mercy. The consequence of the withdrawal of this peace is the death of great and small in such multitudes that they can neither be buried nor mourned for (Jeremiah 16:6). התגּדד , but one's self, is used in Deuteronomy 14:1 for נתן שׂרט , to make cuts in the body, Leviticus 19:28; and קרח , Niph ., to crop one's self bald, acc. to Deuteronomy 14:1, to shave a bare place on the front part of the head above the eyes. These are two modes of expressing passionate mourning for the dead which were forbidden to the Israelites in the law, yet which remained in use among the people, see on Leviticus 19:28 and Deuteronomy 14:1. להם , for them, in honour of the dead.
פּרס , as in Isaiah 58:7, for פּרשׂ , Lamentations 4:4, break, sc. the bread (cf. Isa. l.c .) for mourning, and to give to drink the cup of comfort, does not refer to the meals which were held in the house of mourning upon occasion of a death after the interment, for this custom cannot be proved of the Israelites in Old Testament times, and is not strictly demanded by the words of the verse. To break bread to any one does not mean to hold a feast with him, but to bestow a gift of bread upon him; cf. Isaiah 58:7. Correspondingly, to give to drink, does not here mean to drink to one's health at a feast, but only to present with wine to drink. The words refer to the custom of sending bread and wine for refreshment into the house of the surviving relatives of one dead, to comfort them in their sorrow; cf. 2 Samuel 3:35; 2 Samuel 12:16., and the remarks on Ezekiel 24:17. The singular suffixes on לנחמו , אביו , and אמּו , alongside of the plurals להם and אותם , are to be taken distributively of every one who is to be comforted upon occasion of a death in his house; and להם is not to be changed, as by J. D. Mich. and Hitz., into לחם .
The prophet is to withdraw from all participation in mirthful meals and feasts, in token that God will take away all joy from the people. בּית־משׁתּה , house in which a feast is given. אותם , for אתּם , refers, taken ad sensum , to the others who take part in the feast. On Jeremiah 16:9, cf. Jeremiah 7:34.
" And when thou showest this people all these things, and they say unto thee, Wherefore hath Jahveh pronounced all this great evil against us, and what is our transgression, and what our sin that we have committed against Jahveh our God? Jeremiah 16:11. Then say thou to them, Because your fathers have forsaken me, saith Jahveh, and have walked after other gods, and served them, and worshipped them, and have forsaken me, and not kept my law; Jeremiah 16:12. And ye did yet worse than your fathers; and behold, ye walk each after the stubbornness of his evil heart, hearkening not unto me. Jeremiah 16:13. Therefore I cast you out of this land into the land which he know not, neither ye nor your fathers, and there may ye serve other gods day and night, because I will show you no favour. Jeremiah 16:14. Therefore, behold, the days come, saith Jahveh, that it shall no more be said, By the life of Jahveh, that brought up the sons of Israel out of the land of Egypt, Jeremiah 16:15. But, By the life of Jahveh, that brought the sons of Israel out of the land of the north, and out of all the lands whither I had driven them, and I bring them again into their land that I gave to their fathers."