Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary
Jeremiah 16:11

Bridgeway Bible Commentary

Symbolic actions (16:1-21)

Again God instructs his prophet concerning certain courses of action designed to attract the people’s attention. Jeremiah is to be a living reminder to the Judeans of what will happen to them if they do not repent. Firstly, he is not to marry or have children, as a grim warning to people that those with families will have greater distress when the final slaughter comes (16:1-4). Secondly, he is not to attend any funeral, as a warning that when Judah falls there will be no funerals, since the dead will lie unburied (5-7). Thirdly, he is not to join in any feast, as a sign that soon all merriment will be gone from Judah for ever (8-9).
When people question Jeremiah about his strange behaviour and the doom to which it points, he must give a forthright explanation. He must tell them plainly that this judgment is because of their rebellion against God in following false gods (10-13). Beyond the judgment there will be restoration. Just as God delivered Israel from slavery in Egypt, so in due course will he bring his people from captivity in Babylon back into their own land (14-15). First, however, they must go into captivity. As fish caught in a net or beasts hunted down by hunters, so the Judeans will be captured and dragged off to a foreign land (16-18).
As the prophet looks beyond the captivity to the restoration, he offers a prayer that expresses his confidence in God. He sees a day when God’s people will return to their land and people of other nations will join with them to worship Yahweh as the only God (19-21).

Coffman's Commentaries on the Bible

MORE REASONS FOR SUCH PENALTIES

"And it shall come to pass when thou shalt show this people all these words, and they shall say unto thee, Wherefore hath Jehovah pronounced all this great evil against us? or what is our iniquity? or what is our sin that we have committed against Jehovah our God? thou shalt say unto them, Because your fathers have forsaken me, saith Jehovah, and have walked after other gods, and have served them, and have worshipped them, and have forsaken me, and have not kept my law; and ye have done evil more than your fathers; for, behold, ye walk every one after the stubbornness of his evil heart, so that ye hearken not unto me: therefore will I cast you forth out of this land into the land that ye have not known, neither ye nor your fathers; and there shall ye serve other gods day and night; for I will show you no favor."

Ash noted that, "The verbs used here were part of the distinctive vocabulary used to describe the breach of the covenant."Anthony L. Ash, Psalms (Abilene, Texas: A.C.U. Press, 1987), p. 149. Significantly, however, it was not merely the breach of that holy covenant by the forefathers of Israel that led to their deportation from Canaan; but that current generation also had sinned even beyond the outrageous behavior of their ancestors.

"There shall ye serve other gods day and night" "The form of the sentence here is ironical."W. Harvey Jellie, Jeremiah, in Preacher's Complete Homiletic Commentary (New York: Funk and Wagnalls Company), p. 351. A number of writers have attempted to convey the irony as follows: "They will have the opportunity of indulging their desire for pagan worship day and night (continually), for God will ignore them."Charles Lee Feinberg in Ezekiel (Chicago: Moody Press), p. 480. "There you may serve those idols you are so mad about, even to satiety, and without intermission (day and night)."Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown's Commentary, p. 522.

"I will cast you forth out of this land" Green pointed out that the word here for "cast out" is actually "hurl out," and thus a clever play upon the name of Jeremiah.Broadman Bible Commentary (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1971), p. 97. The kind of hurling mentioned here was that of placing a stone in a sling, releasing it after hurling it round and round. It was used here as a metaphor for the violent removal of God's Once Chosen People from Palestine.

Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible

The severe sentence passed upon them is the consequence of idolatry persisted in through many generations until it has finally deepened into national apostasy.

Calvin's Commentary on the Bible

But he then says, Thou shalt answer them, Because your fathers forsook me; they went after foreign gods, served and worshipped them; and me they forsook and my law they kept not, and ye have done worse ⁽¹⁶³⁾ God in the first place accused their fathers, not that punishment ought to have fallen on their children, except they followed the wickedness of their fathers, but the men of that age fully deserved to be visited with the judgment their fathers merited. Besides well known is that declaration, that God reckons the iniquities of the fathers to their children; (Exodus 20:5; Exodus 34:7; Deuteronomy 5:9) and he acts thus justly, for he might justly execute vengeance for sins on the whole human race, according to what Christ says,

“On you shall come the blood of all the godly, from righteous Abel to Zachariah the son of Barachiah.” (Matthew 23:35; Luke 11:51)

Thus then the Scripture often declares, that children shall be punished with their fathers, because God will at one time or another require an account of all sins, and thus will make amends for his long forbearance, for as he waits for men and kindly invites them through his patience to repent, so when he sees no hope he inflicts all his scourges. It is hence no wonder that children are more grievously punished after iniquity has prevailed for many ages.

We hence see that these two things are not inconsistent — that God connects the punishment of children with that of their fathers, and that he does not punish the innocent. We indeed see this fulfilled,

“The soul that sinneth it shall die; the children shall not bear the iniquity of their fathers, nor the father the iniquity of his child,” (Ezekiel 18:4)

for God never blends children with their fathers except they be their associates in wickedness. But yet there is nothing to prevent God to punish children for the sins of their fathers, especially when they continually rush headlong into worse sins, when the children, as we shall hereafter see, exceed their fathers in all kinds of wickedness.

We further learn from this passage, that they bring forward a vain pretense who allege against us the examples of the Fathers, as we see to be done now by those under the Papacy; for the shield they boldly set up against us is this, that they imitate the examples of the fathers. But God declares here that they were worthy of double punishment who repented not when they saw that their fathers had been ungodly and transgressors of the law.

Let us now notice the sins which God mentions: he says, that they had forsaken him. That people could not make any excuse for going astray, like the unhappy heathens, to whom no Prophet had been sent, and no law had been given. Hence the heathens had some excuse more than the Jews. The truth indeed respecting all was, that they were all apostates, for God had bound the human race to himself, and all they who followed superstitions were justly charged with the sin of apostasy; there was yet a greater atrocity of wickedness in the Jewish people, for God had set before them his law, they had been brought up as it were in his school, they knew what true religion was, they were able to distinguish the true God from fictitious gods. We now then see the meaning of the expression, They have forsaken me: and it is twice repeated, because it was necessary thus to prove the Jews guilty, that their mouths might be stopped; for we have seen that they were to be thus roused from their insensibility, inasmuch as they would have never yielded nor acknowledged their sins, were they not constrained.

He says further, that they went after foreign gods, served them, and worshipped them Now this statement enhances again their sins, for the Jews preferred their own inventions to the true God, who had by so many signs and testimonies manifested his glory and made known his power among them. As then God had abundantly testified his power, it was by no means an endurable ingratitude in them to follow strange gods, of whom they had only heard. The heathens indeed vainly boasted of their idols, and spread abroad many fables to allure unhappy men to false and corrupt worship, but the Jews knew who the true God was. To believe the fables of the heathens, rather than the law and their own experience, was not this the basest impiety? This then was the reason why God complained that foreign gods were worshipped by them.

Then he adds, They served and worshipped them The verb to serve is often used by the Hebrews to express worship, as we have stated elsewhere; and thus is refuted the folly of the Papists who deny that they are idolaters, because they worship pictures and statues with dulla, that is, with service, if we may so render it, and not with latria, as though Scripture in condemning idolatry never used this verb. But God condemns here the Jews because they served strange gods, because they gave credit to the false and vain fictions of the heathens; and then he adds the outward action, that they prostrated themselves before their idols.

At the end of this verse he shews how he had been forsaken, even because they kept not his law. He then confirms what I have already stated, that there was on this account a worse apostasy among the Jews, for they had knowingly and wilfully forsaken the fountain of living water, as we have seen in the second chapter: hence simple ignorance is not what is here reprehended, as though they had sinned through error or want of knowledge, but they had rejected the worship of God as it were designedly. The rest I shall defer till to-morrow.

(163) The division of these verses, the 11th and the 12^th (Jeremiah 16:11), seems incorrect. Were the latter part of the 11th connected with the 12th, the repetition which now appears would not be perceived. I render the verses thus —

11.Then say to them, Because your fathers forsook me, saith Jehovah, And walked after foreign gods, And served them and bowed down to them: Yea, me they forsook and my law kept not,

12.And ye have become evil by doing worse than your fathers; For lo, ye are walking, every man, After the resolutions of his own evil heart, So as not to hearken to me.

In the first part their fathers’ conduct is set forth; in the second their fathers’ conduct and their own. And their “worse” conduct was in not hearkening to the voice of God by his Prophets. — Ed.

Smith's Bible Commentary

Shall we turn now to Jeremiah 16:1-21 .

Now you remember that Jeremiah was just a young man when God called him to this prophetic ministry. And so in chapter 16:

The word of the LORD came also unto me, saying, Thou shalt not take a wife, neither shalt thou have sons or daughters in this place ( Jeremiah 16:1-2 ).

So Jeremiah is commanded by God not to marry, and the reason for the commandment not to marry or not to have children was to be a sign to the people of the terrible times that were coming. They were going to really be facing hard times and it was no time to be having children. Because if you have children, they're going to die of starvation; they're going to be killed in the siege. It's just not a time to be having children or to be getting married and all. So it was to be a sign, his bachelorhood was to be a sign unto the people.

Now it is interesting that God spoke to Hosea and told him to marry. And God directed him concerning his marriage. And with Hosea his marriage was to be a sign unto the people. With Isaiah he was to name his children as signs to the people. And so their names meant certain things that were, again, a sign to the people. So with Jeremiah God called him to bachelorhood.

For thus saith the LORD concerning the sons and 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; They shall die of grievous deaths; they shall not be lamented; neither will 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 the famine; and their carcasses shall be meat for the fowls of heaven, and for the beasts of the earth. For thus saith the LORD, Enter not into the house of mourning, neither go to lament nor bemoan them: for I have taken away my peace from this people, saith the LORD, even loving-kindness and mercies. 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 ( Jeremiah 16:3-6 ):

Now in Israel they have customs when a family member dies; you're not to shave for thirty days. And then when you shave you take the hair that has grown in that thirty days and offer it unto the Lord as sort of a sacrifice. But it was a sign; it is a sign of mourning. And even to the present day the Jews observe this sign of mourning at a death. So the shaving was after the thirty days that they had died. But he's saying there's not going to be any kind of a memorial or cutting of yourself, shaving of yourself or whatever for those who have died.

Neither shall men tear themselves for them in mourning ( Jeremiah 16:7 ),

And, of course, these people sought to show their great love for the deceased and the more wailing that went on in the house indicated to everybody how much you loved them. So when someone died that was very close to you, you wanted everybody to know how deeply you loved them and so you would hire wailers to come into your house. And they were professionals that would really wail. And they would come in and go through this wailing process. And, of course, you would join in with them and there was this lamenting, the wailing that they did for the dead. And so he's saying that that's not going to even be going on. The tearing of themselves of this 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 ( Jeremiah 16:7 ).

So don't get married. Don't have children, because the people that are here, the children that are now being born are going to suffer fearful, awful deaths as their bodies won't even be buried. There will be no one around to mourn their deaths. And he's just telling of that hard, hard times that are coming and because of that, as a sign to the people, he was not to marry nor to have children.

Now the Lord gave him a second commandment in verse Jeremiah 16:8 .

Thou shalt not also go into the house of feasting, to sit with them to eat and to drink ( Jeremiah 16:8 ).

Now, of course, the feasts were great occasions. It was really their... They didn't have television, radios and movie theaters. And so their entertainment was at these feasts. And these feasts would be great occasions, not only of dining, but also of entertainment. And so there was great laughter as you had all kinds of entertainment during these feasts and all. And they were just times of entertainment and celebration. But the prophet is told not to go to these feasts.

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 merriment, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride ( Jeremiah 16:9 ).

During your time, during this generation, these things are all going to cease in this land. So as a sign to the people that the end has come, don't go into the house of feasting. Don't join in that merriment.

And it shall come to pass, when thou shalt show this people all these words, and they shall say unto thee, Why has 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? 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; And you have done worse than your fathers; for, behold, ye walk every one after the imagination of his evil heart, that they may not hearken unto me ( Jeremiah 16:10-12 ):

So there was anarchy. Everyone was following the imagination of his own evil heart. God's law was forsaken and thus the judgments of God were coming upon them.

Now the Jew was immensely proud of his heritage. They were always talking about our fathers. And Jesus brings out the fact, how they are always saying, "Well, our fathers," and, "in the days of our fathers." So you remember when Stephen was called in before the Sanhedrin. As he started to sort of rehearse for them their... what they felt, illustrious history. He got caught up as he was rehearsing their history with the whole hypocrisy of the thing. For remembering their history he remembered how they had treated the prophets of God. Now here is Jeremiah and he's saying, "Hey, this is all happening to you because your fathers have forsaken God. They are worshipping these other gods. But you are even worse than your fathers. Everyone is doing after the imagination of his own wicked heart. And for this cause God is pronouncing this judgment that is coming.

Now their reaction to Jeremiah was to put him in prison when he brought this message to them. So as Stephen is rehearsing to the Sanhedrin who, you know, "our fathers." And you remember Jesus in talking with them, they said, they kept talking about "our fathers" and Jesus said, "Look, if Abraham was your father, then you'd believe in me. For Abraham rejoiced to see My day and he saw it." And they were arguing with Jesus about that. And they said, "We have Abraham as our father." And Jesus said, "You're of your father the devil. And his works are the works that you're doing." Well, Stephen got carried away and he said, "Which of the prophets have you not stoned?" And He started really laying on them what their fathers had done. That they weren't these glorious, illustrious kind of men of faith; that they had actually turned away from God and reminded them of that fact.

Therefore [God said,] will I cast you out of this land into a land that you know not, neither ye nor your fathers; and there you will serve other gods day and night; where I will not show you favor. 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; 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 to their fathers ( Jeremiah 16:13-15 ).

Now he's speaking about this dark period of history that they are facing. "During your time the land is going to be laid desolate. During your time you're going to be carried away captive. Because of your evil in turning against God; it's all going to happen in your time." And yet though he's pronouncing this judgment he goes ahead and speaks of that glorious day when God will gather them back again into the land. After the seventy-year captivity, the Lord will bring them back into the land and the day will come when they will say, "The God who brought us out of our captivity," rather than, "The God who brought our fathers out of Egypt." They'll be talking about, "God who brought us back from captivity and put us back in the land."

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. For my eyes are upon all their ways: they are not hid from my face, neither is their iniquity hid from my eyes. And first I will recompense their iniquity and their sin double; because they have defiled my land, they have filled mine inheritance with the carcasses of their detestable and abominable things ( Jeremiah 16:16-18 ).

Jeremiah cried out in response to what God had said.

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. Shall a man make gods unto himself, and they are no gods? 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 Jehovah ( Jeremiah 16:19-21 ).

So Jeremiah cries out. It's almost as the psalm. In fact, there are psalms, "The Lord is my strength," ( Psalms 118:14 ). "My refuge, my fortress" ( Psalms 91:2 ). And he is perhaps thinking of that psalm when he cries out, "O Lord, my strength, my fortress, my refuge in the day of affliction." And then the prophecy of the Gentiles coming from the ends of the earth. And Paul makes mention of prophecies concerning the Gentiles' salvation in the book to the Romans.

"

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

The special conditions of Jeremiah’s life 16:1-13

Sometimes God used the events in the lives of His prophets to speak to the people, in addition to their messages.

"Hosea’s unhappy marriage (Hosea 1-3), Isaiah’s family (Isaiah 7-8), the death of Ezekiel’s wife (Ezekiel 24:15-27), and Jeremiah’s call to remain unmarried are all examples of the proclamation of the word through family events." [Note: Thompson, p. 403. See also Isaiah 20.]

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

He was to explain that the coming judgment was due to the accumulated sins of their forefathers, in forsaking the Lord and His covenant, and in practicing idolatry. Sin has a cumulative effect in that it results in conditions that affect the behavior of others, including later generations.

Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible

Then shalt thou say unto them,.... In answer to their questions; not in a general way, but by observing to them particular sins, and those gross ones, they had been guilty of:

because your fathers have forsaken me, saith the Lord; that is, his worship, as the Targum; they had quitted his service, and left attending on his word and ordinances; and therefore it was but just with him to forsake them, and give them up into the hands of their enemies:

and have walked after other gods, and have served them, and have worshipped them; were guilty of gross idolatry, serving and worshipping the creature more than and besides the Creator; even idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and wood, and stone, which were no gods; for there is no other true God besides the Lord; and which they were well informed of, and therefore their sin was the greater to leave him and worship them; and which sin, because of the heinousness of it, is repeated:

and have forsaken me, and have not kept my law; they forsook his worship, as the Targum, and did not observe the law of the decalogue or ten commandments; especially the two first of them, which required the worship of the one true God, and forbid the worshipping of others; and which threatened the visiting such iniquities of fathers upon the children, to the third and fourth generation, of such that hated the Lord; and such were these persons, as follows.

Henry's Complete Commentary on the Bible

      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 imagination 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.

      Here is, 1. An enquiry made into the reasons why God would bring those judgments upon them (Jeremiah 16:10; Jeremiah 16:10): When thou shalt show this people all these words, the words of this curse, they will say unto thee, Wherefore has the Lord pronounced all this great evil against us? One would hope that there were some among them that asked this question with a humble penitent heart, desiring to know what was the sin for which God contended with them, that they might cast it away and prevent the judgment: "Show us the Jonah that raises the storm and we will throw it overboard." But it seems here to be the language of those who quarrelled at the word of God, and challenged him to show what they had done which might deserve so severe a punishment: "What is our iniquity? Or what is our sin? What crime have we even been guilty of, proportionable to such a sentence?" Instead of humbling and condemning themselves, they stand upon their own justification and insinuate that God did them wrong in pronouncing this evil against them, that he laid upon them more than was right, and that they had reason to enter into judgment with God,Job 34:23. Note, It is amazing to see how hardly sinners are brought to justify God and judge themselves when they are in trouble, and to own the iniquity and the sin that have procured them the trouble. 2. A plain and full answer given to this enquiry. Do they ask the prophet why, and for what reason, God is thus angry with them? He shall not stop their mouths by telling them that they may be sure there is a sufficient reason, the righteous God is never angry without cause, without good cause; but he must tell them particularly what is the cause, that they may be convinced and humbled, or at least that God may be justified. Let them know then, (1.) That God visited upon them the iniquities of their fathers (Jeremiah 16:11; Jeremiah 16:11): Your fathers have forsaken me, and have not kept my law. They shook off divine institutions and grew weary of them (they thought them too plain, too mean), and then they walked after other gods, whose worship was more gay and pompous; and, being fond of variety and novelty, they served them and worshipped them; and this was the sin which God had said, in the second commandment, he would visit upon their children, who kept up these idolatrous usages, because they received them by tradition from their fathers,1 Peter 1:18. (2.) That God reckoned with them for their own iniquities (Jeremiah 16:12; Jeremiah 16:12): "You have made your fathers' sin your own, and have become obnoxious to the punishment which in their days was deferred, for you have done worse than your fathers." If they had made a good use of their fathers' reprieve, and had been led by the patience of God to repentance, they would have fared the better for it and the judgment would have been prevented, the reprieve turned into a national pardon; but, making an ill use of it, and being hardened by it in their sins, they fared the worse for it, and, the reprieve having expired, an addition was made to the sentence and it was executed with the more severity. They were more impudent and obstinate in sin than their fathers, walked every one after the imagination of his own heart, made that their guide and rule and were resolved to follow that, on purpose that they might not hearken to God and his prophets. They designedly suffered their own lusts and passions to be noisy, that they might drown the voice of their consciences. No wonder then that God has taken up this resolution concerning them (Jeremiah 16:13; Jeremiah 16:13): "I will cast you out of this land, this land of light, this valley of vision. Since you will not hearken to me, you shall not hear me; you shall be hurried away, not into a neighbouring country which you have formerly had some acquaintance and correspondence with, but into a far country, a land that you know not, neither you nor your fathers, in which you have no interest, nor can expect to meet with any comfortable society, to be an allay to your misery." Justly were those banished into a strange land who doted upon strange gods, which neither they nor their fathers knew, Deuteronomy 32:17. Two things would make their case there very miserable, and both of them relate to the soul, the better part; the greatest calamities of their captivity were those which affected that and debarred that from its bliss. [1.] "It is the happiness of the soul to be employed in the service of God; but there shall you serve other gods day and night; that is, you shall be in continual temptation to serve them and perhaps compelled to do it by your cruel task-masters; and, when you are forced to worship idols, you will be as sick of such worship as ever you were fond of it when it was forbidden you by your godly kings." See how God often makes men's sin their punishment, and fills the backslider in heart with his own ways. "You shall have no public worship at all but the worship of idols, and then you will think with regret how you slighted the worship of the true God." [2.] "It is the happiness of the soul to have some tokens of the lovingkindness of God, but you shall go to a strange land, where I will not show you favour." If they had had God's favour, that would have made even the land of their captivity a pleasant land; but, if they lie under his wrath, the yoke of their oppression will be intolerable to them.