Jeremiah 16

Chapter 16 of Jeremiah belongs to the early part of the book, where the prophecies of judgment against Judah continue. In Jeremiah 15, God declared that not even intercession could turn back the judgment, and He answered Jeremiah's lament. In this chapter, the prophet's own life becomes a sign of that judgment.

Outline

• Verses 1–4 The LORD commands Jeremiah not to take a wife or have children, because the children and parents of the land will die of disease, sword, and famine and will not even be buried.
• Verses 5–7 He is told not to enter a house of mourning to lament. Because God has taken away His peace, lovingkindness, and mercies, no one will mourn the dead or share the bread and cup of consolation.
• Verses 8–9 He is also told not to enter a house of feasting. The voice of rejoicing and the voice of the bridegroom and the bride will cease in Jeremiah's own days.
• Verses 10–13 When the people ask what sin has brought this upon them, Jeremiah is to answer that their fathers served other gods and forsook the law, and that the present generation has done worse than their fathers; therefore they will be cast out into a land they have not known.
• Verses 14–15 A day is coming when people will swear not by the LORD who brought Israel out of Egypt but by the LORD who brought them out of the land of the north and from the lands to which they had been driven. God promises to bring them back into the land He gave to their fathers.
• Verses 16–18 God says He will send for many fishers and hunters to fish out and hunt down those who hide. Their iniquity is not hidden from Him, and because they have defiled the land with their idols, He will recompense them double.
• Verses 19–21 Jeremiah confesses the LORD as his strength and refuge. The passage then declares that the nations will come from the ends of the earth and say that the gods of their fathers were vanity, and that the LORD will cause them to know His name.

Key Verses

• Jeremiah 16:2 "Thou shalt not take thee a wife, neither shalt thou have sons or daughters in this place." Even the prophet's family life becomes a sign of the coming judgment.
• Jeremiah 16:14–15 "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." The return from exile is portrayed as a new deliverance comparable to the Exodus. Nearly identical words appear again in Jeremiah 23:7–8.
• Jeremiah 16:19 "O LORD, my strength, and my fortress, and my refuge in the day of affliction." This is a confession of trust spoken in the midst of pronouncements of judgment.

People and Places

• Jeremiah — the prophet commanded to withdraw from marriage, funerals, and feasts.
• Egypt — the land of the Exodus, which Israel recalled as the scene of its earlier deliverance.
• The land of the north — the place to which the people would be driven, commonly understood to refer to Babylon.

Points for Reflection

• Jeremiah's celibacy is unusual in the Old Testament. It is sometimes cited in discussions of celibacy, but the text presents it not as a general norm but as a sign of judgment for that particular time.
• The mourning customs of cutting oneself and shaving the head mentioned in verse 6 were forbidden in Leviticus 19:28 and Deuteronomy 14:1. The text assumes that such customs were being practiced at the time.
• The fishers and hunters of verse 16 are often read, in light of verses 17–18, as instruments of judgment who seek out those in hiding. Other interpreters connect them with the return in verse 15 and read them as gathering the scattered people. Because the imagery resembles Jesus' calling of His disciples to be "fishers of men" in Matthew 4, the two passages are mentioned together, but their meanings differ.
• The vision in verses 19–21 of the nations turning to the LORD is read in connection with the New Testament theme of the Gentiles receiving the gospel.