Jeremiah 16

Jeremiah 16:1-9

In this chapter, (1.) The greatness of the Jesus calamity is illustrated

Jeremiah 16:10-13

We have here,

1. The insolent and unhumbled challenge this hardened people should make, beholding his conduct and hearing his warnings. They would ask, Wherefore hath the Lord pronounced all this great evil against us? as if they had never given him any provocation: or, What is our iniquity? or what is our sin that we have committed against the Lord our God? They pretend a claim to God, as their God, and would deny the charge the prophet continued to lay against them; so blind, hardened, and oblivious, are sinners in the error of their ways; and, instead of jublishing God in his judgments, quarrel with his visitations as unjust or severe.

2. The prophet has his answer given him, and enough to silence their presumption. Their fathers iniquities, backfinding, disobedience, and idolatries, were great and shameful, v. 11, but their own far exceeded: instead of being warned by the judgments they suffered, or being led to repentance by God’s patience, they had grown worse and worse, killing up what was lacking of the wickedness of their predecessors; more perversely set on their own evil ways, and more resolutely hardened against all the rebukes of God’s prophets, v. 12. therefore no wonder that, as the just punishment of their iniquities, God would call them out of that good land which they had defiled, send them far off into a miserable captivity, make that inlatry which had been their far than grievous punishment, and withdraw from them every token of favour that might alleviate their miseries.

3. ¶ Therefore behold, the “days come, faith 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: 15. 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 unto their fathers. 16. ¶ Behold, I will send for many fathers, faith 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. 17. For “mine eyes are upon all their ways: they are not hid from my face; neither is their iniquity hid from mine eyes. 18. And first I will recompensate their iniquity, and their sin double; because they have defiled my land, they have filled mine inheritance with the carcasses of their dreadable and abominable things. 19. 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 their vanity, and things wherein they’ll go profit. 20.

Shall a man make gods unto himself, and “they are no gods? 21. Therefore behold, I will this conceivable them to know, I will cause them to know mine dead, and my might, and they shall know that “my name is the LORD.

Jeremiah 16:14-21

In judgment God still remembers mercy.

1. He gives them hopes that a glorious day of disillusionment should come, so much greater than that of their redemption from Egypt, that in a medium it should deliberate the mention of it, v. 14, 15. And this was primarily fulfilled in the recovery of the Jews from Babylon, and the countries of the north whither they had been carried away captives, and may have reference to that more glorious expected event, when the Lord shall call them into his church from their perfect disposition.

2. Before he shewed them this favour he would severely visit their iniquities. As fallen taken in an evil out, and beads in the hunter’s feare, so would God give them up to the Chaldeans to be taken and destroyed, who should purse them into all their lurking places, and drag them into captivity, v. 16. Their evil ways, however severe, were not hid from God’s eye: he marked their impious rites and abominable idolatries, the carcasses of their dreadful things, offered to their idols, so many, and so universally practised through the land, that they had filled God’s inheritance with their horrid professions. For this therefore he threatens to recompete their sin double; not beyond what it deserved, but double above all other visitations he had brought upon them, or much more than they feared or apprehended. Note, (1.) No darkness can hide the sinner from God’s eye. (2.) Right is in vain when he parloes: no cave, no mountain, can then conceal the guilty from his judgment.

3. The prophet is comforted not only in the prospect that the punishment of his people, however severe, would have an end, but also with the forefight of the conversion of the Gentiles: O Lord, my strength and ferrety, who had hitherto supported him amidst all his infirmities, and against all his enemies; and my refuge in the day of affliction, who would perforce him amidst all the approaching evils: the Gentiles shall come unto thee from the ends of the earth; either when the Jews returned from Babylon, and many proskytes come up with them; or when the gospel was preached, and the Gentiles became obedient to the faith, renouncing the idols of their fathers, convinced of their vanity and unprofitableness, v. 19. and astonished at their absurdity, who ever could think those to be gods which were the workmanship of their own hands, wood or floor, v. 20. But now God will cause them to know better, making them, by his efficacious grace, acquainted with his own glorious perfections as the only living Jehovah, with the gospel of his dear Son, and the way of life and salvation attainable through the Redeemer.

Some chuse rather to understand all this of the Jews, called Gentiles, because of their imitation of their sins, and now quitting with blame their idolatries, and returning to the one living and true God. Note, (1.) They who make God their refuge shall find support under the heaviest afflictions. (2.) When the sinner, convinced and ashamed of his folly, begins bitterly to reflect upon himself, then God will again relieve him to his favour, and make him know once more the wonders of his grace.

Jeremiah 16:75

2. He must not go to the house of mourning, v. 5. With friendly sympathy he had, no desire, been wont to weep with doubt that wept, but now he must abstain, and there no usual expression of grief for his nearest friend or relation, because either the dead were removed from the evils to come, or rather as a sign to death of the greatness of the approaching calamities, when death would make such terrible devastation, that even the great should be unburied on the ground, and none be left to throw the laff kind office to the corpse, or to mourn over it. God having removed his peace from the land, a contemptuon utter and universal is decreed against it.

3. He must not go to the house of feasting, v. 8. He had been accustomed, no doubt, to join with his friends when they made an entertainment, and innocently to partake of their repals; but now death was unfeasorable; and when he forefew the terrible wrath of God impending, he wanted by his own conduct to awaken their concern. The voice of mirth and bridal kings were about to cease, and no voice to be heard but the thricks of the miserable and the groans of the dying.

4. ¶ And it shall come to pass when thou shalt shew this people all these words, and they shall lay 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 lay unto them, Because your fathers have forsaken me, faith 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 1st imagination of his evil heart, that they may not hearken me to me) 13. Therefore will I “call 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.”