The word of the Lord came to me: 2 “You shall not take a wife, nor shall you have sons or daughters in this place. 3 For thus says the Lord concerning the sons and daughters who are born in this place, and concerning the mothers who bore them and the fathers who fathered them in this land: 4 They shall die of deadly diseases. They shall not be lamented, nor shall they be buried. They shall be as dung on the surface of the ground. They shall perish by the sword and by famine, and their dead bodies shall be food for the birds of the air 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 grieve for them, for I have taken away my peace from this people, my steadfast love and mercy, declares the Lord. 6 Both great and small shall die in this land. They shall not be buried, and no one shall lament for them or cut himself or make himself bald for them. 7 No one shall break bread for the mourner, to comfort him for the dead, nor shall anyone give him the cup of consolation to drink for his father or his mother. 8 You shall not go into the house of feasting to sit with them, to eat and drink. 9 For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will silence in 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.
10 “And when you tell this people all these words, and they say to you, ‘Why has the Lord pronounced all this great evil against us? What is our iniquity? What is the sin that we have committed against the Lord our God?’ 11 then you shall say to them: ‘Because your fathers have forsaken me, declares the Lord, and have gone after other gods and have served and worshiped them, and have forsaken me and have not kept my law, 12 and because you have done worse than your fathers, for behold, every one of you follows his stubborn, evil will, refusing to listen to me. 13 Therefore I will hurl you out of this land into a land that neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you shall serve other gods day and night, for I will show you no favor.’
The Lord Will Restore Israel
14 “Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when it shall no longer be said, ‘As the Lord lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt,’ 15 but ‘As the Lord lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the north country and out of all the countries where he had driven them.’ For I will bring them back to their own land that I gave to their fathers.
16 “Behold, I am sending for many fishers, declares the Lord, and they shall catch them. And afterward I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain and every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks. 17 For my eyes are on all their ways. They are not hidden from me, nor is their iniquity concealed from my eyes. 18 But first I will doubly repay their iniquity and their sin, because they have polluted my land with the carcasses of their detestable idols, and have filled my inheritance with their abominations.”
19 O Lord, my strength and my stronghold,
my refuge in the day of trouble,
to you shall the nations come
from the ends of the earth and say:
“Our fathers have inherited nothing but lies,
worthless things in which there is no profit.
20 Can man make for himself gods?
Such are not gods!”
21 “Therefore, behold, I will make them know, this once I will make them know my power and my might, and they shall know that my name is the Lord.” Jeremiah 16 ESV
Jeremiah 16: 1-13 His call to Celibacy
…7I wish that all men were as I am. But each man has his own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that. 8Now to the unmarried and widows I say this: It is good for them to remain unmarried, as I am. 9But if they cannot control themselves, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion.… 1 Corinthians 7: 7-9
1-4. You shall not take a wife, nor shall you have sons and daughters in this place - Isaiah had a wife and children, and they named their children in such manner as to be signs. Jeremiah not having children is a sign to a people that would consider matrimony the norm. He is under orders, called by God to do so, and this means that he will have no wife to share in his struggles and loneliness, and no children to care for him in his old age. Most people wouldn't consider this back then, and so it will be a question for them, but the answer they won't like. Paul refers to this sort of condition as a gift, and not something that everyone is called to do in the ministry. Any religious system that would demand this of their shepherds would be making the call themselves, and this would be a false system. Paul gives directions to other believers during a time of distress. Having spouses and children during such times only multiplies sorrows.
…2influenced by the hypocrisy of liars, whose consciences are seared with a hot iron. 3They will prohibit marriage and require abstinence from certain foods that God has created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. 4For every creation of God is good, and nothing that is received with thanksgiving should be rejected,… 1 Timothy 4: 2-4
25 Now concerning the betrothed, I have no command from the Lord, but I give my judgment as one who by the Lord's mercy is trustworthy. 26 I think that in view of the present distress it is good for a person to remain as he is. 27 Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be free. Are you free from a wife? Do not seek a wife. 28 But if you do marry, you have not sinned, and if a betrothed woman marries, she has not sinned. Yet those who marry will have worldly troubles, and I would spare you that. 29 This is what I mean, brothers: the appointed time has grown very short. From now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none, 30 and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no goods, 31 and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away.
32 I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord. 33 But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife, 34 and his interests are divided. And the unmarried or betrothed woman is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit. But the married woman is anxious about worldly things, how to please her husband. 35 I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord.
36 If anyone thinks that he is not behaving properly toward his betrothed, if his passions are strong, and it has to be, let him do as he wishes: let them marry—it is no sin. 37 But whoever is firmly established in his heart, being under no necessity but having his desire under control, and has determined this in his heart, to keep her as his betrothed, he will do well. 38 So then he who marries his betrothed does well, and he who refrains from marriage will do even better.
39 A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord. 40 Yet in my judgment she is happier if she remains as she is. And I think that I too have the Spirit of God. 1 Corinthians 7: 25-40
· “Biblical Hebrew does not even have a word for ‘bachelor.’“ (Ryken)
They shall be as dung on the surface of the ground - He is setting Jeremiah apart for the Lord's work, but also, in not marrying, he is relieved of the anguish that is coming. Who wants to see their children die before them, or who wants to become so callous that they cannot lament?
5-9. No one shall lament for them - The normal cycles of life and death are interrupted. The time to observe grief, the dignity of funerals, and the cry of mourners will be taken from the land. You will not have a name to your captors, just a number, chained in lines as meat going to the market.
Cut himself or make himself bald for them - Israelites often had professional mourners to make a greater show for the dead, and had also come to like and employ pagan rites of mourning as well. There would be no time for this as they were getting dragged off to Babylon, and the number of carcasses would too many for the few remaining to bury. The attendees at their funeral would be vultures, maggots and other scavenging beasts.
Cut themselves: “These are rites of self-mutilation, in which the mourners cut or gashed themselves and shaved the head and the beard. They seem to have been widely practiced in Israel (Jeremiah 41:45; 47:5; 48:37; Isaiah 15:2-3; 22:12; Ezekiel 7:18; Micah 1:16, etc.) even though they were forbidden.” (Thompson)
The voice of the bride groom and the voice of the bride - This theme will carry out to the end. Men and women will be more concerned with holding on to earthly comforts, pleasures and norms, so much so that they will deny the reality playing out before them.
…37As it was in the days of Noah, so will it be at the coming of the Son of Man. 38For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark. 39And they were oblivious, until the flood came and swept them all away. So will it be at the coming of the Son of Man.… Matthew 24: 37-39
10-13. Why has the Lord pronounced all this great evil against us - Here are the reasons:
- "Your fathers have forsaken me, and have gone after other gods and served and worshiped them." Now those other gods can step in and prevent all that, or being human invention, probably not.
- "You have done worse than your fathers." This generation saw what God had done to their northern neighbors, placing them in Assyrian captivity, for not following the laws of the only true God.
- "Every one of you follows his stubborn, evil will, refusing to listen to me." Maybe because I am what people would call a Calvinist when it comes to the doctrines of grace, but free will seems a little useless and overrated at times. These people can't seem to raise themselves from the dead. They trust what their own fallen hearts and dead souls tell them, and always side with their worldly preferences. This makes them ripe for the false prophets that Jeremiah is constantly contending with. "I said a little prayer, I shaved my head, I went forward, I wept, I am related to Abraham, and I go to temple." Something is telling them that they are good or good enough, and so they don't need to listen to God.
…15For He says to Moses: “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” 16So then, it does not depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. 17For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display My power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”… Romans 9: 15-17
A land that neither you nor your fathers have known - These current generations are far removed from the land of the Chaldeans, and much has changed since the days of the patriarchs. Abraham was called out from there, and Jacob served there for Leah and Rachel, but this place will be unknown to Judah.
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