Jeremiah 16

Our modern age is a pushover for the shallow and the shortcut. We want to change everything except the human heart. J. Wallace Hamilton

Preaching that costs nothing accomplishes nothing.” The famous British preacher John Henry

Jowett made that statement, and it certainly applies to the prophet Jeremiah. Pained by the sins of his people, declaring unpopular messages that majored on judgment, and perplexed by what the Lord was allowing him to suffer, Jeremiah paid a great price to be faithful to his divine calling. If ever an Old Testament servant had to “take up his cross” in order to follow the Lord, it was Jeremiah.

In these chapters, the prophet delivered four messages, and interspersed with these messages are his own prayers to the Lord and the answers he received. Jeremiah was bold before men but broken before God, and yet it was his brokenness that gave him his strength.

In order to get the attention of the people, God sometimes told the prophets to do unusual things. Isaiah gave two of his sons odd names, which he used as a text for a message (Isa. 8), and he also dressed like a prisoner of war to call attention to a coming conflict (Isa. 20). We’ve already noted the many “action sermons” of both Jeremiah and Ezekiel.

Jeremiah’s prohibitions (vv. 1–9). The Lord forbade Jeremiah from participating in three normal and acceptable activities: getting married, mourning for the dead, and attending feasts. All Jewish men were expected to be married by age twenty. In fact, the rabbis pronounced a curse on any who refused to marry and beget children. Certainly Jeremiah would have appreciated having a loving wife to encourage him, but this blessing was not his to enjoy. When you consider all the trials he endured and the enemies he made, Jeremiah was probably better off a single man. But his refusing marriage was a symbolic act, for the sons and daughters in Jewish families would either die by the sword or starve to death in the coming Babylonian invasion. Whenever anybody asked Jeremiah why he wasn’t married, he had opportunity to share God’s message of the coming judgment.

The Jewish people in Bible times were experts at mourning and marrying, but Jeremiah was forbidden to attend funerals or weddings and the feasts connected with them. What did this unsociable conduct say to the people? For one thing, God had removed His peace and comfort from the nation. Moreover, the judgment that was coming would be so terrible that the people would be unable to express their grief. There would be so many corpses and so few survivors that nobody would bury the dead, let alone comfort whatever family member remained.

As for wedding feasts, how could people celebrate with such a cloud of destruction hovering over the nation? The days would come when the happy voices of brides and bridegrooms would cease. In fact, all joy and gladness would flee from the land. The exiles would form a funeral march and go to Babylon.

Jeremiah’s explanation (vv. 10–13, 16–18). It seems strange that the people would ask why the Lord decreed such a terrible judgment for His people. Surely they knew the terms of His covenant and the extent of their own sins, but they were led astray by the false prophets and comfortable in their sins, and their conscience was dead. Their unbiblical theology gave them a false assurance that God would never abandon His people or allow the Gentiles to desecrate the Holy City and the temple. How wrong they were!

Jeremiah’s explanation was simple: They had repeated the sins of their fathers instead of listening to the law of the Lord and turning from sin. Furthermore, they had not learned from the past judgments that God had sent. This made them even more guilty than their fathers. Had not Assyria taken the northern kingdom of Israel captive because of their idolatry? Had not the previous prophets proclaimed the word of God and warned the people?

Jeremiah used several images to describe the captivity. The verb “cast you out” (Jer. 16:13) is used for hurling a spear or sending a storm against a ship (Jonah 1:4). God was violently removing His people so the land could be healed and the nation purified (2 Chron. 36:14–21). Jeremiah also used the metaphors of fishing, hunting, and banking (Jer. 16:16–18). The Babylonians would cast out their nets and catch the Jews (Ezek. 12:13), and not one “fish” would escape. If anybody tried to hide in the hills, the fishermen would become hunters and track them down. Why? Because the nation owed a great debt to the Lord for the way they had treated His law and His land. Now the note was due. “I will repay them double for their wickedness and their sin” (Jer. 16: niv) means that God’s judgment would be ample and complete.

Jeremiah’s consolation (vv. 14–15). In wrath, God remembers mercy (Hab. 3:2), and Jeremiah gave the people a message of hope: The exiles will one day return to their land. So great will be this deliverance that it will be looked upon as a “second exodus” and far outshine the glory of Israel’s exodus from Egypt. Later, Jeremiah would explain that the exiles will be in Babylon for seventy years (Jer. 25) and that a remnant would return to the land, rebuild the temple, and establish the nation (23:3; 31:7–9). They would return as a chastened people who would never again turn to the idols of the Gentile nations.

Jeremiah’s affirmation (vv. 19–21). In a burst of faith and prophetic joy, Jeremiah saw not only the gathering of the Jewish remnant but also the coming of the Gentile nations from the ends of the earth to worship the true and living God of Israel. Isaiah had this same vision (Isa. 2:1–5; 11:10–16; 45:14), and so did Zechariah (Zech. 8:20–23). The Gentiles will confess their sin of idolatry and admit that the idols were worthless. Then they will be taught to know the Lord. Meanwhile, it’s the task of the church today to spread the message of the gospel to the ends of the earth so that sinners might abandon their false gods, whatever they may be, and trust in Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world.