Jeremiah 16
Chuck Smith on Jeremiah 16
Verse by verse, the C2000, 1979 to 1985 and C3000, 1985 to 1999 series. Permission granted by The Word For Today.
C2000 · 1979 to 1985
Chapter introduction
Shall we turn now to Jeremiah 16.
Now you remember that Jeremiah was just a young man when God called him to this prophetic ministry. And so in chapter 16:
Verses 1–2
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 (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.
Verses 3–6
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 (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.
Verse 7
Neither shall men tear themselves for them in mourning (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 (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 8.
Verse 8
Thou shalt not also go into the house of feasting, to sit with them to eat and to drink (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.
Verse 9
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 (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.
Verses 10–12
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 (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.
Verses 13–15
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 (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."
Verses 16–18
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 (16:16-18).
Jeremiah cried out in response to what God had said.
Verses 19–21
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 (16:19-21).
So Jeremiah cries out. It's almost as the psalm. In fact, there are psalms, "The Lord is my strength," (Psalm 118:14). "My refuge, my fortress" (Psalm 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.
C3000 · 1985 to 1999
Chapter introduction
Jeremiah declares:
Verses 1–5
The woes of the LORD came also unto me, saying, Thou shalt not take thee a wife, neither shalt thou have sons or daughters in this place. For thus saith the LORD concerning 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 shall 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 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 lovingkindness and mercies.
Now, again we have that phrase, “The word of the LORD came also unto me saying,” And all the way through the book of Jeremiah, the word of the LORD came unto me saying. We are going to read over and over again. It brings up again the issue of how did God speak to Jeremiah. Now, I would imagine that it had to be pretty clear for him to remain unmarried. You have to pretty well know that this is God speaking to me when he says don’t take a wife and don’t have children in this place. Did God speak audibly to Jeremiah? How did God speak to him? It is an interesting, thought provoking idea and something to consider. And we are to get to that as we get down the road in Jeremiah. We are going to discover a little bit of how the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah.
But here the word of the LORD came saying, you are not to take a wife. This was to be a sign to the people. It was generally accepted that when a boy became 16, 17, or 18 he got married. That was just a part of their culture. They started having children. So the LORD said to Jeremiah, “You are not to take a wife and have sons and daughters in this place.” Because those children that are here, the daughters and the sons that are born, their mothers and their fathers are all of them to be destroyed. They are going to die grievous deaths and they will not be lamented neither shall they be buried.
The reason being; there will be no one left to lament them, and no one left to bury them. There is going to be wholesale slaughter by the Babylonians. And those that are not slaughtered will be taken away as captives and the carcasses of the people will just be left to rot there in the ruins of Jerusalem. You are not to take a wife or have children to subject them to the terror that is going to befall the city of Jerusalem.
Their carcasses will be for the meat for the fowls of heaven. The vultures will feed upon them and 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 lovingkindness and mercies.
Don’t weep for them and don’t mourn for them. They have turned their backs on God. They are abdurant in their rebellion against God. This is coming as a judgment from God. When Aaron’s sons offered the strange fire to God at the dedication of the Tabernacle, when they had prepared the whole Tabernacle they came to the dedication, and they set the alter out and fire from Heaven came and actually ignited the coals that were upon the alter. The people were excited, this supernatural phenomena. And Aaron’s two sons grabbed their censors and went in to offer incense and the fire from the LORD came and destroyed them, killed them. And the LORD commanded Aaron not to mourn publicly because this was a judgment of God. And to mourn publicly for them would be actually to vote against what God did in a sense. Because this is God’s judgment and it is a righteous judgment upon them, you are not to mourn for them.
So the same thing is here. These people have turned their backs on God. They are deserving the judgment that is coming upon them and for Jeremiah to go into the house of mourning to mourn for them would actually be mourning against the work of God. And it would be an open affront against what God has done. And so God said, “I have taken my peace from these people and My peace from these people and My lovingkindness.”
You have to go awfully far in your rebellion against God. He is so patient and so longsuffering. And with these people it had been centuries that God had been patient and longsuffering. But ultimately there comes that time when you cross the line and there is no more mercy, there is no more lovingkindness, there only remains that certain fearful looking forward to the fiery indignation of His wrath by which He devours His enemies.
Verse 6
Both the great and the small shall die in this land: they shall not be buried, neither cut themselves, nor make themselves bald for them:
It was the custom of the pagan when someone died to mar your body, to cut your body as a sign of mourning and grief. Also they would shave their heads again as a sign of mourning and grief. But these were pagan customs. In Leviticus God commands them not to make any cuttings or to shave their heads or to make any baldness for the dead. It is also repeated in Deuteronomy 14:1, the commandment of the LORD not to do these things for the dead because they were pagan practices. And the LORD had said not to learn the ways of the heathen, the pagan.
The children of Israel, in spite of the fact that God said not to learn the ways of the heathen, they did. They had begun these heathen practices of mutilating their bodies or shaving their heads for the dead, when a person died. So the LORD is declaring when there is this great slaughter in the land, the people will not be buried, there will be no lamenting for them and there will be no one who will be showing these signs of grief and cutting themselves and shaving their heads because of them.
Neither shall men tear themselves for them in mourning
It is interesting that in different cultures they have different practices. You think of India when the husband dies they have the fires and they throw the body on to cremate it, then if she is a good faithful wife she jumps into the bonfire herself. It is just part of their customs. And so people that do these strange things in their mourning or in their showing of grief, the various cultural things where by people show their grief. Here he is referring to other actions of people tearing themselves in mourning to comfort them for the dead.
Verse 7
neither shall men give them the cup of consolation to drink
Doctors today often give person sedation when a love one has died to calm them down and they will sedate them. There is of course is the old custom of giving them a shot of whisky or something so that they are not grieving so heavily for the dead. You sort of bomb out a bit and you don’t think about it. So they are not to give them this cup of consolation to drink for their fathers or for their mothers. Even to the present day quit often after the funeral they have a feast. The friends bring in the food and you go in and have a time of fellowshipping and feasting.
Verses 8–9
Thou shalt not also go into the house of feasting, to sit with them to eat and to drink. For thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God if Israel; Behold, I will cause to cease out of this place in 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.
Jeremiah, in your days these things are going to cease in the land. There will be no more parties. There will be no more voices of gladness or of the bridegroom or the bride in the marriage celebrations.
Verse 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?
And so Jeremiah is to lay this heavy trip on them of the slaughter and their carcasses lying there being devoured by the birds and the animals with no mourning and no lamenting. So the people will say, “What have we done, what is our sin, what is our iniquity that God would do these kind of things to us?”
Verse 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;
So the answer to the question, why has God allowed this: is because they have turned their backs on God. God watches over His children. God cares for His children. But you can take yourself out of the place of God’s protection and you can, in that place, become a prey to the enemy. So they had removed themselves from God’s place of protection. They had forsaken the Law of God and they had forsaken God. And the prophet said,
And ye have done worse than your fathers;
Verse 12
Your fathers actually served other gods but you have done worse than your fathers because,
for, behold, ye walk every one after the imagination of his evil heart, that they may not hearken unto me:
Again we have this idea of people following their wicked fantasies. Seeking to actualize the wicked fantasies of their hearts and forsaking the LORD, not listening to God.
Verse 13
Therefore will I canst you out of this land into a land that ye know not, neither you nor you fathers; and there shall ye serve other gods day and night; where I will not shew you favour.
They have turned their backs on God, and God is going to turn their back on them. They have forsaken God, God is going to forsake them.
Verses 14–15
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 unto their fathers.
God always holds out hope for the future. The one key aspect to the Christian faith is the hope that God gives. He has just spoken of the tremendous darkness that they are facing. The future is totally bleak. It is just as dark as you can possibly imagine. The enemy is going to come. They are going to be slain, their bodies lie there in the streets, no one to bury them, their carcasses devoured by the animals, the residue of the people that are not slain will be take away to Babylon. And there they are going to serve the gods of the Babylonians day and night. This dark, dark picture of the future but then He goes out beyond that. God is still going to extend His grace and His mercy unto their children or children’s children and they will come back from this captivity. They will be restored by God into the land.
This is a necessity because the Messiah is not yet come. And the Messiah is to be born in Bethlehem and there is so many prophecies in regards to the Messiah. So God has to bring them back. God promises them that they will come back. They always spoke about the LORD that brought us out of Egypt. That was always the identifying thing for the LORD. The LORD that brought us out of Egypt. He created the nation by bringing us out of Egypt.
But, they will not be saying that in the future. They will be saying, “It is the LORD who brought us out of the land of the north, or brought us back from Babylon. And the LORD who brought us back form all of the places where we were scattered.” And the reestablishing of the nation is again promised by God, though there is to be this desolation, dark as can be, yet God shows the light at the end of the tunnel and there will be when God is going to bring them back and plant them again in the land.
and I will bring them again into their land that I gave unto their fathers.
So the LORD is always holding out that hope for the future. Again, the earth, the world, is facing a very bleak future. There is going to be a time of great tribulation come upon this earth such as the earth has ever seen before or will ever see again. In all of history there has never been a time of such desolation and devastation, death and destruction as is to come upon the earth in the future. The Bible speaks a lot of these days of God’s cataclysmic judgment that are coming. But the LORD does not end the story there. This will be followed by the glorious return of Jesus Christ and the establishing of the kingdom of God and righteous shall cover the earth as waters do cover the sea and there will be no more death, there will be no more sorrow, there will be no more pain, no more suffering, the former things will pass away, everything becomes new. The blind will see the glory of the LORD, the mute will sing His praises, the deaf shall hear and the lame shall leap for joy. The glorious day of the LORD that is going to come. But before it comes there is going to be darkness and desolation.
And so with the nation of Israel there is coming the darkness and the desolation but yet God is going to bring them back into the land and the day of glory and blessing awaits these people.
behold, I will send for many fishers, saith the LORD, and they shall fish them;
The idea is sort of like a dragnet. When the Babylonians come they will try to hide from them. They will hide in the caves and they will flee but the Babylonians will search out for them.
Verse 16
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.
They are going to find them and destroy them.
Verse 17
For mine eyes are upon all their ways: they are not hid from my face, neither is their iniquity hid from mine eyes.
God has seen, you cannot hide from God.
Verse 18
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.
Forsaking the Law of God, forsaking God. They were offering sacrifices unto these pagan idols. They had built alters to these gods on the tops of the hills. And here are the mountains of the LORD and they are covered with these pagan idols and these worship centers and the people offering their sacrifices and God said, “Because of that I am going to punish them double, recompense them for their iniquity and their sin double because of the defiling of the land.”
Verses 19–21
Jeremiah responds to this and says,
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 The LORD.
Now, here is an interesting prophecy of the Gentiles coming from the ends of the earth and recognizing that the gods that they are worshipping are false and empty. Whereas the Jewish people have turned from the true and the living God, the Gentiles will come from the ends of the earth and recognize that He is truly Jehovah. So we find today, we have come to know what they do not know. That is that God kept His promise and did send the Messiah that He had promised to them just as He promised. And we know that Jesus is the Messiah, the savior of the world sent by God into this world to redeem man from his sin. And we have turned from the worship of idols, so to speak, to worship the living God and to follow after Jesus Christ. Whereas the Jews are still in blindness, having forsaken God’s way of righteousness, which through our faith in Jesus Christ, have set upon themselves to develop a righteousness by their own works.
They are seeking to offer to God their own goodness, their own morality, their own works to be accepted by God as righteousness. The prophet Jeremiah will tell them in a while, that their righteousness is as filthy rags in the sight of God. Paul the apostle, in talking of these things, said it is interesting how that the Gentiles have obtained the righteousness of God which the Jews were seeking to attain by the Law but could not attain by the Law. But the Gentiles have attained it through faith.
So we because we believe in Jesus Christ are accounted by God as righteous. God accounts our faith in Christ for righteousness. So I am not righteous for what I do, I am righteous because of what I believe. I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the savior of the world, that He died according to the Scriptures and rose the third day according to the Scriptures and is in heaven right now interceding for me. And God accounts me righteous because of my faith in Christ.
The righteousness that they are seeking to achieve they have not achieved. It is interesting that Yom Kippur, which used to be the day in which they offered the sacrifice for the nation, the sin offerings for the nation is not a day of reflection. What do they reflect on? There good deeds. They reflect upon their bad and they balance out their good with the bad. They are looking to over balance the good deeds over the bad. But there is no offering or sacrifice for their sins. There is no sin offering. The Bible says that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins.
Jesus Christ has shed His blood for us and thus we Gentiles have come to the LORD and found Him our strength, our fortress, our refuge. The Gentiles are coming from the end of the earth and say, “Surely our fathers inherited lies and vanity and things in which there was no profit.” Then the prophet says, “Shall a man make gods unto himself that are no gods.”