Reflections on Jeremiah 16

Jeremiah 16 (Contemporary English Version)
1. The LORD said to me:
   
2. Jeremiah, don't get married and have children--Judah is no place to raise a family.
   
3. I'll tell you what's going to happen to children and their parents here.
   
4. They will die of horrible diseases and of war and starvation. No one will give them a funeral or bury them, and their bodies will be food for the birds and wild animals. And what's left will lie on the ground like manure.
   
5. When someone dies, don't visit the family or show any sorrow. I will no longer love or bless or have any pity on the people of Judah.
   
6. Rich and poor alike will die and be left unburied. No one will mourn and show their sorrow by cutting themselves or shaving their heads.
   
7. No one will bring food and wine to help comfort those who are mourning the death of their father or mother.
   
8. Don't even set foot in a house where there is eating and drinking and celebrating.
   
9. Warn the people of Judah that I, the LORD All-Powerful, will put an end to all their parties and wedding celebrations.
   
10. They will ask, "Why has the LORD our God threatened us with so many disasters? Have we done something wrong or sinned against him?"
    
11. Then tell them I have said: People of Judah, your ancestors turned away from me; they rejected my laws and teachings and started worshiping other gods.
    
12. And you have done even worse! You are stubborn, and instead of obeying me, you do whatever evil comes to your mind.
    
13. So I will throw you into a land that you and your ancestors know nothing about, a place where you will have to worship other gods both day and night. And I won't feel the least bit sorry for you.
    
14. A time will come when you will again worship me. But you will no longer call me the Living God who rescued Israel from Egypt.
    
15. Instead, you will call me the Living God who rescued you from that country in the north and from the other countries where I had forced you to go. Someday I will bring you back to this land that I gave your ancestors.
    
16. But for now, I am sending enemies who will catch you like fish and hunt you down like wild animals in the hills and the caves.
    
17. I can see everything you are doing, even if you try to hide your sins from me.
    
18. I will punish you double for your sins, because you have made my own land disgusting. You have filled it with lifeless idols that remind me of dead bodies.
    
19. Our LORD, you are the one who gives me strength and protects me like a fortress when I am in trouble. People will come to you from distant nations and say, "Our ancestors worshiped false and useless gods,
    
20. worthless idols made by human hands."
    
21. Then the LORD replied, "That's why I will teach them about my power, and they will know that I am the true God."

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People are not too prone to be very reflective about their lives - particularly concerning spiritual things. But when a person even gives thought to themselves spiritually, they are prone to compare themselves to other people. Our judge, however, is God, and the standard by which we are judged is His standard and not that of other people. Although we might consider ourselves a good person compared to other people, we are looking at the wrong standard.

When God brought disaster upon Judah, He anticipated that they would ask, "Why has the LORD declared all this great disaster against us? What is our guilt? What is our sin that we have committed against the LORD our God?" (16:10) By comparison to everyone else, their lifestyles were the norm, but that was not the standard by which God was judging them. He had established a clear standard with the Israelites when He formed them as a nation, and it was this standard, a standard they had long forgotten, by which God was judging them. Jeremiah was instructed to answer these questions by saying, "Because your fathers abandoned Me"--the LORD's declaration--"and followed other gods, served them, and worshiped them. Indeed, they abandoned Me and did not keep My law. You did more evil than your fathers. Look, each one of you was following the stubbornness of his evil heart, not obeying Me." (16:11-12)

To provide an object lesson for the people of Judah concerning their coming punishment, God placed some restrictions on Jeremiah. He was not to marry or raise a family. He was not to mourn with people in their loss of loved-ones. And he was not to enter a house where there was feasting and joy. Each of these prohibitions on Jeremiah would cause people to ask questions of him as to why he did not do them. His answers to these questions provided God's message to them. As for raising families, they would be lost to diseases, to the sword, and to famine. The prohibition against mourning with people was because God had withdrawn His faithful love and compassion from them and so death would become so prominent none of the dead would be mourned or mourners comforted. Jeremiah was not to enter houses where there was feasting and joy because God was "about to eliminate from this place, before your very eyes and in your time, the sound of joy and gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the bride." (16:9)

In the midst of a message of judgment, though, God gave a message of hope and forgiveness. Even though Judah would be destroyed and the survivors thrown out of the land and taken into exile, the day would come when the Lord would return them to the land. This return would be so noteworthy in the life of Judah that it would become the new exodus in their memories and celebrations.