Jeremiah - Lesson 16

• Chapters 1-6 The foundation of this book is established by the LORD’s calling of Jeremiah as a prophet to Judah in the final days of that kingdom. The LORD’s people, Israel and Judah, had rejected their God by worshipping false gods without repentance. The LORD is sending a nation from the North as judgment, but not for the complete destruction of His people.

  • Chapter 7-11 Jeremiah calls out the impending destruction of the temple and the city of Jerusalem. The people have been led into the worship of false gods, signs in the heaven and idols by their spiritual leaders, forsaking the LORD and violating His covenant. The necessity for discipline is not pleasing to the LORD just as Christ experienced as He declares the destruction that was coming on Jerusalem in His day. Many want to silence the LORD’s prophet.

  • Chapter 12 Jeremiah asks the LORD why it seems the wicked prosper in this life. The LORD prepared Jeremiah for the path ahead to get worse for the LORD’s people, and yet there will be grace offered to His people and the nations in the future. 

  • Chapter 13 Jeremiah buries a linen garment, again prophesies the LORD’s judgment is coming and calls out the leaders of Judah, specifically the king and queen mother.

  • Chapter 14 Drought sent on the LORD’s people as a warning of judgment to the people for following the false prophets and leaders of Judah. The people did not remove the false prophets but followed them into greater sin leading to judgment of the LORD to remove His people, not accepting their false worship or pr  ayer from Jeremiah to spare them.

  • Chapter 15 The LORD reaffirms judgment will fall on Judah now because of what king Manasseh did in Jerusalem. Jeremiah laments over his calling as prophet to the LORD’s people and the LORD tells Jeremiah to repent and to return to the work and He will protect him.

Jer. 16:1 The word of the LORD also came to me saying,
Jer. 16:2 “You shall not take a wife for yourself nor have sons or daughters in this place.”
Jer. 16:3 For thus says the LORD concerning the sons and daughters born in this place, and concerning their mothers who bear them, and their fathers who beget them in this land:
Jer. 16:4 “They will die of deadly diseases, they will not be lamented or buried; they will be as dung on the surface of the ground and come to an end by sword and famine, and their carcasses will become food for the birds of the sky and for the beasts of the earth.”
Jer. 16:5 For thus says the LORD, “Do not enter a house of mourning, or go to lament or to console them; for I have withdrawn My peace from this people,” declares the LORD, “My lovingkindness and compassion.
Jer. 16:6 “Both great men and small will die in this land; they will not be buried, they will not be lamented, nor will anyone gash himself or shave his head for them.
Jer. 16:7 “Men will not break bread in mourning for them, to comfort anyone for the dead, nor give them a cup of consolation to drink for anyone’s father or mother.
Jer. 16:8 “Moreover you shall not go into a house of feasting to sit with them to eat and drink.”
Jer. 16:9 For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: “Behold, I am going to eliminate from this place, before your eyes and in your time, the voice of rejoicing and the voice of gladness, the voice of the groom and the voice of the bride.

• Verse 1 The LORD continues to speak to Jeremiah from what was revealed in Chapter 15.

  • Verse 2 The LORD knows Jeremiah has brought his disappointments of life before Him and He has established what the work of Jeremiah is to be in serving as a prophet to Judah and Israel.

    • This will include Jeremiah now being told he will not be allowed to take a wife or have children.

    • Jeremiah will not have support from any person in carrying out the work given to him by the LORD. He will only have the LORD to rely on.

• Verse 3 The LORD reveals to Jeremiah what will happen to the wives and children of His people.

  • Verse 4 The LORD again tells Jeremiah the people are going to die from diseases and war at such a high rate there will not be others to bury them, and the destruction of their bodies will be carried out by birds and animals.

  • The LORD is protecting Jeremiah from having any wife or children he would love, to suffer from the destruction the LORD is going to bring on His people.

    • This was different for Ezekiel 24:15-18.

Ezek. 24:15 And the word of the LORD came to me saying,
Ezek. 24:16 “Son of man, behold, I am about to take from you the desire of your eyes with a blow; but you shall not mourn and you shall not weep, and your tears shall not come.
Ezek. 24:17 “Groan silently; make no mourning for the dead. Bind on your turban and put your shoes on your feet, and do not cover your mustache and do not eat the bread of men.”
Ezek. 24:18 So I spoke to the people in the morning, and in the evening my wife died. And in the morning I did as I was commanded.

• The LORD says to His prophet He is going to take away his wife and he shall not mourn or weep publicly.

  • What was prophesied to happen does; and Ezekiel does as the LORD commanded.

    • He was to go about his normal routine of dressing, with no time off from life, nor to participate in any events to do with grieving for the dead.

• Jer. 16:5 The LORD continues to give restrictions on what Jeremiah can do in regard to lamenting or consoling the living for the death being brought to the LORD’s people.

  • The LORD clearly says to Jeremiah, “it is I” who has withdrawn His peace, lovingkindness and compassion from His people.

    • These characteristics of God are demonstrated in Psalm 51:1-4

Psa. 51:1 Be gracious to me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness;
According to the greatness of Your compassion blot out my transgressions.
Psa. 51:2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity
And cleanse me from my sin.
Psa. 51:3  For I know my transgressions,
And my sin is ever before me.
Psa. 51:4  Against You, You only, I have sinned
And done what is evil in Your sight,
So that You are justified when You speak
And blameless when You judge.

• Verse 1 The LORD will blot out transgressions because of His lovingkindness, greatness and compassion.

  • Verse 2-3 David seeks to be cleansed from all his iniquity and sin.

  • Verse 4 David accepts God’s judgment of his sin because God is a blameless judge.

    • This broken heart towards sin is not demonstrated by the people of the LORD in Jeremiah’s day.

    • Jeremiah is the prophet sent by the LORD to speak to His people not only in words but also in actions.

    • This is a difficult statement for many to accept as coming from the LORD.

  • This is often why many people separate the God they see as a loving and compassionate God of the New Testament from the angry God of the Old Testament.

    • The truth is the LORD’s character never changes.

    • What the LORD speaks will always come to pass.

Num. 23:18 Then he took up his discourse and said,
“Arise, O Balak, and hear;
Give ear to me, O son of Zippor!
Num. 23:19 “God is not a man, that He should lie,
Nor a son of man, that He should repent;
Has He said, and will He not do it?
Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?

1Sam. 15:25 “Now therefore, please pardon my sin and return with me, that I may worship the LORD.”
1Sam. 15:26 But Samuel said to Saul, “I will not return with you; for you have rejected the word of the LORD, and the LORD has rejected you from being king over Israel.”
1Sam. 15:27 As Samuel turned to go, Saul seized the edge of his robe, and it tore.
1Sam. 15:28 So Samuel said to him, “The LORD has torn the kingdom of Israel from you today and has given it to your neighbor, who is better than you.
1Sam. 15:29 “Also the Glory of Israel will not lie or change His mind; for He is not a man that He should change His mind.”

Is. 43:11 “I, even I, am the LORD,
And there is no savior besides Me.
Is. 43:12 “It is I who have declared and saved and proclaimed,
And there was no strange god among you;
So you are My witnesses,” declares the LORD,
“And I am God.
Is. 43:13 “Even from eternity I am He,
And there is none who can deliver out of My hand;
I act and who can reverse it?”

Mal. 3:5 “Then I will draw near to you for judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers and against the adulterers and against those who swear falsely, and against those who oppress the wage earner in his wages, the widow and the orphan, and those who turn aside the alien and do not fear Me,” says the LORD of hosts.
Mal. 3:6 “For I, the LORD, do not change; therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed.

• The LORD lives outside the constraints of time.

  • The LORD knows of every possible outcome and does not need new information to issue judgment on a situation.

  • The LORD’s will is going to be done perfectly throughout His creation.

    • For Judah and Israel, the LORD has determined to bring judgment.

    • The sons of Jacob will not be annihilated.

• Jer. 16:6 The coming judgment will apply to all classes of men, from the powerful and wealthy to the common and poor.

  • Verse 7 There will be no one brought together in comfort or mourning for the dead.

    • The normal lifting up of those grieving for the death of those they love will cease.

  • Verse 8 The LORD instructs Jeremiah to remove himself from any future events of joyous celebration with the people.

    • This harkens back to what the LORD demonstrated through Ezekiel in chapter 24.

  • Verse 9 The LORD identifies Himself as the ‘LORD of hosts, the God of Israel’.

    • This is the LORD who is the creator of the world and specifically the creator of a people, Israel.

    • This LORD is going to remove rejoicing and gladness from His people.

• There have been warnings about judgment to this people for a long time, since the covenant established between Him and the people in the wilderness, but the LORD tells Jeremiah specifically this judgment is now going to take place in his lifetime, described as, ‘before your eyes and in your time’.

  • There are many promises given in the scriptures where the passage of time seems to obscure from people’s minds the reality of fulfillment. Moses brings this forward in Psalm 90:0-4

Psa. 90:0 A Prayer of Moses, the man of God.
Psa. 90:1 Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations.
Psa. 90:2 Before the mountains were born
Or You gave birth to the earth and the world,
Even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God.
Psa. 90:3 You turn man back into dust
And say, “Return, O children of men.”
Psa. 90:4 For a thousand years in Your sight
Are like yesterday when it passes by,
Or as a watch in the night.

• God is before creation and stands outside the constraints of time, best described here as a thousand years for God being like yesterday is for a man.

  • Every word of the scriptures will be fulfilled in perfection.

  • Every promise of blessing as well as every promise of judgment.

Jer. 16:10 “Now when you tell this people all these words, they will say to you, ‘For what reason has the LORD declared all this great calamity against us? And what is our iniquity, or what is our sin which we have committed against the LORD our God?’
Jer. 16:11 “Then you are to say to them, ‘It is because your forefathers have forsaken Me,’ declares the LORD, ‘and have followed other gods and served them and bowed down to them; but Me they have forsaken and have not kept My law.
Jer. 16:12 ‘You too have done evil, even more than your forefathers; for behold, you are each one walking according to the stubbornness of his own evil heart, without listening to Me.
Jer. 16:13 ‘So I will hurl you out of this land into the land which you have not known, neither you nor your fathers; and there you will serve other gods day and night, for I will grant you no favor.’

• Verse 10 The LORD knows the hearts of men and He tells Jeremiah the questions that will come from the people as they receive the words of the LORD given through Jeremiah.

  • It is like God knows the future :)

• The people do not want to believe what Jeremiah has to say, but notice here they will ask about what the LORD is saying through Jeremiah. They are still hearing what Jeremiah is saying.

  • The people will demand to know the reason for such great calamity.

  • They will ask to know exactly what iniquity or sin they have committed to bring a great calamity.

    • This people have the law of the LORD and so they have the word of the LORD to discern this for themselves.

    • They have no true desire to know what has already been given to them from the LORD.

    • They have had a multitude of prophets declaring to them what the LORD was going to do if they violated His covenant, beginning with Moses.

    • They had the example of what the LORD did to the nation of Israel just one hundred years before, to know what the LORD would do and why He would fulfill His word.

• Verse 11 The LORD patiently describes for His people why this judgment is being brought on them.

  • The sin began with the forefathers forsaking Him by following other gods, serving and bowing down to them.

  • The people who agreed to the covenant of Law have not kept His Law.

• Verse 12 The LORD clarifies the sin did not stop with the forefathers, but has continued and has become worse than the sin of the forefathers.

  • This forward motion of sin being worse for the next generation is like an employee being treated badly by a manager and, knowing full well how that feels, becomes that same type of manager. It is worse when the manager knows better and does it anyway.   

    • The people are accused by the LORD of walking out their lives with a stubborn and evil heart.

    • Each of the people are guilty of this.

    • They have brought guilt down on themselves.

• Verse 13 The LORD says, “You wanted to serve other gods so now I will hurl you from this land and send you to a land you do not know and there you will serve other gods day and night.”

  • When a parent lays down the law to their children by saying, “As long as you live under my roof….”, this is a simplified version of what the LORD is telling His children.

    • The words are dripping with irony.

  • It is made clear in a study of the book of Daniel that those sons of Israel who held to the teaching of the Law were few. They were often singled out for their strong adherence to the Law and the LORD God.   

Jer. 16:14 “Therefore behold, days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when it will no longer be said, ‘As the LORD lives, who brought up the sons of Israel out of the land of Egypt,’
Jer. 16:15 but, ‘As the LORD lives, who brought up the sons of Israel from the land of the north and from all the countries where He had banished them.’ For I will restore them to their own land which I gave to their fathers.
Jer. 16:16 “Behold, I am going to send for many fishermen,” declares the LORD, “and they will fish for them; and afterwards I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them from every mountain and every hill and from the clefts of the rocks.
Jer. 16:17 “For My eyes are on all their ways; they are not hidden from My face, nor is their iniquity concealed from My eyes.
Jer. 16:18 “I will first doubly repay their iniquity and their sin, because they have polluted My land; they have filled My inheritance with the carcasses of their detestable idols and with their abominations.”
Jer. 16:19 O LORD, my strength and my stronghold,
And my refuge in the day of distress,
To You the nations will come
From the ends of the earth and say,
“Our fathers have inherited nothing but falsehood,
Futility and things of no profit.”
Jer. 16:20 Can man make gods for himself?
Yet they are not gods!
Jer. 16:21 “Therefore behold, I am going to make them know —
This time I will make them know
My power and My might;
And they shall know that My name is the LORD.”

• Verse 14 The grace of the LORD is demonstrated as He gives promises of the future for His people.

  • The people of the LORD were known by those people around them, as well as speaking of themselves to be those who were brought up out of the land of Egypt.

    • The phrase begins with the descriptor of, ‘As the LORD lives’.

  • One of the physical demonstrations of the LORD being a living God was the miraculous way He brought His people out of Egypt, sustained them through the wilderness years and established them in the Promised Land.

• Verse 15 In the future the LORD will be seen to be the God of His word and as a living God when He brings back the sons of Israel from the land of the north.

  • This will include all the countries where the children of Israel had been scattered.

    • The LORD promises He will bring them back to their own land which He had already given to their ancestors.

  • One contrast of the exile from Egypt was that the sons of Israel had been gathered together in Egypt and kept together and separate from the surrounding peoples. Now they will need to stay a separate people but do this scattered in the midst of other peoples and countries.

• This is one of the ways the LORD has demonstrated His mighty hand on this people. It is a miracle they are still a separate people.

  • This is also a good reminder that the LORD will never set His people the Jews aside. He deals with their sin in judgment without negating the promises He has made to them.

• Verse 16 The LORD describes how He will deal with His people by sending in those who will cast nets for people and take them. This would be those who will be taken into captivity.

  • When those the LORD intends to have removed are taken, then He will send in the hunters to remove the people from the land.

  • They will be seen from the mountains and the hills, every vantage point.

    • This will be a thorough hunting as those who try to hide in the mountain caves will be sought out as well.

• Verse 17 The LORD has seen everything done by His people. There are no secrets.

  • Verse 18 The LORD promises He will first repay their iniquity and their sin doubly.

Deut. 21:17 “But he shall acknowledge the firstborn, the son of the unloved, by giving him a double portion of all that he has, for he is the beginning of his strength; to him belongs the right of the firstborn.

• The firstborn was entitled to a double portion of blessing. It would seem this could be applied to the deserving of judgment as well.

  • It could also just mean the punishment will fit the crime. Awful crime equals awful punishment.

  • The LORD declared the iniquity is the pollution of the land, with the dead bodies littering the land that were sacrificed to idols.

    • This animal and human sacrifice was carried out by the LORD’s own people.

  • The LORD’s people are His firstborn nation and entitled to a double portion of blessing, but they are also going to have a double portion of judgment poured out on them.

• Verse 19 The LORD continues to reveal the future of His people prophetically as He reveals what they will say about Him.

  • The LORD’s people will recognize Him as their LORD.

    • They will acknowledge He is their strength and their stronghold.

    • All the nations of the earth will come to know He is LORD.

  • The nations will admit their ancestors had only lies to pass on to their descendants.

  • There was nothing they had of lasting value, or profit, leaving everything that is worthless.

• Verse 20 The reason that what they had was worthless is demonstrated in the ultimate action of man finding or making a god for himself.

  • Men can create something and call it a god, but that will not make it a god.

• Verse 21 In this future time the LORD is going to make them know about His power and might.

  • The ‘them’ here is defined in verse 19 as the nations…from the ends of the earth.

    • The LORD says all the nations will know that His name is the LORD.

    • This blessing to all the nations of the earth begins with Abraham.

Gen. 22:15 Then the angel of the LORD called to Abraham a second time from heaven,
Gen. 22:16 and said, “By Myself I have sworn, declares the LORD, because you have done this thing and have not withheld your son, your only son,
Gen. 22:17 indeed I will greatly bless you, and I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your seed shall possess the gate of their enemies.
Gen. 22:18 “In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.”

• This will be demonstrated in the last days Isaiah 2:1-3.

Is. 2:1   The word which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.
Is. 2:2   Now it will come about that
In the last days
The mountain of the house of the LORD
Will be established as the chief of the mountains,
And will be raised above the hills;
And all the nations will stream to it.
Is. 2:3  And many peoples will come and say,
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD,
To the house of the God of Jacob;
That He may teach us concerning His ways
And that we may walk in His paths.”
For the law will go forth from Zion
And the word of the LORD from Jerusalem

• This will continue in the millennial kingdom.

Zech. 14:16 Then it will come about that any who are left of all the nations that went against Jerusalem will go up from year to year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to celebrate the Feast of Booths.

• It is interesting to note some commentaries will move the speakers in verses 19-21 yet there is no change given in the scriptures of who is speaking.

  • It is difficult for Jeremiah to know all the LORD is prophesying for His people and yet he remains faithful to carrying out the call of the LORD on his life.

    • It should be every believer’s desire to seek to know the will of the LORD in our lives.

    • There should be no area of our life we hold so dear as to resist the will of the LORD.

    • The LORD called out His people specifically in Jeremiah. 16:12

Jer. 16:12 ‘You too have done evil, even more than your forefathers; for behold, you are each one walking according to the stubbornness of his own evil heart, without listening to Me.

• The judgment coming on the people was for a persistent sin beginning with the forefathers, but the LORD says that each one of those who were to be His people are instead walking according to the stubbornness of their own evil hearts, without listening to Him.

  • This is the condition of every person before God without the covering of grace brought by God through the sacrifice of His Son Jesus Christ.

Isa. 53:6  All of us like sheep have gone astray,
Each of us has turned to his own way;
But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all
To fall on Him.

• The stubborn heart is the shared condition of all mankind. The passage in Jeremiah pointed out the combined stubborn heart with those who will not listen to the LORD.

  • In Jeremiah’s day they would not listen to the word of the LORD given through the Law.

  • The people were without a path to salvation as their hearts are evil AND they will not listen to the LORD.

• God has made a way for the people of the world today to correct this problem of an evil heart brought through the gift of His Son Jesus.

1John 4:9 By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him.
1John 4:10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

• The propitiation provided for our sin condition, the evil and stubborn heart, is only brought to us by the grace of God.

Titus 3:1 Remind them to be subject to rulers, to authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good deed,
Titus 3:2 to malign no one, to be peaceable, gentle, showing every consideration for all men.
Titus 3:3 For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another.
Titus 3:4 But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared,
Titus 3:5 He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit,
Titus 3:6 whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior,
Titus 3:7 so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

• We are no different than the people Jeremiah brought his message to in that we too have an evil and stubborn heart hardened by sin, but we can now have the gift of the Holy Spirit poured out on us through the grace of justification through Jesus Christ our Savior.

  • We need to listen to the LORD, that which is provided to us through His word.

  • We need to respond to the offer of salvation given through faith in the work of Jesus Christ completed on our behalf.

  • We need to embrace that we are heirs to the promises of salvation and live out the dictates of the instructions of the scriptures.

    • Read Psalm 90.