What Jeremiah Is To Answer Once He Has Given His Explanation As To Why He Is Abstaining From Marriage And Family Life, From All Forms Of Mourning, And From All Celebratory Feasts (Jeremiah 16:10-18).
With Jeremiah having brought home to the people the significance of his signs, i.e. that they are indications of great desolation ahead, they are then moved to ask him why YHWH has pronounced this great evil on them (Jeremiah 16:10). In view of their claim that ‘they had done nothing wrong' we may assume that their questions were indignant rather than fearful. It reveals that they were so hardened in their disobedience that they could not understand why Jeremiah was suggesting that God was angry with them. To them it seemed preposterous. As with so many people in the present day they were so blind spiritually that they were confident that there was nothing in their lives that really displeased God. Conviction of sin has always been one of the most difficult things to bring about in men's lives, and they were unable to see that it was their whole attitude of heart that was wrong (compare John 16:8-11 where it is made clear that to bring such conviction is the work of the Spirit of God).
Jeremiah's response is to bring out that in fact their sin is so serious (Jeremiah 16:11-12) that what is to happen to them will alter their whole view of history. For after what is in the future to happen to them in ‘the land of the North', they will no longer see the deliverance from ‘the land of Egypt' as the great past event of their history but will date their renewed nationhood from the time of their deliverance from ‘the land of the North (Jeremiah 16:14-15). And that is because they are to receive double payment for their sins (Jeremiah 16:18).
“And it will come to about when you shall show this people all these words,
And they will say to you,
Why has YHWH pronounced all this great evil against us?
Or what is our iniquity?
Or what is our sin,
That we have committed against YHWH our God?
When Jeremiah tells the people the significance of his signs they are unable to believe what they are hearing. They were fully confident that they and their way of life were satisfactory to God. Were they not maintaining the Temple ritual in the way that was required? Why then should God be displeased? Had they not always given Him His due? Let Jeremiah now explain in what way they had fallen short.
“Then you will say to them,
Because your fathers have forsaken me,
The word of YHWH,
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 evil more than your fathers,
For, behold, you walk every one after the stubbornness of his evil heart,
So that you do not listen to me,”
YHWH's reply was straight and to the point. It was because He was no longer the centre of their lives. It was because they had failed to live in accordance with His Instruction (Law). It was because they had forsaken Him and in their daily personal worship had walked after the ways of other gods, and served them and worshipped them. It was because He was no longer the One to Whom they listened. It was because they stubbornly walked in their own ways and in accordance with their own ideas. Central to all was that they were not responding to God's word.
“Therefore will I cast you forth out of this land,
Into the land that you have not known, neither you nor your fathers,
And there you will serve other gods day and night,
For I will show you no favour”.
So if they wanted other gods they could have them. He was casting them forth out of the land as He had warned He would do from the beginning if they went after other gods and walked in their ways (Leviticus 18:25; Leviticus 18:28; Leviticus 20:22; Deuteronomy 7:4; Deuteronomy 8:19; Deuteronomy 11:28; Deuteronomy 28:14 ff.). And it would not be onto familiar ground but into a land they had never known or experienced, and there they would serve other gods both day and night (indicating their total commitment). And all this would happen to them because His favour had been withdrawn.
“Therefore, behold, the days come, the word of YHWH,
That it will no more be said,
‘As YHWH lives, who brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt,'
But, ‘As YHWH lives, who brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north,
And from all the countries to which he had driven them.'
And I will bring them again into their land that I gave to their fathers.”
Jeremiah's confidence that YHWH would one day restore His people to the land (something which is a feature of Jeremiah, compare Jeremiah 3:14-19; Jeremiah 4:27; Jeremiah 5:10; Jeremiah 5:18; Jeremiah 23:3 ff., Jeremiah 25:11-12; Jeremiah 29:10; Jeremiah 30-33 and indeed of all the prophets) comes out here, but that is not the main emphasis of the verses. The main emphasis, continuing the theme of this passage, is that just as so long ago they had suffered so dreadfully in ‘the land of Egypt', so now would they suffer even more dreadfully in ‘the land of the North'. Indeed so dreadful would be the things that they were about to experience that the awfulness of Egypt would be forgotten. This emphasis is brought out by the ‘therefore' (as with the ‘therefore in Jeremiah 16:13) and by the whole tenor of the verses. It is an explanation of the consequences of their sins.
A great deal of the worship in the Temple was based on the fact of the deliverance from Egypt, and many of the Psalms emphasised the thought. It was seen as the very basis of the nation's existence. But so horrifying would be what they were about to experience that that emphasis would in the end change into how God had delivered them from their awful exiles among the nations in the North.
Nevertheless having said that, the verses do also bring out Jeremiah's confidence that in the end God would once again deliver His people, so much so that all their gratitude would in future be levelled at that fact. For this time the deliverance would not just be of one people in one place, but of people in many places who would return back to God and be brought back to the land which God had given them, something fulfilled in the return of the people after the Babylonian exile and onwards, which resulted in the establishment of an independent Jewish Kingdom composed of people from all the tribes of Israel, a return which prepared the way for the coming of Jesus Christ (it does not therefore await fulfilment).
It is an indication of how deeply rooted it was in Jeremiah's thinking that God would one day restore His people that he is able to treat it here as an obvious assumption.
“Behold, I will send for many fishers, the word of YHWH,
And they will fish them up,
And afterward I will send for many hunters,
And they will hunt them from every mountain,
And from every hill,
And out of the clefts of the rocks.”
There would be no way of escape from their fate. Their enemy would come down on them with the same urgency as that shown by fishermen when they were seeking to catch their fish, and would take them up in their net. And they would follow this up, chasing down the survivors with the same urgency and thoroughness with which hunters pursue their prey. There will be no place of refuge. They will be hunted from every mountain, from every hill and from the very clefts of the rocks. None will escape.
“For my eyes are on all their ways,
They are not hid from my face,
Nor is their iniquity,
Concealed from my eyes.”
And this thoroughness would be because YHWH was aware of all their ways, and of all their iniquity. His eyes were upon them and He saw everything. They could not hide from His face. And what He saw was disobedience (their disobedient ways) and iniquity.
“And first I will recompense their iniquity,
And their sin double,
Because they have polluted my land with the carcasses of their detestable things,
And have filled my inheritance with their abominations.
The consequence was therefore to be that He would recompense them double for all their sins (compare Isaiah 40:1, and see Exodus 22:4; Exodus 22:7), in other words He would demand from them the full measure required. And this was because they had polluted His land, which belonged to Him and which He had given to them, by filling it with idols and false gods, and with the behaviour that resulted from such worship. The ‘carcasses of their detestable things' may refer to the sacrifices offered to the idols which were to be seen as an affront to YHWH, and may include the idea that among other things swine and other unclean things were offered (Isaiah 65:4). But the reference to the carcasses of idols in Leviticus 26:30 may simply suggest that that is what is in mind.
‘First.' That is, first before anything else. YHWH sees it as His most urgent task. Deliverance may follow, but it is first necessary that there be a full measure of judgment.