Jeremiah 16:4 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

God in these verses opens the reason why he would not have the prophet marry nor multiply relations. In evil and calamitous times, those who multiply relations do but multiply sorrows and afflictions to themselves; the apostle in evil times tells the Corinthians that married persons should have trouble in the flesh, 1 Corinthians 7:28; and Christ pronounceth a woe to those that should be with child, and to those that gave suck, at the time when Jerusalem should be besieged. God tells the prophet he was resolved that the people of this land, both young and old, should die miserable deaths, and die so fast, that there should be none to bury them. They should die by the sword and the famine, and be devoured by the fowls and the beasts; and therefore it was better for him to abide free from relations, for whose miseries he would be as much concerned as for his own affliction.