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.
Therefore - in order that all may be turned from idols to Yahweh, He will now give awful proof of His divine power in the judgments He will inflict.
This once - if the punishments I have heretofore inflicted have not been severe enough to teach them, I will now THIS ONCE cause them to know by bitter experience my might.
They shall know that my name is The Lord - Yahweh (Psalms 83:18, "That men may know that thou whose name alone is Yahweh art the Most High over all the earth"), God's incommunicable name, to apply which to idols would be blasphemy. Keeping His threats and promises (Exodus 6:3).
Remarks:
(1) The prophet is directed to demean himself as one expecting soon to see the existing order of things in his country brought to an awful end (Jeremiah 16:1-8). His outward conduct is to correspond to his prophecies; he is so to act as to make it appear that he believed them. In vain will any man try to lead others to be looking and living for another world if they see himself evidently living for this world. His acts give the lie to his, words. The Christian professes to believe that "the fashion of this world is passing away" (1 Corinthians 7:31), and that "the things that are made are to be "removed," but that he is heir of "a kingdom which cannot be moved" (Hebrews 12:27-28); should he not then sit loosely to this world, using, not abusing it? remembering the apostle's injunction, which bears a reference to the Lord's words to Jeremiah, "The time is short; it remaineth that both they that have wives be as though they had none; and they that weep as though they wept not; and they that rejoice as though they rejoiced not; and they that buy as though they possessed not" (1 Corinthians 7:29-31). (2) "When God giveth quietness, who then can make trouble?" (Job 34:29.) But, on the other hand, when He takes away His peace (Jeremiah 16:5) from a people, a family, or an individual, then every trouble inward and outward ensues. Peace is the fruit solely the "loving-kindness and mercies" of the Lord.
(3) How slow people are, when punished by God's judgments, to see that their sufferings are not arbitrarily sent, but are the natural and necessary consequence of their own sins! Self-love whispers, What is our iniquity? (that He so punishes us), What is our sin that we have committed against the Lord our God?" (Jeremiah 16:10.) Whereas true self-knowledge would suggest, our punishment, severe as it is, is in exact correspondence to our sin. The Jews' sin had been that they had, of their own accord, "forsaken" Yahweh (Jeremiah 16:11) and served other gods in their own land, wherein they had received so many tokens of God's favour: their punishment, in exactly retributive justice, was, they were obliged, against their will, to serve other gods in the land of exile, wherein "God would show them no favour" (Jeremiah 16:13). That idolatry which they had so keenly lusted after formerly was now their punishment. They had now a surfeit of it, so that "day and night" (without intermission) they had to serve idols, and could not serve Yahweh, however much they might wish it (Jeremiah 16:13). How often does God make men's cherished lusts to prove ultimately their heaviest scourge, even as in the wilderness He "gave the Israelites their request, but sent leanness into their soul" (Psalms 106:15). "Ye shall not eat one day, nor two days, nor five days, neither ten days, nor twenty days, but even a whole month, until it come out at your nostrils, and it be loathsome unto you" (Numbers 11:19-20).
(4) God is at no loss for instruments wherewith to execute judgment on the guilty. He has at command "fishers," who by fraud shall capture them; "hunters," who by force shall destroy them" (Jeremiah 16:16). Yet mercy is in store for Israel at last, after He has "fully recompensed their iniquity" (Jeremiah 16:18); and not only for them, but for "the Gentiles" also, to "the ends of the earth." Jew and Gentile shall look back with self-abhorrence on their past unfaithfulness, saying, "Surely Our fathers have inherited lies, vanity, and things wherein there is no profit" (Jeremiah 16:19); and "they shall know" God by His "name" and character as "Yahweh," faithful alike to His promises and His threats (Jeremiah 16:21).