Jeremiah 16:10 - Meaning and Application

Here is, first, an inquiry into why God would bring these judgments on them (Jeremiah 16:10). When Jeremiah shows the people all these words, the words of this curse, they will ask, “Why has the Lord pronounced all this great evil against us?” One would hope that some of them were asking this with a humble and repentant heart, wanting to know what sin had brought God’s case against them, so they could turn from it and keep the judgment from coming. It would be like saying, “Show us the Jonah who is causing the storm, and we will throw him overboard.” But here it seems to be the voice of people who argued with God’s word and demanded to know what they had done to deserve such a severe punishment.

Instead of humbling themselves and blaming themselves, they stand on their own innocence and hint that God has done them wrong in announcing this evil. They act as if he has put on them more than was fair, and as if they had reason to bring a case against God, as Job 34:23 says. It is striking how hard it is to get sinners, when trouble comes, to justify God and judge themselves, and to admit the sin that brought the trouble.

Here is, second, a clear answer to that question. If they ask the prophet why God is angry with them, he must tell them more than that God has a good and righteous reason. He must also tell them plainly what the reason is, so they may be convicted and humbled, or at least so God may be shown to be right. Let them know, then, that God is visiting them for their fathers’ sins, and for their own as well.

First, God visits on them the sins of their fathers (Jeremiah 16:11). Their fathers forsook him and did not keep his law. They rejected God’s commands and grew tired of them, thinking them plain and unimpressive. Then they followed other gods, whose worship seemed more colorful and splendid. They liked variety and novelty, so they served and worshiped those gods. This was the sin God had warned about in the second commandment, that he would punish in the children who kept these idolatrous ways because they received them from their fathers (1 Peter 1:18).

Second, God counts their own sins against them too (Jeremiah 16:12). They have made their fathers’ sin their own, and now they face punishment that had been delayed in their fathers’ day. They have done worse than their fathers. If they had used their fathers’ delay well, and let God’s patience lead them to repentance, they could have done better and the judgment might have been avoided. The delay could have become a national pardon. But they used that delay badly. It hardened them in sin, so they fared worse for it. When the delay ended, the sentence grew heavier and was carried out more severely.

They were more bold and stubborn in sin than their fathers. Everyone followed the stubborn ideas of his own heart, making that his guide and rule, and choosing it on purpose so he would not listen to God and his prophets. They deliberately let their own desires and passions be loud, so they could drown out the voice of conscience. No wonder God has now decided, “I will cast you out of this land” (Jeremiah 16:13). This is a land of light, a valley of vision. Since they would not listen to him, they will no longer hear his voice. They will be carried away, not into a nearby country they once knew, but into a far country they do not know, neither they nor their fathers, a place where they have no ties and no hope of comfort from friendly company to ease their misery.

It was fitting that those who had longed for strange gods, gods neither they nor their fathers knew, should be sent into a strange land (Deuteronomy 32:17). Two things would make their exile especially bitter, and both concern the soul, which is the better part of us. The greatest troubles of captivity were the ones that hurt the soul and kept it from its true happiness.

First, the soul’s joy is to serve God, but there they would serve other gods day and night. They would be constantly tempted to serve them, and perhaps even forced to do so by cruel masters. And when they were made to worship idols, they would grow as weary of that worship as they had once been fond of it when their godly kings had forbidden it. God often makes people’s sin become their punishment, and he fills the backslider with the ways he once chose.

They would also have no public worship except idol worship, and then they would look back with sorrow on how lightly they treated the worship of the true God. Second, the soul’s joy is to know God’s loving favor, but they would go to a strange land where he would show them no favor. If they had God’s favor, even exile could have seemed pleasant. But if they lie under his anger, even the yoke of oppression becomes unbearable.