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Jeremiah’s Celibacy and Message

The word of the L ord came to me: ²You shall not take a wife, nor shall you have sons or daughters in this place. ³For thus says the L ord concerning the sons and daughters who are born in this place, and concerning the mothers who bear them and the fathers who beget them in this land: ⁴They shall die of deadly diseases. They shall not be lamented, nor shall they be buried; they shall become like dung on the surface of the ground. They shall perish by the sword and by famine, and their dead bodies shall become food for the birds of the air and for the wild animals of the earth.

⁵ For thus says the L ord: Do not enter the house of mourning, or go to lament, or bemoan them; for I have taken away my peace from this people, says the L ord, my steadfast love and mercy. ⁶Both great and small shall die in this land; they shall not be buried, and no one shall lament for them; there shall be no gashing, no shaving of the head for them. ⁷No one shall break bread for the mourner, to offer comfort for the dead; nor shall anyone give them the cup of consolation to drink for their fathers or their mothers. ⁸You shall not go into the house of feasting to sit with them, to eat and drink. ⁹For thus says the L ord of hosts, the God of Israel: I am going to banish from this place, in your days and before your eyes, the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride.

¹⁰ And when you tell this people all these words, and they say to you, “Why has the L ord pronounced all this great evil against us? What is our iniquity? What is the sin that we have committed against the L ord our God?” ¹¹then you shall say to them: It is because your ancestors have forsaken me, says the L ord, and have gone after other gods and have served and worshiped them, and have forsaken me and have not kept my law; ¹²and because you have behaved worse than your ancestors, for here you are, every one of you, following your stubborn evil will, refusing to listen to me. ¹³Therefore I will hurl you out of this land into a land that neither you nor your ancestors have known, and there you shall serve other gods day and night, for I will show you no favor.

God Will Restore Israel

¹⁴ Therefore, the days are surely coming, says the L ord, when it shall no longer be said, “As the L ord lives who brought the people of Israel up out of the land of Egypt,” ¹⁵but “As the L ord lives who brought the people of Israel up out of the land of the north and out of all the lands where he had driven them.” For I will bring them back to their own land that I gave to their ancestors.

¹⁶ I am now sending for many fishermen, says the L ord, and they shall catch them; and afterward I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain and every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks. ¹⁷For my eyes are on all their ways; they are not hidden from my presence, nor is their iniquity concealed from my sight. ¹⁸And I will doubly repay their iniquity and their sin, because they have polluted my land with the carcasses of their detestable idols, and have filled my inheritance with their abominations.

O L ord, my strength and my stronghold,

my refuge in the day of trouble,

to you shall the nations come

from the ends of the earth and say:

Our ancestors have inherited nothing but lies,

worthless things in which there is no profit.

Can mortals make for themselves gods?

Such are no gods!

²¹ “Therefore I am surely going to teach them, this time I am going to teach them my power and my might, and they shall know that my name is the L ord.”

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

This verse contains a reason for the preceding, — that every connection with that people would be accursed. Yet he states one thing more expressly, — that the time was come in which they were already deprived of all joy; for the ungodly, even when God most awfully threatens them, strengthen themselves in their security, hence God intended to give them some presage, that they might before the time know that the saddest calamities were at hand, by which every joy and gladness were to be taken away.

He then says, that the God of hosts and the God of Israel had spoken. He at the same time deprived them of all hope, though he called himself the God of Israel. Hypocrites were wont either to despise the power of God, or to abuse his goodness. Had not God checked them, they would have deemed as nothing what the prophets threatened; and how so? Because they depreciated, as far as they could, the power of God. Hence God says, that he is the God of hosts. But when they could not in their pride and haughtiness throw down, as it were the power of God, then they betook themselves to another asylum; they promised to themselves that he would deal indulgently with them; and thus they deceived themselves. Hence, on the other hand, God calls himself here the God of Israel, in order that they might know, that it was of no avail to them, that he had adopted the seed of Abraham; for they were not the children of Abraham, but aliens, as they had departed from his piety and faith. This served as a preface.

Now when he says, הנני, enni, Behold me, he shews that the Jews had no reason to put off the time, and to indulge avain confidence; for vengeance was already come. Behold me, he says, he thus comes forth and testifies that he is already prepared to execute his judgment. Behold me,, he says, taking away from this place, before your eyes, and in your days, etc.; their destruction would happen in a short time and before their eyes. I am taking away, he says, the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, ¹⁶²¹⁶² Rather, “The voice of exultation and the voice of joy;” the most manifest display first — exultation; and then the most hidden feeling — joy. — Ed. the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride Here by stating a part for the whole, he intimates that they would become like the dead rather than the living; for the continuance of the human race is preserved by marriage, as in the offspring mankind are as it were born again, who would otherwise perish daily. Since then there was no more time left for marriages, it was a token of final destruction. This is what the Prophet intimates, when he says, that God would cause the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride to cease, so that there would be no more any congratulations. It follows, —

¹⁶² Rather, “The voice of exultation and the voice of joy;” the most manifest display first — exultation; and then the most hidden feeling — joy. — Ed.