Jeremiah 16:10

10 "Now when you tell this people all these words, they will say to you, '¹For what reason * has the LORD declared all this great calamity against us? And what is our iniquity, or what is our sin which we have committed against the LORD our God?'

Jeremiah 16:10 Meaning and Commentary

Jeremiah 16:10

And it shall come to pass, when thou shalt show this people
all these words
Or, "all these things" ^F1; which he was forbid to do; as marrying and having children, going into the house of mourning or feasting, with the reasons of all, because of the calamities coming upon them: and they shall say unto thee, wherefore hath the Lord pronounced all
this great evil against us?
as if they were quite innocent, and were not conscious of anything they had done deserving such punishment, especially so great as this was threatened to be inflicted on them; as their dying grievous deaths, parents and children, great and small, and be unlamented, and unburied: or "what is our iniquity?" or "what is our sin that we have committed against the Lord our God?" supposing we have been guilty of some weaknesses and frailties; or of some few faults; which though they cannot be justified, yet surely are not to be reckoned of such a nature as to deserve and require so great a punishment: thus would they either deny or lessen the sins they had been guilty of, and suggest that the Lord was very hard and severe upon them.

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FOOTNOTES:

F1 (hlah Myrbdh lk) "omnes res hasce", Gataker, Piscator.

Jeremiah 16:10 In-Context

8 "Moreover you shall not go into a house of feasting to sit with them to eat and drink."

9 For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: "Behold, I am going to eliminate from this place, before your eyes and in your time, the voice of rejoicing and the voice of gladness, the voice of the groom and the voice of the bride.

10 "Now when you tell this people all these words, they will say to you, 'For what reason has the LORD declared all this great calamity against us? And what is our iniquity, or what is our sin which we have committed against the LORD our God?'

11 "Then you are to say to them, 'It is because your forefathers have forsaken Me,' declares the LORD , 'and have followed other gods and served them and bowed down to them; but Me they have forsaken and have not kept My law.

12 'You too have done evil, even more than your forefathers; for behold, you are each one walking according to the stubbornness of his own evil heart, without listening to Me.

Cross References

• 1. Deuteronomy 29:24; 1 Kings 9:8; Jeremiah 5:19; Jeremiah 13:22; Jeremiah 22:8