Jeremiah 16:4

4 They will die from terrible diseases. No one will mourn for them or bury them, and they will lie scattered on the ground like manure. They will die from war and famine, and their bodies will be food for the vultures and wild animals.”

Jeremiah 16:4 Meaning and Commentary

Jeremiah 16:4

They shall die of grievous deaths
Such as the sword, famine, and pestilence. The Targum particularly adds famine. It may be rendered, "deaths of diseases, or sicknesses" F21; such as are brought on by long sickness and lingering distempers; by which a man consumes gradually, as by famine, and is not snatched away at once; and which are very grievous to bear. They shall not be lamented, neither shall they be buried;
which two offices are usually done to the dead by their surviving relations; who mourn for them, and express their grief by various gestures, and which especially were used by the eastern nations; and take care that they have a decent burial: but neither of these would now be, which is mentioned as an aggravation of the calamity; that not only the deaths they should die of would be grievous ones, but after death no regard would be shown them; and that either because there would be none to do these things for them; or they would be so much taken up in providing for their own safety, and so much in concern for their own preservation, that they would not be at leisure to attend to the above things: but they shall be as dung upon the face of the earth;
lie and rot there, and be dung to the earth; which would be a just retaliation, for their filthy and abominable actions committed in the land: and they shall be consumed by the sword, and by famine;
the grievous deaths before mentioned; the sword without, and the famine within; the one more sudden, and at once, the other more lingering; and therefore may be more especially designed by the death of lingering sicknesses referred to: and their carcasses shall be meat for the fowls of heaven, and
for the beasts of the earth;
lying unburied; see ( Jeremiah 7:33 ) .


FOOTNOTES:

F21 (Myalxt ytwmm) "mortibus aegrotationum", V. L. Pagninus, Montanus, "aegritudium", Munster, Vatablus; "mortibus morborum", Schmidt. So Stockius, p. 340, 597, who restrains it to the death of individuals by the pestilence.

Jeremiah 16:4 In-Context

2 “Do not get married or have children in this place.
3 For this is what the LORD says about the children born here in this city and about their mothers and fathers:
4 They will die from terrible diseases. No one will mourn for them or bury them, and they will lie scattered on the ground like manure. They will die from war and famine, and their bodies will be food for the vultures and wild animals.”
5 This is what the LORD says: “Do not go to funerals to mourn and show sympathy for these people, for I have removed my protection and peace from them. I have taken away my unfailing love and my mercy.
6 Both the great and the lowly will die in this land. No one will bury them or mourn for them. Their friends will not cut themselves in sorrow or shave their heads in sadness.
Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright© 1996, 2004, 2007, 2013 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.