Jeremiah 16:5

5 For thus said Jehovah: Do not enter the house of a mourning-feast, Nor go to lament nor bemoan for them, For I have removed My peace from this people, An affirmation of Jehovah, The kindness and the mercies.

Jeremiah 16:5 Meaning and Commentary

Jeremiah 16:5

For thus saith the Lord, enter not into the house of mourning,
&c.] On account of his dead relations or neighbours; since they were taken away from the evil to come, and therefore no occasion to mourn for them: moreover, this was to show the certainty of what is before and after said; that, at the time of the general calamity predicted, there would be no lamentation made for the dead. R. Joseph Kimchi says the word here used signifies, in the Arabic ^F23 language, a lifting of the voice, either for weeping, or for joy ^F24; and Jarchi, out of the ancient book Siphri, interprets it a "feast"; and it is rendered a "banquet" in ( Amos 6:7 ) , and so may here design a mourning feast, such as were used at funerals, called by the Greeks (perideipnea) , and by the Latins "parentalia", as Jerom observes. Neither go to lament nor bemoan them; neither go to the house of mourning, or the mourning feast; to the houses of the deceased, to condole the surviving relations, and to express sorrow for the dead, by shedding tears, and shaking the head, or by any other gesture or ceremony after mentioned, For I have taken away my peace from this people, saith the Lord;
all peace or prosperity is of God, and therefore called his, and which he can take away from a people when he pleases; and having determined to take it away from this people because of their sins, he is said to have done it, it being as certain as if it was done: even lovingkindness and mercies;
all benefits, which flowed from his favour, love, and mercy, as the whole of their prosperity did.

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FOOTNOTES:

F23 <arabic> "magna et vehementi voce praeditus", Golius ex Giggeio, col. 979.
F24 So the word is used in the Chaldee language: as Schindler observes in Lex. col. 1722.

Jeremiah 16:5 In-Context

3 For thus said Jehovah, Of the sons and of the daughters who are born in this place, And of their mothers -- those bearing them, And of their fathers -- those begetting them in this land:

4 Of painful deaths they die, They are not lamented, nor are they buried, For dung on the face of the ground they are, And by sword and by famine are consumed, And their carcase hath been for food To the fowl of the heavens, And to the beast of the earth.

5 For thus said Jehovah: Do not enter the house of a mourning-feast, Nor go to lament nor bemoan for them, For I have removed My peace from this people, An affirmation of Jehovah, The kindness and the mercies.

6 And died have great and small in this land, They are not buried, and none lament for them, Nor doth any cut himself, nor become bald for them.

7 Nor do they deal out to them for mourning, To comfort him concerning the dead, Nor cause them to drink a cup of consolations For his father and for his mother.