Jeremiah 16:17

17 For my eyes [are] on all their ways, they are not hidden {from before me}, and their iniquity is not concealed from before my eyes.

Jeremiah 16:17 Meaning and Commentary

Jeremiah 16:17

For mine eyes are upon all their ways
Not only which they may take to hide themselves from their enemies, and where they should be directed to find them; but their evil ways in which they walked, and which were the cause of their calamities; these, how secret soever they were, were under the eye of God, whose eyes are in every place, and upon all the ways of men, good and bad; though they might flatter themselves, as wicked men sometimes do, that the Lord sees them not, and does not take notice of their iniquities: but, that they might be assured of the contrary, it is added, they are not hid from my face, neither is their iniquity hid from mine
eyes;
neither their ways nor their works, their persons nor their actions, could be concealed from the Lord; none can hide himself in secret places, that they should not be seen by him; the darkness and the light are both alike to an omniscient God. The Targum is,

``their iniquities are not hid from before (or from, or the sight of) my Word;''

the essential Word of God; see ( Hebrews 4:12 Hebrews 4:13 ) .

Jeremiah 16:17 In-Context

15 {but only} "{As Yahweh lives}, who led up the {Israelites} from [the] land of [the] north, and from all the lands where he had driven them," for I will bring them back to their ground that I gave to their ancestors.

16 Look, I [am] sending for many fishermen,' {declares} Yahweh, 'and they will fish them out, and {afterward} I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and from the clefts of the cliffs.

17 For my eyes [are] on all their ways, they are not hidden {from before me}, and their iniquity is not concealed from before my eyes.

18 And {I will first doubly repay} their iniquity and their sin because of their profaning my land with the dead bodies of their abhorrences, and [with] their abominations they have filled up my inheritance.'"

19 [O] Yahweh, my strength, and my stronghold, and my refuge in [the] day of distress, to you [the] nations will come from the ends of [the] earth, and they will say, "Our ancestors have inherited only lies, vanity, and there is no profit in them.

Footnotes

• [a] Literally "from to the face of me"