Jeremiah 16:4

4 an epidemic of death. Death unlamented, the dead unburied, dead bodies decomposing and stinking like dung, all the killed and starved corpses served up as meals for carrion crows and mongrel dogs!"

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 ) .

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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 "Jeremiah, don't get married. Don't raise a family here.

3 I have signed the death warrant on all the children born in this country, the mothers who bear them and the fathers who beget them -

4 an epidemic of death. Death unlamented, the dead unburied, dead bodies decomposing and stinking like dung, all the killed and starved corpses served up as meals for carrion crows and mongrel dogs!"

5 God continued: "Don't enter a house where there's mourning. Don't go to the funeral. Don't sympathize. I've quit caring about what happens to this people." God's Decree. "No more loyal love on my part, no more compassion.

6 The famous and obscure will die alike here, unlamented and unburied. No funerals will be conducted, no one will give them a second thought,