Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Jeremiah 16:4
They shall die of grievous deaths; they shall not be lamented; neither shall they be buried; [but] they shall be as dung upon the face of the earth: and they shall be consumed by the sword, and by famine; and their carcasses shall be meat for the fowls of heaven, and for the beasts of the earth.
4. grievous deaths ] lit. as mg. deaths of sicknesses.
they shall not be lamented, neither shall they be buried ] We may compare the condition of things in the plague at Athens b.c. 430: “Such was the state of dismay and sorrow, that even the nearest relatives neglected the sepulchral duties the dead and dying lay piled upon one another not merely in the public roads, but even in the temples. Those bodies which escaped entire neglect were burnt or buried without the customary mourning and with unseemly carelessness.” Grote’s Hist. of Greece, ch. 49. See Thucyd. II. 52.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Verse 4. They shall die of grievious deaths] All prematurely; see Jer 14:16.
As dung upon the face of the earth] See Jer 8:2.
Be meat for the fowls] See Jer 7:33.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
God in these verses opens the reason why he would not have the prophet marry nor multiply relations. In evil and calamitous times, those who multiply relations do but multiply sorrows and afflictions to themselves; the apostle in evil times tells the Corinthians that married persons should have trouble in the flesh, 1Co 7:28; and Christ pronounceth a woe to those that should be with child, and to those that gave suck, at the time when Jerusalem should be besieged. God tells the prophet he was resolved that the people of this land, both young and old, should die miserable deaths, and die so fast, that there should be none to bury them. They should die by the
sword and the
famine, and be devoured by the
fowls and the
beasts; and therefore it was better for him to abide free from relations, for whose miseries he would be as much concerned as for his own affliction.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
4. grievous deathsrather,”deadly diseases” (Jer15:2).
not . . . lamentedsomany shall be the slain (Jer22:18).
dung (Ps83:10).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
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” u; 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 Jer 7:33.
u “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.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
But the reason why God forbad his Prophet to marry, follows, because they were all consigned to destruction. We hence learn that celibacy is not here commended, as some foolish men have imagined from what is here said; but it is the same as though God had said, “There is no reason for any one to set his mind on begetting an offspring, or to think that this would be to his advantage: whosoever is wise will abstain from raarriage, as he has death before his eyes, and is as it were near to his grave.” The destruction then of the whole people, and the desolation and solitude of the whole land, are the things which God in these words sets forth.
At the same time, they are not threatened with a common kind of death, for he says that they were to die by the deaths of sicknesses He then denounces on them continual languor, which would cause them to pine away with the greatest pain: sudden death would have been more tolerable; and hence David says, while complaining of the prosperity of the ungodly, that there
“
were no bands in their death.” (Psa 73:4)
And the same thing is found in the book of Job, that
“
in a moment of time they descend to the grave,”
that is, that they flourish and prosper during life, and then die without any pain. (Job 21:13) Hence Julius Caesar, shortly before he was killed, called this kind a happy death, ( εὐθανασίαν,) for he thought it a happy thing to expire suddenly. And this is what is implanted in men by nature. Therefore Jeremiah, in order to amplify God’s vengeance, says that they would die by the deaths of sicknesses; (155) that is, that they would be worn out by daily pains, and pine away until they died.
He adds, They shall not be lamented nor buried We have seen elsewhere, and we shall hereafter see, (Jer 22:0) that it is a proof of a curse when the dead are not buried, and when no one laments their death: for it is the common duty of humanity for relations and friends who survive, to mourn for the dead and to bury them. But the Prophet seems to mean also something further. I do not indeed exclude this, that God would deprive them of the honor of sepukure and of mourning; but he seems also to intimate, that the destruction of men would be so great that there would be none to perform these offices of humanity. For we lament the dead when leisure is allowed us; but when many are slain in war they are not individually lamented, and then their carcases he confused, and one grave is not sufficient for such a number. The Prophet there means, that so great would be the slaughter in Judea, that none would be buried, that none would be lamented. The verb which he uses means properly to lament, which is more than to weep: and we have said elsewhere, that in those countries there were more ceremonies than with us; for all the orientals were much given to various gesticulations; and hence they were not satisfied with tears, but they added lamentation, as though they were in despair.
But the Prophet speaks according to the customs of the age, without approving of this excess of grief. As they were wont not simply to bewail the dead, but also to shew their grief by lamentation, he says, “Their offices shall now cease, for there will not be graves enough for so many thousands: and then if any one wish to mourn, where would he begin?” We also know that men’s hearts become hardened, when many thus die through pestilence or war. The import of the whole is, that God’s wrath would not be moderate, for he would in a manner empty the land by driving them all away, so that there would be none remaining. God did indeed preserve the elect, though as it were by a miracle; and he afterwards preserved them in exile as in a grave, when they were removed from their own country.
He then adds, That they would be as dung on the face of the land He speaks reproachfully of their carcasses, as though he had said, “They shall be the putridity of the land.” As then they had by their faith contaminated the land during life, God declares that after death they would become foetid like dung. Hence we learn, as I have before said, that it was an evidence of God’s curse, when carcases were left unburied; for as God has created us in his own image, so in death he would have some evidence of the dignity and excellency with which he has favored us beyond brute animals, still to remain. We however know that temporal punishments happen even to the faithful, but they are turned to their good, for the Psalmist complains that the bodies of the godly were cast forth and became food to the birds of heaven. (Psa 79:2) Though this is true, yet these two things are by no means inconsistent, that it is a sign of God’s wrath when the dead are not buried, and that a temporal punishment does no harm to God’s elect; for all evils, as it is well known, turn out to them for good.
It is added, By the sword and by famine shall they be consumed; that is, some shall perish by the sword, and some by famine, according to what, we have before seen,
“
Those for the sword, to the sword; those for the famine, to the famine.” (Jer 15:2)
Then he mentions what we have already referred to, Their carcases shall be for food to the beasts of the earth and to the birds of heaven (156) He here intimates, that it would be a manifest sign of his vengeance, when the Jews pined away in their miseries, when the sword consumed some of them, and famine destroyed others, and not only so, but when another curse after death followed them, for the Lord would inflict judgment on their carcases by not allowing them to be buried. How this is to be understood I have already stated; for God’s judgments as to the reprobate are evident; but when the godly and the righteous fall under similar punishment, God turns to good what seems in itself to be the sign of a curse. Though famine is a sign of a curse, and also the sword, yet we know that many of God’s children perish by famine and by the sword. But in temporal punishments this modification is ever to be remembered, — that God shews himself to be a righteous Judge as to the ungodly and wicked; — and that while he humbles his own people, he is not yet angry with them, but consults their benefit, so that what is in itself adverse to them is turned to their advantage.
(155) More literally, “By the deaths of wastings.” The reference is to the famine and also to the sword. Calvin has followed the Vulgate; “by a pestilential death” is the Septuagint by the death of those who languish by famine” the Syriac; and “by a dreadful death” the Arabic. The “mortal diseases” of Blayney is not proper, for they were not “diseases” but wastings or devastations by the famine and the sword, as stated afterwards. — Ed.
(156) I would render the fourth verse thus, —
By deaths of wastings shall they die; They shall not be lamented, nor buried; As dung on the face of the ground shall they be: Yea, by the sword and by the famine shall they be consumed, And their carcase shall be for meat To the bird of heaven and to the beast of the earth.
The latter part is a fuller explanation of what was to take place. “As dung,” so the Syriac; they were scattered like dung. They were to be cast here and there, to be devoured by rapacious birds and beasts. — Ed.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(4) Of grievous deaths.Literally, deaths from diseases, including, perhaps, famine (as in Jer. 14:18), as contrasted with the more immediate work of the sword.
They shall not be lamented.Among a people who attached such importance to the due observance of funeral obsequies as the Jews did, the neglect of those obsequies was, of course, here, as in Jer. 22:18, a symptom of extremest misery. Like features have presented themselves in the pestilences or sieges of other cities and other times, as in the description in Lucretius (vi. 1278) :
Nec mos ille sepultur remanebat in urbe,
Quo pius hic populus semper consuerat humari.
No more the customed rites of sepulture
Were practised in the city, such as wont
Of old to tend the dead with reverent care.
Compare the account of the plague at Athens in Thucydides (ii. 52).
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
4. Grievous deaths Literally, deaths of sicknesses; suggesting the manifold forms which death takes in war and famine.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Jer 16:4 They shall die of grievous deaths; they shall not be lamented; neither shall they be buried; [but] they shall be as dung upon the face of the earth: and they shall be consumed by the sword, and by famine; and their carcases shall be meat for the fowls of heaven, and for the beasts of the earth.
Ver. 4. They shall die of grievous deaths. ] Heb., Death of diseases or grievances, as did Jehoram, 2Ch 21:18 and Philip II of Spain, &c.; they shall die piecemeal, morte valetudinariorum, by death of the sickrooms, which is a misery, especially if the disease be slow, and yet sharp, as some are.
They shall not be lamented nor buried.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
earth = ground, or soil.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
die: Jer 14:16, Jer 15:2, Jer 15:3, Psa 78:64
not: Jer 16:5-7, Jer 22:18, Jer 25:33, Amo 6:9, Amo 6:10
neither: Jer 7:33, Jer 22:19, Jer 36:30, Psa 79:2, Psa 79:3
as dung: Jer 8:1-3, Jer 9:22, Jer 25:33, 1Ki 14:10, 1Ki 14:11, 1Ki 21:23, 1Ki 21:24, 2Ki 9:10, 2Ki 9:36, 2Ki 9:37, Psa 83:10, Isa 5:25, Zep 1:17
consumed: Jer 14:15, Jer 34:17, Jer 44:12, Jer 44:27, Eze 5:12
meat: Jer 34:20, Psa 79:2, Isa 18:6, Eze 39:17-20, Rev 19:17, Rev 19:18
Reciprocal: Deu 28:21 – General Deu 28:26 – General Deu 32:24 – the teeth Jer 8:2 – they shall be Jer 13:10 – shall Jer 14:12 – but Jer 16:6 – they Jer 18:21 – let their wives Jer 19:7 – and their Jer 24:10 – General Jer 32:24 – because Eze 6:11 – fall Eze 24:17 – make Eze 24:21 – that which your soul pitieth Eze 24:22 – General Eze 29:5 – I will leave Hos 9:12 – yet Amo 4:10 – the stink Rev 6:8 – kill
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Jer 16:4. Misfortunes were to be brought upon the people of Judah in general because of the iniquity of idolatry that had been committed for many years. The community of Ana- thoth, however, had especially in-curred the displeasure of the Lord because of the wicked persecution that had been imposed upon Jeremiah in their hatred for his teaching. (See Jer 11:21-23.) The experiences described in this verse might be extended to Jeremiah’s family were he to produce one in that community.