Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Jeremiah 16:11
Then shalt thou say unto them, Because your fathers have forsaken me, saith the LORD, and have walked after other gods, and have served them, and have worshiped them, and have forsaken me, and have not kept my law;
The severe sentence passed upon them is the consequence of idolatry persisted in through many generations until it has finally deepened into national apostasy.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Your fathers; the idolatrous kings of Judah that were before Manassehs time, since whose time there were hardly forty years yet elapsed.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
11. (Jer 5:19;Jer 13:22; Jer 22:8;Jer 22:9).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Then shalt thou say unto them,…. In answer to their questions; not in a general way, but by observing to them particular sins, and those gross ones, they had been guilty of:
because your fathers have forsaken me, saith the Lord; that is, his worship, as the Targum; they had quitted his service, and left attending on his word and ordinances; and therefore it was but just with him to forsake them, and give them up into the hands of their enemies:
and have walked after other gods, and have served them, and have worshipped them; were guilty of gross idolatry, serving and worshipping the creature more than and besides the Creator; even idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and wood, and stone, which were no gods; for there is no other true God besides the Lord; and which they were well informed of, and therefore their sin was the greater to leave him and worship them; and which sin, because of the heinousness of it, is repeated:
and have forsaken me, and have not kept my law; they forsook his worship, as the Targum, and did not observe the law of the decalogue or ten commandments; especially the two first of them, which required the worship of the one true God, and forbid the worshipping of others; and which threatened the visiting such iniquities of fathers upon the children, to the third and fourth generation, of such that hated the Lord; and such were these persons, as follows.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
But he then says, Thou shalt answer them, Because your fathers forsook me; they went after foreign gods, served and worshipped them; and me they forsook and my law they kept not, and ye have done worse (163) God in the first place accused their fathers, not that punishment ought to have fallen on their children, except they followed the wickedness of their fathers, but the men of that age fully deserved to be visited with the judgment their fathers merited. Besides well known is that declaration, that God reckons the iniquities of the fathers to their children; (Exo 20:5; Exo 34:7; Deu 5:9) and he acts thus justly, for he might justly execute vengeance for sins on the whole human race, according to what Christ says,
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On you shall come the blood of all the godly, from righteous Abel to Zachariah the son of Barachiah.” (Mat 23:35; Luk 11:51)
Thus then the Scripture often declares, that children shall be punished with their fathers, because God will at one time or another require an account of all sins, and thus will make amends for his long forbearance, for as he waits for men and kindly invites them through his patience to repent, so when he sees no hope he inflicts all his scourges. It is hence no wonder that children are more grievously punished after iniquity has prevailed for many ages.
We hence see that these two things are not inconsistent — that God connects the punishment of children with that of their fathers, and that he does not punish the innocent. We indeed see this fulfilled,
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The soul that sinneth it shall die; the children shall not bear the iniquity of their fathers, nor the father the iniquity of his child,” (Eze 18:4)
for God never blends children with their fathers except they be their associates in wickedness. But yet there is nothing to prevent God to punish children for the sins of their fathers, especially when they continually rush headlong into worse sins, when the children, as we shall hereafter see, exceed their fathers in all kinds of wickedness.
We further learn from this passage, that they bring forward a vain pretense who allege against us the examples of the Fathers, as we see to be done now by those under the Papacy; for the shield they boldly set up against us is this, that they imitate the examples of the fathers. But God declares here that they were worthy of double punishment who repented not when they saw that their fathers had been ungodly and transgressors of the law.
Let us now notice the sins which God mentions: he says, that they had forsaken him. That people could not make any excuse for going astray, like the unhappy heathens, to whom no Prophet had been sent, and no law had been given. Hence the heathens had some excuse more than the Jews. The truth indeed respecting all was, that they were all apostates, for God had bound the human race to himself, and all they who followed superstitions were justly charged with the sin of apostasy; there was yet a greater atrocity of wickedness in the Jewish people, for God had set before them his law, they had been brought up as it were in his school, they knew what true religion was, they were able to distinguish the true God from fictitious gods. We now then see the meaning of the expression, They have forsaken me: and it is twice repeated, because it was necessary thus to prove the Jews guilty, that their mouths might be stopped; for we have seen that they were to be thus roused from their insensibility, inasmuch as they would have never yielded nor acknowledged their sins, were they not constrained.
He says further, that they went after foreign gods, served them, and worshipped them Now this statement enhances again their sins, for the Jews preferred their own inventions to the true God, who had by so many signs and testimonies manifested his glory and made known his power among them. As then God had abundantly testified his power, it was by no means an endurable ingratitude in them to follow strange gods, of whom they had only heard. The heathens indeed vainly boasted of their idols, and spread abroad many fables to allure unhappy men to false and corrupt worship, but the Jews knew who the true God was. To believe the fables of the heathens, rather than the law and their own experience, was not this the basest impiety? This then was the reason why God complained that foreign gods were worshipped by them.
Then he adds, They served and worshipped them The verb to serve is often used by the Hebrews to express worship, as we have stated elsewhere; and thus is refuted the folly of the Papists who deny that they are idolaters, because they worship pictures and statues with dulla, that is, with service, if we may so render it, and not with latria, as though Scripture in condemning idolatry never used this verb. But God condemns here the Jews because they served strange gods, because they gave credit to the false and vain fictions of the heathens; and then he adds the outward action, that they prostrated themselves before their idols.
At the end of this verse he shews how he had been forsaken, even because they kept not his law. He then confirms what I have already stated, that there was on this account a worse apostasy among the Jews, for they had knowingly and wilfully forsaken the fountain of living water, as we have seen in the second chapter: hence simple ignorance is not what is here reprehended, as though they had sinned through error or want of knowledge, but they had rejected the worship of God as it were designedly. The rest I shall defer till to-morrow.
(163) The division of these verses, the 11th and the 12 th (Jer 16:11), seems incorrect. Were the latter part of the 11th connected with the 12th, the repetition which now appears would not be perceived. I render the verses thus —
11. Then say to them, Because your fathers forsook me, saith Jehovah, And walked after foreign gods, And served them and bowed down to them: Yea, me they forsook and my law kept not,
12. And ye have become evil by doing worse than your fathers; For lo, ye are walking, every man, After the resolutions of his own evil heart, So as not to hearken to me.
In the first part their fathers’ conduct is set forth; in the second their fathers’ conduct and their own. And their “worse” conduct was in not hearkening to the voice of God by his Prophets. — Ed.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
Jer 16:11 Then shalt thou say unto them, Because your fathers have forsaken me, saith the LORD, and have walked after other gods, and have served them, and have worshipped them, and have forsaken me, and have not kept my law;
Ver. 11. Because your fathers. ] See Jer 2:5 ; Jer 7:24-25 .
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
not kept My law. Reference to Pentateuch (Ex. 20). App-92.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Because: Jer 2:8, Jer 5:7-9, Jdg 2:12, Jdg 2:13, Jdg 10:13, Jdg 10:14, Neh 9:26-29, Psa 106:35-41, Dan 9:10-12
walked: Jer 8:2, Jer 9:14, Eze 11:21, 1Pe 4:3
Reciprocal: Isa 1:4 – a seed Jer 1:16 – who have Jer 11:17 – pronounced Jer 13:22 – Wherefore Jer 17:23 – they obeyed Jer 19:4 – they have Jer 44:3 – of their Eze 2:3 – rebelled Eze 18:17 – he shall not Eze 23:30 – thou hast
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Jer 16:11. This verse recounts the background of the nations corruption. The fathers refers to the earlier citizens of the kingdom, They were not the first ones of the Jews who took up the sins of the heathen, for the book of Judges is full of that subject, and that was before there was any kingdom of Judab, But at the time when Jeremiah was writing it was the national fate that was being predicted, so the term fathers need not go back any farther than the history of the kingdom.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
He was to explain that the coming judgment was due to the accumulated sins of their forefathers, in forsaking the Lord and His covenant, and in practicing idolatry. Sin has a cumulative effect in that it results in conditions that affect the behavior of others, including later generations.