A great grief
(16:1–21)
God tells Jeremiah not to marry or have children. A wife and family will only swell the number of victims in the plague and carnage to come (16:1–4). Jeremiah is not to take any part in mourning the deaths of others, or in celebrating marriages (16:5–9). These expressions of community life no longer apply, because the relationship between God and his people has been severed (16:10–12). God is evicting his people from their homeland and sending them far away to exile in a foreign country (16:13).
And yet God gives a strong promise for the future. A day will come when he will bring his people back again, in an act just as great as the rescue from Egypt in the days of the exodus (16:14–15).
Knowles, A. (2001). The Bible guide (1st Augsburg books ed., p. 305). Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg.
Views from an Evangelist 