What does Jeremias Chapter 16 say, and which statements belong to its speaker?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

Place-bound domestic and social prohibitions accompany announced loss. Ancestral and present rebellion precede banishment and promised return. Fishers and hunters lead to seen iniquity and Gentile confession.

Chapter breakdown

Jeremias 16 prohibits a wife, sons and daughters in this place. The announced deaths of children and parents concern grievous illnesses, no lament or burial, dung-like bodies, sword, famine and birds' and beasts' food. The command names a house of feasting and forbids mourning or comfort because peace, mercy and commiserations are withdrawn. Great and little die without burial, lament, cuts or baldness; bread and cup consolation for dead parents cease. Further feasting, eating and drinking are prohibited as mirth and bridal voices cease in their sight and days, without an added permanent duration.

Their question about great evil and sin receives an answer: fathers forsook law for strange gods and the present people do worse, following evil hearts rather than hearing. An unfamiliar land means day-and-night strange-god service without rest. Future speech names the Lord who brings Israel from north and scattered lands instead of Egypt, with return to fathers' land promised.

Many fishers fish, then hunters hunt mountains, hills and rock holes. All ways and iniquity are seen, and first double iniquities and sins are repaid for idol carcasses and abominations defiling inheritance. The source does not identify fishers as spiritual agents or describe an exhaustive cleansing campaign producing the return. A prayer names strength and refuge, then Gentiles from earth's ends confess fathers' unprofitable lies. The question about manufactured nongods leads to the declared showing of hand, power and the Lord's name, without a universal guaranteed redemption mechanism.

The story inside

Opening: Place-bound domestic and social prohibitions accompany announced loss. Development: Ancestral and present rebellion precede banishment and promised return. Conclusion: Fishers and hunters lead to seen iniquity and Gentile confession.

Lessons worth keeping

1
Place-bound domestic and social prohibitions accompany announced loss.
2
Ancestral and present rebellion precede banishment and promised return.
3
Fishers and hunters lead to seen iniquity and Gentile confession.

Test your recall

Which images and requests does the speaker use, and what does the chapter leave unresolved?

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

Lines 85658–85660
16:14. Therefore behold the days come, saith the Lord, when it shall be said no more: The Lord liveth, that brought forth the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt.
Lines 85679–85682
16:19. O Lord, my might, and my strength, and my refuge in the day of tribulation: to thee the Gentiles shall come from the ends of the earth, and shall say: Surely our fathers have possessed lies, a vanity which hath not profited them.