Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Jeremiah 16:5 - 16:5
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
The command not to go into a house of mourning (מַרְזֵחַ, loud crying, cry of lament for one dead, see on Amo 6:7), not to show sympathy with the survivors, is explained by the Lord in the fearfully solemn saying: I withdraw from this people my peace, grace, and mercy. שָׁלֹום is not "the inviolateness of the relation between me and my people" (Graf), but the pace of God which rested on Judah, the source of its well-being, of its life and prosperity, and which showed itself to the sinful race in the extension to them of grace and mercy. The consequence of the withdrawal of this peace is the death of great and small in such multitudes that they can neither be buried nor mourned for (Jer 16:6). הִתְגֹּדֵד, but one's self, is used in Deu 14:1 for נָתַן שֶׂרֶט, to make cuts in the body, Lev 19:28; and קָרַח, Niph., to crop one's self bald, acc. to Deu 14:1, to shave a bare place on the front part of the head above the eyes. These are two modes of expressing passionate mourning for the dead which were forbidden to the Israelites in the law, yet which remained in use among the people, see on Lev 19:28 and Deu 14:1. לָהֶם, for them, in honour of the dead.