Commentary on Jeremiah Volume 1 John Calvin
Chapter
Jeremiah 16:1-4
1. The word of the LORD came also unto me, saying,
1. Et fuit sermo Jehovae ad me, dicendo,
2. Thou shalt not take thee a wife, neither shalt thou have sons or daughters in this place.
2. Non accipies tibi uxorem, et non erunt tibi filii et filiae in hoc loco;
3. For thus saith the LORD concerning the sons and concerning the daughters that are born in this place, and concerning their mothers that bare them, and concerning their fathers that begat them in this land;
3. Quia sic dicit Jehova super filios et super filias, qui nascentur in loco hoc, et super matres, quae pepererint illos, et super patres, qui genuerint illos in terra hac;
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.
4. Mortibus aegritudinum (vel, agrotationum) morientur, non plangentur, et non sepelientur; in stercus (id est, pro stercore) super faciem terrae erunt, et in gladio et fame consumentur (id est, per gladium et famem,) et erit cadaver eorum in cibum volucri coelorum et bestiae terrae
This is a new discourse, which yet is not unlike many others, except in this particular, that the Prophet was not to marry a wife nor beget children in the land But as to the general subject, he repeats now what he had often said before and confirmed in many places. But the prohibition to marry was full of meaning; it was to shew that the people were wholly given up to destruction. The law of man's creation, we know, was this, ``Increase and multiply.'' (Genesis 1:22; Genesis 8:17; Genesis 9:1, 7)