Jeremiah 16:16

Behold, I will send for many fishers, saith the LORD, and they shall fish them; and after will I send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(16) I will send for many fishers . . .—The words refer to the threat, not to the promise. The “fishers,” as in Amos 4:2; Habakkuk 1:15, are the invading nations, surrounding Judah and Jerusalem as with a drag-net, and allowing none to escape. The process is described under this very name of “drag-netting” the country by Herodotus (iii. 149, 6:31), as applied by the army of Xerxes to Samos, Chios, Tenedos, and other islands. The application of the words either to the gathering of the people after their dispersion or to the later work of the preachers of the Gospel is an after-thought, having its source in our Lord’s words, “I will make you fishers of men” (Matthew 4:19). It is, of course, possible enough that those words may have been suggested by Jeremiah’s, the same image being used, as in the parable of Matthew 13:47, to describe the blessing which had before presented its darker aspect of punishment.

Hunters.—Another aspect of the same thought, pointing, so far as we can trace the distinction between the two, to the work of the irregular skirmisher as the former image did to that of the main body of the army: men might take refuge, as hunted beasts might do, in the caves of the rocks, but they should be driven forth even from these.

Benson Commentary

Jeremiah 16:16-18. Behold, I will send, &c. — This may be better rendered, But now I will send, &c. — Because here the prophet returns to denounce threatenings; many fishers, and they shall fish them — “It is common with the sacred writers to represent enemies and oppressors under the metaphors of fishers and hunters, because they use all the methods of open force and secret stratagem to make men their prey.” By these two characters the same enemies are probably meant, namely, the Chaldeans, who should take different methods, one after another, to destroy them; besieging them in their cities, and taking them like fish, enclosed in a net; and afterward pursuing the scattered parties from place to place, till they got them into their hands; so that one way or other, few, if any, would be suffered to escape. Compare Isaiah 24:17-18, where it is in like manner foretold, that those who escaped from one danger should fall by another. See Blaney. For mine eyes are upon all their ways — I mark all their sins, though they commit them never so secretly, and palliate them never so artfully. They have not their eyes upon me; have no regard to me, stand in no awe of me: but I have mine eye upon them, and neither they nor any of their ways are hid from me. I will recompense their iniquity double — Not double to what it deserves, but double to what they expect, and to what I have done formerly. Or, I will recompense it abundantly; they shall now pay for their long reprieve and the divine patience they have abused; because they have defiled my land — By their idolatry, blood, cruelty, and other sins; have filled mine inheritance with the carcasses of their detestable things — Their idols, which are elsewhere called carcasses, not only because they were without life, but also because of their filthiness and hatefulness in the sight of God: see Leviticus 26:30; Ezekiel 43:7; Ezekiel 43:9. Or the words may be explained of the human sacrifices which were offered to idols.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

16:14-21 The restoration from the Babylonish captivity would be remembered in place of the deliverance from Egypt; it also typified spiritual redemption, and the future deliverance of the church from antichristian oppression. But none of the sins of sinners can be hidden from God, or shall be overlooked by him. He will find out and raise up instruments of his wrath, that shall destroy the Jews, by fraud like fishers, by force like hunters. The prophet, rejoicing at the hope of mercy to come, addressed the Lord as his strength and refuge. The deliverance out of captivity shall be a figure of the great salvation to be wrought by the Messiah. The nations have often known the power of Jehovah in his wrath; but they shall know him as the strength of his people, and their refuge in time of trouble.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The scattering of the people is to be like that of hunted animals, of which but few escape, the ancient method of hunting being to enclose a large space with beaters and nets, and so drive everything within it to some place where it was destroyed. The destruction of the whole male population was one of the horrible customs of ancient warfare, and the process is called in Herodotus "sweeping the country with a drag-net." The same authority tells us that this method could only be effectually carried out on an island. Literally, understood, the fishers are the main armies who, in the towns and fortresses, capture the people in crowds as in a net, while the hunters are the light-armed troops, who pursue the fugitives over the whole country, and drive them out of their hiding places as hunters track out their game.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

16. send for—translate, "I will send many"; "I will give the commission to many" (2Ch 17:7).

fishers … hunters—successive invaders of Judea (Am 4:2; Hab 1:14, 15). So "net" (Eze 12:13). As to "hunters," see Ge 10:9; Mic 7:2. The Chaldees were famous in hunting, as the Egyptians, the other enemy of Judea, were in fishing. "Fishers" expresses the ease of their victory over the Jews as that of the angler over fishes; "hunters," the keenness of their pursuit of them into every cave and nook. It is remarkable, the same image is used in a good sense of the Jews' restoration, implying that just as their enemies were employed by God to take them in hand for destruction, so the same shall be employed for their restoration (Eze 47:9, 10). So spiritually, those once enemies by nature (fishermen many of them literally) were employed by God to be heralds of salvation, "catching men" for life (Mt 4:19; Lu 5:10; Ac 2:41; 4:4); compare here Jer 16:19, "the Gentiles shall come unto thee" (2Co 12:16).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Though some interpreters make these words a promise, either of God’s restoration of this people, and making use of Cyrus, who, as a fisherman or huntsman, by his proclamation fetched the Jews out of all parts of his dominions, to return to Jerusalem; or of the calling of God’s elect by the apostles, who were God’s fishermen, and went up and down preaching the gospel in all places; yet the next verse rather guideth us to interpret it as a threatening, and by these fishermen and huntsmen to understand all those enemies whom God made use of to destroy these Jews, hunting them out of all holes and coverts wheresoever they should fly and take sanctuary.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Behold, I will send for many fishers, saith the Lord, and they shall fish them,.... Which some understand of the Egyptians, who lived much on fish, and were much employed in catching them, to which the allusion is thought to be; but rather the Chaldeans are intended, whom God, by the secret instinct of his providence, brought up against the Jews; who besieged Jerusalem, and enclosed them in it, and took them as fishes in a net; see Habakkuk 1:14, though some interpret this, and what follows, of the deliverance of the Jews by the Medes and Persians under Cyrus, who searched for them in all places, and sent them into their own land; or of Zerubbabel, and others with him, who used all means to persuade the Jews in the captivity to go with them, and build the house of the Lord in Jerusalem; and there are not wanting others, who by the "fishers" think the apostles are meant; who were fishers by occupation, and whom Christ made fishers of men, and sent forth to cast and spread the net of the Gospel in the several parts of Judea, for the conversion of some of that people; see Matthew 4:18,

and after will l send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks; either the same persons, the Chaldeans, are meant here, as before; who, as they should slay those they took in Jerusalem with the edge of the sword, as fishes taken in a net are killed, or presently die, which is the sense of the Targum, and other Jewish commentators; so those that escaped and fled to mountains, hills, and holes of the rocks, to hide themselves, should be pursued by them, and be found out, taken, and carried captive: or, the Romans (e). So Nimrod, the beginning of whose kingdom was Babel, being a tyrant and an oppressor, is called a mighty hunter, Genesis 10:8.

(e) Vid. Joseph de Bello Jud. l. 7. c. 9. sect. 4.

Geneva Study Bible

Behold, I will send for many {g} fishermen, saith the LORD, and they shall fish them; and afterwards will I send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks.

(g) By the fishers and hunters are meant the Babylonians and Chaldeans who would destroy them in such sort, that if they escaped the one, the other would take them.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

16. For the metaphor from fishing cp. Ezekiel 12:13; Ezekiel 29:4 f.; Amos 4:2; Habakkuk 1:14 ff.

rocks] See on Jeremiah 4:29.

16–18. See introd. summary to section.

Pulpit Commentary

Verses 16, 17. - I will send for should rather be, I will send. Fishers and hunters, by a divinely given impulse, shall "fish" and "hunt" the unhappy fugitives from their lurking-places. There may, perhaps, be an allusion to the cruel ancient practice of "sweeping the country with a drag-net" (Herod, 3:149), and then destroying the male population: Samos, e.g. was thus "netted" and depopulated by the Persians. Habakkuk may also refer to this when he says (Habakkuk 1:15), "They catch them in their net, and gather them in their drag." Jeremiah 16:16

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Further account of the punishment foretold, with the reasons for the same. - Jeremiah 16:16. "Behold, I send for many fishers, saith Jahve, who shall fish them, and after will I send fore many hunters, who shall hunt them from every mountain and every hill, and out of the clefts of the rock. Jeremiah 16:17. For mine eyes are upon all their ways, they are not hidden from me, neither is their iniquity concealed from mine eyes. Jeremiah 16:18. And first, I requite double their iniquity and their sin, because they defiled my land with the carcases of their detestables, and with their abominations they have filled mine inheritance. Jeremiah 16:19. Jahveh, my strength and my fortress, and my refuge in the day of trouble! Unto Thee shall the peoples come from the ends of the earth and say: But lies have our fathers inherited, vanity, and amidst them none profiteth at all. Jeremiah 16:20. Shall a man make gods to himself, which are yet no gods? Jeremiah 16:21. Therefore, behold, I make them to know this once, I make them to know my hand and my might, and they shall know that my name is Jahveh."

Jeremiah 16:16-17

Jeremiah 16:16-18 are a continuation of the threatening in Jeremiah 16:13, that Judah is to be cast out, but are directly connected with Jeremiah 16:15, and elucidate the expulsion into many lands there foretold. The figures of the fishers and hunters do not bespeak the gathering again and restoration of the scattered people, as Ven. would make out, but the carrying of Judah captive out of his land. This is clear from the second of the figures, for the hunter does not gather the animals together, but kills them; and the reference of the verses is put beyond a doubt by Jeremiah 16:17 and Jeremiah 16:18, and is consequently admitted by all other comm. The two figures signify various kinds of treatment at the hands of enemies. The fishers represent the enemies that gather the inhabitants of the land as in a net, and carry them wholesale into captivity (cf. Amos 4:2; Habakkuk 1:15). The hunters, again, are those who drive out from their hiding-places, and slay or carry captive such as have escaped from the cities, and have taken refuge in the mountains and ravines; cf. Jeremiah 4:29, Judges 6:2 1 Samuel 13:6. In this the idea is visibly set forth that none shall escape the enemy. שׁלה c. ל pers., send for one, cause him to come, as in Jeremiah 14:3 (send for water), so that there is no call to take ל according to the Aram. usage as sign of the accusative, for which we can cite in Jeremiah only the case in Jeremiah 40:2. The form דּוּגים (Chet.) agrees with Ezekiel 47:10, while the Keri, דּיּגים, is a formation similar to ציּדים. In the second clause רבּים is, like the numerals, made to precede the noun; cf. Proverbs 31:29; Psalm 89:51. - For the Lord knows their doings and dealings, and their transgressions are not hid from Him; cf. Jeremiah 23:24; Jeremiah 32:19. על for אל, indicating the direction. Their ways are not the ways of flight, but their course of action.