In his cry to the Lord: My strength...in the day of trouble, which agrees closely with Psalm 28:8; Psalm 59:17; Psalm 18:3, Jeremiah utters not merely his own feelings, but those which would animate every member of his people. In the time of need the powerlessness of the idols to help, and so their vanity, becomes apparent. Trouble therefore drives to God, the Almighty Lord and Ruler of the world, and forces to bend under His power. The coming tribulation is to have this fruit not only in the case of the Israelites, but also in that of the heathen nations, so that they shall see the vanity of the idolatry they have inherited from their fathers, and be converted to the Lord, the only true God. How this knowledge is to be awakened in the heathen, Jeremiah does not disclose; but it may be gathered from Jeremiah 16:15, from the deliverance of Israel, there announced, out of the heathen lands into which they had been cast forth. By this deliverance the heathen will be made aware both of the almighty power of the God of Israel and of the nothingness of their own gods. On הבל cf. Jeremiah 2:5; and with "none that profiteth," cf. Jeremiah 2:8; Jeremiah 14:22. In Jeremiah 16:20 the prophet confirms what the heathen have been saying. The question has a negative force, as is clear from the second clause. In Jeremiah 16:21 we have the Lord's answer to the prophets' confession in Jeremiah 16:19. Since the Jews are so blinded that they prefer vain idols to the living God, He will this time so show them His hand and His strength in that foretold chastisement, that they shall know His name, i.e., know that He alone is God in deed and in truth. Cf. Ezekiel 12:15; Exodus 3:14.

Jeremiah 17:6 Parallel Commentaries

like.

Jeremiah 48:6 Flee, save your lives, and be like the heath in the wilderness.

Job 8:11-13 Can the rush grow up without mire? can the flag grow without water...

Job 15:30-34 He shall not depart out of darkness; the flame shall dry up his branches, and by the breath of his mouth shall he go away...

Psalm 1:4 The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind drives away.

Psalm 92:7 When the wicked spring as the grass, and when all the workers of iniquity do flourish; it is that they shall be destroyed for ever:

Psalm 129:5-8 Let them all be confounded and turned back that hate Zion...

Isaiah 1:30 For you shall be as an oak whose leaf fades, and as a garden that has no water.

and shall.

2 Kings 7:1,19,20 Then Elisha said, Hear you the word of the LORD; Thus said the LORD...

John 20:17 Jesus said to her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brothers, and say to them, I ascend to my Father...

a salt.

Deuteronomy 29:23 And that the whole land thereof is brimstone, and salt, and burning, that it is not sown, nor bears, nor any grass grows therein...

Judges 9:45 And Abimelech fought against the city all that day; and he took the city, and slew the people that was therein, and beat down the city...

Ezekiel 47:11 But the miry places thereof and the marshes thereof shall not be healed; they shall be given to salt.

Zephaniah 2:9 Therefore as I live, said the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, Surely Moab shall be as Sodom, and the children of Ammon as Gomorrah...