Jeremiah 16: Thou Shalt Not Take Thee a Wife

"The word of the LORD came also unto me, saying, Thou shalt not take thee a wife, neither shalt thou have sons or daughters in this place. For thus saith the LORD concerning the sons and concerning the daughters that are born in this place… 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" (16:1–4).

"For thus saith the LORD, Enter not into the house of mourning, neither go to lament nor bemoan them: for I have taken away my peace from this people, saith the LORD, even lovingkindness and mercies… Thou shalt not also go into the house of feasting, to sit with them to eat and to drink. For thus saith the LORD of hosts… I will cause to cease out of this place in your eyes, and in your days, the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride" (vv. 5–9).

"Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that it shall no more be said, The LORD liveth, that brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt; But, The LORD liveth, that brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north… Behold, I will send for many fishers, saith the LORD, and they shall fish them; and after will I send for many hunters" (vv. 14–16).

"O LORD, my strength, and my fortress, and my refuge in the day of affliction, the Gentiles shall come unto thee from the ends of the earth, and shall say, Surely our fathers have inherited lies, vanity, and things wherein there is no profit. Shall a man make gods unto himself, and they are no gods?" (vv. 19–20).

The house of mourning

The Hebrew in 16:5 is beit marzeach (also spelled marzeah or marzeaḥ). The marzeach is known from Ugarit (14th–13th centuries BC), Phoenician and Aramaic inscriptions, and Amos 6:7: an association of men who met for feasts, sometimes in connection with the dead, under a patron god. In Jeremiah it seems to mean a funeral gathering with a meal. Mourning customs named here (gashing the body, shaving the head, the bread and cup of consolation) were widespread; Deuteronomy 14:1 forbids the first two for Israelites, which shows they were practised. Jeremiah is barred from the whole social world of grief.

A celibate prophet

Marriage and children were expected of men in ancient Israel; Jeremiah's celibacy is presented as a sign for a particular moment, not as an ideal. Later readers took it differently: some Christian writers cited Jeremiah (with John the Baptist and Paul) as a model of consecrated celibacy; rabbinic tradition did not, and some later Jewish legends even gave him descendants. In the text itself the command is a sign of judgment: there should be no future here to marry into.

Promise inside judgment

Verses 14–15 interrupt a sequence of judgment (vv. 10–13, 16–18) with a promise of return. Many scholars see it as an editorial addition, placed here and at 23:7–8 by those who knew the exile had happened; others think Jeremiah himself set hope within his warnings, as in 1:10 ("to build, and to plant"). The duplication suggests deliberate placement, whoever did it.

Hebrew and Greek

The Greek follows the Hebrew closely here. It translates beit marzeach as "their funeral feasts" and keeps the order of the chapter. Its 23:7–8 stands at the end of chapter 23, unlike the Hebrew. Jeremiah survives in two ancient Hebrew editions: the longer one preserved as the Masoretic Text (the basis of most Bibles) and a shorter one translated into Greek in the last centuries BC and also found, in fragments, among the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Greek is not simply a damaged copy of the Hebrew: it often reflects a different Hebrew text. The site shows both, and weighs each difference on its own (see "Two Ancient Jeremiahs").