Jeremiah 16:19 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Jeremiah 16:19
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.
strength in various applications (force · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix
fortress
וּמָעֻזִּ֛יu.ma.'u.Zi
H4581
a fortified place · conjunction + noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix
refuge
וּמְנוּסִ֖יu.me.nu.Si
H4498
a retreat (literally or figuratively) · conjunction + noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix
day
בְּי֣וֹםbe.Yom
H3117
a day (as the warm hours) · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct
affliction
צָרָ֑הtza.Rah
H6869
tightness (i.e. figuratively · noun, common feminine singular absolute
Gentiles
גּוֹיִ֤םgo.Yim
H1471
a foreign nation · noun, common masculine plural absolute
come
יָבֹ֙אוּ֙ya.Vo.'u
H935
to go or come (in a wide variety of applications) · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
ends
מֵֽאַפְסֵיme.'af.sei-
H657
cessation · preposition + noun, common masculine plural construct
earth
אָ֔רֶץ'A.retz
H776
the earth (at large · noun, common feminine singular absolute
say
וְיֹאמְר֗וּve.yo.me.Ru
H559
to say (used with great latitude) · conjunction + verb, qal, 3rd person masculine plural
fathers
אֲבוֹתֵ֔ינוּ'a.vo.Tei.nu
H1
father · noun, common feminine plural construct + pronominal suffix
inherited
נָחֲל֣וּna.cha.Lu
H5157
to inherit (as a (figurative) mode of descent) · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person common plural
lies
שֶׁ֙קֶר֙she.ker
H8267
an untruth · noun, common masculine singular absolute
vanity
הֶ֖בֶלHe.vel
H1892
emptiness or vanity · noun, common masculine singular absolute
profit
מוֹעִֽילmo.'Il
H3276
properly · verb, hiphil active participle, masculine singular absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Isaiah 25:4 For thou hast been a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat, when th…
Nahum 1:7 The LORD is good, a strong hold in the day of trouble; and he knoweth them that trust in him.
Isaiah 2:2-3 And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the LORD’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shal…
Jeremiah 17:17 Be not a terror unto me: thou art my hope in the day of evil.
Psalms 18:1-2 I will love thee, O LORD, my strength.
Psalms 86:9 All nations whom thou hast made shall come and worship before thee, O Lord; and shall glorify thy name.
Psalms 91:1-2 He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
Isaiah 44:10 Who hath formed a god, or molten a graven image that is profitable for nothing?
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Jeremiah 16:14–end
There is a mixture of mercy and judgment in these verses, and it is hard to know to which to apply some of the passages here - they are so interwoven, and some seem to look as far forward as the times of the gospel.
I. God will certainly execute judgment upon them for their idolatries. Let them expect it, for the decree has gone forth. 1. God sees all their sins, though they commit them ever so secretly and palliate them ever so artfully (Jer 16:17): My eyes are upon all their ways. They have not their eye upon God, have no regard to him, stand in no awe of him; but he has his eye upon them; neither they nor their sins are hidden from his face, from his eyes. Note, None of the sins of sinner…
The result of God's judgments on the Jews will be that both the Jews when restored, and the Gentiles who have witnessed those judgments, shall renounce idolatry for the worship of Jehovah. Fulfilled partly at the return from Babylon, after which the Jews entirely renounced idols, and many proselytes were gathered in from the Gentiles, but not to be realized in its fulness till the final restoration of Israel (Isa. 2:1-17).
John Gill on Jeremiah 16:19
O Lord, my strength and my fortress,.... These are the words of the prophet, rising out of the temptation which beset him; casting off his impatience, diffidence, and unbelief; calling upon God, and exercising faith in him; having received the promise of the restoration of his people to their land, and a view of the future conversion of the Gentiles; which were a means of recovering his spiritual strength, of invigorating grace in him, and of encouraging him to exercise it in a lively manner; to go on in his duty constantly, and to bear affliction cheerfully and patiently; "strength" to do which he had from the Lord; and to whom he ascribes it; and whom he calls his "fortress", or strong hol…
So the shepherds came from nearby to see, and the Magi came from far away to worship. This is the humility for which the wild olive deserved to be grafted into the olive tree and against nature to produce olives, because it deserved to change nature through grace. They come, you see, from the uttermost bounds of the earth, saying, according to Jeremiah, "Truly our fathers worshipped lies." And they come, not just from one part of the world, but as the gospel according to Luke says, from East and West, from North and South, to sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.
(Verse 19) Lord, you are my strength and my refuge in the day of trouble (or evil). All human strength, without the power of God, which is Christ, is considered weak and worthless. Therefore, we must turn to the Lord and say: Lord, you have become our refuge, from generation to generation (Psalm 89:1). And in another place: Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty (Psalm 91:1). But this tribulation, or evil, is to be understood, of which the Apostle says: That he might deliver us from this present wicked world: And, Redeeming the time, because the days are evil (Gal. 1:4).
For I am very much God's debtor, who gave me such great grace that many people were reborn in God through me and afterwards confirmed, and that clerics were ordained for them everywhere, for a people just coming to the faith, whom the Lord took from the utmost parts of the earth, as he once had promised through His prophets: "To you the Gentiles shall come from the ends of the earth and shall say, 'How false are the idols that our ancestors got for themselves, and there is no profit in them.' " And again: "I have set you as a light among the Gentiles, that you may be for salvation unto the utmost part of the earth."
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Afflicted Saints · God is a refuge and strength to — God is a refuge and strength to
Gentiles · PROPHECIES OF THE CONVERSION OF — PROPHECIES OF THE CONVERSION OF
Vanity · The wicked: Inherit — The wicked: Inherit
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Jeremiah 16:19
19. 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.
19. Jehova, robur meum et munitio mea, et refugium in die angustiae, (vel, afflictionis) ad te Gentes venient e finibus terrae ac dicent, Certe mendacium possederunt patres nostri, vanitas (vanitatem) et nihil in ipsis utile.
What the Prophet has said hitherto might appear contrary to the promises of God, and wholly subversive of the covenant which he had made with Abraham. God had chosen to himself one people from the whole world,…
Further account of the punishment foretold, with the reasons for the same. - Jer 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. Jer 16:17. For mine eyes are upon all their ways, they are not hidden from me, neither is their iniquity concealed from mine eyes. Jer 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. Jer 16:19. Jahveh, my strength and my fortress, and my refuge in the day of trou…
Jeremiah responded by worshiping the Lord for his protection in times of trouble and his provision of salvation for people from around the world.
Rashi on Jeremiah 16:19
and my refuge (mon vantement in French), my boast. And Menahem (Machbereth p. 123) classified it as an expression of a wonder. Cf. (Psalms 60:6) “You have given those who fear You a wonder to be wondrous (נֵס לְהִתְנוֹסֵס).”
to You nations will come Eventually, the heathens will come to you and worship You of one accord, and they will say, “How did they make gods for themselves, and they are no gods?”
from the ends of Like מִקְצֵה, from the end of.
handed down an expression of an inheritance.
avail an expression of use (תּוֹעֶלֶת).
