Jeremiah (1-31) 16:14 Commentary and Bible Study

But now comes a sudden change of tone, as the very pessimistic message just delivered turns into a message of hope. This exile will not be the end of the nation. It is a severe discipline, but it is not yet the end of the national covenant. That will not happen until AD 70. This is a message of blessing on the nation and is particularly given for the sake of the remnant. Just as God brought them out of bondage in Egypt when he first called them his people, so he will again bring them out of captivity, but this time from Babylon. They will still be a mixed multitude for the time being until the gospel age, and the ceremonial law will still be in force, and the temple rebuilt and sacrifices offered up, but the nation will be preserved. God has a purpose for it still for he yet has many elect Jews to gather into his kingdom. There will be another extraordinary deliverance of the Lord, something which requires war in heaven against principalities and powers (Daniel 10:13). The promise of restoration to the land is very explicit at this time, and it may well be that Daniel studied this very passage among others, when he discovered from Jeremiah’s writings that God would restore the nation to the promised land (Daviel 9:2). Who are the many fishers that shall fish them, and the many hunters that shall hunt them from every mountain? ‘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.’ Some understand this to refer to the bringing of the Jews back to their land from wherever they had been driven. Others see a reference to the apostles who were fishers of men. But as Matthew Poole says, the context is God’s awareness of their iniquity and his determination to deal with it. The wonderful promise of verse 15 is in the background, but first they must face this great discipline. ‘First I will recompense their iniquity and their sin double; because they have defiled my land, they have filled mine inheritance with the carcases of their detestable and abominable things.