Jeremiah 9:16 MEANING

Verse 16. I will scatter them also, etc. (comp. Deuteronomy 28:64; Leviticus 26:33). I will send a [the] sword after them. Even in the land of their captivity they shall have no rest. A special prophecy to the same effect was addressed to the Jewish fugitives in Egypt (Jeremiah 44:27). In both cases it is the unbelievers who are referred to; the nation as such was, through its Divine calling, indestructible.

9:12-22 In Zion the voice of joy and praise used to be heard, while the people kept close to God; but sin has altered the sound, it is now the voice of lamentation. Unhumbled hearts lament their calamity, but not their sin, which is the cause of it. Let the doors be shut ever so fast, death steals upon us. It enters the palaces of princes and great men, though stately, strongly built, and guarded. Nor are those more safe that are abroad; death cuts off even the children from without, and the young men from the streets. Hearken to the word of the Lord, and mourn with godly sorrow. This alone can bring true comfort; and it can turn the heaviest afflictions into precious mercies.I will scatter them also among the Heathen,.... Besides the bitter judgments of famine and pestilence during the siege, what remained of them should be carried captive out of their own land into foreign countries, than which nothing could be more distressing:

whom neither they or their fathers have known; a circumstance greatly aggravating their captivity:

and I will send a sword after them, till I have consumed them; or men that kill with the sword, as the Targum: it chiefly regards such of them as were scattered among the Moabites and Ammonites, and especially that went into Egypt; see Jeremiah 44:27.