The following three pericopes bracket assurance of imminent judgment for Judah with promises of distant blessing for Israel and the nations. This passage promises deliverance from the captivity for the Israelites. It appears again later in Jeremiah almost verbatim (23:7-8).
16:14 The Lord announced that the time would come when the chosen people would no longer look back on the Exodus as the great demonstration of His preservation and deliverance.
16:15 Instead they would look back on their second Exodus, from Babylon and all the other countries to which He had banished them. The Lord promised to bring His people back into the Promised Land that He had given their fathers after He had disciplined them there (cf. Gen. 12:7; Isa. 43:16-20; 48:20-21; 51:9-11).
The returns from Babylonian exile, therefore, were only part of the fulfillment of this promise. There must yet be a return of the Chosen People to the Promised Land "which I gave to their fathers"from all over the world. This will be a return after the Jews have repented (cf. Isa. 2:2-4; 18:7; 19:19-25; Zech. 8:20-23; 14:16; Mal. 1:11).264Therefore the present return of multitudes of Jews from all over the world to Palestine does not exhaust what God promised.
Even though there would be deliverance for Israel in the distant future, she could count on thorough judgment in the near future (vv. 16-18).
16:16 The Lord was going to summon fishermen (cf. Ezek. 12:13; 29:4-5; Amos 4:2; Hab. 1:14-17) and hunters (cf. Amos 9:1-4) to round up His people and take them as prey, even those who were in hiding. These agents would be the Babylonian invaders.
"When Jesus used the metaphor of fishermen to describe the mission of his disciples (see Mark 1:17; Matt 4:19), he was reversing its meaning from that intended by Jeremiah. Jeremiah's fishers caught men for judgment; Jesus' fishers caught them for salvation."265
16:17 The Lord saw everyone and everything. His people were not able to hide from Him even though many of them tried to do so.
16:18 Yahweh would pay them back double for polluting His land (cf. Isa. 40:2), which He had given them as an inheritance, with their iniquities and sins and with the dead bodies of their idols and abominable objects of worship.266
The next pericope returns to the note of hope in the distant future (vv. 14-15), but it promises blessing for the nations as well as Israel then (vv. 19-21).
16:19 Jeremiah composed a song to the Lord. He addressed Him as his strength, stronghold, and refuge in a time of distress (cf. Ps. 18:2). He foretold that the nations would come to the Lord from the ends of the earth confessing the futility of their lives and the lives of their forefathers (cf. 4:2; Gen. 12:1-3; Ps. 2; Isa. 2:1-3; 42:4; 49:6; Zech. 8:20-23; 14:16-17).
16:20 Rhetorically the prophet asked if humans can make gods for themselves. They can, but what they make are not really gods, because there is only one God.
16:21 The Lord announced that in the future, when the nations sought Him out, He would convince them of His power and might, that they might know that Yahweh is the only true God (cf. Ezek. 36:22-23). He did not explain how He would do that here, but later revelation tells us that Messiah's second advent will involve such a demonstration of power that multitudes of people will turn to the Lord (Zech. 12:10).
