Глава 16

“Before your fathers forsaken Me, saith the Lord, .. and ye have done worse than your fathers” (Jer. 16:11-12). Again the prophet reproaches the Jews and threatens them with resettlement to Babylon because they imitated their fathers, who served idols in the wilderness, and although they were admonished by the prophets, they did not repent. “Behold, I will send many fishermen, says the Lord, and they will catch them: and therefore I will send them many fishers, and they will catch them on every mountain and on every hill and from the caves of the stones” (Jer. 16:16). In the literal sense, the prophet means the Babylonians and the nations allied with them, whom God sent against the Jews. They, like fishermen in the sea, surrounded the cities of Judah with numerous armies and conquered them, and caught the inhabitants, like dumb fish, in their nets, even those Jews who escaped and hid in inaccessible mountains and rocks, they pursued along rough and rapid (rocky) paths, and killed or took them into captivity. In the spiritual sense, the prophet mysteriously depicts the destruction of idolatry. Therefore, the fisherman calls the holy apostles sent by God to pursue and defeat the apostate demons, whom people worshiped in the form of idols on every mountain and every hill. Behind the promise to overthrow idols and demonic power, a promise is given to the entire human race to return it to its former land, which is shown here in the image of the return of the Jews to the land of their inheritance, about which Jeremiah now prophesies. “Lord, You are my strength and my helper... to You the nations will come from the last of the earth” (Jer. 16:19). The prototype was the return of the Jews from Babylon, but in reality it was accomplished by our Lord. Through the hands of His holy disciples, He freed us from satanic slavery, from all ends of the earth He called lost nations to Himself, and brought them out of darkness into His abundant light. The prophet said: “I will show them... My hand and... My power” (Jer. 16:21), because Blessed Paul also teaches that the conversion of the pagans to the faith of Christ was accomplished “not in convincing words of human wisdom, but in the demonstration of the Spirit and power” (1 Cor. 2:4). You might be interested in: