Jeremiah 9:16, commentary and pictures

The judgment is for willfulness upon Israel and Judah, that they shall be scattered in exile among heathen nations unfamiliar to them and to their fathers, with a sword sent after them that continues pursuing until they are consumed. The cause is that they forsook the law God set before them, refused to obey His voice and to walk therein, and instead walked after the imagination of their own heart and after Baal and Baalim taught by their fathers, following their own ways and other gods. The scattering among unfamiliar nations and the pursuing sword are the consequence and fulfillment of the covenant curse for that disobedience, driving them from the land of Canaan.

The same declared punishment includes feeding them with wormwood and giving them water of gall to drink, together with the scattering among the heathen whom neither they nor their fathers had known and the sword sent after them till consumption. Babylon is the swift avenger bringing this punishment. By keeping the law Israel might have retained privilege and favor, while by breaking it they forfeited the promises and fell from grace, for obedience to God's law is the condition of the kingdom.

Jeremiah's desire to weep day and night for the slain was not for those already dead in the past, whom no weeping or human service in the tomb can help, but for this coming calamity seen by the Spirit of prophecy as the future result of the people's present lives in forsaking His law and refusing to listen to His voice through His prophet. What was seen in vision became reality within a few years when Jerusalem was destroyed and the people were carried away to Babylon, which Jeremiah lived to witness. The same warning applies now, for God has not changed and His law has not changed: if He is sought He will be found, but if He is forsaken He will cast off forever.