Why will the Lord banish the “voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the grinding of the millstones and the light of the lamp”?
As the Lord continues to describe the judgment that he will bring on Judah and the nations he speaks of banishing from them the voice of mirth and gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the grinding of the millstone and the light of the lamp.
Judgment is described in a similar way in Jeremiah 7:34 and Jeremiah 16:9 with the addition here of ending the daily activities of life grinding of the millstone and the light of the lamp.
In a general sense these images describe the ending of life (see Ecclesiastes 12:3–6).1
The Hebrew word qol, translated as voice,
occurs five times in the Hebrew text to emphasize a dramatic silence that descends on the land as blessings end and curse comes. A bleak and grim silence descends on the land under divine judgment.
2 Again, the striking feature here is that Judah is simply one of the many nations that experience the judgment of the Lord. They are no longer the Lord’s covenant people, the nation of priests to the world, the light of hope in a rebellious and unbelieving world; now they are just like the nations and their fate is the same as that of the nations when the Lord comes in judgment.
10 Je ferai cesser parmi eux les cris de réjouissance et les cris d'allégresse, les chants du fiancé et les chants de la fiancée, le bruit de la meule et la lumière de la lampe.