The word that came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, saying,
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The word that came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, saying,
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The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,
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The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying:
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain Here the Prophet teaches us, that the Jews, though…
Here the Prophet teaches us, that the Jews, though they continued to profess God’s holy name, were yet wholly perfidious, and had departed altogether from the law. The import of this discourse is, that the Jews gloried in the name of God, and yet were violaters of his covenant, for they had broken their faith pledged to God, and wholly cast aside the doctrine of the law. The Jews, no doubt, were often greatly exasperated against Jeremiah, as though he was pleading his own cause: it was therefore necessary to set before them their departure from the law, so that they might feel assured that their contention was not with Jeremiah but with Moses, and with God himself, the author of the law. They were doubtless exasperated with his doctrine; but Jeremiah could not spare them when he saw that they were so perverse.
We may understand this better by an example: Though the Papists at this day openly repudiate everything adduced from the law, and the prophets, and the gospel, yet they dissemble on this point, and even affirm that they receive whatever proceeds from God. As they then shuffle and do so shamelessly, he who seeks to restore the pure worship of God and true religion, may deal with them in the same manner. As for instance, when any one of God’s servants meets the Papists, he may thus address them: — “Let not the dispute be now between us individually, but hear what God commanded formerly by Moses, and what he has more fully confirmed by his prophets, and at last by his only — begotten Son and his apostles; so that it is not right to do anything any longer against his word: now then attend to the law and the prophets.”
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We now understand what was God’s design in bidding his servant Jeremiah to speak these words. For, except we duly consider the unfaithfulness of that people, we shall feel surprised that the word covenant is so often mentioned, and it will appear unmeaning to us. But the Prophet, as I have said, when he saw that the Jews by their cavils made evasions, could not deal with them in any other way than by shewing that, they had violated God’s covenant and had thus become apostates, having wholly departed from the law. And he says that this was commanded them by God: nor is there doubt but that God not only suggested this to his servant, but dictated also to him the way and manner of speaking.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Jer 11:1 The word that came to Jeremiah from…
Jer 11:1 The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,
Ver. 1. The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord.] To him it came, but to be imparted to other prophets, say some; priests of Anathoth, say others, {Jer 11:2} which might be the reason why they were so enraged against him, and sought his life, {Jer 11:18-19} as the Popish priests did Mancinel’s, Savonarola’s, and other faithful preachers’, for exciting them to do their duties.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain What time and in what manner this revelation came…
What time and in what manner this revelation came from God to the prophet is not expressed, whether it were in the days of Josiah or Jehoiakim.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain The prophet here, as prosecutor in God's name, draws…
The prophet here, as prosecutor in God's name, draws up an indictment against the Jews for wilful disobedience to the commands of their rightful Sovereign. For the more solemn management of this charge,
I. He produces the commission he had to draw up the charge against them. He did not take pleasure in accusing the children of his people, but God commanded him to speak it to the men of Judah, Jer 11:1, Jer 11:2. In the original it is plural: Speak you this. For what he said to Jeremiah was the same that he gave in charge to all his servants the prophets. They none of them said any other than what Moses, in the law, had said; to that therefore they must refer themselves, and direct the people: "Hear the words of this covenant; turn to your Bibles, be judged by them." Jeremiah must now proclaim this in the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem, that all may hear, for all are concerned. All the words of reproof and conviction which the prophets spoke were grounded upon the words of the covenant, and agreed with that; and therefore "hear these words, and understand by them upon what terms you stood with God at first; and then, by comparing yourselves with the covenant, you will soon be aware upon what terms you now stand with him."
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II. He opens the charter upon which their state was founded and by which they held their privileges. They had forgotten the tenour of it, and lived as if they thought that the grant was absolute and that they might do what they pleased and yet have what God had promised, or as if they thought that the keeping up of the ceremonial observances was all that God required of them. He therefore shows them, with all possible plainness, that the thing God insisted upon was obedience, which was better than sacrifice. He said, Obey my voice, Jer 11:4 and again Jer 11:7. "Own God for your Master; give up yourselves to him as his subjects and servants; attend to all the declarations of his mind and will, and make conscience of complying with them. Do my commandments, not only in some things, but according to all which I command you; make conscience of moral duties especially, and rest not in those that are merely ritual; hear the words of the covenant, and do them." 1. This was the original contract between God and them, when he first formed them into a people. It was what he commanded their fathers when he first brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, Jer 11:4 and Jer 11:7. He never intended to take them under his guidance and protection upon any other terms. This was what he required from them in gratitude for the great things he did for them when he brought them from the iron furnace. He redeemed them out of the service of the Egyptians, which was perfect slavery, that he might take them into his own service, which is perfect freedom, Luk 1:74, Luk 1:75. 2. This was not only laid before them then, but it was with the greatest importunity imaginable pressed upon them, Jer 11:7. God not only commanded it, but earnestly protested it to their fathers, when he brought them into covenant with himself. Moses inculcated it again and again, by precept upon precept and line upon line. 3. This was made the condition of the relation between and God, which was so much their honour and privilege: "So shall you be my people and I will be your God; I will own you for mine, and you may call upon me as yours;" this intimates that, if they refused to obey, they could no longer claim the benefit of the relation. 4. It was upon these terms that the land of Canaan was given them for a possession: Obey my voice, that I may perform the oath sworn to your fathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, Jer 11:5. God was ready to fulfil the promise, but then they must fulfil the condition; if not, the promise is void, and it is just with God to turn them out of possession. Being brought in upon their good behaviour, they had no wrong done them if they were turned out upon their ill behaviour. Obedience was the rent reserved by the lease, with a power to re-enter for non-payment. 5. This obedience was not only made a condition of the blessing, but was required under the penalty of a curse. This is mentioned first here (Jer 11:3), that they might, if possible, be awakened by the terrors of the Lord: Cursed be the man, though it were but a single person, that obeys not the words of this covenant, much more when it is the body of the nation that rebels. There are curses of the covenant as well as blessings: and Moses set before them not only life and good, but death and evil (Deu 30:15), so that they had fair warning given them of the fatal consequences of disobedience. 6. Lest this covenant should be forgotten, and, because out of mind, should be thought out of date, God had from time to time called to them to remember it, and by his servants the prophets had made a continual claim of this rent, so that they could not plead, in excuse of their non-payment, that it had never been demanded; from the day when he brought them out of Egypt to this day (and that was nearly 1000 years) he had been, in one way or other, at sundry times and in divers manners, protesting to them the necessity of obedience. God keeps an account how long we have enjoyed the means of grace and how powerful those means have been, how often we have been not only spoken to, but protested to, concerning our duty. 7. This covenant was consented to (Jer 11:5): Then answered I, and said, So be it, O Lord! These are the words of the prophet, expressing either, (1.) His own consent to the covenant for himself, and his desire to have the benefit of it. God promised Canaan to the obedient: "Lord," says he, "I take thee at thy word, I will be obedient; let me have my inheritance in the land of promise, of which Canaan is a type." Or, (2.) His good will, and good wish, that his people might have the benefit of it. "Amen; Lord, let them still be kept in possession of this good land, and not turned out of it; make good the promise to them." Or, (3.) His people's consent to the covenant: "Then answered I, in the name of the people, So be it." Taking it in this sense, it refers to the declared consent which the people gave to the covenant, not only to the precepts of it when they said, All that the Lord shall say unto us we will do and will be obedient, but to the penalties when they said Amen to all the curses upon Mount Ebal. The more solemnly we have engaged ourselves to God the more reason we have to hope that the engagement will be perpetual; and yet here it did not prove so.
III. He charges them with breach of covenant, such a breach as amounted to a forfeiture of their charter, Jer 11:8. God had said again and again, by his law and by his prophets, "Obey my voice, do as you are bidden, and all shall be well;" yet they obeyed not; and, because they were resolved not to submit their souls to God's commandments, they would not so much as incline their ears to them, but got as far as they could out of call: They walked every one in the imagination of their evil heart, followed their own inventions; every man did as his fancy and humour led him, right or wrong, lawful or unlawful, both in their devotions and in their conversations; see Jer 7:24. What then could they expect, but to fall under the curse of the covenant, since they would not comply with the commands and conditions of it? Therefore I will bring upon them all the words of this covenant, that is, all the threatenings contained in it, because they did not what they were commanded. Note, The words of the covenant shall not fall to the ground. If we do not by our obedience qualify ourselves for the blessings of it, we shall by our disobedience bring ourselves under the curses of it. That which aggravated their defection from God, and rebellion against him, was that it was general, and as it were by consent, Jer 11:9, Jer 11:10. Jeremiah himself saw that many lived in open disobedience to God, but the Lord told him that the matter was worse than he thought of: A conspiracy is found among them, by him whose eye is upon the hidden works of darkness. There is a combination against God and religion, a dangerous design formed to overthrow God's government and bring in the pretenders, the counterfeit deities. This intimates that they were wilful and deliberate in wickedness (they rebelled against God, not through incogitancy, but presumptuously, and with a high hand), - that they were subtle and ingenious in wickedness, and carried on their plot against religion with a great deal of art and contrivance, - that they were linked together in the design, and, as is usual among conspirators, engaged to stand by one another in it and to live and die together; they were resolved to go through with it. A cursed conspiracy! O that there were not the like in our day! Observe, 1. What the conspiracy was. They designed to overthrow divine revelation, and set that aside, and persuade people not to hear, not to heed, the words of God. They did all they could to derogate from the authority of the scriptures and to lessen the value of them; they designed to draw people after other gods to serve them, to consult them as their oracles and make court to them as their benefactors. Human reason shall be their god, a light within their god, an infallible judge their god, saints and angels their gods, the god of this or the other nation shall be theirs; thus, under several disguises, they are in the same confederacy against the Lord and against his anointed. 2. Who were in conspiracy. One would have expected find some foreigners ring-leaders in it; but no, (1.) The inhabitants of Jerusalem are in conspiracy with the men of Judah; city and country agree in this, however they may differ in other things. (2.) Those of this generation seem to be in conspiracy with those of the foregoing generation, to carry on the war from age to age against religion: They are turned back to the iniquities of their forefathers, and have risen up in their stead, a seed of evil-doers, and increase of sinful men, Num 32:14. In Josiah's time there had been a reformation, but after this death the people returned to the idolatries which then they had renounced. (3.) Judah and Israel, the kingdom of the ten tribes and that of the two, that were often at daggers - drawing one with another, were yet in a conspiracy to break the covenant God had made with their fathers, even with the heads of all the twelve tribes. The house of Israel began the revolt, but the house of Judah soon came into the conspiracy. Now what else could be expected but that god should take severe methods, both for the chastising of the conspirators and the crushing of this conspiracy; for none ever hardened his heart thus against God and prospered? He that rolls this stone will find it return upon him.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord,…
The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying. Here seems to begin a new prophecy; but when it was, and under what reign, and what time between this and the former, is not known; however, it was from the Lord, and so to be regarded.
The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying. Here seems to begin a new prophecy; but when it was, and under what reign, and what time between this and the former, is not known; however, it was from the Lord, and so to be regarded.
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Jeremiah 11:2
jer 11:2
jer 11:2
jer 11:2Hear ye the words of this covenant,.... Which. Dr. Lightfoot understands of the covenant lately made in the times of Josiah, upon finding and reading the law of Moses, Kg2 23:3, but it seems rather to design the law of Moses itself; or the covenant made with the people of Israel on Mount Horeb, Exo 24:7, or rather which was made with them in the land of Moab, Deu 29:1. The words of it are the things contained in it, the blessings and curses; the order to hear them is in the plural number, and is directed, not to Jeremiah only, but to others with him, the rest of the prophets that were in his days; as Zephaniah, who prophesied, as Kimchi observes, in the reign of Josiah; and there was Baruch his companion; or the priests at Anathoth are here addressed with him; though it is usual, in the Hebrew language, to put one number for another; and Jeremiah, in the next verse, is singly addressed; and the Syriac version renders it in the singular number; perhaps the book of the law might lie before him, and be pointed at; and so he is bid to take it, or "receive" it, as the Targum is, and read and publish it to the Jews, as follows:
and speak unto the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem: the words of the covenant, and what follows.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain God's covenant, ver. 1-7. Their disobedience, ver. 8-10. Evils…
God's covenant, ver. 1-7. Their disobedience, ver. 8-10. Evils to come on them, ver. 11-17. and on the men of Anathoth, for conspiring to kill Jeremiah, ver. 18-23.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain The prophet proclaims the tenor of God's covenant with…
CHAPTER XI
The prophet proclaims the tenor of God's covenant with the Jews
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of old, 1-5;
and then reproves them for their hereditary disobedience, 6-19.
In consequence of this the Almighty is introduced, declaring he
will show them no pity, 11-13;
forbidding Jeremiah to intercede, 14;
rejecting their sacrifices, 15;
and in a word, condemning this fair but unfruitful tree to the
fire, 16, 17.
In what remains of the chapter the prophet predicts evil to his
neighbours of Anathoth, who had conspired against him, 18-23.
"Let us," said they, "destroy this tree, with the fruit
thereof," &c., alluding to what Jeremiah had said in the
sixteenth verse.
NOTES ON CHAP. XI
Verse 1. The word that came to Jeremiah] This discourse is supposed to have been delivered in the first year of the reign of Zedekiah. See Dahler.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Jer 11:1. The word that came to Jeremiah, &c.…
Jer 11:1. The word that came to Jeremiah, &c. — At what time the prophecy, contained in this and the following chapter, was communicated to the prophet, is not expressed; but Blaney and many others assign it to the latter part of the reign of Josiah,” when the people, who, in the eighteenth year of that prince, had solemnly engaged to perform the obligations of the divine covenant, may be supposed to have relapsed, in course of time, into their former disregard and neglect. The prophet, therefore, is sent to recall them to their duty, by proclaiming the terms of the covenant, and rebuking them sharply for their hereditary disobedience.”
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain The prophecy contained in Jer. 11–12 seems to belong…
The prophecy contained in Jer. 11–12 seems to belong to an early period of Jeremiah’s life. The covenant Jer 11:2 was that renewed by Josiah in his 18th year, after the discovery of the Book of the Law in the temple 2Ki 23:3; while Jer 11:13 apparently refers to the public establishment of idolatry by Manasseh Jer 21:3. The people took no hearty part in Josiah’s reformation, and the prophet therefore sets before them the consequences that will inevitably fellow upon their disloyalty to their covenant-God. The prophecy was probably called forth by the conspiracy of the men of Judah and of his own relatives of Anathoth to murder Jeremiah Jer 11:18-23; Jer 12:1-6, for such deeds, which but too well represented the nation’s whole course, punishment must come, if unrepented of.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain The, &c. He continues his discourse, (ver. 15.) or…
The, &c. He continues his discourse, (ver. 15.) or rather addresses the people, when Josias renewed the covenant, 2 Paralipomenon xxxiv. 29., Leviticus xxvi., and Deuteronomy xxvii. (Calmet)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain (Jeremiah 11-12)
4. FOURTH DISCOURSE
(Jeremiah 11-12)
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With An Appendix. Chap. 13
The three chapters 11–13 are headed in common by a longer superscription (Jer_11:1) such as those with which Jeremiah is accustomed to introduce the greater sections. A similar one occurs again in Jer_14:1. But chaps. 11 and 12 only form a connected whole, as will hereafter be shown. In the passage Jer_12:14, where the prophet speaks of the wicked neighbors by which the inheritance of Israel was assailed, an allusion has been found to the event reported in 2Ki_24:2 and the time of composition of this discourse determined accordingly. (So Dahler, Maurer, Hitzig, Umbreit, Graf). The discourse would accordingly pertain to the end of the reign of Jehoiakim. But in this case Jeremiah must have named the Chaldeans as the instruments of punishment, as he does without exception in all the discourses delivered after the battle of Carchemish. The fact that the Chaldeans are not mentioned is a sure sign that the discourse was delivered before the date mentioned, which falls in the fourth year of Jehoiakim (Jer_25:1; Jer_46:2). Since now in the lifetime of Josiah a violation of covenant in the degree with which the people are reproached in Jer_11:9-13 (observe especially Jer_11:13) is not to be thought of, and the three months’ reign of Jehoahaz is scarcely worth consideration, we are referred to the first years of Jehoiakim, consequently the same period to which the preceding discourse (Jer_7:10) belongs. If what is said in Jer_12:9 sqq. of wicked neighbors has some reference to 2Ki_24:2 it can only be that we may perceive in the latter the at least partial fulfilment of the former. Comp. the comments on Jer_12:14.—Ch. 13 is not connected with chaps. 11 and 12. It forms a well-compacted whole, the time and origin of which may be perceived partly from its silence with respect to the Chaldeans, and partly from what is said concerning the pride of the king. It must likewise belong to the first years of Jehoiakim. Comp. the preliminary remarks on Jeremiah 13. The principle of chronological arrangement is here also perceptible.
That Jer_12:7-17 is not a later addition, as Maurer, Hitzig and Graf suppose, is evident, as it seems to me, from the structure of the whole.
The fundamental thought of the discourse is:
The contrast of the covenant and conspiracy
(קֶשֶׁר and בְּרִית)
1. Reminder of the recent renewal under Josiah of the covenant between Jehovah and the peoples, Jer_11:1-8.
2. First stage of the conspiracy; entire Israel, instead of keeping the covenant with Jehovah, conspires against Him, Jer_11:9-13.
3. Punishment of the conspiracy an inevitable, severe judgment, Jer_11:14-17. (Appendix to the previous strophe).
4. Second stage of the conspiracy: the plot of the Anatotites, Jer_11:18-23.
5. Third stage of the conspiracy: the plot in the prophet’s own family, Jer_12:1-6.
6. The conspiracy of Israel punished by the conspiracy of the neighbors against them, Jer_11:7-13.
7. Solution of all antitheses by the final union of all in the Lord, Jer_12:14-17.
Jeremiah 11
1. Reminder of the recent renewal under Josiah of the Covenant between Jehovah and the people
Jer_11:1-8
1 The word which came to Jeremiah from Jehovah, saying:
2 Hear ye the words of this covenant,
And speak ye to the men of Judah,
And to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
3 And say to them: Thus saith Jehovah, the God of Israel:
Cursed1 be the man who hears not the words of this covenant,
4 Which I commanded to your fathers
In the day that I brought them forth out of the land of Egypt,
And out of the iron furnace, saying,
Hearken ye unto my voice and do them [my commands]
According to all that which I command you;
So shall ye be my people and I will be your God;
5 To perform the oath which I swore to your fathers;
To give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as it is this day.
And I said, Amen, Jehovah!
6 And Jehovah said unto me,
Proclaim all these words in the city of Judah
And in the streets of Jerusalem, saying,
Hear ye the words of this covenant and do them!
7 For I testified to your fathers on the day2
That I brought them out of the land of Egypt,
Even to this day urgently and unceasingly:
Hearken ye unto my voice!
8 But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear,
And went, every man in the hardness of his wicked heart;
And I brought upon them all the words of this covenant,
Which I commanded them to keep; but they kept them not.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
This is strophe forms the basis of the discourse. It must therefore, to be understood, be rendered in closest connection with what follows. It relates how the Lord once (in the 18th year of king Josiah, 2 Kings 22), after the discovery of the book of the law, admonished to the observance of the covenant formed between him and their fathers, and especially according to the standard of the 5th book of the Torah, both on the whole (Jer_11:1-5) and particulars (i. e., by repeated proclamation in the cities of Judah and streets of Jerusalem, Jer_11:6-8) indicating both the blessed consequences of covenant-fidelity (Jer_11:4-5) and the ruinous consequences of infidelity (Jer_11:8). In so far as Jer_11:10 relates the breach of the covenant so expressly enjoined in this strophe it is seen that this injunction must have been made previously, that therefore this strophe gives a representation of a past fact. But so far as the strophe reports only this inculcation of the covenant it is clear that it points to something later than its redintegration.
Jer_11:1-2. The word which came … and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. The superscription is like Jer_7:1.—Hear, etc. Since, as previously remarked, what follows is to be regarded as the narrative of a fact which occurred in former times, hear does not refer to the contents of the word proclaimed in Jer_11:1, but of an earlier word. Jer_11:1 refers therefore to the whole discourse, and before hear is to be supplied an introductory formula leading back to the real time of this inculcation of the covenant. The subject of hear is most probably according to Jer_11:6, the people of Judah and Jerusalem. The words stand at the head as a general call of awakening and admonition. ודברתם, LXX., καὶ λαλήσεις, which recommends the reading ודִבַּרְתָּם. But according to the reading of the text it is the priests, elders and prophets, who in 2Ki_22:1; 2Ch_34:29, are expressly mentioned as participating in the covenant. There are as it were three concentric circles. The smallest represents Jeremiah, who would bring home to the people the importance of keeping the covenant. But it cannot be denied that the want of an express designation of the subject is remarkable. Perhaps the brevity of the expression may be thus explained that the prophet wished to give mere hints, knowing that these would be sufficient to recall to the memory of his hearers the former more extended discourses.—The words of this covenant. The pronoun this designates the covenant as one before their eyes and well-known. Comp. this passage with 2 Kings 22, 23; 2 Chronicles 34 (Vid., especially 2Ki_23:3, coll. Jer_22:13; Jer_23:2; 2Ch_34:30), and there can be no doubt that by the words this covenant in Jer_11:2-3; Jer_11:6; Jer_11:8, is meant that, the archives of which were contained in the book found by Hezekiah. The expression is found besides only in Deut. (Jer_5:3; Jer_29:13). The expression, words of the covenant, besides 2Ki_23:2; 2Ch_34:30, is found only Deut. 28:69; Deu_29:8, and in Jer_34:18. This passage also (to anticipate) contains several references to Deuteronomy, from which it follows that the covenant-record, which both Jeremiah in this passage and the authors of the books of Kings and Chronicles (2 Kings 20, 23; 2 Chronicles 34) have in view, is to be understood at least primarily and especially to be Deuteronomy.—Men of Judah. Comp. rems. on Jer_4:4. On the exchange of אֵל and עַל, see rems. on Jer_10:1.
Jer_11:3-5. And say to them … Amen, Jehovah! Jeremiah receives the special commission to present before the people the importance of keeping the covenant: cursing and blessing being dependent on it. While in Jer_11:3; Jer_11:5, the discourse seems to be addressed to the whole of the people, it turns in Jer_11:6-8, to the particular portions. Further, while the prophet in Jer_11:3-5 holds before the people the divine curse and blessing, he seeks in Jer_11:6-8 to make an impression on them by pointing to the fulfilment of the curse already taken place on their disobedient fathers.—In the day, etc. Comp. Jer_7:22; Jer_34:13.—The pronoun them is to be referred to the plural conception of commands implied in according to all. comp. Naegelsb. Gr. §, 61, 1.—To perform the oath. In order to realize the existence of the oath, comp. Deu_8:18, coll.; Deu_27:26.—Amen, Jehovah is, as remarked, a quotation from Deu_27:15 sqq. The prophet gives it to be understood by this Amen, that he has understood the allusion contained in cursed, Jer_11:3.
Jer_11:6-8. And Jehovah said unto me … but they kept them not. The prophet here reads the commission given him in the 18th year of Josiah, to make known the words of the covenant by reading them not only in the central sanctuary (comp. 2Ki_23:1-3), but also by repeated readings in the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem. The prophet may have accompanied king Josiah on his circuit, which is spoken of in 2Ki_23:15-20. Since it was the making known of a written document, the proclamation is most probably meant in the sense of reading, as קָרָא generally signifies to read aloud; comp. 2Ki_22:8; 2Ki_22:10; 2Ki_22:16; 2Ki_23:2; Jer_36:6; Jer_36:8; Jer_36:10; Jer_36:13, etc.—For I testified. Comp Psa_50:7, and the previously cited passages of Deut.—urgently. Comp. Jer_7:13; Jer_7:25.—But they hearkened not. Comp. Jer_7:24.—hardness. Comp. rems. on Jer_3:17.
[1]Jer_11:3.—אָרוּר ו׳ Jer_11:3, and the corresponding אָמֵן, Jer_11:5, remind us of Deu_27:15 sqq., especially Deu_11:26.—iron furnace is found only in Deu_4:20 and (as a quotation) in 1Ki_8:51. הָעֵד ו׳ is not exclusively yet especially peculiar to Deut., since besides Gen_43:3; Exo_19:21-22 it occurs in the Pentateuch only Deu_4:26; Deu_8:19; Deu_30:19; Deu_31:28; Deu_32:46.—שׁרִירוּת Jer_11:3, is found in the Pentateuch only in Deu_29:18. Also the expressions so shall ye be my people, Jer_11:4, and a land flowing, etc., are not indeed peculiar to, but very common in Deuteronomy. (Comp. in reference to the former Exo_6:7; Lev_26:12; and Deu_4:20; Deu_7:6; Deu_14:2; Deu_26:18; Deu_29:9; Deu_29:12,—in reference to the latter Exo_3:8; Exo_3:17, and Deu_6:3; Deu_11:9; Deu_26:9; Deu_26:15; Deu_27:3; Deu_31:20).
[2]Jer_11:7.—בְּיוֹם we should expect מיּוֹם. The former is perhaps occasioned by בְּיוֹם, Jer_11:4.
2. ENTIRE ISRAEL, INSTEAD OF KEEPING THE COVENANT WITH JEHOVAH, ENTERS INTO CONSPIRACY AGAINST HIM
Jer_11:9-13
9 And Jehovah said unto me,
A conspiracy is found among the men of Judah,
And among the citizens of Jerusalem.
10 They are returned to the sins of their fathers,
Who scorned to hear my words;
And are gone after other gods, to serve them.
The house of Israel, and the house of Judah
Have broken the covenant which I made with their fathers.
11 Therefore thus saith Jehovah, Behold!
I bring upon them evil, from which they cannot escape;
And they will cry to me, but I will not hear them.
12 And the cities of Judah and citizens of Jerusalem shall go,
And cry to the gods to which they burn incense,
But help them—this they will not at the time of their calamity.
13 For as the number of thy cities are thy gods, O Judah!
And as the number of the streets in Jerusalem
Have ye set up altars of shame,
Even altars to burn incense unto Baal.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
The Lord has made a covenant with the people, but when the people are regarded now (at the time when Jeremiah thus speaks), there is no longer any trace of it (the covenant made in the reign of Josiah) to be found, but only conspiracy. The prophet shows the existence of such a conspiracy in three stages: 1, in the entire people of Israel (Jer_11:9-10); 2, among the people of Anathoth (Jer_11:18-23); 3, in the prophet’s own family (Jer_12:1-6).—In this strophe the existence of such conspiracy among the people in general is just stated (Jer_11:9-10), then its punishment is announced, (Jer_11:11) which will be of such a nature that the gods will be unable to deliver from it (Jer_11:12), though Judah and Jerusalem worship so large a number of them (Jer_11:13).
Jer_11:9-10. A conspiracy is found … which I made with their fathers. On is found (נִמְצָא), comp. Jer_2:34; Jer_5:26. קֶשֶׁר=conspiracy against the rightful Lord, in opposition to the covenant (בְרִית) which is in accordance with right and duty. In such conspiracies the time of the kings was especially rife (comp. 1Ki_16:20; 2Ki_12:20; 2Ki_14:19; 2Ki_15:15; 2Ki_15:30; 2Ki_17:4), as generally a disposition to conspire is attributed to the Jews (comp. Drechsler on Isa_8:12; Act_23:12 sqq.).—The expression שָׁבוּ presupposes the covenant mentioned in Jer_11:1 sqq., and proves that this section is to be regarded as a reminder of a past fact.—House of Israel, etc. A comprehensive survey: not merely Judah and Jerusalem (Jer_11:9), but Israel and Judah have broken the covenant.
Jer_11:11-13. Therefore thus saith Jehovah … to burn incense to Baal. Announcement of punishment.—For gives the reason and explanation of the declaration of Jer_11:12, that Israel will take refuge with the idols. This may happen because they have idols in numbers, and offer to them numerous acts of worship.—as the number. Comp. Jer_2:28.—altars of shame. Comp. rems. on Jer_3:24; Hos_9:10.
3. THE PUNISHMENT OF THE CONSPIRACY IS AN INEVITABLE AND SEVERE JUDGMENT
Jer_11:14-17
14 Therefore pray not thou for this people,
Nor raise for them crying and supplication;
For I hear not, if they cry unto me on account of their calamity.
15 What has my beloved to do in my house?
To practise it—the enormity?
Will crying and holy flesh take away from thee thy hurt?3
Then mayest thou exult!
16 “Green olive-tree, splendid with goodly fruit,”
Thus did Jehovah call thy name.
Amid rattling thunder he set fire to it;
And they broke—its branches.
17 And Jehovah Zebaoth, who planted thee,
Hath pronounced evil against thee
“On account of the wickedness of the house of Israel and the house of Judah
Which they practised to their own hurt,4
Provoking me and burning incense to Baal.”5
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
This section is closely attached to the preceding as an appendix. In Jer_11:11 it was said that a punishment of Israel was determined upon, which they could not escape. For neither will the Lord hear their cries, nor the idols be able to help them.—The thought I hear not (Jer_11:11 b), is further explained in this strophe: 1. The Lord will not even hear the prophet (Jer_11:14 a); 2, nor the people (Jer_11:14 b) even though they offer prayers and sacrifices in His temple (Jer_11:15). Although the Lord even acknowledges Israel to be a beautiful olive-tree which He Himself planted, yet He must adhere to His determination to punish on account of the wickedness which Israel has practised (Jer_11:16-17).
Jer_11:14-15. Therefore pray not thou … then mayest thou exult. At first the Lord explains that the intercession of the prophet will be of no avail in the same words as in Jer_7:16 coll. Jer_14:11. He then says that the people’s own supplication to avert the calamity will be in vain. This he elucidates in Jer_11:14, by showing that this beseeching, though offered in the temple and with sacrifices, is only a deceptive mask, under which is hidden the object of continuing in sin. יְדִיד is not Jehovah nor the prophet, but the people, this being imperatively demanded by the sense of the question. What has my beloved to do in my house? can be asked only of such a beloved, whose appearance in the house of the Lord is not welcome. This can be Israel alone, who, although in themselves and originally the beloved of Jehovah, have yet been so estranged from Him, that the question may be fairly asked, what this faithless beloved (now ironically so called) has to do in the house of the Lord? The expression appears to be based on Deu_33:12, where Benjamin, in evident allusion to his dwelling in the vicinity of the national sanctuary, is called the beloved of Jehovah. Comp. besides Isa_5:1 : Psa_60:7; Psa_108:7; Psa_127:2.—The answer to the question is: To practise it … the enormity. As to the construction of these words, the anticipation of the object by a pronoun is nothing unusual. Comp. Jer_27:8; Jer_51:56; 1Sa_9:13; Naegelsb., Gr. §, 77, 2.—But why this anticipation here? It presupposes that the object has been already mentioned, or is generally known. Now this מְזִמָּה, by which not any wickedness, but in accordance with the question, the hypocritical pseudo-worship of Jehovah is to be understood, has not been mentioned in the discourse hitherto. But in rhetorical vivacity the prophet presupposes as known, that which, now as before, deeply troubles him, and which by the initial words of the verse he has indicated with sufficient plainness. The thought and the expression recall unmistakably (as Maurer remarks) Jer_7:10 : “and then ye come and stand before me in the house which bears my name, and say, we are hidden—to do all these abominations.” As here (Jer_7:10) the head of the wickedness is found in this, that Israel regard the temple-service as a sort of sow-washing (2Pe_2:22), to which they betake themselves, not to purify themselves thoroughly, but only to make room for fresh filth, so in this passage the prophet says that Israel has nothing to do in the house of the Lord, but “to do it, the wickedness,” namely, that described in chap. 7, which, under the appearance of wishing to be freed from sin, only hides the object of more completely committing it. Accordingly מְזִמָּה is here to be taken in the sense in which it most frequently occurs, viz., in that of evil design, of purposed, conscious wickedness (Psa_10:2; Psa_21:12; Psa_139:20; Job_21:27, etc.). The more full-sounding form (comp. Olsh. § 133) has a rhetorical reason, as also the rarer suffix forms following כִי. This double form, (which does not occur elsewhere in Jeremiah) may both in itself and in its accumulation, be for the purpose of rhetorical effect and more particularly that of irony. With this agrees the distinctly ironical expression, then mayest thou exult, which bears reference to what has my beloved?etc., that is, to the manner in which the proud and secure people appeared in the temple. Not now, the prophet means to say, but then may you exult, when your prayers and sacrifices have helped you.
Jer_11:16-17. Green olive-tree … incense to Baal. The occasion of the thought, prayers, etc. will not avert thy calamity. This will be on this account, v.z., that the Lord, though He acknowledges Israel to be a beautiful olive-tree, planted by Himself, has determined to destroy him. The parable of the olive-tree in reference to Israel is found also in Ps. 52:10 [8]; Isa_17:6; Isa_24:13; Hos_14:6.—Amid rattling, etc., (לקול) comp. on Jer_10:13.—המולה synonymous with הָמוֹו, besides only in Eze_1:24. The prophet compares the catastrophe threatening Israel to a tempest.—Set fire, etc., comp. Jer_17:27; Jer_21:14; Jer_43:12; Jer_49:27; Jer_50:32; Amo_1:14.—They broke. Since an intransitive meaning of the original word cannot be proved, we must regard as the subject either (by a rapid transition from figure to reality) the enemies, or it is to be derived from another root רעע, the radical meaning of which is tumultuari, agitari, concitari (comp. Fuerst, H. W. B. and Concord, s. v.) The former is to be preferred, since fire is not followed by a mere shaking but a breaking of branches.—And Jehovah Zebaoth, etc. If in and they broke we perceived a partial transition into the sphere of reality (namely, in respect to the subject), here we perceive the transition to be complete. It is declared in plain words that the Lord has pronounced the judgment of condemnation on Israel, (Jer_19:15; Jer_26:19). In the word planted only, which contains a corroborative point, as it traces not only the name but also the existence of the beautiful olive tree to God (comp. Jer_2:21) is the figure still retained. On practised to their own hurt, comp. Jer_7:19; Jer_44:3.
Footnotes:
[3] Jer_11:15—The text here is certainly corrupt; 1, because, as it reads at present, it affords no intelligible meaning; 2, because the ancient translations indicate other readings. הָרַבִּים especially is unintelligible, whether we connect it with what goes before or after. The LXX. translate μὴ εὐχαὶ καὶ κρέα ἅγια ἀφελοῦσιν ἀπὸ σοῦ τας κακίας σου. They seem then to have read הַנְּדָרִים as some suppose, or more probably הָרָנִּים (Buxtorf, Maurer, Graf). This latter word, indeed, occurs only in Psa_32:7 in the expression רנּי פלּט: but since the word is formed quite regularly (comp. עזֹ ,רֹב ,חֹק, etc.) the plural רָנִּים (instead of רֻנִּים, which elsewhere is certainly the form exclusively used: comp. Olsh., § 156), being analogous to the forms חָגּי ,רָנִּי, etc. since further רִנָּה, also Jer_7:16; Jer_11:14; Jer_14:12, coll. Psa_17:1; 1Ki_8:28, etc., signifies supplication, prayer, and is translated in Jer_11:14; Jer_14:12 by the LXX. δέησις, since finally the idea of “beseeching, crying,” corresponds exactly to קָרְאָם. I regard it as most probable that רנים was the original word in this place, but that the word, either purposely, because it does not occur elsewhere, or by mistake, was changed into the slightly differing form רבים. If the question begins with הָרָנִּים, the following ו in וּבְשַר ו׳ is entirely in place.—בְּשַׂר־קֹדֶשׁ is found also in Hag_2:12 of the flesh of sacrifice, and seems here especially to indicate the Holocaus’a or burnt-offerings, in which the flesh of the animal is burnt (Leviticus 1). The following words also are scarcely intelligible without an alteration of the text. We, therefore, after the example of many commentators, either render יַעַבְרוּ as Hiph. (like וַיַדְרְכוּ. 9, 2. Vide in loc.), or read יַעֲבִרוּ. We connect כִּי after מעליךְ (LXX., Ewald, Meier, etc.), and obtain the sense, Will thy prayers and sacrifices take away thy wickedness (רָעַה has the double sense=sin and punishment) from thee? The thought then corresponds exactly to the close of Jer_11:14.
[Blayney renders: Shall vows and holy flesh be allowed to come from thee? When thou art malignant, shalt thou then rejoice? Noyes and Henderson, adhering to the text, render, the former: While many pollute it with wickedness?—The holy flesh shall pass away from thee. For when thou doest evil, thou rejoicest; the latter: Committing as she doth the manifold enormity? And the holy flesh hath passed away from thee. etc. It seems, however, strained to render this expression “pass away” of their sacrifices being unacceptable to God.—S. R. A.]
[4]Jer_11:17.—[Henderson: Which they committed against themselves.]
[5]Jer_11:17.—On the infinitives לְקַטֵּר ,לְהַכְעִסֵני. Comp. Naegelsb. Gr. § 95, e.
2. SECOND STAGE OF THE CONSPIRACY: THE PLOT OF THE ANATHOTHITES
Jer_11:18-23
18 And Jehovah instructed me and I learned.
Then didst thou show me their doings.
19 But I was as a tame sheep, that is led to the slaughter,
And remarked not, that they had had thoughts concerning me:
“Let us destroy the tree with its fruit,
And extirpate him from the land of the living,
That his name may no more be mentioned.”
20 But Jehovah Zebaoth judges with justice;
He tries the reins and heart.
I shall see thy vengeance on them,
For on thee have I devolved my cause.
21 Therefore this saith Jehovah of the men of Anathoth,
Who sought after thy life, saying:
“Prophesy not in the name of Jehovah,
That thou die not6 by our hand”—
22 Therefore thus saith Jehovah Zebaoth:
Behold, I visit them,
The young men shall die by the sword;
Their sons and their daughters shall die of famine.
23 And there shall be no remnant of them,
For I will bring calamity on the men of Anathoth
In the year of their visitation.7
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
The prophet here also evidently speaks of a conspiracy, and of one which existed in a narrower circle (the city of Anathoth). Jer_11:18 opens with the declaration that in what follows a fact will be communicated, of which the prophet received intelligence only from the Lord. In Jer_11:19 it is stated that this fact consisted in a plot against the life of the prophet. In Jer_11:20 the prophet expresses his hope that the Lord will avenge him. Jer_11:21-23 announce the vengeance of the Lord in response.
Jer_11:18-19. And Jehovah instructed me … no more be mentioned. The connection with ו shows that the following verses are closely connected with the preceding. The construction in Jer_11:18 a is like Jer_20:7 a. By instructed me the prophet gives the Lord the glory and preintimates at the same time that it was something secret.—Their doings declares that this consisted in an act of wicked men.—Tame, comp. Jer_3:4; 2Sa_12:3. [Henderson:—A lamb that has been tamed so as to be familiar and play with children. One such is commonly to be found in the house of the Arab.—S. R. A.]—With its fruit. Hitzig would read בְּלֵחֹוin its cap (comp. Deu_34:7; Eze_21:3) because לֶחֶם signifies corn, not the fruit of a tree. But the idea of the product afforded by the tree such as serves for food is here essential. Comp. Jer_11:21 b. Since, as it is acknowledged לחם originally meant food in general (comp. Gen_47:12; Isa_65:25; Job_28:5; Pro_27:27) we here also understand by it the edible product of the tree. This is certainly the fruit in opposition to the sap, wood, leaves, etc. On בְּ = cum comp. Naegelsb.Gr. § 112, 5, a.
Jer_11:20-23. But Jehovah Zebaoth … in the year of their visitation. Jer_11:20 is repeated almost verbatim in Jer_20:12 coll. Jer_17:10.—Tries. The prophet appeals for a confirmation of his innocence to the omniscient God.—גליתי׳. The form according to Piel. from גָלָה. The connection however requires the meaning “to shove, to roll,” which is also favored by the analogy of the passages, Psa_22:9; Psa_37:5; Pro_16:3, comp. Ewald, § 121, a.—prophesy not. Comp. Amo_2:12; Amo_7:13. Doubtless the plot was to perform the unsuccessful threatening.—In Jer_11:22 the introductory formula is repeated after the interruption.—I will bring calamity, comp. Jer_19:15; Jer_23:12.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. On Jer_11:3. “The curse of the Law excites anger, but the curse of the covenant abashes. I have seen an atheist tremble at the words ‘If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema (1Co_16:22).’ He remarked it himself, and sought to excuse himself by saying ‘it was motus incoluntarii.’ But it was the words of the covenant, Thou shalt love.” Zinzendorf.
2. On Jer_11:5. “Hic παίδευμα a laiet et pro ministris verbi. et pro eorum auditoribus. Ministri exemplo prophetæ monentur, ut similem in officio promtitudinem et animi alacritatem Deo probent, quemadmodum etiam de Jesaja legitur, Jer_6:8. Auditores hic docentur, ut de voluntate Dei ex verbo moniti in corde suo dicant; amen, promti et parati ad obedientiam verbo præstandam.” Förster.
3. On Jer_11:14. “Intercession for all men has good reason for it in the love which is due to one’s neighbor, and it is also commanded, 1Ti_2:1-2, but on the part of those who offer it, a certain order is required so that it may be heard (Luk_13:8-9; Joh_9:31).” Langh Op. bibl.
4. On Jer_11:15. “It is a snare to a man to blaspheme the holy, and after that to seek vows [after vows to make inquiry] (Pro_20:24). For that is the manner of hypocrites, to offer St. Martin a penny and then steal a horse; and when they have opposed God and His word to the utmost, to turn afterwards to sacrifices, fasting and alms, and wish thus to exculpate themselves.” Cramer.
5. On Jer_11:16-17. “God has appointed us to be trees of righteousness, plants of the Lord for His glory (Isa_61:3). He, however, who bringeth not forth good fruit, is hewn down and cast into the fire (Mat_7:19).” Cramer. [“Every sin against God is a sin against ourselves, and so it will be found sooner or later.” Henry.—S. R. A.]
6. On Jer_11:18. “Although the human heart cannot be fathomed (Jer_17:9), yet nothing can be hidden from God, and He frequently reveals secret counsels, so that they are known and manifest, as in the case of Absalom and Ahithophel (Isa_8:10). Therefore do nothing in secret, in the hope that it will remain hidden, for the birds of heaven carry the voice, and the winged repeat it (Ecc_10:20).” Cramer.
7. On Jer_11:20. “The first New Testament vengeance was executed on the cross, when an evildoer who had mocked at Jesus, cringed on the cross, and asked for a gracious remembrance. The Lamb of God could scarcely wait the time of vengeance: To-day, said He, shalt thou be with Me in Paradise. According to this may the Jeremiahs of our times, the preachers of righteousness, take the measure of their holy desire for vengeance.” Zinzendorf. [“It is a comfort, when we are wronged that we have a God to commit our cause to: and our duty to commit it to Him, with a resolution to acquiesce in His definite sentence; to subscribe and not prescribe to Him.” Henry.—S. R. A.]
8. On Jer_11:20. “A teacher is advised to say this if he can, ‘I have ceased to concern myself about myself.’ Dr. Luther says,
Once I grasped too many things:—
None staid; they all had wings:
But since I’ve weary grown,
And all away have thrown,
Not one from me has flown.
And do you ask, how can it be thus?—
Because I’ve cast my all on Jesus.
Messengers and servants, who concern themselves about their own injuries must have bad masters.” Zinzendorf.
9. On Jer_11:22. When the people will not endure the rod of Christ’s mouth, with which He smites the earth (Isa_11:4), item His rods Beauty and Bands (Zec_11:7), God sends one with the sword to preach, which is followed by the red spice, and then we see what the smooth preachers have effected (Isa_30:10).” Cramer.
10. On Jer_12:1. “But can we conceive anything more humane and gracious than our dear Lord? We know beforehand that we are wrong; we do not doubt that He does all well, but it yet oppresses us. We should like to make a clean breast of it. Where shall we find one with whom we could do this? The fly on the wall, the domestic, the child, that comes in our way? Assuredly not! Straight to our Lord, the eternal and living God, with all our ill-humor, doubt, care, scruples! Pour out your heart before Him (Psa_62:8).” Zinzendorf.
11. On Jer_12:1-3. “It is a common grievance, to live and experience that the ungodly are prosperous and the godly are unfortunate (Psa_38:20; Psa_73:12; Job_21:7; Job_31:2), against which David wrote the 32. Ps. Have recourse to the testimony that there is another life, when the tables will be turned and the evil will be recompensed with evil and the good with good (Isa_65:13).” Cramer.
12. On Jer_12:3. “The prosperity of the ungodly should exhort them to repentance by the long-suffering of God (Rom_2:4). But when even this does not avail, there are still people of this world, who have their portion in this life, who fill only their belly (Psa_17:14) and carry nothing away. What profit then is there to them even if they had the whole world, and suffer injury to their souls (Mat_16:26. The rich man in Luk_16:23).” Cramer.
13. On Jer_12:4. “It is strange that even in the people of God the Epicurean opinion has found acceptance, that God sits idly in the heavens, caring nothing about what goes on below, doing neither that which is good nor that which is evil, (Zep_1:12), seeing not what men do (Eze_8:10; Eze_9:9), and that future things are altogether hidden both from him and his prophet. So powerful is the devil among the children of unbelief.” Cramer.
14. On Jer_12:4. “Tales hodie sunt Epicuri de grege porci, quibus sæpe est in ore, the devil is not so black, hell is not so hot, as the parson in the pulpit makes out. Sed his historia divitis epulonis occinenda (Luke 16). Nam ibi—Christ puts forth his hand into hell-fire, snatches a brand out therefrom, and holds it in the face of all Epicureans, as though He would say, Smell, smell, how hot hell-fire is.” Förster.
15. On Jer_12:5. “I have heard that an able preacher, when he had to deliver a trial sermon for the position of court-preacher, took this text. The exposition is plain. No servant of the Lord should long for more respectable, rich, discreet, sociable hearers. Let every one approve himself thoroughly in all changes, and be sure of his cause and lean not to his own understanding.” Zinzendorf.
16. On Jer_12:6. “Many must add to this, wife, child, colleague, domestics, and whatever more the Saviour mentions, which may be against a man. One is often offered by his mother to the dear God (i. e. dedicated to the pastoral office) but in an altogether different sense; and when he afterwards walks as becomes him, according to the gospel of Christ, those are his bitterest enemies, who hoped that he might comfort them in all their travail, and who not only do not gain anything from his labors as a witness, but must bear the shame and ridicule, that their son, brother, cousin, husband, father, friend, etc. will yet render them all unfortunate.” Zinzendorf.
17. On Jer_12:7, sqq. “They are sweet words and beautiful names with which the Lord baptizes and names His city, and it is so hard for it to be punished by God for its sins that we are long in learning to consider our own account.” (Rom_11:21). Cramer.
18. On Jer_12:7, sqq. “The heart of a believer is God’s most cherished abode, but if man corrupt it with wilful sin, God must forsake this house.” (Isa_59:2). Starke.
19. On Jer_12:10, sqq. “A servant of the Lord who should follow on twelve hirelings or wolves may depend on this, that he will find nothing else than a house, a vineyard of the Lord, but a desecrated house, an uprooted vineyard, in which many preparations are needed before he can proceed to his regular work.” Zinzendorf.
20. On Jer_12:14, sqq. “The Christian church has a triple consolation. 1. That its enemies will be punished; 2. That God again has mercy on it; 3. That it also converts a part of its enemies and gathers them into its little flock of believers.” Cramer.
21. On Jer_12:16. “Some time since I found in the so-called Herrnhut lot-book for the year 1737 the words in the vision of Isa_59:17 : Thy destroyer and they that made thee waste shall go forth of thee! Under them were these two lines, ‘let them rather remain and attach them to us.’ This is what Jeremiah says; they may yet come out right.—Paul has confirmed it by his example. Within three days he was a persecutor, a false teacher, a poor sinner, a justified sinner, a witness, an apostle. With joy would I bestow the same happiness on every one of those, whom I at this moment cannot regard otherwise than as the enemies, of the cross of Christ.” Zinzendorf.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
1. On Jer_11:1-10 there is extant a homily of Origen (the 9th in Lommatzsch’s ed.) likewise on Jer_11:18 to Jer_12:9 (the 10th) and on Jer_12:11 to Jer_13:1 (the 11th.)
2. Förster remarks that Jer_11:19-20 accords with Mat_22:15 sqq. (XXIII. Sunday after Tr.) and that the persecution of Jeremiah corresponds to the sufferings of the Lord. Likewise that Jer_12:2 bears relation to Luk_16:19 sqq. (I. Sund. after Trin.) and Jer_12:7 to Act_6:8 sqq. (St. Stephen’s day, Sunday after Christmas), and to Luk_19:41 sqq. (X. after Trin.)
3. On Jer_11:16-17. The divine election is never intended to be a license from all discipline. Indeed when men break the covenant, the Lord interposes with punishment, which may proceed to instantaneous destruction. Surely God’s gifts and calling are without repentance. If the branches cut off abide not in unbelief they shall be graffed in; for God is able to graft them in again, Rom_11:23; Rom_11:29.
4. On Jer_11:21. That which the people of Anathoth say here to Jeremiah, the people of this world say everywhere and at all times to the preachers of the truth. Comp. 2Ti_4:3-4. It is important then to preach the word, to be instant in season and out of season; to reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all long-suffering and doctrine (2Ti_4:2).
5. On Jer_12:5. It is not becoming that we prescribe to God, to what extent He shall lay burdens upon us. Our patience and steadfastness are as elastic and extensible as our faith is firm and rock-like (Petrine, Mat_16:18).
6. On Jer_12:14-17. When mankind depart from God they lose the bond of unity and of peace. They are divided then into parties, which contend with and exterminate each other. But when these have again united themselves with the Lord, the unity of the members is restored. Therefore there is liberty, equality and fraternity only in the Lord.
Footnotes:
[6]Jer_11:21.—On the construction of וְלֹא תָמוּת comp. Naegelsb. Gr., § 89, 3 b.
[7]Jer_11:22.—שׁנַת פֹ׳ is not the accusative of the object but of the time. Comp. Jer_10:15 בְּעֵת פְּקֻדָּתָם [Henderson renders it as the former; the year, etc.—S. R. A.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain THE COVENANT BETWEEN JEHOVAH AND ISRAEL, Jer_11:1-8.
THE COVENANT BETWEEN JEHOVAH AND ISRAEL, Jer_11:1-8.
1. The word that came to Jeremiah — This form of title is such as Jeremiah prefixes to his larger sections, and hence may properly be taken as extending over this and the two following chapters.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (1) The word that came to Jeremiah.—The words indicate…
XI.
(1) The word that came to Jeremiah.—The words indicate that we are entering on a distinct message or discourse, which goes on probably to the end of Jeremiah 12. No date is given, and we are driven to infer it from the internal evidence of the message itself. This points to an early period of Jeremiah’s work, probably in the reign of Josiah. The invasion of the Chaldeans is not so near, as in the preceding chapter. Jeremiah is still residing at Anathoth (Jer_11:21). By some critics, however, it is referred to the reign of Jehoiachin.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain The superscription in Ver. 1 evidently belongs to the…
The superscription in Ver. 1 evidently belongs to the three chapters 11-13, though Jeremiah 11 and Jer 12 are more closely connected with each other than with Jer 13. To which period the group of prophecies belongs whether to the reign of Josiah, or of Jehoiakim, or of Jehoiachin, or to various periods, is a matter of dispute. It contains at any rate one passage (Jer_12:7-17) which was almost certainly put in by a later editor. It is doubtless Jeremiah"s work, but seems out of place here (see below, on this passage). Naegelsbach"s analysis of Jer 11 Jer 12, is striking. The fundamental idea of the entire discourse he assumes to be the antithesis of covenant and conspiracy, and proceeds thus:
1. A reminder of the renewal of the covenant between Jehovah and the people lately made under Josiah. (Jer_11:1-8)
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2. First stage of the conspiracy; all Israel, instead of keeping the covenant with Jehovah, conspires against him. (Jer_11:9-13)
3. The punishment of the conspiracy is an irreversible, severe judgment. (Jer_11:14, Jer_11:17)
4. Second stage of the conspiracy; the plot of the men of Anathoth. (Jer_11:18-23)
1. Third stage; the plot in the prophet"s own family. (Jer_11:1-6) Naegelsbaeh, however, with violence to exegesis, continues thus: (assuming the homogeneousness of Jer_12:1-6 and Jer_12:7-17)
2. Israel"s conspiracy punished by a conspiracy of the neighboring peoples against Israel. (Jer_12:7-13) Removal of all antitheses by the final union of all in the Lord.The (Jer_12:14-17) opening verses of this chapter give us (as we have seen already in the general Introduction) a most vivid idea of the activity of Jeremiah in propagating a knowledge of the Deuteronomic Torah (i.e. the Divine "directions" with regard to the regulation of life). It may even be inferred from Ver. 6 that he made a missionary circuit in Judah, with the view of influencing the masses. It was, in fact, only the "elders" of the different towns who had taken part in the solemn ceremony described in 2Ki 23. "The words of this covenant" had been ratified by the national representatives; but it required a prophetic enthusiasm to carry them home to the hearts of the people. Hence it was that "the word came to Jeremiah from Jehovah, saying, Hear ye the words of this covenant, and speak unto the men of Judah," etc.
Vers. 1-8. The ancient covenant.
I THE OBJECT OF THE COVENANT. This was to secure obedience. No covenant was required on God"s side, since he is ever willing to bless and changeless in his beneficence. But for the sake of men"s faith and to secure their allegiance God graciously condescended to enter into covenant bonds. It is therefore foolish to claim the fulfillment of God"s promises irrespective of our conduct. They are covenant promisesi.e. conditional and assured on certain terms. If we break the terms we can no longer expect the fulfillment of the promises.
II THE SANCTIONS OF THE COVENANT.
1. The obligations of gratitude. The past mercies of God are recited; e.g. deliverance from Egypt.
2. Promises of future good. If faithful, Israel was to take possession of the "land flowing with milk and honey.
3. Threats in ease of disobedience. If they proved unfaithful, the people were to find the land of premise full of troubles, and ultimately to be expelled from it. (Deu_28:15)
4. Constant Divine pleading. The covenant could not lapse through forgetfulness. Prophets were sent again and again to urge its claims on the people (Ver. 7).
III THE OBLIGATION OF THE COVENANT. This was an ancient covenant; yet it was still binding. God was still fulfilling his part in blessing his people. The obligation was not such as time could affect. What is inherently right once is right eternally. Truth does not lose force with age. The Bible contains covenants which age has made venerable, but not feeble. Its commands and promises are eternally fresh and living, and when the merely local and personal exterior is laid aside, the essence of them applies as much to us as to the Jews. The appetite for mere novelty which characterizes much intellectual inquiry in the present day, as it did that of the Athenians of St. Paul"s age, (Act_17:21) ignores the fact that the most important question is "What is true?" not "What is new?" Old familiar truths must be noticed that they may be remembered and practiced, though of course not to the exclusion of new truths. The New Testament does not abolish but perfects the spiritual truth of the old. It contains that and more.
IV THE BREACH OF THE COVENANT. The people are accused of disobeying the precepts of the covenant (Ver. 8). Disobedience involved both the loss of the promised blessings and the execution of the threatened curses. They who accept special privileges incur special obligations. They who enter into a Divine covenant will be judged by the terms of that covenant. Christians will be judged, not simply by the common law of righteousness in conscience and nature, but by the special requirements of the New Testament, i.e. of the covenant of Christianity.
HOMILIES BY D. YOUNG Vers. 1-12. The covenant with the fathers binding on the children.
Here it is necessary to go back over all the history of Israel, and consider the great covenant transactions between God and his people. Such transactions we find to have been filled with great solemnity, so that they might make a deep mark in history. We trace the beginnings of the great covenant in God"s dealings with Abraham. Indeed, the covenant with Israel as a nation was the necessary consequence of the covenant with Abraham as an individual. Then, as Jeremiah says here, there was a definite interchange of promise in the day when Jehovah brought Israel out of Egypt. He could then ask them for an undertaking of obedience and separation from the idolatrous and impure heathens. While they were in servitude to Egypt and manifestly crushed in spirit, it was not possible to ask anything from them. But when Jehovah had abundantly proved his power, his grace, and his nearness, when he took his stand amid the freshness of glorious Divine achievements, then the covenant appeared, to the generation to which he proposed it, in all its fitness, as an instrument for the attainment of further ends. The gracious purposes of this covenant are made strikingly apparent in the continuance of it even after the people had lapsed into their riotous gathering around the golden calf. (Exo_34:10) But this covenant in all its amplitude, and with all the difficulties surrounding the observance of it, is nowhere set forth with greater solemnity and particularity than in Deuteronomy 27-30. There we find the curses and the blessings detailed and illustrated, and the provision made that between Ebal and Gerizim, in the very midst as it were of the land of promise, the covenant should receive a great national acceptance. But," an Israelite might have said to Jeremiah, these things happened so long ago." Men think they can easily set aside claims that rise out of the distant past. In the case of this particular claim, however, no such rejoinder was possible. In 2Ki 22 we read of the discovery of the Book of the Law in the reign of Josiah, and in Jeremiah 23, we read of the decisive and comprehensive action which Josiah took upon making the discovery. The description in Ver. 2 of how he gathered in the house of the Lord all the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, priests and prophets, and small and great, reminds us of the gathering long before, between Ebal and Gerizim. (Jos_8:35) All the people, we are further told, "stood to the covenant." Josiah was enabled to make a general overthrow of all the external visible instruments of idolatry, and what is of particular moment to be observed is the keeping of the Passover as arising out of this renewed covenant. (2Ch_35:1-19) It was like coming face to face with that great event in the early history of the people, their deliverance from the iron furnace. Thus when we bring into one view all these great transactions in relation to the covenant, we see how weighty and urgent is the message Jehovah here sends Jeremiah to deliver. His covenant was with a nation in the whole duration of its existence. Each generation as it died handed on its land, its possessions, its national customs, but in the midst of all it had to hand on this covenant. The land was Israel"s only upon a certain condition. The owner of a piece of land may covenant with some one that he and his heirs and assigns shall have the use of the land in perpetuity, on the observance of certain conditions. If these conditions are willingly, perhaps eagerly, accepted, there is no just right to complain of forfeiture if the conditions are completely and carelessly set at naught. God"s works, we are made to observe, go on to their completion through the service of many generations of his creatures. How many generations of insects have died in making the beautiful coral islands! We amid our spiritual light and advantages are the inheritors of many privileges, we have the use of an estate, which has been enriched by the toils and sufferings, the prayers and tears, of many ancestors. But we can inherit no privilege, no joy, no promise, no hope, without inheriting the responsibilities of a covenant. We may, indeed, neglect the covenant, but surely it requires great audacity to assert that we have even the faintest pretence of right to do it. Y.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain Jeremiah 11 and Jeremiah 12
CHAPTER VII
THE BROKEN COVENANT
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Jeremiah 11 and Jeremiah 12
THERE is no visible break between these two chapters. They seem to summarise the history of a particular episode in the prophets career. At the same time, the style is so peculiar that it is not so easy as it might appear at a first glance to determine exactly what it is that the section has to tell us. When we come to take a closer look at it, we find a thoroughly characteristic mixture of direct narrative and soliloquy, of statement of facts and reflection upon those facts, of aspiration and prayer and prophecy, of self-communing and communing with God. Careful analysis may perhaps furnish us with a clue to the disentanglement of the general sense and drift of this characteristic medley. We may thus hope to get a clearer insight into the bearing of this old world oracle upon our own needs and perplexities, our sins and the fruit of our sins, what we have done and what we may expect as the consequence of our doings. For the Word of God is "quick and powerful." Its outward form and vesture may change with the passing of time; but its substance never changes. The old interpreters die, but the Word lives, and its life is a life of power. By that Word men live in their successive generations; it is at once creative and regulative; it is the seed of life in man, and it is the law of that life. Apart from the Divine Word, man would be no more than a brute gifted with understanding, but denied all answer to the higher cravings of soul and spirit; a being whose conscious life was a mere mockery; a self-tormentor, tantalised with vain surmises, tortured with ever-recurring problems; longing for light, and beset with never-lifting clouds of impenetrable darkness; the one sole instance, among the myriads of sentient beings, of a creature whose wants Nature refuses to satisfy, and whose lot it is to consume forever in the fires of hopeless desire.
The sovran Lord, who is the Eternal Wisdom, has not made such a mistake. He provides satisfaction for all His creatures, according to the varying degrees of their capacity, according to their rank in the scale of being, so that all may rejoice in the fulness and the freedom of a happy life for their allotted time. Man is no exception to the universal rule. His whole constitution, as God has fashioned it, is such that he can find his perfect satisfaction in the Word of the Lord. And the depth of his dissatisfaction, the poignancy and the bitterness of his disappointment and disgust at himself and at the world in which he finds himself, are the strongest evidence that he has sought satisfaction in things that cannot satisfy; that he has foolishly endeavoured to feed his soul upon ashes, to still the cravings of his spirit with something other than that Word of God which is the Bread of Life.
You will observe that the discourse we are to consider, is headed: "The word that fell to Jeremiah from Iahvah" (lit. "from with," that is, "from the presence of" the Eternal), "saying." I think that expression "saying" covers all that follows, to the end of the discourse. The prophets preaching the Law, and the consequences of that preaching as regarded himself: his experience of the stubbornness and treachery of the people; the varying moods of his own mind under that bitter experience; his reflections upon the condition of Judah, and the condition of Judahs ill-minded neighbours; his forecasts of the after course of events as determined by the unchanging will of a righteous God; all these things seem to. be included in the scope of that "Word from the presence of Iahvah," which the prophet is about to put on record. You will see that it is not a single utterance of a precise and definite message, which he might have delivered in a few moments of time before a single audience of his countrymen. The Word of the Lord is progressively revealed; it begins with a thought in the prophets mind, but its entire content is unfolded gradually, as he proceeds to act upon that thought or Divine impulse; it is, as it were, evolved as the result of collision between the prophet and his hearers; it emerges into clear light out of the darkness of storm and conflict; a conflict both internal and external; a conflict within, between his own contending emotions and impulses and sympathies; and a conflict without, between an unpopular teacher, and a wayward and corrupt and incorrigible people. "From with Iahvah." There may be strife and tumult and the darkness of ignorance and passion upon earth; but the star of truth shines in the firmament of heaven, and the eye of the inspired man sees it. This is his difference from his fellows.
"Hear ye the words of this covenant, and speak ye unto the men of Judah, and upon the dwellers in Jerusalem! And say thou unto them, Thus saith Iahvah, the God of Israel, Accursed are the men that hear not the words of this covenant, which I lay on your fathers, in the day that I brought them forth from the land of Egypt, from the furnace of iron, saying, Hearken unto My voice, and do these things, according to all that I shall charge you: that ye may become for Me a people, and that I Myself may become for you a God. That I may make good" (vid. infra) "the oath which I sware to your forefathers, that I would give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as it now is" (or simply, "today"). "And I answered and said, Amen, Iahvah!" {Jer_11:1-5} "Hear ye speak ye unto the men of Judah!" The occasion referred to is that memorable crisis in the eighteenth year of king Josiah, when Hilkiah the high priest had "found the book of the law in the house of the Lord," {2Ki_22:8 sqq.} and the pious king had read in the hearing of the assembled people those fervid exhortations to obedience, those promises fraught with all manner of blessing, those terrible denunciations of wrath and ruin reserved for rebellion and apostasy, which we may still read in the closing chapters of the book of Deuteronomy. {Deuteronomy 27, sq.} Jeremiah is recalling the events of his own ministry, and passes in rapid review from the time of his preaching upon the Book of the Law, to the Chaldean invasion in the reign of Jehoiachin. {Jer_13:18 sqq.} He recalls the solemn occasion when the king and people bound themselves by oath to observe the law of their God; when "the king stood upon the platform, and made the covenant before Iahvah, that he would follow Iahvah, and keep his commandments, and his laws and his statutes, with whole heart and with whole soul; to make good the words of this covenant that were written upon this roll; and all the people stood to the covenant." {2Ki_23:3} At or soon after this great meeting, the prophet gives, in the name of Iahvah, an emphatic approval to the public undertaking; and bids the leaders in the movement not to rest contented with this good beginning, but to impress the obligation more deeply upon the community at large, by sending a mission of properly qualified persons, including himself, which should at once enforce the reforms necessitated by the covenant of strict obedience to the Law, and reconcile the people both of the capital and of the rural towns and hamlets to the sudden and sweeping changes demanded of them, by showing their entire consonance with the Divine precepts. "Hear ye"-princes and priests-"the words of this covenant; and speak ye unto the men of Judah!" Then follows, in brief, the prophets own commission, which is to reiterate, with all the force of his impassioned rhetoric, the awful menaces of the Sacred Book: "Cursed be the men that hear not the words of this covenant!" Now again, in these last years of their national existence, the chosen people are to hear an authoritative proclamation of that Divine Law upon which all their weal depends; the Law given them at the outset of their history, when the memory of the great deliverance was yet fresh in their minds; the Law which was the condition of their peculiar relation to the Universal God. At Sinai they had solemnly undertaken to observe that Law: and Iahweh had fulfilled His promise to their "fathers"-to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob-and had given them a goodly land, in which they had now been established for at least six hundred years. The Divine truth and righteousness were manifest upon a retrospect of this long period of eventful history; and Jeremiah could not withhold his inward assent, in the formula prescribed by the Book of the Law, {Deu_27:15 sqq.} to the perfect justice of the sentence: "Cursed be the men that hear not the words of this covenant." "And I answered and said, Amen, Iahvah!" So to this true Israelite, thus deeply communing with his own spirit, two things had become clear as day. The one was the absolute righteousness of Gods entire dealing with Israel, from first to last; the righteousness of disaster and overthrow as well as of victory and prosperity: the other was his own present duty to bring this truth home to the hearts and consciences of his fellow countrymen. This is how he states the fact: "And Iahvah said unto me, Proclaim thou all these words in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, saying, Hear ye the words of this covenant and do them. For I earnestly adjured your fathers, when I brought them up from the land of Egypt" ("and I have done so continually") "even unto this very day, saying, Obey ye My voice! And they obeyed not, nor inclined their ear; and they walked, each and all, in the hardness of their wicked heart. So I brought upon them all the threats" (lit., "words") "of this covenant, which I had charged them to keep, and they kept it not." {Jer_11:6-8} God is always self-consistent; man is often inconsistent with himself; God is eternally true, man is ever giving fresh proofs of his natural faithlessness. God is not only just in keeping His promises; He is also merciful, in labouring ever to induce man to be self-consistent, and true to moral obligations. And Divine mercy is revealed alike in the pleadings of the Holy Spirit by the mouth of prophets, by the voice of conscience, and in the retribution that overtakes persistence in evil. The Divine Law is life and health to them that keep it; it is death to them that break it. "Thou, Lord, art merciful: for thou rewardest every man according to his works."
The relation of the One God to this one people was neither accidental nor arbitrary. It is sometimes spoken of as a thing glaringly unjust to the other nations of the ancient world, that the Father of all should have chosen Israel only to be the recipient of His special favours. Sometimes it is demanded, as an unanswerable dilemma, How could the Universal God be the God of the Jews, in the restricted sense implied by the Old Testament histories? But difficulties of this kind rest upon misunderstanding, due to a slavishly literal interpretation of certain passages, and inability to take a comprehensive view of the general drift and tenor of the Old Testament writings as they bear upon this subject. Gods choice of Israel was proof of His love for mankind. He did not select one people because He was indifferent or hostile to all other peoples; but because He wished to bring all the nations of the earth to the knowledge of Himself, and the observance of His law. The words of our prophet show that he was profoundly convinced that the favour of Iahvah had from the outset depended upon the obedience of Israel: "Hearken unto My voice, and do these things that ye may become for Me a people, and that I Myself may become for you a God." How strangely must such words have sounded in the ears of people who believed, as the masses both in town and country appear for the most part to have done, that Iahvah as the ancestral god was bound by an indissoluble tie to Israel, and that He could not suffer the nation to perish without incurring irreparable loss, if not extinction, for Himself! It is as if the prophet had said: You call yourselves the people of God; but it is not so much that you are His people, as that you may become such by doing His will. You suppose that Iahvah, the Eternal, the Creator, is to you what Chemosh is to Moab, or Molech to Ammon, or Baal to Tyre; but that is just what He is not. If you entertain such ideas of Iahvah, you are worshipping a figment of your own carnal imaginations; your god is not the universal God, but a gross unspiritual idol. It is only upon your fulfilment of His conditions, only upon your yielding an inward assent to His law, a hearty acceptance to His rule of life, that He Himself - the One only God-can truly become your God. In accepting His law, you accept Him, and in rejecting His law, you reject Him; for His law is a reflection of Himself; a revelation, so far as such can be made to a creature like man, of His essential being and character. Therefore think not that you can worship Him by mere external rites; for the true worship is "righteousness, and holiness of life."
The progress of the reforming movement, which was doubtless powerfully stimulated by the preaching of Jeremiah, is briefly sketched in the chapter of the book of Kings, to which I have already referred. {2 Kings 23} That summary of the good deeds of king Josiah records apparently a very complete extirpation of the various forms of idolatry, and even a slaughter of the idol priests upon their own altars. Heathenism, it would seem, could hardly have been practised again, at least openly, during the twelve remaining years of Josiah. But although a zealous king might enforce outward conformity to the Law, and although the earnest preaching of prophets like Zephaniah and Jeremiah might have considerable effect with the better part of the people, the fact remained that those whose hearts were really open to the word of the Lord were still, as always, a small minority; and the tendency to apostasy, though checked, was far from being rooted up. Here and there the forbidden rites were secretly observed; and the harsh measures which had accompanied their public suppression may very probably have intensified the attachment of many to the local forms of worship. Sincere conversions are not effected by violence; and the martyrdom of devotees may give new life even to degraded and utterly immoral superstitions. The transient nature of Josiahs reformation, radical as it may have appeared at the time to the principal agents engaged in it, is evident from the testimony of Jeremiah himself. "And Iahvah said unto me, There exists a conspiracy among the men of Judah, and among the inhabitants of Jerusalem. They have returned to the old sins of their fathers, who refused to hear My words; and they too have gone away after other gods, to serve them the house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken My covenant, which I made with their forefathers. Therefore thus saith Iahvah, Behold I am about to bring unto them an evil from which they cannot get forth; and they will cry unto Me, and I will not listen unto them. And the cities of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem will go and cry unto the gods to whom they burn incense" (i.e., now; ptcp.); "and they will yield them no help at all in the time of their evil. For many as thy cities are thy gods become, O Judah! and many as the streets of Jerusalem have ye appointed altars to the Shame, altars for burning incense to the Baal. And as for thee, intercede thou not for this people, nor lift up for them outcry" (i.e., mourning) "and intercession; for I intend not to hearken, in the time when they call unto Me, in the time of their evil" (Jer_11:9-14). All this appears to indicate the course of the prophets reflection, after it had become clear to him that the reformation was illusory, and that his own labours had failed of their purpose. He calls the relapse of the people a plot or conspiracy; thereby suggesting, perhaps, the secrecy with which the prohibited worships were at first revived, and the intrigues of the unfaithful nobles and priests and prophets, in order to bring about a reversal of the policy of reform, and a return to the old system; and certainly suggesting that the heart of the nation, as a whole, was disloyal to its Heavenly King, and that its renewed apostasy was a wicked disavowal of lawful allegiance, and an act of unpardonable treason against God.
But the word further signifies that a bond has been entered into, a bond which is the exact antithesis of the covenant with Iahvah; and it implies that this bond has about it a fatal strength and permanence, involving as its necessary consequence the ruin of the nation. Breaking covenant with Iahvah meant making a covenant with other gods; it was impossible to do the one thing without the other. And that is as true now, under totally different conditions, as it was in the land of Judah, twenty-four centuries ago. If you have broken faith with God in Christ it is because you have entered into an agreement with another; it is because you have foolishly taken the tempter at his word, and accepted his conditions, and surrendered to his proposals, and preferred his promises to the promises of God. It is because, against all reason, against conscience, against the Holy Spirit, against the witness of Gods Word, against the witness of His Saints and Confessors in all ages, you have believed that a Being less than the Eternal God could ensure your weal and make you happy. And now your heart is no longer at unity in itself, and your allegiance is no longer single and undivided. "Many as thy cities are thy gods become, O Judah!" The soul that is not unified and harmonised by the fear of the One God, is torn and distracted by a thousand contending passions: and vainly seeks peace and deliverance by worship at a thousand unholy shrines. But Mammon and Belial and Ashtaroth and the whole rout of unclean spirits, whose seductions have lured you astray, will fail you at last; and in the hour of bitter need, you will learn too late that there is no god but God, and no peace nor safety nor joy but in Him.
It is futile to pray for those who have deliberately cast off the covenant of Iahvah, and made a covenant with His adversary. "Intercede not for this people, nor lift up outcry and intercession for them!" Prayer cannot save, nothing can save, the impenitent; and there is a state of mind in which ones own prayer is turned into sin; the state of mind in which a man prays, merely to appease God, and escape the fire, but without a thought of forsaking sin, without the faintest aspiration after holiness. There is a degree of guilt upon which sentence is already passed, which is "unto death," and for which intercession is interdicted alike by the Apostle of the New as to the prophet of the Old Covenant.
"What availeth it My beloved, that she fulfilleth her intent in Mine house? Can vows and hallowed flesh make thine evil to pass from thee? Then mightest thou indeed rejoice" (Jer_11:15). Such appears to be the true sense of this verse, the only difficult one in the chapter. The prophet had evidently the same thought in his mind as in Jer_11:11 : "I will bring unto them an evil, from which they cannot get forth; and they will cry unto Me, and I will not hearken unto them." The words also recall those of Isaiah: {Isa_1:11 sqq} "For what to Me are your many sacrifices, saith Iahvah? When ye enter in to see My face, who hath sought this at your hand, to trample My courts? Bring no more a vain oblation; loathly incense it is to Me!" The term which I have rendered "intent," usually denotes an evil intention; so that, like Isaiah, our prophet implies that the popular worship is not only futile but sinful. So true it is that "He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer is an abomination"; {Pro_28:9} or, as the Psalmist puts the same truth, "If I incline unto wickedness with my heart, the Lord will not hear me."
"A flourishing olive, fair with shapely fruit, did Iahvah call thy name. To the sound of a great uproar will He set her on fire; and his hanging boughs will crackle" ("in the flames"). "And Iahvah Sabaoth, that planted thee, Himself hath pronounced evil upon thee; because of the evil of the house of Israel and the house of Judah, which they have done to themselves" {Jer_4:18; Jer_7:19} "in provoking Me, in burning incense to the Baal" (Jer_11:16-17). The figure of the olive seems a very natural one, {cf. Rom_11:17} when we remember the beauty, and the utility for which that tree is famous in Eastern lands. "Iahvah called thy name"; that is, called thee into determinate being; endowed thee at thine origin with certain characteristic qualities. Thine original constitution, as thou didst leave thy Makers hand, was fair and good. Israel among the nations was as beautiful to the eye as the olive among trees; and his "fruit," his doings, were a glory to God and a blessing to men, like that precious oil, for "which God and man honour" the olive {Jdg_9:9; Zec_4:3; Hos_14:7} But now the noble stock had degenerated; the "green olive tree," planted in the very court of Iahvahs house, had become no better than a barren wilding, fit only for the fire. The thought is essentially similar to that of an earlier discourse: "I planted thee a noble vine, wholly a right seed; how then hast thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto Me?" {Jer_2:21} Here, there is an abrupt transition, which forcibly expresses the suddenness of the destruction that must devour this degenerate people: "To the sound of a great uproar"-the din of invading armies "he will set her" (the beloved, symbolised by the tree) "on fire; and his" (the olives) "hanging boughs will crackle in the flames." And this fierce work of a barbarous soldiery is no chance calamity; it is the execution of a Divine judgment: "Iahvah Sabaoth Himself hath pronounced evil upon thee." And yet further, it is the nations own doing; the two houses of Israel have persistently laboured for their own ruin; they have brought it upon themselves. Man is himself the author of his own weal and woe; and they who are not "working out their own salvation," are working out their own destruction.
"And it was Iahvah that gave me knowledge, so that I well knew; at that time, Thou didst show me their doings. But, for myself, like a favourite" (lit. tame, friendly, gentle: Jer_3:4) "lamb that is led to the slaughter, I wist not that against me they had laid a plot. Let us fell the tree in its prime, and let us cut him off out of the land of the living, that his name be remembered no more. Yea, but Iahvah Sabaoth judgeth righteously, trieth reins and heart. I shall see Thy vengeance on them; for unto Thee have I laid bare my cause. Therefore thus said Iahvah: Upon the men of Anathoth that were seeking thy life, saying, Thou shalt not prophesy in the name of Iahvah, that thou die not by our hand:-therefore thus said Iahvah Sabaoth, Behold I am about to visit it upon them: the young men will die by the sword; their sons and their daughters will die by the famine. And a remnant they shall not have: for I will bring an evil unto the men of Anathoth, the year of their visitation" (Jer_11:18-23).
The prophet, it would seem, had made the round of the country places, and come to Anathoth, on his return journey to Jerusalem. Here, in his native town, he proclaimed to his own people that same solemn message which he had delivered to the country at large. It is very probable that the preceding verses (Jer_11:9-17) contain the substance of his address to his kinsfolk and acquaintance; an address which stirred them, not to repentance towards God, but to murderous wrath against His prophet. A plot was laid for Jeremiahs life by his own neighbours and even his own family; {Jer_12:6} and he owed his escape to some providential circumstance, some "lucky accident," as men might say, which revealed to him their unsuspected perfidy. What the event was which thus suddenly disclosed the hidden danger, is not recorded; and the whole episode is rather alluded to than described. But it is clear that the prophet knew nothing about the plot, until it was ripe for execution. He was as wholly unconscious of the death prepared for him, as a petted lamb on the way to the altar. "Then"-when his fate seemed sure-then it was that something happened by which "Iahvah gave him knowledge," and "showed him their doing": The thought or saying attributed to his enemies, "Let us fell the tree (s) in the prime thereof!" may contain a sarcastic allusion really made to the prophets own warning (Jer_11:16): "A flourishing olive, fair with shapely fruit, did Iahvah call thy name: to the noise of a great uproar will He set it on fire, and the branches thereof shall crackle in the flames." The words that follow (Jer_11:20), "yea, but" (or, and yet) "Iahvah Sabaoth judgeth righteously; trieth reins and heart," {cf. Jer_20:12} is the prophets reply, in the form of an unexpressed thought, or a hurried ejaculation upon discovering their deadly malice. The timely warning which he had received, was fresh proof to him of the truth that human designs are, after all that their authors can do, dependent on the will of an Unseen Arbiter of events; and the Divine justice, thus manifested towards himself, inspired a conviction that those hardened and bloodthirsty sinners would, sooner or later, experience in their own destruction that display of the same Divine attribute which was necessary to its complete manifestation. It was this conviction, rather than personal resentment, however excusable under the circumstances that feeling would have been, which led Jeremiah to exclaim: "I shall see Thy vengeance on them, for unto Thee have I laid bare my cause."
He had appealed to the Judge of all the earth, that doeth right; and he knew the innocency of his own heart in the quarrel. He was certain, therefore, that his cause would one day be vindicated, when that ruin overtook his enemies, of which he had warned them in vain. Looked at in this light, his words are a confident assertion of the Divine justice, not a cry for vengeance. They reveal what we may perhaps call the human basis of the formal prophecy which follows; they show by what steps the prophets mind was led on to the utterance of a sentence of destruction upon the men of Anathoth. That Jeremiahs invectives and threatenings of wrath and ruin should provoke hatred and opposition was perhaps not wonderful. Men in general are slow to recognise their own moral shortcomings, to believe evil of themselves; and they are apt to prefer advisers whose optimism, though ill-founded and misleading, is pleasant and reassuring and confirmatory of their own prejudices. But it does seem strange that it should have been reserved for the men of his own birthplace, his own "brethren and his fathers house," to carry opposition to the point of meditated murder. Once more Jeremiah stands before us, a visible type of Him whose Divine wisdom declared that a prophet finds no honour in his own country, and whose life was attempted on that Sabbath day at Nazareth. {Luk_4:24 sqq.}
The sentence was pronounced, but the cloud of dejection was not at once lifted from the soul of the seer. He knew that justice must in the end overtake the guilty; but, in the meantime, "his enemies lived and were mighty," and their criminal designs against himself remained unnoticed and unpunished. The more he brooded over it, the more difficult it seemed to reconcile their prosperous immunity with the justice of God. He has given us the course of his reflections upon this painful question, ever suggested anew by the facts of life, never sufficiently answered by toiling reason. "Too righteous art Thou, Iahvah, for me to contend with Thee: I will but lay arguments before Thee" (i.e., argue the case forensically). "Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper? Wherefore are they undisturbed, all that deal very treacherously? Thou plantest them, yea, they take root; they grow ever, yea, they bear fruit: Thou art nigh in their mouth, and far from their reins. And Thou, Iahvah, knowest me; Thou seest me, and triest mine heart in Thy mind. Separate them like sheep for the slaughter, and consecrate them for the day of killing! How long shall the land mourn, and the herbage of all the country wither? From the evil of the dwellers therein, beasts and birds perish: for they have said (or, thought), "He cannot see our end". {Jer_12:1-4} It is not merely that his would be murderers thrive; it is that they take the holy Name upon their unclean lips; it is that they are hypocrites combining a pretended respect for God, with an inward and thorough indifference to God. He is nigh in their mouth and far from their reins. They "honour Him with their lips, but have removed their heart far from Him; and their worship of Him is a mere human commandment, learned by rote". {Isa_29:13} They swear by His Name, when they are bent on deception. {Jer_5:2} It is all this which especially rouses the prophets indignation; and contrasting therewith his own conscious integrity and faithfulness to the Divine law, he calls upon Divine justice to judge between himself and them: "Pull them out like sheep for slaughter, and consecrate them" (set them apart from the rest of the flock) "for the day of killing!" It has been said that Jeremiah throughout this whole paragraph speaks not as a prophet, but as a private individual; and that in this verse especially he "gives way to the natural man, and asks the life of his enemies". {1Ki_3:11 Job_31:30} This is perhaps a tenable opinion. We have to bear in mind the difference of standpoint between the writers of the Old Covenant and those of the New. Not much is said by the former about the forgiveness of injuries, about withholding the hand from vengeance. The most ancient law, indeed, contained a noble precept, which pointed in this direction: "If thou meet thine enemys ox or his ass going astray, thou shalt surely bring it back to him again. If thou see the ass of him that hateth thee lying under his burden, and wouldest forbear to help him, thou shalt surely help with him." {Exo_23:4-5} And in the Book of Proverbs we read: "Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, And let not thine heart be glad when he is overthrown." But the impression of magnanimity thus produced is somewhat diminished by the reason which is added immediately: "Lest the Lord see it and it displease Him, and He turn away His wrath from him": a motive of which the best that can be said is that it is characteristic of the imperfect morality of the time. {Pro_24:17 sq.} The same objection may be taken to that other famous passage of the same book: "If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat: And if he be thirsty, give him water to drink: For thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head, And the Lord shall reward thee". {Pro_25:21 sq.} The reflection that the relief of his necessities will mortify and humiliate an enemy to the utmost, which is what seems to have been originally meant by "heaping coals of fire upon his head," however practically useful in checking the wild impulses of a hot-blooded and vindictive race, such as the Hebrews were, and such as their kindred the Bedawi Arabs have remained to this day under a system of faith which has not said, "Love your enemies"; and however capable of a new application in the more enlightened spirit of Christianity; {Rom_12:19 sqq.} is undoubtedly a motive marked by the limitations of Old Testament ethical thought. And edifying as they may prove to be, when understood in that purely spiritual and universal sense, to which the Church has lent her authority, how many of the psalms were, in their primary intention, agonising cries for vengeance: prayers that the human victim of oppression and wrong might "see his desire upon his enemies"? All this must be borne in mind; but there are other considerations also which must not be omitted, if we would get at the exact sense of our prophet in the passage before us.
We must remember that he is laying a case before God. He has admitted at the outset that God is absolutely just, in spite of and in view of the fact that his murderous enemies are prosperous and unpunished. When he pleads his own sincerity and purity of heart, in contrast with the lip service of his adversaries, it is perhaps that God may grant, not so much their perdition, as the salvation of the country from the evils they have brought and are bringing upon it. Ascribing the troubles already present and those which are yet to come, the desolations which he sees and those which he foresees, to their steady persistence in wickedness, he asks, How long must this continue? Would it not be better, would it not be more consonant with Divine wisdom and righteousness to purify the land of its fatal taint by the sudden destruction of those heinous and hardened offenders, who scoff at the very idea of a true forecast of their "end" (Jer_12:4)? But this is not all. There would be more apparent force in the allegation we are discussing if it were. The cry to heaven for an immediate act of retributive justice is not the last thing recorded of the prophets experience on this occasion. He goes on to relate, for our satisfaction, the Divine answer to his questionings, which seems to have satisfied his own troubled mind. "If thou hast run with but footracers, and they have wearied thee, how then wilt thou compete with the coursers? And if thy confidence be in a land of peace" (or, "a quiet land"), "how then wilt thou do in the thickets" (jungles) "of Jordan? For even thine own brethren and thy fathers house, even they will deal treacherously with thee; even they will cry aloud after thee: trust thou not in them, though they speak thee fair!" {Jer_12:5-6} The metaphors convey a rebuke of impatience and premature discouragement. Hitzig aptly quotes Demosthenes: "If they cannot face the candle, what will they do when they see the sun?" (Plut. de vitioso pudore, c. 5) It is "the voice of the prophets better feeling, and of victorious self possession," adds the critic; and we, who earnestly believe that, of the two voices which plead against each other in the heart of man, the voice that whispers good is the voice of God, find it not hard to accept this statement in that sense. The prophet is giving us the upshot of his reflection upon the terrible danger from which he had been mercifully preserved; and we see that his thoughts were guided to the conclusion that, having once accepted the Divine Call, it would be unworthy to abdicate his mission on the first signal of danger. Great as that danger had been, he now, in his calmer hour, perceives that, if he is to fulfil his high vocation, he must be prepared to face even worse things. With serious irony he asks himself if a runner who is overcome with a footrace can hope to outstrip horses? or how a man, who is only bold where no danger is, will face the perils that lurk in the jungles of the Jordan? He remembers that he has to fight a more arduous battle and on a greater scene. Jerusalem is more than Anathoth; and "the kings of Judah and the princes thereof" are mightier adversaries than the conspirators of a country town. And his present escape is an earnest of deliverance on the wider field: "They shall fight against thee, but they shall not prevail against thee: for I am with thee, said Iahvah, to deliver thee". {see Jer_1:17-19} But to a deeply affectionate and sensitive nature like Jeremiahs, the thought of being forsaken by his own kindred might well appear as a trial worse than death. This is the "contending with horses," the struggle that is almost beyond the powers of man to endure; this is the deadly peril, like that of venturing into the lion-haunted thickets of Jordan, which he clearly foresees as awaiting him: "For even thine own brethren and thy fathers house, even they will deal treacherously with thee." It would seem that the prophet, with whose "timidity" some critics have not hesitated to find fault, had to renounce all that man holds dear, as a condition of faithfulness to his call. Again we are reminded of One, of whom it is recorded that "Neither did His brethren believe in Him," {St. Joh_7:5} and that "His friends went out to lay hold on Him, for they said, He is beside Himself". {Mar_3:21} The closeness of the parallel between type and antitype, between the sorrowful prophet and the Man of Sorrows, is seen yet further in the words, "Even they will cry aloud after thee" (lit. "with full cry"). The meaning may be: They will join in the hue and cry of thy pursuers, the mad shouts of "Stop him!" or "Strike him down!" such as may perhaps have rung in the prophets ears as he fled from Anathoth. But we may also understand a metaphorical description of the efforts of his family to recall him from the unpopular path on which he had entered; and this perhaps agrees better with the warning: "Trust them not, though they speak thee fair." And understood in this sense, the words coincide with what is told us in the Gospel of the attempt of our Lords nearest kin to arrest the progress of His Divine mission, when His mother and His brethren "standing without, sent unto Him, calling Him". {St. Mar_3:31}
The lesson for ourselves is plain. The man who listens to the Divine call, and makes God his portion, must be prepared to surrender everything else. He must be prepared, not only to renounce much which the world accounts good; he must be prepared for all kinds of opposition passive and active, tacit and avowed; he may even find, like Jeremiah, that his foes are the members of his own household. {St. Mat_10:36} And, like the prophet, his acceptance of the Divine call binds him to close his ears against entreaties and flatteries, against mockery and menace; and to act upon his Masters word: "If any man would come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whosoever would save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life for My sake and the gospels shall save it". {St. Mar_8:34 sq.} "If any man come unto Me, and hate not his father and mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters, yea and his own life also he cannot be My disciple." {St. Luk_14:26} A great prize is worth a great risk; and eternal life is a prize infinitely great. It is therefore worth the hazard and the sacrifice of all. {St. Luk_18:29 sq.}
The section which follows (Jer_12:7-17) has been supposed to belong to the time of Jehoiakim, and consequently to be out of place here, having been transposed from its original context, because the peculiar Hebrew term which is rendered "dearly beloved" (Jer_12:7), is akin to the term rendered "My beloved," Jer_11:15. But this supposition depends on the assumption that the "historical basis of the section" is to be found in the passage 2Ki_24:2, which relates briefly that in Jehoiakims time plundering bands of Chaldeans, Syrians, Moabites, and Ammonites overran the country. The prophecy concerning Iahvahs "evil neighbours" is understood to refer to these marauding inroads, and is accordingly supposed to have been uttered between the eighth and eleventh years of Jehoiakim (Hitzig). It has, however, been pointed out (Naegelsbach) that the prophet does not once name the Chaldeans in the present discourse; which "he invariably does in all discourses subsequent to the decisive battle of Carchemish in the fourth year of Jehoiakim," which gave the Chaldeans the sovereignty of Western Asia. This discourse must, therefore, be of earlier date, and belong either to the first years of Jehoiakim, or to the time immediately subsequent to the eighteenth of Josiah. The history as preserved in Kings and Chronicles is so incomplete that we are not bound to connect the reference to "evil neighbours" with what is so summarily told in 2Ki_24:2. There may have been other occasions when Judahs jealous and watchful enemies profited by her internal weakness and dissensions to invade and ravage the land; and throughout the whole period the country was exposed to the danger of plundering raids by the wild nomads of the eastern and southern borders. It is possible, however, that Jer_12:14-17 are a later postscript, added by the prophet when he wrote his book in the fifth or sixth year of Jehoiakim. {Jer_36:9; Jer_36:32}
There is, in reality, a close connection of thought between Jer_12:7 sqq. and what precedes. The relations of the prophet to his own family are made to symbolise the relations of Iahvah to His rebellious people; just as a former prophet finds in his own merciful treatment of a faithless wife a parable of Iahvahs dealings with faithless Israel. "I have forsaken My house, I have cast away My domain; I have given My souls love into the grasp of her foes. My domain hath become to Me like the lion in the wood; she hath given utterance with her voice against Me; therefore I hate her." It is Iahvah who still speaks, as in Jer_12:6; the "house" is His holy house, the temple; the land is His domain, the land of Judah; His "souls love," is the Jewish people. Yet the expressions, "my house," "my domain," "my souls love," equally suit the prophets own family and their estate; the mention of the "lion in the wood" and its threatening roar, and the enmity provoked thereby, recalls what was said about the "wilds of the Jordan" in Jer_12:5, and the full outcry of his kindred after the prophet in Jer_12:6 : and the solemn words "I have forsaken Mine house, I have cast away My domainI hate her," clearly correspond with the sentence of destruction upon Anathoth, Jer_11:21 sqq. The double reference of the language becomes intelligible when we remember that in rejecting His messengers, Israel, nay mankind, rejects God, and that words and deeds done and uttered by Divine authority may be ascribed directly to God Himself. And regarded in the light of the prophets commission "to pluck up and to break down, and to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant" nations and kingdoms, {Jer_1:10} all that is here said may be taken to be the prophets own deliverance concerning his country. This, at all events, is the case with Jer_12:12-13.
"What! do I see my domain (all) vultures (and) hyenas? Are the vultures all around her? Go ye, assemble all the beasts of the field! Bring them to devour" (Jer_12:9). The questions express astonishment at an unlooked for and unwelcome spectacle. The loss of Divine favour has exposed Judah to the active hostility of man; and her neighbours eagerly fall upon her, like birds and beasts of prey, swarming over a helpless quarry. It is-so the prophet puts it-it is as if a proclamation had gone forth to the wolves and jackals of the desert, bidding them come and devour the fallen carcase. In another oracle he speaks of the heathen as "devouring Jacob." {Jer_10:25} The people of Iahvah are their natural prey Psa_14:4 : "who eat up My people as they eat bread"; but they are not suffered to devour them, until they have forfeited His protection.
The image is now exchanged for another, which approximates more nearly to the fact portrayed. "Many shepherds have marred My vineyard; they have trodden down My portion; they have turned My pleasant portion into a desolate wilderness. He" (the foe, the instrument of this ruin) "hath made it a desolation; it mourneth against Me, being desolate; desolated is all the land, for there is no man that giveth heed" (Jer_12:10-11). As in an earlier discourse, Jer_6:3, the invaders are now compared to hordes of nomad shepherds, who enter the land with their flocks and herds, and make havoc of the crops and pastures. From time immemorial the wandering Bedawis have been a terror to the settled peasantry of the East, whose way of life they despise as ignoble and unworthy of free men. Of this traditional enmity we perhaps hear a far-off echo in the story of Cain the tiller of the ground and Abel the keeper of sheep; and certainly in the statement that "every shepherd was an abomination unto the Egyptians". {Gen_46:34} The picture of utter desolateness, which the prophet suggests by a four-fold repetition, is probably sketched from a scene which he had himself witnessed; if it be not rather a representation of the actual condition of the country at the time of his writing. That the latter is the case might naturally be inferred from a consideration of the whole passage; and the twelfth verse seems to lend much support to this view: "Over all bare hills in the wilderness have come ravagers; for Iahvah hath a devouring sword: from lands end to lands end no flesh hath peace." The language indeed recalls that of Jer_4:10-11; and the entire description might be taken as an ideal picture of the ruin that must ensue upon Iahvahs rejection of the land and people, especially if the closing verses (Jer_12:14-17) be considered as a later addition to the prophecy, made in the light of accomplished facts. But, upon the whole, it would seem to be more probable that the prophet is here reading the moral of present or recent experience. He affirms (Jer_12:11) that the affliction of the country is really a punishment for the religious blindness of the nation: "there is no man that layeth to heart" the Divine teaching of events as interpreted by himself (cf. Jer_12:4). The fact that we are unable, in the scantiness of the records of the time, to specify the particular troubles to which allusion is made, is no great objection to this view, which is at least effectively illustrated by the brief statement of 2Ki_24:2. The reflection appended in Jer_12:13 points in the same direction: "They have sown wheat, and have reaped thorns; they have put themselves to pain" (or, "exhausted themselves") "without profit," (or, "made themselves sick with unprofitable toil"); "and they are ashamed of their produce" (ingatherings), "through the heat of the wrath of Iahyah." When the enemy had ravaged the crops, thorns would naturally spring up on the wasted lands; and "the heat of the wrath of Iahvah" appears to have been further manifested in a parching drought, which ruined what the enemy had left untouched (Jer_12:4, chapter 14).
Thus, then, Jeremiah receives the answer to his doubts in a painfully visible demonstration of what the wrath of Iahvah means. It means drought and famine; it means the exposure of the country, naked and defenceless, to the will of rapacious and vindictive enemies. For Iahvahs wrongs are far deeper and more bitter than the prophets. The misdeeds of individuals are lighter in the balance than the sins of a nation; the treachery of a few persons on a particular occasion is as nothing beside the faithlessness of many generations. The partial evils, therefore, under which the country groans, can only be taken as indications of a far more complete and terrible destruction reserved for final impenitence. The perception of this truth, we may suppose, sufficed for the time to silence the prophets complaints; and in the revulsion of feeling inspired by the awful vision of the unimpeded outbreak of Divine wrath, he utters an oracle concerning his countrys destroyers, in which retributive justice is tempered by compassion and mercy. "Thus hath Jehovah said, Upon all Mine evil neighbours, who touch the heritage which I caused My people Israel to inherit: Lo I am about to uproot" {Jer_1:10} "them from off their own land, and the house of Judah will I uproot from their midst. And after I have uprooted them, I will have compassion on them again, and will restore them each to their own heritage and their own land. And if they truly learn the ways of My people, to swear by My name, as Iahvah liveth! even as they taught My people to swear by the Baal; they shall be rebuilt in the midst of My people. And if they will not hear, I will uproot that nation, utterly and fatally; it is an oracle of Iahvah" (Jer_12:14-17). The preceding section (Jer_12:7-14), as we have seen, rapidly yet vividly sketches the calamities which have ensued and must further ensue upon the Divine desertion of the country. Iahvah has forsaken the land, left her naked to her enemies, for her causeless, capricious, thankless revolt against her Divine Lord. In this forlorn, defenceless condition, all manner of evils befall her; the vineyards and cornfields are ravaged, the goodly land is desolated, by hordes of savage freebooters pouring in from the eastern deserts. These invaders are called Iahvahs "evil neighbours": an expression which implies, not individuals banded together for purposes of brigandage, but hostile nations. Upon these nations also will the justice of God be vindicated; for that justice is universal in its operation, and cannot therefore be restricted to Israel. Judgment must "begin at the house of God"; but it will not end there. The "evil neighbours," the surrounding heathen kingdoms, have been Iahvahs instruments for the chastisement of His rebellious people; but they are not on that account exempted from recompense. They too must reap what they have sown. They have insulted Iahvah, by violating His territory; they have indulged their malice and treachery and rapacity, in utter disregard of the rights of neighbours, and the moral claims of kindred peoples. As they have done, so shall it be done unto them. They have laid hands on the possessions of their neighbour, and their own shall be taken from them; "I am about to uproot them from off their own land." {cf. Amo_1:3-15; Amo_2:1-3} And not only so, but "the house of Judah will I pluck up from their midst." The Lords people shall be no more exposed to their unneighbourly ill will; the butt of their ridicule, the victim of their malice will be removed to a foreign soil as well as they; but oppressed and oppressors will no longer be together; their new settlements will lie far apart; under the altered state of things, under the shadow of the great conqueror of the future, there will be no opportunity for the old injurious dealings. All alike, Judah and the enemies of Judah, will be subject to the will of the foreign lord. But that is not the end. The Judge of all the earth is merciful as well as just. He is loath to blot whole peoples out of existence, even though they have merited destruction by grievous and prolonged transgression of His laws. Therefore banishment will be followed by restoration, not in the case of Judah only, but of all the expatriated peoples. After enduring the Divine probation of adversity, they will be brought again, by the Divine compassion, "each to their own heritage and their own land." And then, if they will profit by the teaching of Iahvahs prophets, and "learn the ways," that is, the religion of His people, making their supreme appeal to Iahvah, as the fountain of all truth and the sovran vindicator of right and justice, as hitherto they have appealed to the Baal, and misled Israel into the same profane and futile course; then "they shall be built up," or rebuilt, or brought to great and evergrowing prosperity, "in the midst of My people." Such is to be the blessing of the Gentiles: they shall share in the glorious future that awaits repentant Israel. The present condition of things is to be completely reversed: now Judah sojourns in their midst; then they will be surrounded on every side by the emancipated and triumphant people of God; now they beset Judah with jealousies, suspicions, enmities; then Judah will embrace them all with the arms of an unselfish and protecting love. A last word of warning is added. The doom of the nation that will not accept the Divine teaching will be utter and absolute extermination.
The forecast is plainly of a Messianic nature; it recognises in Iahvah the Saviour, not of a nation, but of the world. It perceives that the disunion and mutual hatred of peoples, as of individuals, is a breach of Divine law; and it proclaims a general return to God, and submission to His guidance in all political as well as private affairs, as the sole cure for the numberless evils that flow from that hatred and disunion. It is only when men have learnt that God is their common Father and Lord that they come to see with the clearness and force of practical conviction that they themselves are all members of one family, bound as such to mutual offices of kindness and charity; it is only when there is a conscious identity of interest with all our fellows, based upon the recognition that all alike are children of God and heirs of eternal life, that true freedom and universal brotherhood become possible for man.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES.—1. Chronology of the Chapter.—The “covenant”…
CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES.—1. Chronology of the Chapter.—The “covenant” summarised in Jer_11:2-5 refers to the nation’s renewal of vows with Jehovah upon the Book of the Law being discovered during Josiah’s reign. The prevalency of idolatry (Jer_11:13) seems to point back to the public establishment of idol-worship under Manasseh. Both these allusions favour an early date for this and chap. 12—i.e., during Josiah’s reign, cir. B.C. 620. (So Keil and Dr. Payne Smith.) Others (Maurer, Hitzig, Umbriet, and Graff) find in chap. Jer_12:14 (which is a continuation of this chap.) a reference to the “neighbours” spoken of in 2Ki_24:2. If this be so, the chapter must date at the end of Jehoiakim’s reign, cir. B.C. 600. But the absence of all explicit mention of the Chaldeans (Lange), shows this prophecy to have been delivered before Nebuchadnezzar came against Jerusalem; for, after the battle at Charchemish, Jeremiah invariably specifies the Chaldeans by name. Hence the chapter is assigned to the first or second year of Jehoiakim, cir. B.C. 610. Probably Bleek is correct in assigning Jer_11:1-17 to Josiah’s reign, and Jer_11:18 to Jer_12:17 to Jehoiakim’s reign.
2. Contemporary Scriptures.—2Ki_23:34-37; 2Ch_36:4-5.
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3. National Affairs.—Jehoiakim on the throne. Quick development of the nation’s apostasy from Jehovah, and revulsion from Josiah’s reforms, led on by the impiety of the king.
4. Cotemporary History.—Egypt at this time (first or second year of Jehoiakim) enjoying a short-lived ascendancy over the Babylonian domination. This international supremacy, however, was speedily wrested from Pharaoh-Necho by Nebuchadnezzar in the fourth year of Jehoiakim.
5. Geographical References.—Jer_11:5. “A land flowing with milk and honey:” the euphemism for the fertile and beautiful Land of Promise, cf. Exo_3:8; Exo_3:17; Deu_6:3, &c. Jer_11:23. “Anathoth.” See Crit. Notes and Geog. References on chap. Jer_1:1, in loc.
6. Personal Allusions.—Jer_11:21. “Men of Anathoth:” these would be the acquaintances of Jeremiah in his youth, and even his relatives (Jer_12:6). It is on record that the “men of Anathoth,” 128 in number, returned from exile with Zerubbabel (Ezr_2:23; Neh_7:27; 1Es_5:18).
7. Natural History.—Jer_11:16. “Green olive-tree, and of goodly fruit:” olive very common in Judea; of two kinds, the cultivated and the wild; the latter a mere bush, the former grows to the average height of 25 feet. Its leaves are of a refreshing green hue, conspicuous in contrast with the foliage of darker trees. An object of “beauty” (Hos_14:6); an evergreen. Its “fruit” is at first green; in its early stage almost white, tinged with yellow; in its maturity, a rich purple, almost black: rich to the taste. Particularly famed for the oil it so abundantly yields.
8. Manners and Customs.—Jer_11:4. “The iron furnace:” metaphorical reference to Egypt; a figure used by Moses (Deu_4:20). Jer_11:19. “As a lamb (see Lit. Crit. below) led to the slaughter:” a tamed pet lamb, which afterwards had to be killed.
9. Literary Criticisms.—Jer_11:2. “Hear ye, and speak ye:” the plurals שִׁמְעוּ and דִּבַּרְתֶּם, indicate that not Jeremiah alone, but others in the nation, were, if not commissioned, yet urged to publish the “covenant” (comp. 2Ki_23:2; 2Ch_34:30). Jer_11:5. “So be it, O Lord,” אָמֵז יְהֹוָה; lit. “Amen, Jehovah:” it was the precise response which was required by the law (Deu_27:14-26), and was Jeremiah’s solemn assent. Jer_11:6. “Proclaim:” קָרָא, read aloud (Hitzig, Graff, Lange), as in 2Ki_22:8; 2Ki_22:10; 2Ki_22:16; but it means declare as used by Jeremiah, chap. Jer_2:2, Jer_3:12 (Keil). Jer_11:8. “The imagination,” i.e., stubbornness (cf. Jer_3:17). Jer_11:13. “That shameful thing … Baal.” See Lit. Crit. on chap. Jer_3:24. Jer_11:15. “What hath my beloved to do?” &c. The text is corrupt and obscure. The words, “with many,” הָרַבִּים, is better disconnected from the words, “wrought lewdness.” The LXX. read the word as הנדרים, or (as Maurer, Graff, &c., suggest) הָרָנִּים; i.e., vows or prayers, and read, Will vows and holy flesh (i.e., sacrifices) take away thy sins? Retaining the word in the text as it is, by הָרַבִּים must be understood, thy great ones, princes; and then read: thy great ones, in which thy earthly strength consists; and thy sacrifices, on which depends thy religious sanctity, shall pass away from thee (Speaker’s Com.). Keil renders the verse, “What would My beloved in My house? they who practise guile? Shall vows and holy flesh remove thy calamity from thee? then mayest thou exult.” Blayney: “Shall vows and holy flesh be allowed to come from thee? When thou art malignant, shalt thou then rejoice?” Dr. Payne Smith: “What hath My beloved in My house, to practise guile there? The chiefs and the holy flesh shall pass away from thee. When thy evil (is done) then thou rejoicest.” Jer_11:19. “Like a lamb or an ox:” כֶּבֶשׂ אלּוּף, i.e. a lamb domesticated, אַלּוּף is an adjective, familiar, intimate, “a tame lamb” (Gesenius). The substantive אֶלֶף is “ox,” so called as being tamed by familiar use. “Let us destroy the tree with the fruit: לֶחֶם, fruit; prop. food, especially bread. The LXX. render it ἐμβάλωμεν ξύλον εἰς τὸν ἄρτον αὐτοῦ, let us cast wood into his bread, i.e., poisonous wood. Targum: “Let us cast deadly poison into his food.” Jer_11:20. “Let me see Thy vengeance upon them:” אֶרְאֶה is future, “I shall see,” anticipating God’s vindication and interposition.
HOMILETICS ON SECTIONS OF CHAPTER 11
Section
Jer_11:1-8.
Jehovah’s covenant.
Section
Jer_11:9-13.
Idolatrous conspiracy.
Section
Jer_11:14-17.
Mediation and sacrifice unacceptable.
Section
Jer_11:18-23.
Murderers in ambush.
Jer_11:1-8. JEHOVAH’S COVENANT
It was the one solemn compact which God made with Israel; never altered, never superseded. By it this nation first became the Lord’s, and Jehovah pledged Himself to be their God. On its being faithfully observed, Israel’s very existence and distinction as a theocracy depended. Wonderful: it had for many years been lost; only found as by accident, during Josiah’s renovation of the temple. (See Addenda, Jer_11:2, “The lost book of the covenant found.”) Worse: it had been ignored by the whole nation; they regarded not the sacred charter given on Sinai, and revolted from Jehovah with indifference as to results. Yet has not humanity equally “broken the covenant,” apostatised from God, and virtually cancelled the solemn compact which united God in gracious relationship? “O Israel! thou hast destroyed thyself.”
I. The terms of this Divine covenant. “Obey My voice,” &c. (Jer_11:4-5). 1. It proposed a gracious relationship. “So shall ye be My people, and I will be your God.” 2. It pledged a glorious inheritance. “To give a land flowing with milk and honey.” 3. It depended on absolute conditions. “Obey, and do according to all which I command you.” (a.) The terms were unambiguous; “obey, and do.” (b.) The response must be unhesitating and uncompromising; “all I command.” (c.) Jehovah alone was to be their Lawgiver and God; “I will be your God”—“do according to all I command.”
II. The circumstances which emphasised this covenant. “Which I commanded your fathers in the day,” &c. (Jer_11:4). 1. The national crisis when it was made. This is noteworthy; “in the day,” &c. When Israel was just escaping from the oppressions and degradations which well-nigh denationalised the people. This covenant was made “in the day” of their emancipation. 2. The miraculous experience which immediately preceded it. This is equally remarkable, “I brought them forth out of the land of Egypt.” 3. The miseries from which they were freed lent special significance to this Divine act; “the iron furnace.” In return for all this, which should have ensured unfaltering loyalty and devoted gratitude, God asked, “Obey My voice.”
III. The importunity with which God instituted the covenant. “For I earnestly protested,” &c. (Jer_11:7). It denotes—1. The Divine earnestness and anxiety. (a.) God fervently desired this relationship; (b.) He ratified the covenant amid the most solemn asseverations, “earnestly protested;” (c.) He recognised the perils which menaced it, for it was made with “your fathers”—fickle, wavering men. 2. The fervent reiteration of the compact. “Even unto this day; rising up early and protesting, saying, Obey my voice.” So that with “line upon line, precept upon precept,” God encouraged them to fidelity and protested against disloyalty.
IV. The penalty attached to a breach of the covenant. It was made a condition of blessings; God should be their God, and Canaan their possession (Jer_11:5): but there was also appended a “curse” if it were violated (Jer_11:3). 1. There is a black alternative of every promise. 2. By the terrors of the Lord men are to be urged to fidelity. Not alone allured by promises, but menaced by curses; for Jehovah may not be trifled with by men. 3. The individual responsibility is enforced. “Every man;” not the nation, but the person, he who sins, shall suffer. 4. There are ruinous penalties threatening the disobedient. The “curse” of the Almighty.
V. The lengthened period through which God had urged this covenant. He had not grown dissatisfied with it, nor had He allowed it to pass from His thoughts, nor from Israel’s attention. From “the day that I brought your fathers out of Egypt even unto this day” (Jer_11:7). 1. God reckons the years of our opportunity. 2. He follows man during those years with persuasions and protests. “Rising early,” &c. 3. Our criminality and responsibility will be in proportion to the time and the persuasives.
VI. The persistent violation of this covenant. “Yet they obeyed not,” &c. (Jer_11:8). 1. Practical defiance; “they obeyed not.” 2. Habitual indifference; “nor inclined their ear.” 3. Wilful disloyalty; “walked every one in the imagination of their evil heart.”
VII. The Divine vindication of the violated covenant. “Therefore I will bring upon them all the words of this covenant.” 1. Blessings promised for obedience withdrawn. 2. Curses threatened for disloyalty performed. 3. God Himself administers judgment. “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”
Jer_11:9-13. IDOLATROUS CONSPIRACY
“Jeremiah saw that many lived in open disobedience to God, but the Lord told him the matter was worse than he thought of: ‘A conspiracy is found among them,’ by Him whose eye is upon the hidden things of darkness. There is a combination against God and religion, a dangerous design formed to overthrow God’s government and bring in the counterfeit deities. A cursed conspiracy! Oh, that there were not the like in our day!
“I. Observe, what the conspiracy was. They designed to overthrow Divine revelation, and persuade the people not to heed the words of God: did all they could to derogate from the authority of the Scriptures, to draw people to consult other gods as their oracles and court them as their benefactors. Human reason shall be their god, the light within their god, saints and angels their gods, deities of other nations shall be theirs; thus, under several disguises, the confederacy exists ‘against the Lord and against His Anointed.’
“II. Who were in the conspiracy. Not foreigners; but 1. ‘The inhabitants of Jerusalem with the men of Judah;’ city and country agree in this, however they may differ in other things. 2. This generation with the foregoing generation; ‘they are turned back to the iniquity of their forefathers,’ &c. (Jer_11:10); a conspiracy to carry on the war from age to age against religion. The house of Israel began the revolt, but Judah soon came into the conspiracy. In Josiah’s time there had been a reformation, but after his death the people returned to the idolatries they had then renounced.
“III. The chastening of the conspirators and the crushing of this conspiracy. God would take severe methods for this; for none ever hardened his heart thus against God and prospered. He that rolls this stone will find it return upon him. ‘Therefore I will bring evil upon them’ (Jer_11:11); the evil of punishment for the evil of sin; and there is no remedy, no relief. 1. They cannot help themselves (Jer_11:11). There is no fleeing from God’s justice. Evil pursues sinners and entangles them in snares from which they cannot extricate themselves. 2. Their God will not help them; ‘they shall cry unto Me,’ &c. (Jer_11:11). 3. Their idols shall not help them (Jer_11:12). If the idols could have done any real kindness to their worshippers, they would have done it for this people, who had renounced the true God to embrace them, and had multiplied them ‘according to the number of the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem.’ But in their distress their many gods and many altars should stand them in no stead.”—Henry.
Jer_11:14-17. MEDIATION AND SACRIFICE UNACCEPTABLE
These are and ever have been the sole resources of the sinful in seeking God. If He will not permit mediation (Jer_11:14) for transgressors, nor accept sacrifices, (“holy flesh,” Jer_11:15; see Lit. Crit. on ver.), then nought remains.
I. Offerings beautiful in themselves: mediatorial prayer and holy sacrifices.
II. Offerers who might expect acceptance. 1. Jeremiah, who as a prophet was also an acknowledged intercessor with God for the people, and withal a man Divinely chosen and approved; he would have offered prayers. 2. Judah, cherished by God as “His beloved” (Jer_11:15); once admired by God,” called (alas! not calls) thy name, a green olive-tree, fair, and of goodly fruit” (Jer_11:16); enstated by God in sacred possessions and privileges, “planted thee” (Jer_11:17); she would have offered “holy flesh.”
III. Offerings must represent those for whom they are made.
1. Prayer for others, that they may be spared and pardoned, avails only when they also pray for themselves. But Judah would not kneel before God for deliverance from her sins; she was prayerless, would continue so, until calamity befell her, and would then only “cry in her trouble,” not bemoan her guilt.
2. Sacrifices to God require that the offerers are themselves dedicated to Him. To give Him “holy flesh” while they lived in “lewdness” (Jer_11:15) was a flagrant mockery. Public worship is an insolence to Heaven when it covers private immorality.
IV. Incongruous offerings refused by God. “Pray not thou for this people” (Jer_11:14). “What hath My beloved to do in Mine house?” (Jer_11:15). 1. For those who love sin no prayer can be heard. Even the Divine Intercessor could not pray for the soul determined in guilt. 2. Those who live in sin defile God’s house by their presence and His altar with their sacrifices. For such persons, who, “when doing evil, rejoice,” to offer aught to God is impious effrontery.
V. Mocking hypocrites doomed.
1. There will come to such pretenders a “time of trouble” (Jer_11:14); wrong will not prove always pleasant.
2. Their former goodness will not protect them from the doom of apostates. “Fair and goodly” they may have been; and so really so as to be called by God “His beloved;” but the goodness of former years will not atone for the guilt of the present, nor their experience of Divine love save them from the wrath their perfidy has provoked (Jer_11:16).
3. Their enstatement in Divine favour can be reversed. “Planted” in Canaan, intrusted with “Mine house,” Judah’s condition suggests the case of those within the Church of Christ, once ostensibly (perhaps sincerely) God’s people. But “if any man defile the temple of God, him will God destroy.”
Jer_11:18-23. MURDERERS IN AMBUSH
How many dangers beset us which we fail to recognise! Jeremiah had no perception of his peril until “the Lord gave him knowledge of it” (Jer_11:18). An eye more discerning than our own is upon the righteous; and it “neither slumbers nor sleeps.” (Addenda on Jer_11:19.)
I. Malevolent designs against a witness for God. A life of godliness rebukes the guilty; and thus holy men incur their hate. Jeremiah incensed the men of Anathoth unwittingly, unwillingly; but “a good deed in a naughty world” disturbs and distresses and provokes the wicked.
1. A concerted plot: “They devised devices against me.” 2. A merciless purpose: “Let us destroy, … cut him off from the land of the living,” &c 3. An unsuspecting victim: “I was like a tame lamb” (see Lit. Crit.). 4. A vigilant Watcher: “Thou showedst me their doings” (Jer_11:18).
II. A holy man’s secure defence amid foes (Jer_11:20).
1. Goodness rejoices in the consciousness of God’s discernment. Though evil-doers malign and plot, God “judgest righteously,” recognises the unsullied virtue of His faithful servants (Jer_11:19). 2. Integrity relies confidently on Divine vindication. “I shall see Thy vengeance” (see Lit. Crit. on verse). God would defeat their designs. 3. Faith finds calm shelter in Jehovah’s protection. “Unto Thee have I revealed (confided) my cause.” (See 1Pe_2:23.)
III. Divine indignation towards the persecutors of His servants. He knows them and marks them out; “the men of Anathoth.” 1. The form in which their hostility expressed itself (Jer_11:21): he must keep silence or be slain; be faithless to his mission or die at their hands. It showed hatred of God, from whose word they recoiled. 2. The sentence of destruction which this evoked (Jer_11:22-23). They meant Jeremiah’s death; they themselves should cruelly perish. “With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.”
HOMILIES AND OUTLINES ON VERSES OF CHAPTER 11
Jer_11:2-5. Theme: COVENANTED ALLIANCE. (Comp. Homily on section, supra.)
The word came from the Lord “to Jeremiah” (Jer_11:1), but to be imparted to and reiterated by others—“hear ye, and speak ye” (Jer_11:2). Some think these were other prophets; some suggest the priests of Anathoth, which might have so exasperated them that they plotted his destruction (Jer_11:19; Jer_11:21), as the Popish priests sought the life of Savonarola because he incited them to do their duty.
This “covenant:” alluding to the Book of the Law, found by Hilkiah during Josiah’s restoration of the Temple (2Ki_22:8 to 2Ki_23:25; comp. Deuteronomy 27). (Addenda, Jer_11:2, “Book of the covenant found.”) This discovery of the law occurred five years after Jeremiah was called to the prophetic office. Observe: Though the book was lost, the covenant should not have been ignored. Their past history, their present occupancy of Canaan, appealed to them concerning their sacred relationship and Jehovah’s claims.
I. God allies Himself with His people by a method peculiarly solemn and imposing. “A covenant.” 1. The terms defined. 2. Mutually binding. 3. Intended to endure. 4. The method most impressive. 5. The responsibilities great—great as are the benefits and privileges.
II. To this sacred compact God exacts from His people unfaltering adherence. They must “obey the words” (Jer_11:3) as the condition on which Jehovah “may perform His oath” (Jer_11:5). 1. God looks for their part to be performed; desires it, watches for it, eagerly, paternally. 2. He claims that their fidelity should be as full as His own; no vacillation, no compromise, no departure. 3. Is wronged by their perfidy; wounded also.
III. Violation of the covenant forfeits its blessings and ensures its penalties. Cancels the agreement for Divine benefactions, invokes instead the Divine displeasure. The faithless soul puts God’s favours aside and invites the “curse.” So by repudiating the salvation of Christ, the sinner imprecates judgment. 1. God earnestly desires to bless us: “So shall ye be my people” (Jer_11:4), “that I may perform the oath,” &c. (Jer_11:5). 2. Man’s conscience recognises the righteousness of the covenant: “So be it, O Lord.” In the human heart there is a response to the justice of God in punishing the faithless soul, as truly as in blessing the obedient. Even in the last judgment there will be heard the human acknowledgment that “the Judge of all the earth doeth right.”
Notes: The obedience here agreed for is not performance of the stern legal statutes of the law, but fulfilment of the benignant terms of a “covenant”—a gracious and reciprocal covenant. The “covenant” more naturally expresses itself in “Thou shalt love:” the law, in, Thou shalt do.
The crime of slighting the alliance of love is the greatest in itself and in its consequences. “If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema maranatha” (1Co_16:22). (Addenda, Jer_11:4, “Covenant alliance of love.”)
The Jews still occupied this goodly land, and it was still affluent in natural wealth: God had thus fulfilled His part of the covenant. It remained now with His people, by keeping the terms, to decide whether this inheritance should remain theirs.
Jer_11:6. Theme: JEHOVAH’S MESSAGE WIDELY PUBLISHED.
Most probably (so Hend., Naeg., and Speaker’s Com.) Jeremiah, obeying this Divine command, journeyed with Josiah in his reforming tour through the land (2Ki_23:15-20), everywhere reading to the people the words of the newly-found book. The word “proclaim” has the meaning of read aloud. (See Lit. Crit. on verse.)
All through the land the covenant is to be heard. All over the earth the Gospel is to be published: not in “cities of Judah and streets of Jerusalem” alone, but to “all people.” “Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature.”
I. That none may remain in sorrowful ignorance, or have excuse for neglect. The Light must shine into darkness.
II. That all may feel the persuasiveness of the earnest call. “Faith cometh by hearing:” hearts are moved by the heavenly appeal.
III. That every hearer may clearly know the full plan of safety. “Hear the words and do them.” (Comp. Rom_2:13; Jas_1:22.) “Do them:” Trapp remarks, “Else ye hear to no purpose; as the salamander liveth in the fire, and is not made hot by the fire; as the Ethiopian goeth black into the bath, and as black he cometh forth.” (Addenda, Jer_11:6, Poem by Trench.)
Jer_11:7-8. Theme: EARNEST PERSUASION RECKLESSLY DEFIED.
Observe 1. God Himself earnestly pleads; “I.” 2. God persistently pleads; “in the day I brought them out of Egypt, even unto this day.” 3. God fervently pleads, vehemently, with pathos and power; “protesting.” 4. God anxiously pleads; “rising up early,” &c., as one too concerned and troubled to rest. (See on chap. Jer_7:13. Addenda, Jer_11:7, “Rising early.”)
Yet, (1) Men oppose God in practice; “obeyed not.” (2) Refuse God their attention; “nor incline their ear.” (3) Pursue their own defiant course; “walked every one in the imagination (“stubbornness,” see on chap. Jer_3:17) of their evil heart.” (4) Turn God’s goodness into inevitable anger; “therefore will I bring upon them,” &c. (See 2Ki_17:13, ff.)
Jer_11:9-10. Theme: DELIBERATE COMBINATION AGAINST GOD.
The decisive course being now pursued by king Josiah in exterminating idolatry had led the opponents of the king’s purpose into determined league against his reformatory schemes; or the general dislike which prevailed among the people for this overthrow of their cherished idolatry may be meant. The consentaneous disapproval of the nation is spoken of as being a preconcerted opposition, a “conspiracy.”
Note, that opposition to religious work, and workers for Jehovah (Josiah the king and Jeremiah the prophet), is in truth a conspiracy against God Himself. So when Christ arrested Saul of Tarsus with the challenge “Why persecutest thou Me?” (Addenda, Jer_11:9, “Conspiracy against God.”)
I. The darkness of the human heart. Rebelled against the reformation; rose in resistance of the king’s work of purifying the land. “Love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil.” “Heart desperately wicked.”
II. The antagonism of man towards God. Any idol, any number of idols, will men rear and serve, but not Jehovah. “We will not have Thee,” &c. “My people love to have it so” (chap. Jer_5:31).
III. The deliberate purpose to defeat God’s work. Men combine to frustrate the designs of the Almighty. They determine to oppose those who would evangelise the world. They meet the progress of religion with combined and deliberate assaults. Guilt is implacable, defiant, restless. It hates God and godliness. They had “taken counsel together against the Lord, and against His Anointed” (Psa_2:2-3). Note, that their idolatry was not the issue of ignorance—they would not exchange it for Jehovah; nor was it the result of a hasty impulse, but deliberate design (Psa_83:5); nor was the national relapse into idolatry after Josiah’s death the consequence of indifference, but of a set purpose, a “conspiracy” (Jer_11:10).
IV. The confederacy for sin suffices to prevail over mutual estrangement. To oppose God and His kingdom men—mutually antagonistic—will ally themselves. (See Jer_11:10.) “The house of Israel and the house of Judah,” the two kingdoms which were in fierce hostility one to another politically, became conspirators against the God whose goodness gave them national existence and political power. Men can forswear their own antagonisms, when impiety is in the ascendant, in order to trample God’s claims beneath their feet in scorn. But “though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not go unpunished.” “These (ten kings) have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast; these shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them,” &c. (Rev_17:12-14).
Jer_11:11-13. Theme: THE CRY OF THE GODLESS IN CALAMITY. (See Homily, and Notes on chap. Jer_2:28, also on sections, chap. Jer_2:14-28.)
“Cry unto Me,” contrasted with “cry unto the gods.” “I will not hearken unto them;” set over against “they shall not save them at all.” God also places in juxtaposition His own power to afflict—“I will bring evil”—with the idols’ powerlessness to help them. Note, too, that the “thing” for which the people deserted God is “a shameful thing;” in itself a degraded object, in its rites and orgies loathsome, and certain to cover with shame those who worship and trust in it. With the one true God alienated, and all false gods, however numerous (Jer_11:13), proved to be worthless and impotent, none to “hearken” or “save” though they “cry”—how desolate the outlook of the impious when the day of sore trouble and dismay arrives! “Seek the Lord, seek righteousness, seek meekness; it may be ye shall be hid in the day of the Lord’s anger.”
Jer_11:14. Theme: THE PRAYER OF MEDIATION SILENCED BY GOD.
For there is a climax of iniquity which renders pity misplaced, and prayer a mockery; these must not then intervene. (See on chap. Jer_7:16.) Praying men are arrested in their very prayers by the dreadful fact that the guilty scorn to pray for themselves until doom is upon them.
I. A bound is here set to prayer; because there is a bound to possibility.
II. A warning is here given to the prayerless: they must not reckon on the successful prayers of others for them so long as they refuse to pray for themselves.
III. A correction is here suggested to the prayerful: when God’s purposes are evidently fixed, do not attempt to interpose; nor, when you have prayed unwisely, and He therefore does not answer, conclude that He is not the Hearer of prayer. There is a time for solemn silence and submission. (See on chap. Jer_7:16.)
Jer_11:15. Theme: THE UNWELCOME SACRIFICE. (Addenda on verse.)
I. Offered by one whom God held dear: “my beloved.” For God tenderly cherishes even His sinning people.
II. Presented amid solemn surroundings: “in Mine house.” The scene was good, where God was ready to meet the worshipper, and where sacrifices were pleasant to Him.
III. Itself a proper and approved offering to God: “holy flesh.” Beautiful and holy things God desires from us.
IV. Rendered abhorrent by the worshipper’s guilt: “she hath wrought lewdness;” and “when doing evil, exulted.” God can have no pleasure in pure things offered with defiled hands. “Wash you, make you clean, put away the evil of your doings,” &c. (Isa_1:11-16). (See Lit. Crit. on verse.)
Jer_11:16-17. Theme: DESTRUCTION OF THE FAIR OLIVE-TREE.
A favourite and frequent figure for God’s ancient people. Observe: 1. How carefully Jehovah cherishes the remembrance of our early fidelity and spiritual beauty: He had not lost the vision of Judah’s former piety. 2. How clearly God delineates the mournful difference; fully recognises the degeneracy and decay of that early goodliness. He is watchful over our careers, and notes our present state as compared or contrasted with our former years.
I. The beautiful tree of God’s fostering.
1. Its fair proportions were God’s own work. To His grace Judah owed all her beauty. “The Lord called thy name, A green olive,” &c. (Jer_11:16), i.e., He made her what she was.
2. Its localisation in fruitful soil was an act of Divine planting. “The Lord planted thee” (Jer_11:17). Observe: To God’s grace, which made us what we are, we must trace all our spiritual advantages: He hath wrought all our works in us.
III. Goodly fruit grossly misused. All that this fair tree yielded was carried away from Him who planted it, and offered to Baal (Jer_11:17). 1. He who planted the tree should gather the fruit; an unnatural alienation of human life. 2. A tree whose fruits are deteriorated must be removed: evil growths must not remain in God’s fair garden. Wickedness forfeits privileges. “Pronounced evil against thee, for the evil done” (ver; 17).
III. Destruction by fire of the degenerate tree.
1. Calamity threatened: “The Lord hath pronounced evil.” 2. Complete devastation effected: “with the noise of a great tumult,” &c. (Jer_11:16), i.e., by the fury of a thunderstorm and the fiery lightning, by which “fire is kindled upon it, and the branches are broken.”
Jer_11:17. Theme: THE SINNER’S SIN HURTS HIMSELF. Text: “The evil which they have done against themselves.”
i. Intentionally against God: “To provoke Me to anger.”
ii. Practically to their own injury. Guilt rebound, returns upon the guilty. (See Outlines on chap. Jer_7:19.)
Jer_11:18-23. Theme: PERSECUTION OF GOD’S PROPHET. (See Homily on section, supra. Addenda on Jer_11:19, “Murderers in ambush.”)
i. Secret counsels revealed by Jehovah (Jer_11:19). The general “conspiracy” (see Jer_11:9) of the nation against Jehovah was accompanied by a family conspiracy against Jeremiah, his own brethren being determined to take his life. This cruel plot was revealed to His unsuspecting servant by God Himself.
“Although the human heart cannot be fathomed (chap. Jer_17:9), yet nothing can be hidden from God, and He frequently reveals hidden counsels, so that they are known and manifest, as in the case of Absalom and Ahithophel (Isa_8:10). Therefore do nothing in secret, in the hope that it will remain hidden, for the birds of the heaven carry the voice, and the winged repeat it. (Ecc_10:20).”—Cramer.
ii. Cruel treachery against a harmless prophet (Jer_11:19). It was not that Jeremiah wronged them, but the truth troubled them. Criminals are wroth against their captors. So Ahab against Elijah (1 Kings 18). Note: how defenceless the godly leave themselves: “as a lamb,” with no protection against guile or malevolence; even as Christ Himself: “As a Lamb before His shearers.” God keeps His own while they serve His will. Mark, also, how typical was Jeremiah’s case: “like a lamb brought to the slaughter;” not violent, as angry men are wont to be, but gentle and submissive, free from vindictiveness; and also fulfilling his work at the peril (in Christ’s case, at the expense) of his life.
“Let us destroy the tree with the fruit;” that is, the man, who is the tree, and his teaching, which is the fruit; thus ridding ourselves at once of both causes of disturbance, the living presence of this witness against our sins, and his incisive words of condemnation and reproach.
“Let us cut him off from the land of the living.” Wordsworth remarks, “So of Christ it is said by Isaiah (Isa_53:8). All that happened to the prophet Jeremiah, who was specially the suffering prophet; was a foreshadowing of what would happen to the Great Prophet of whom Moses spoke, ‘the Man of Sorrows;’ and we read these narratives concerning Jeremiah with comparatively little advantage unless we see here a prophetic adumbration of Christ.” Jerome says, “Almost all things that the prophets did and suffered were figurative of Christ; and whatever was fulfilled in Jeremiah was a prophecy concerning the Lord Himself.
iii. Vengeance imprecated on foes (Jer_11:20). This wish for vengeance was not personal, but ministerial; not because of wrong done him, but because they were the determined and unscrupulous adversaries of God and His word. The noteable difference between this appeal to God against His foes and Christ’s prayer for those who crucified Him, “Father, forgive them,” and Stephen’s “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge,” marks the wide distinction between the old and new covenants; the former was grounded on righteousness, the latter on love. Zinzendorf remarks, “The first New Testament vengeance was executed on the Cross, when an evil-doer, who had mocked at Jesus, cringed on the cross and asked for a gracious remembrance.” Wordsworth: “Jeremiah, the human type, fails in some things where Christ, the Divine Antitype, excels.”
“Unto Thee have I revealed my cause.” A teacher is advised to say this if he can, “I have ceased to concern myself about myself.” Luther says:—
“Once I grasped too many things:—
None stayed; they all had wings.
But since I’ve weary grown,
And all away have thrown,
Not one from me has flown.
And do you ask, How can it be thus?
Because I’ve cast my all on Jesus.”
Messengers and servants who concern themselves about their own injuries must have bad masters.—Zinzendorf.
iv. The implacable malice of familiars (Jer_11:21). “Where shall a man find worse friends than at home? A prophet is nowhere so little set by as in his own country (Mat_13:57).”—Trapp. None were so bitter to Christ as His fellow-townsmen (Luk_4:24-29). “That which the people of Anathoth say here to Jeremiah, the people of this world say everywhere and at all times to the preachers of the truth. (Comp. 2Ti_4:3-4.) It is important, then, to preach the word; to be instant in season and out of season; to reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all long-suffering and doctrine.”—Naeg. in Lange. “It appears from this passage that the holy man had not only to contend with the king and his courtiers, and the priests who were at Jerusalem, but that when he betook himself to a corner to live quietly with his own people, he had even there no friend, but that all persecuted him as an enemy.”—Calvin.
v. God’s visitation on His people’s foes (Jer_11:22-23). Henry comments thus: “The sentence passed upon them for their crime. God says, I will punish them; let Me alone to deal with them. I will visit this upon them: so the word is: will inquire into it and reckon for it.… They sought Jeremiah’s life, therefore. they shall die. They would destroy him, that his name be no more remembered; therefore shall there be no remnant of them. And herein the Lord is righteous.” Cramer: “When the people will not endure the rod of Christ’s mouth, with which He smites the earth (Isa_11:4), item, His rods Beauty and Bands (Zec_11:7), God sends one with the sword to preach, and then we see what the smooth preachers have effected (Isa_30:10).”
NOTICEABLE TOPICS IN CHAPTER 11
Topic: JOSIAH’S DISCOVERY OF THE LAW. Text: “Hear ye the words of this covenant” (Jer_11:2).
Josiah, the last sovereign of David’s house (for his sons had not independent rule), showed the zeal and prompt obedience of the son of Jesse. Character: “heart was tender” (2Ki_22:19). Discovery of Moses’s law the great event of his reign. 1. It shows that the Holy Scripture had for a long time been neglected, and was practically lost. This Book of the Law was the five “books of Moses,” containing the original covenant between God and His people. Moses had enforced the domestic study of these Scriptures (Deu_11:18-20), enjoined upon each king that they be constantly read and recited (Jer_17:19-20), ordered that at feast of tabernacles they be publicly read to the whole nation (Jer_31:7-13). 2. The loss of the book and this negligence of God’s word resulted from the diversities and depths of national apostasy. The nation did not want to hear the law which testified against their multiplied transgressions, nor to listen to a condemnation of the idols they had chosen. Nor would the kings copy out the law for themselves when finding that it was against the will of God that the nation should have a king.
I. Josiah’s evil parentage explains his total ignorance of the law.
1. His parental alienation from God and His word. The last good king before him was Hezekiah, who had been dead sixty or seventy years. His son Manasseh, who succeeded him, was the most profane of all the line of David; he it was who committed the inexpiable sins which sealed the sentence of Judah’s destruction. He had set up idols in the temple, made his sons pass through the fire, dealt with spirits and wizards, shed much innocent blood in Jerusalem, done wickedly above all before him. On his return from Babylonian captivity, Manasseh attempted reformation, but found it easier to seduce than to reclaim the people (2Ch_33:15-25). Amon, who succeeded him, followed during his short reign the first ways of his father, and “trespassed more and more,” till slain by his subjects. Josiah was the son of this wicked king.
2. His own irreligious education. Brought up among very wicked men, in a corrupt court, after an apostasy of more than half a century, far from God’s prophets, in the midst of idols.
II. Religion is not determined wholly by outward circumstances. Like Manasseh, Josiah came to the throne in his boyhood. But Manasseh was the son of pious Hezekiah; Josiah, the son of wicked Amon. Thus religious life is not dependent on parentage, but, under God, who gives grace, on the state of the heart.
1. His early life of piety. Boyhood is not revealed to us, except that he came to the throne when only eight. But scarcely was he old enough to think for himself and profess himself a servant of the true God, ere he chose that good part which could not be taken from him. When but sixteen he began to seek after the God of David his father (2Ch_34:3). Blessed they who so seek, for they shall find.
2. His disadvantages. He had not the aid of the revealed volume; was surrounded by diversities of idol-worship, sophistries of unbelief, seductions of sinful pleasure. Every temptation to go wrong. Had he gone into a life of sin, we might have made allowance; not so bad as other kings, for he had not sinned against light, as they had done. Yet he had enough light to show him how to go right; if, therefore, he had gone wrong, he would have sinned against what light he had; not light so clear as Solomon or Joash had, yet still against his better knowledge.
III. Every one has knowledge enough to be religious. Even the most unfavoured, poorest, and most ignorant. Education does not make a man religious; nor is it an excuse for irreligion that he has not been educated to his duty. It only makes him less guilty than those taught; but still he is guilty.
1. Scarcely any one in a Christian land can be in more disadvantageous circumstances than Josiah; nay, scarcely in a heathen country; for idolatry was around him, and his mind was unformed.
2. But he had that, which all men have, a natural sense of right and wrong; and he did not blunt it. He heard and obeyed a constraining Divine voice. Though all the world had told him other, he would not believe he could sin without offence or with impunity.
3. The same inward sense led him to choose, amid all the various worships offered to his acceptance, the true one—the worship of the God of Israel (Psa_111:10; Psa_119:100.
4. His religious life was spontaneous. At sixteen he began to seek the God of his fathers; at twenty commenced his reformation—began of himself. Jeremiah did not begin to prophecy till after Josiah commenced his work. So that the king set about his pious task unaided by others.
IV. Thus following the biddings of his natural conscience, God gave him clear light. He set out in his work of reformation not knowing whither he went. But it is a rule of God’s providence, that those who act up to their light shall have clearer. “To him that hath shall be given.” While engaged in his work of restoring the temple, the Book of the Law was found.
1. His character here reveals itself in his conduct. Not inflated; as some who, though beginning humbly, become self-confident and proud. He still had “a heart tender, and humbled himself before God.” Felt his own blindness and weakness, and earnestly sought to know his duty better and practise it more entirely. “Rent his clothes” (2Ki_22:11), for he saw how incomplete his reformation had been, how far more guilty the nation was than he had supposed, and the fearful punishments overhanging them (Deu_30:15; Deu_30:19; Deu_11:26-28). And there had been in part a fulfilment of those threats. Samaria, the ten revolting tribes, Israel, had been carried away. Though he knew their sins had wrought this, yet here he finds it threatened beforehand, and discovered that the same punishment awaited his own people should they persist in sin.
2. He sought guidance of a Divine teacher. Sent to Huldah for counsel (2Ch_34:21, &c.).
V. His zealous and solicitous course of action in consequence of the Divine message. Assembled all Judah at Jerusalem, publicly read the Book of Law, then made all the people renew the covenant with the God of their fathers. Then, more exactly following the directions of the Lord, he carried on further reformations, and after that celebrated the Passover.
1. Greater knowledge was followed by stricter obedience (2Ki_23:22).
2. What he did he did with all his might (2Ki_23:25).
Conclusion:
(a.) Observance of God’s will, however we learn it, ensures God’s favour. Learning it from His Word in Scripture, as Christians do, or from His Word in our consciences, as the heathen do; it is by following it, in spite of seductions of the world around us, that we please God (Act_10:25).
(b.) If such is God’s mercy on all men who seek Him, what will be His grace to Christians? Far greater and more wonderful. Elected out of the world in Jesus Christ our Saviour to a glory incomprehensible and eternal.—Abridged and arranged from “Plain Sermons,” by authors of “Tracts for the Times.”
Topic: SINS OF OMISSION. Text: “Yet they obeyed not, nor inclined their ear” (Jer_11:8).
God commisioned Jeremiah to bring solemn accusation against Judah; he gives the first place to their shortcomings in positive service, reminds them of what they had not done, but ought to have done—constantly and persistently refused active obedience to the righteous will of the Most High.
I. The great commonness of sins of omission: in the world, in our circle of society, in our own hearts.
1. In a certain sense all offences against the law of God come under the head of sins of omission. Every sin is a breach of the all-comprehensive law, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbour as thyself.” How multitudinous our omissions in respect to this command of Christ! Too often we have had other gods beside Him. He deserved, having bought us with the blood of His dear Son, to be served with all-consuming earnestness. He rightly claims our best thoughts and utmost love; yet “unprofitable servants.” So too in regard to our “neighbour.” What sins of omission daily occur in our various relationships—our neighbours, our children, our household.
2. Sins of omission are seen in all who neglect to perform the first and all-essential Gospel command: “Repent and be converted;” “Repent and be baptised;” “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.” Yet, though urged to repentance and to faith in Christ, sin is not sorrowed for, faith in Christ not exercised. This true of dense masses everywhere, and of many in God’s house who hear but not obey.
3. Sins of omission in religious duties. Multitudes neglect the outward worship of God. But others show religious regard; yet what omissions as to prayer; how lax in devotion are the most of us! As to the Bible: left unread! As to service: talents wrapped up in napkin! Our omissions lie upon the horizon of memory like masses of storm-clouds accumulating for a horrible tempest.
II. The cause of this excessive multiplicity of sins of omission.
1. The great cause lies in our evil hearts. Absence of clean heart and right spirit is at the root: “Ye must be born again.”
2. The conscience of man is not well alive to sins of omission. While conscience will chastise men for direct acts of wrong, not awake to sins of neglect.
3. These sins are multiplied through indolence. Men sleep on, awake not to righteousness and the service of God. In the face of eternity, life, death, heaven, and hell, multitudes are simply ruined because they neglect the great salvation, and are absolutely too idle to concern themselves.
4. Ignorance. With many ignorance is wilful; have Bible, conscience; yet sin against light and knowledge.
5. Men excuse themselves so readily about these sins of omission. A more convenient season is anticipated for repentance, faith, prayer. This postponement of service is the perpetuation of rebellion.
6. Many neglect because of the prevalence of the like conduct. To omit to love and serve the Lord is the custom. But enlightened conscience warns us that custom is no excuse for sin: it will be no plea at the bar of God.
III. The sinfulness of sins of omission. They cannot be trivial, for
1. Consider what would be the consequences if God were to omit His mercies to us for one moment! Suppose He should omit to supply breath or life for one minute, or omit to restrain the axe of judgment for an hour! Suppose for a day He should omit His natural blessings to the world; the sun would forbear to shine, life would forget to be, world perish. Suppose Jesus had left an omission in His plan of salvation; the whole would have failed, and humanity left without remedy or hope.
2. Reflect what an influence they would have upon an ordinary commonwealth. If one person has a right to omit his duty, another has, and all have—watchman, judge, merchant, husbandman; society soon collapse, kingdom break to pieces.
3. Think how you would judge of omissions towards yourselves. In the case of your servant, you instantly resent it. So in a soldier. Even in your child: to neglect your command is regarded as equally criminal as to commit offence. Perhaps you have given God all except loving Him; outward worship and profession, but not love. Consider this to be the case in your home, in your wife: omission of love is a fatal lack, and so is your love of God.
4. Consider what God thinks of omissions. Saul was ordered to kill the Amalekites—not one to escape: he saved Agag and best of the cattle; therefore the Lord said, “I have put thee away from being king over Israel!” Ahab was commanded to kill Benhadad on account of great criminality: Ahab only captured him; therefore, “Because thou hast let this man go, thy life shall be for his life!” Our Lord cursed the fig-tree because no fruit! The man with one talent was condemned because he neglected to use it. The Holy Spirit convinces of sins of omission,—“of sin, because they believe not on Me.”
IV. The result and punishment of sins of omission.
1. They will condemn us. “The king shall say, I was hungered and ye gave me no meat,” &c. The absence of virtue rather than the presence of vice condemned them. “Without holiness no man shall see the Lord.” Though we know nothing of salvation by works, yet the Baptist’s words echo loud, “Now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees; therefore, every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire.”
2. If persevered in, they will effectually shut against us the possibilities of pardon. “He that believeth not”—is there pardon, rescue for him? No; he “is condemned already, because he hath not believed on the Son of God.” Will the mercy of God blot out sins unrepented of? Nay; sins will cling to us as the leprosy to the house of Gehazi. In the marriage feast in Gospel, many would not come, and they perished because they would not come; and one came but “had not on the wedding-garment,” and because of that omission, “Bind him hand and foot, and deliver him to the tormentors.” So if you have not—mark that point—put on the righteousness of Christ by a living faith in Him, salvation will be forfeit for ever.—C.H. Spurgeon.
ADDENDA TO CHAPTER 11 ILLUSTRATIONS AND SUGGESTIVE EXTRACTS
Jer_11:2. The lost book of the covenant found. “The Temple during the previous reign had fallen into a state of neglect, such that, as in the time of Joash, a complete restoration had become necessary. On this occasion, however, the king and the priesthood acted in entire harmony. Suddenly, under the accumulated rubbish or ruins of the Temple (as it would seem), the High Priest discovered a roll containing the ‘Book of the Law.’
Whatever may have been the exact nature of this document, two points, and two alone, are clear. First, it was as complete a surprise as if the book had never been known before. During the troubles of the reign of Manasseh there is no proof of its destruction, while during the previous reigns there is no proof of its existence. David, Solomon, Asa, and Jehoshaphat had lived in constant, and apparently unconscious, violation of the ordinances which came home with such force to Josiah. It is possible that the book may have now been first composed. It is possible that it may have been a mere rediscovery.… But, in either case, this sudden appearance of the law amounted almost to a new revelation.
“Secondly, whatever other portions of the Pentateuch may have been included in the roll, there can be little doubt that the remarkable work to which the Greek translators gave the name of ‘the Second Law’ (Deuteronomy) occupied the chief place.”—Stanley’s “JewishChurch.”
Jer_11:4. The covenant an alliance of love. “So shall ye be My people,” &c. “Now, for the first time, the love of God, as the chief ground of His dealings with His people—the love towards God as the ground of their service to Him—the spiritual character and free choice of that service (Deu_6:4-9; Deu_7:6-11, &c.), were urged on the nation with all the force of Divine and human authority.”—Stanley, ibid.
Jer_11:6. JEHOVAH’S MESSAGE WIDELY PUBLISHED. “Proclaim all these words.”
“I say to thee, Do thou repeat
To the first man thou mayest meet,
In lane, highway, or open street,
That he and we and all men move
Under a canopy of love,
As broad as the blue sky above.
And ere thou leave him, say thou this
Yet one word more: They only miss
The winning of that final bliss
Who will not count it true that Love,
Blessing, not cursing, rules above,
And that in it we live and move.
And one thing further make him know:
That, to believe these things are so,
This firm faith never to forego,
Despite of all that seems at strife
With blessing—all with curses rife;—
That this is blessing, this is life.”
R. C. TRENCH.
Jer_11:7. “Rising early and protesting;” as Plutarch reporteth of the Persian kings, that they had an officer to call them up betimes, and to mind them of their business.—Trapp. Yet God rose unsolicited, so eager and earnest was He on His people’s behalf.
Jer_11:9. Conspiracy against God. Did you ever, on a hot afternoon, witness the contest of innumerable worms over a carrion carcass? Did you ever notice the greediness, selfishness, and quarrel-someness displayed by the actors in a scene like that? And yet such a contest is decent compared with the gigantic contest that has been carried on for thousands of years by the vermicular human race; and God has looked upon it, pondered over it, and carried it in His heart; and all this time He has not ceased to pour out upon the world, in rich abundance, the blessings of His never-failing love.—Beecher.
Jer_11:15. The unwelcome sacrifice. He that offers in sacrifice, O Pamphilus! a multitude of bulls and of goats, of golden vestments or purple garments, of figures of ivory or precious gems, and imagines by this to conciliate the favour of God, is grossly mistaken, and has no solid understanding; for he that would sacrifice with success ought to be chaste and charitable, no corrupter of virgins, no adulterer, no robber or murderer for the sake of lucre. God, who is near thee, perpetually beholds thy actions.—From the Greek.
Jer_11:19. Murderers in ambush. Between the priesthood and the prophets there had hitherto been more or less of a conflict; but now that conflict was exchanged for a fatal union. “A wonderful and horrible thing was committed in the land: the prophets prophesied falsely, and the priests bore rule by their means;” and he (Jeremiah) who by each of his callings [Stanley regards Jeremiah as having been a priest before he was called to become a prophet] was naturally led to sympathise with both, was the doomed antagonist of both—victim of one of the strongest passions, the hatred of priests against a priest who attacks his own order,—the hatred of prophets against a prophet who ventures to have a voice and a will of his own. His own village of Anathoth, occupied by members of the sacred tribe, was for him a nest of conspirators against his life. Of him first in the sacred history was the saying literally fulfilled, “A prophet hath no honour in his own birthplace” (Ἐντῇ αύτοῦ πατρίδι, Luk_4:24).—Stanley.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain Jeremiah's Sixth Prophecy (Reign of Josiah). The Broken Covenant…
Jeremiah's Sixth Prophecy (Reign of Josiah). The Broken Covenant entails a Curse
These chapters form a connected prophecy. They probably belong to Josiah's time, for (a) 'the words of this covenant' (Jer_11:3) seem to refer to the reading of the newly discovered law mentioned in 2Ki_23:3; (b) Jeremiah has not yet removed from Anathoth to Jerusalem (Jer_11:21), and (c) the apparent allusion (Jer_12:4) to a drought accords with similar references in prophecies belonging to Josiah's reign (Jer_3:3; Jer_5:24).
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1-14. Punishment must follow faithlessness.
3. Cursed, etc.] cp. the language of the warnings in Deuteronomy (Deu_27:15-26), a book with which this passage has other features in common.
4. The iron furnace] the brickkilns of the bondage in Egypt (Exo_1:14) may have given rise to the figure as expressive of affliction.
6. The cities of Judah] Jeremiah may have accompanied Josiah in the journey which he made to Bethel and to the cities of Samaria for the overthrow of idolatry (2Ki_23:15, 2Ki_23:19).
7. Rising early] a frequent phrase with Jeremiah to denote earnestness, but not occurring in that sense elsewhere.
8. Imagination] RV 'stubbornness.'
9. A conspiracy] The words seem to point to an actual secret combination against Josiah on account of his reforms.
10. The iniquities of their forefathers] referring to the idolatry in the wilderness days. They went after] RV 'they are gone after,' viz. the Jews of the prophet's own day. The reformation had not taken hold of the hearts of the people, they had returned to their heathenism.
13. The worship of Baal was practised secretly or openly in all parts of the country and city. Shameful thing] i.e. Baal.
15-20. The people resent rebuke.
15. Faithless Judah's presence in the Ternpie is only an intrusion. And the holy flesh is passed from thee] better, perhaps, 'shall vows and holy flesh (i.e. sacrifices) take away thy wickedness?'
16. The fair promise and the punishment which apostasy brought about.
18. The prophet passes from the general to the particular, and charges his fellow-townsmen of Anathoth with conspiring to silence and even to kill him. The Lord had shown him their intentions.
19. Like a lamb or an ox] RV 'like a gentle lamb.' The tree with the fruit thereof] apparently a proverb. Not only is the tree to perish but there is to be no chance of reproduction by the sowing of its seed.
21-23. Anathoth shall be punished.
23. There shall be no remnant of them] viz. of the actual conspirators. Among those who return from exile are mentioned 'men of Anathoth' (Ezr_2:23).
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain The word
The word
This, like the other messages, is made up of rebuke, exhortation, and warning, but in this instance these are based upon the violation of the Palestinian Covenant Deu 28:1 to Deu 30:9. (See Scofield "Deu 30:3"). The Assyrian and Babylonian captivities of Israel and of Judah were the execution of the warning, Deu 28:63-68.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain The Broken Covenant and the Plot Against Jeremiah
CHAPTER 11
The Broken Covenant and the Plot Against Jeremiah
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1. The broken covenant (Jer 11:1-17)
2. The plot revealed and Jehovah’s answer (Jer 11:18-23)
Jer 11:1-17. Jehovah had made a covenant with His people. He tells the prophet about it and the responsibility which was connected with that covenant. They were to obey His voice. Then should they be His people and He their God. And of this covenant it was written, “Cursed be the man that obeyeth not the words of this covenant.” The prophet answered the Lord: “So be it LORD” (Amen). Then he is commanded to proclaim this covenant and tell the people that they had broken the covenant. They had followed the evil example of their fathers. They had burned incense to the idol gods. Therefore the prophet again is told not to pray for this adulterous generation, “for I will not hear them in the time they cry unto Me in their trouble.” Yet the Lord in spite of it all still calls them “My Beloved,” though they had broken the covenant and worked lewdness. Jer 11:16 is used by the Spirit of God in Rom 11:1-36, the chapter which begins with the assurance that God has not cast away His people. The branches of the green olive tree are broken. Yet there is hope; they are still beloved for the Father’s sake.
Jer 11:18-23. The Lord revealed unto him their doings. He was ignorant of it, like a lamb or an ox brought to the slaughter. They wanted to cut him off from the land of the living. He calls for vengeance upon them, which is in full keeping with the law dispensation and God’s righteous government.
Righteousness characterizes the saint as well as love, and has its place where there are adversaries to that love and to the blessing of the loved people. It is the Spirit of prophecy, not the gospel, no doubt because prophecy is connected with the government of God, not with His present dealings in sovereign grace. Hence in the Revelation vengeance is called for by the saint. (Synopsis of the Bible.)
The men of Anathoth had intimidated him by saying, “Prophesy not in the name of the LORD, that thou die not by our hand.” The Lord answers him that their young men should die by the sword, and their sons and daughters by famine. No remnant of them should be left.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain Reminder of the Covenant Between Jehovah and His People
Reminder of the Covenant Between Jehovah and His People
v. 1. The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, an express message from Jehovah, the God of the covenant, saying,
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v. 2. Hear ye the words of this covenant, hearkening to them in willing obedience, and speak unto the men of Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, Jeremiah here being reminded of the duty which was incumbent upon all prophets of the Lord,
v. 3. and say unto them, in calling to remembrance the awful curse found in the books of Moses, in the proclamation of the covenant, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Cursed be the man that obeyeth not the words of this covenant, Deu 27:26,
v. 4. which I commanded your fathers in the day that I brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, from the iron furnace, Egypt being called thus on account of the severe afflictions which came upon the children of Israel during the last period of their sojourn there, Cf Deu 4:20, saying, Obey My voice and do them, namely, the words of the covenant, according to all which I command you; so shall ye be My people, and I will be your God, Cf Deu 29:12; Exo 6:7; Lev 26:12; Deu 7:6,
v. 5. that I may perform the oath which I have sworn unto your fathers, the special promises given to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Deu 7:8, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as it is this day, this beautiful and rich land being still in the possession of the children of Judah. Then answered I, after the manner of the people when they pronounced the will of the Lord antiphonally, Deu 27:15-22, and said, So be it, O Lord, literally, "Amen, Jehovah. "
v. 6. Then the Lord said unto me, Proclaim all these words in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, on a journey through the entire country, but especially in the capital city, saying, Hear ye the words of this covenant, of the Law as it was originally proclaimed and still remained in force, and do them, for it is not a mere external hearing of His Word which satisfies the Lord, but only the acceptance of faith and a consequent doing of His will.
v. 7. For I earnestly protested unto your fathers in the day that I brought them up out of the land of Egypt, when the covenant of Mount Sinai was made, even unto this day, rising early and protesting, with all zeal and vehemence, saying, Obey My voice. Cf Deu 30:19; Psa 50:7.
v. 8. Yet they obeyed not nor inclined their ear, did not even make an attempt to give heed, but walked every one in the imagination of their evil heart, in wicked stubbornness; therefore I will bring upon them all the words of this covenant, all the punishments threatened to the transgressors in the special curses pronounced in the proclamation of the Law, which I commanded them to do, but they did them not. The Lord is ever ready to show long-suffering and loving-kindness, but in the end He is bound to punish the obstinate transgressors of His holy will.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 The word that came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, saying,…
The word that came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, saying, "Listen
This idiom is used to introduce a special message from God. See how you translated a similar phrase in Jeremiah 7:1. AT: "This is the message that Yahweh gave to Jeremiah. He said, 'Listen" or "This is the message that Yahweh spoke to Jeremiah: 'Listen" (See: Idiom)
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the inhabitants of Jerusalem
"the people who live in Jerusalem"
translationWords
word
Jeremiah
Yahweh
covenant
kingdom of Judah
Jerusalem
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 11:1-17 The Lord reminded Jeremiah of several messages (Exod…
11:1-17 The Lord reminded Jeremiah of several messages (Exod 19:5) that had been the basis for the relationship between the Lord and Israel over many centuries. Because the kingdom of Judah was the only remaining portion of the nation of Israel, its people were the defendants in their upcoming trial before the Lord. This event probably occurred during the reign of Jehoiakim.
11:1-3 The Lord authorized Jeremiah to present the legal charges against the people of Judah and Jerusalem. With the power of the divine name behind the spoken words, the Lord brought forward the terms of the covenant pertaining to the curses that would come upon those who did not obey (see Deut 27:15-26; 28:15-68).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.