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 Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Jer 7:1 The word that came to Jeremiah from…
Jer 7:1 The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,
Ver. 1. The word that came to Jeremiah.] A new sermon, but to the same purpose as the former. See on Jer 1:2. Toto libro idem argumentum sursum deorsum versat. {a}
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{a} Oecolamp.
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 See Jer 1:2. This is the title of a…
See Jer 1:2. This is the title of a new sermon, much of the nature of the former, which readeth to Jer 10.
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 These verses begin another sermon, which is continued in…
These verses begin another sermon, which is continued in this and the two following chapters, much to the same effect with those before, to reason them to repentance. Observe,
I. The orders given to the prophet to preach this sermon; for he had not only a general commission, but particular directions and instructions for every message he delivered. This was a word that came to him from the Lord, Jer 7:1. We are not told when this sermon was to be preached; but are told, 1. Where it must be preached - in the gate of the Lord's house, through which they entered into the outer court, or the court of the people. It would affront the priests, and expose the prophet to their rage, to have such a message as this delivered within their precincts; but the prophet must not fear the face of man, he cannot be faithful to his God if he do. 2. To whom it must be preached - to the men of Judah, that enter in at these gates to worship the Lord; probably it was at one of three feasts, when all the males from all parts of the country were to appear before the Lord in the courts of his house, and not to appear empty: then he had many together to preach to, and that was the most seasonable time to admonish them not to trust to their privileges. Note, (1.) Even those that profess religion have need to be preached to as well as those that are without. (2.) It is desirable to have opportunity of preaching to many together. Wisdom chooses to cry in the chief place of concourse, and, as Jeremiah here, in the opening of the gates, the temple-gates. (3.) When we are going to worship God we have need to be admonished to worship him in the spirit, and to have no confidence in the flesh, Phi 3:3.
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II. The contents and scope of the sermon itself. It is delivered in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, who commands the world, but covenants with his people. As creatures we are bound to regard the Lord of hosts, as Christians the God of Israel; what he said to them he says to us, and it is much the same with that which John Baptist said to those whom he baptized (Mat 3:8, Mat 3:9), Bring forth fruits meet for repentance; and think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father. The prophet here tells them,
1. What were the true words of God, which they might trust to. In short, they might depend upon it that if they would repent and reform their lives, and return to God in a way of duty, he would restore and confirm their peace, would redress their grievances, and return to them in a way of mercy (Jer 7:3): Amend your ways and your doings. This implies that there had been much amiss in their ways and doings, many faults and errors. But it is a great instance of the favour of God to them that he gives them liberty to amend, shows them where and how they must amend, and promises to accept them upon their amendment: "I will cause you to dwell quietly and peaceably in this place, and a stop shall be put to that which threatens your expulsion." Reformation is the only way, and a sure way to ruin. He explains himself (Jer 7:5-7), and tells them particularly,
(1.) What the amendment was which he expected from them. They must thoroughly amend; in making good, they must make good their ways and doings; they must reform with resolution, and it must be a universal, constant, preserving reformation - not partial, but entire - not hypocritical, but sincere - not wavering, but constant. They must make the tree good, and so make the fruit good, must amend their hearts and thoughts, and so amend their ways and doings. In particular, [1.] They must be honest and just in all their dealings. Those that had power in their hands must thoroughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbour, without partiality, and according as the merits of the cause appeared. They must not either in judgment or in contract oppress the stranger, the fatherless, or the widow, nor countenance or protect those that did oppress, nor refuse to do them justice when they sought for it. They must not shed innocent blood, and with it defile this place and the land wherein they dwelt. [2.] They must keep closely to the worship of the true God only: "Neither walk after other gods; do not hanker after them, nor hearken to those that would draw you into communion with idolaters; for it is, and will be, to your own hurt. Be not only so just to your God, but so wise for yourselves, as not to throw away your adorations upon those who are not able to help you, and thereby provoke him who is able to destroy you." Well, this is all that God insists upon.
(2.) He tells them what the establishment is which, upon this amendment, they may expect from him (Jer 7:7): "Set about such a work of reformation as this with all speed, go through with it, and abide by it; and I will cause you to dwell in this place, this temple; it shall continue your place of resort and refuge, the place of your comfortable meeting with God and one another; and you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers for ever and ever, and it shall never be turned out either from God's house or from your own." It is promised that they shall still enjoy their civil and sacred privileges, that they shall have a comfortable enjoyment of them: I will cause you to dwell here; and those dwell at ease to whom God gives a settlement. They shall enjoy it by covenant, by virtue of the grant made of it to their fathers, not by providence, but by promise. They shall continue in the enjoyment of it without eviction or molestation; they shall not be disturbed, much less dispossessed, for ever and ever; nothing but sin could throw them out. An everlasting inheritance in the heavenly Canaan is hereby secured to all that live in godliness and honesty. And the vulgar Latin reads a further privilege here, Jer 7:3, Jer 7:7. Habitabo vobiscum - I will dwell with you in this place; and we should find Canaan itself but an uncomfortable place to dwell in if God did not dwell with us there.
2. What were the lying words of their own hearts, which they must not trust to. He cautions them against this self-deceit (Jer 7:4): "Trust no in lying words. You are told in what way, and upon what terms, you may be easy safe, and happy; now do not flatter yourselves with an opinion that you may be so on any other terms, or in any other way." Yet he charges them with this self-deceit arising from vanity (Jer 7:8): "Behold, it is plain that you do trust in lying words, notwithstanding what is said to you; you trust in words that cannot profit; you rely upon a plea that will stand you in no stead." Those that slight the words of truth, which would profit them, take shelter in words of falsehood, which cannot profit them. Now these lying words were, "The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are these. These buildings, the courts, the holy place, and the holy of holies, are the temple of the Lord, built by his appointment, to his glory; here he resides, here he is worshipped, here we meet three times a year to pay our homage to him as our King in his palace." This they thought was security enough to them to keep God and his favours from leaving them, God and his judgments from breaking in upon them. When the prophets told them how sinful they were, and how miserable they were likely to be, still they appealed to the temple: "How can we be either so or so, as long as we have that holy happy place among us?" The prophet repeats it because they repeated it upon all occasions. It was the cant of the times; it was in their mouths upon all occasions. If they heard an awakening sermon, if any startling piece of news was brought to them, they lulled themselves asleep again with this, "We cannot but do well, for we have the temple of the Lord among us." Note, The privileges of a form of godliness are often the pride and confidence of those that are strangers and enemies to the power of it. It is common for those that are furthest from God to boast themselves most of their being near to the church. They are haughty because of the holy mountain (Zep 3:11), as if God's mercy were so tied to them that they might defy his justice. Now to convince them what a frivolous plea this was, and what little stead it would stand them in,
(1.) He shows them the gross absurdity of it in itself. If they knew any thing either of the temple of the Lord or of the Lord of the temple, they must think that to plead that, either in excuse of their sin against God or in arrest of God's judgment against them, was the most ridiculous unreasonable thing that could be. [1.] God is a holy God; but this plea made him the patron of sin, of the worst of sins, which even the light of nature condemns, Jer 7:9, Jer 7:10. "What," says he, "will you steal, murder, and commit adultery, be guilty of the vilest immoralities, and which the common interest, as well as the common sense, of mankind witness against? Will you swear falsely, a crime which all nations (who with the belief of a God have had a veneration for an oath) have always had a horror of? Will you burn incense to Baal, a dunghill-deity, that sets up as a rival with the great Jehovah, and, not content with that, will you walk after other gods too, whom you know not, and by all these crimes put a daring affront upon God, both as the Lord of hosts and as the God of Israel? Will you exchange a God of whose power and goodness you have had such a long experience for gods of whose ability and willingness to help you you know nothing? And, when you have thus done the worst you can against God, will you brazen your faces so far as to come and stand before him in this house which is called by his name and in which his name is called upon - stand before him as servants waiting his commands, as supplicants expecting his favour? Will you act in open rebellion against him, and yet herd among his subjects, among the best of them? By this, it should seem, you think that either he does not discover or does not dislike your wicked practices, to imagine either of which is to put the highest indignity possible upon him. It is as if you should say, We are delivered to do all these abominations." If they had not the front to say this, totidem verbis - in so many words, yet their actions spoke it aloud. They could not but own that God, even their own God, had many a time delivered them, and been a present help to them, when otherwise they must have perished. He, in delivering them, designed to reduce them to himself, and by his goodness to lead them to repentance; but they resolved to persist in their abominations notwithstanding. As soon as they were delivered (as of old in the days of the Judges) they did evil again in the sight of the Lord, which was in effect to say, in direct contradiction to the true intent and meaning of the providences which had affected them, that God had delivered them in order to put them again into a capacity of rebelling against him, by sacrificing the more profusely to their idols. Note, Those who continue in sin because grace has abounded, or that grace may abound, do in effect their idols. Note, Those who continue in sin because grace has abounded, or that grace may abound, do in effect make Christ the minister of sin. Some take it thus: "You present yourselves before God with your sacrifices and sin-offerings, and then say, We are delivered, we are discharged from our guilt, now it shall do us no hurt; when all this is but to blind the world, and stop the mouth of conscience, that you may, the more easily to yourselves and the more plausibly before others, do all these abominations." [2.] His temple was a holy place; but this plea made it a protection to the most unholy persons: "Has this house, which is called by my name and is a standing sign of God's kingdom of sin and Satan - has this become a den of robbers in your eyes? Do you think it was built to be not only a rendezvous of, but a refuge and shelter to, the vilest of malefactors?" No; though the horns of the altar were a sanctuary to him that slew a man unawares, yet they were not so to a wilful murderer, nor to one that did aught presumptuously, Exo 21:14; Kg1 2:29. Those that think to excuse themselves in unchristian practices with the Christian name, and sin the more boldly and securely because there is a sin-offering provided, do, in effect, make God's house of prayer a den of thieves, as the priests in Christ's time, Mat 21:13. But could they thus impose upon God? No: Behold, I have seen it, saith the Lord, have seen the real iniquity through the counterfeit and dissembled piety. Note, Though men may deceive one another with the appearances of devotion, yet they cannot deceive God.
(2.) He shows them the insufficiency of this plea adjudged long since in the case of Shiloh. [1.] It is certain that Shiloh was ruined, though it had God's sanctuary in it, when by its wickedness it profaned that sanctuary (Jer 7:12): Go you now to my place which was in Shiloh. It is probable that the ruins of that once flourishing city were yet remaining; they might, at least, read the history of it, which ought to affect them as if they saw the place. There God set his name at the first, there the tabernacle was set up when Israel first took possession of Canaan (Joh 18:1), and thither the tribes went up; but those that attended the service of the tabernacle there corrupted both themselves and others, and from them arose the wickedness of his people Israel; that fountain was poisoned, and sent forth malignant streams; and what came of it? No; God forsook it (Psa 78:60), sent his ark into captivity, cut off the house of Eli that presided there; and it is very probable that the city was quite destroyed, for we never read any more of it but as a monument of divine vengeance upon holy places when they harbour wicked people. Note, God's judgments upon others, who have really revolted from God while they have kept up a profession of nearness to him, should be a warning to us not to trust in lying words. It is good to consult precedents, and make use of them. Remember Lot's wife; remember Shiloh and the seven churches of Asia; and know that the ark and candlestick are moveable things, Rev 2:5; Mat 21:43. [2.] It is as certain that Shiloh's fate will be Jerusalem's doom if a speedy and sincere repentance prevent it not. First, Jerusalem was now as sinful as ever Shiloh was; that is proved by the unerring testimony of God himself against them (Jer 7:13): "You have done all these works, you cannot deny it:" and they continued obstinate in their sin; that is proved by the testimony of God's return and repent, rising up early and speaking, as one in care, as one in earnest, as one who would lose no time in dealing with them, nay, who would take the fittest opportunity for speaking to them early in the morning, when, if ever, they were sober, and had their thoughts free and clear; but it was all in vain. God spoke, but they heard not, they heeded not, they never minded; he called them, but they answered not; they would not come at his call. Note, What God has spoken to us greatly aggravates what we have done against him. Secondly, Jerusalem shall shortly be as miserable as ever Shiloh was: Therefore I will do unto this house as I did to Shiloh, ruin it, and lay it waste, Jer 7:14. Those that tread in the steps of the wickedness of those that went before them must expect to fall by the like judgments, for all these things happened to them for ensamples. The temple at Jerusalem, though ever so strongly built, if wickedness was found in it, would be as unable to keep its ground and as easily conquered as even the tabernacle in Shiloh was, when God's day of vengeance had come. "This house" (says God) "is called by my name, and therefore you may think that I should protect it; it is the house in which you trust, and you think that it will protect you; this land is the place, this city the place, which I gave to you and your fathers, and therefore you are secure of the continuance of it, and think that nothing can turn you out of it; but the men of Shiloh thus flattered themselves and did but deceive themselves." He quotes another precedent (Jer 7:15), the ruin of the kingdom of the ten tribes, who were the seed of Abraham, and had the covenant of circumcision, and possessed the land which God gave to them and their fathers, and yet the idolatries threw them out and extirpated them: "And can you think but that the same evil courses will be as fatal to you?" Doubtless they will be so; for God is uniform and of a piece with himself in his judicial proceedings. It is a rule of justice, ut parium par sit ratio - that in similar cases the same judgment should proceed. "You have corrupted yourselves as your brethren the seed of Ephraim did, and have become their brethren in iniquity, and therefore I will cast you out of my sight, as I have cast them." The interpretation here given of the judgment makes it a terrible one indeed; the casting of them out of their land signified God's casting them out of his sight, as if he would never look upon them, never look after them, more. Whenever we are cast, it is well enough, if we be kept in the love of God; but, if we are thrown out of his favour, our case is miserable though we dwell in our own land. This threatening, that God would make this house like Shiloh, we shall meet with again, and find Jeremiah indicted for it, Jer 26:6.
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,.... The Word of…
The word that came to Jeremiah,.... The Word of prophecy, as the Targum:
from the Lord, saying; this begins a new prophecy. This verse, and the beginning of the next, are wanting in the Septuagint version.
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 A call to true repentance, ver. 1-7. Not to…
A call to true repentance, ver. 1-7. Not to live in theft, murder, adultery, perjury, &c., to trust in the outward worship and temple of God, by the example of Shiloh, ver. 8-15. The prophet is forbid to pray for them, ver. 16. Their idolatry, and its judgment, ver. 17-20. Their sacrifices rejected, and obedience required, ver. 21-28. They are called to mourn for their abominations in Tophet, and their judgments, ver. 29-34.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Here begins another section of prophecy, ending with the…
CHAPTER VII
Here begins another section of prophecy, ending with the ninth
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chapter. It opens with exhorting to amendment of life, without
which the confidence of the Jews in their temple is declared
vain, 1-11.
God bids them take warning from the fate of their brethren the
Israelites, who had been carried away captive on account of
their sins without any regard to that sacred place, (Shiloh,)
where the ark of God once resided, 12-15.
The iniquities of Judah are so great in the sight of God that
the prophet is commanded not to intercede for the people, 16;
the more especially as they persisted in provoking God by their
idolatrous practices, 17-20.
The Jewish sacrifices, if not accompanied with obedience to the
moral law, are of no avail, 21-24.
Notwithstanding the numerous messages of mercy from the time of
the exodus, the people revolted more and more; and have added
to their other sins this horrible evil, the setting up of their
abominations in the temple of Jehovah; or, in other words, they
have encumbered the Mosaic economy, which shadowed forth the
glorious truths of Christianity, with a heterogeneous admixture
of the idolatrous, impure, and cruel rites of heathenism;
consequently, the whole land shall be utterly desolated, 25-34.
NOTES ON CHAP. VII
Verse 1. The word that came to Jeremiah] This prophecy is supposed to have been delivered in the first year of the reign of Jehoiakim, son of Josiah, who, far from following the example of his pious father, restored idolatry, maintained bad priests and worse prophets, and filled Jerusalem with abominations of all kinds.
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 7:1. The word of the Lord, &c. —…
Jer 7:1. The word of the Lord, &c. — The date of this new sermon is not precisely marked, but it is probable it was delivered not long after the preceding one, and on the following occasion. “Besides the prophets who were commissioned to announce the approaching calamities of Judah and Jerusalem, there were others who took upon themselves to flatter the people with opposite predictions. They taught them to look upon such threats as groundless, since God, they said, would have too much regard to his own honour, to suffer his temple to be profaned, and the seat of his holiness to be given up into the hand of strangers. Jeremiah is therefore commanded openly to reprove the falsehood of these assertions, and to show, by an example in point, that the sanctity of the place would afford no security to the guilty; but that God would assuredly do by his house at Jerusalem what he had done unto Shiloh; and cast the people of Judah out of his sight as he had already cast off the people of Israel for their wickedness.” — Blaney.
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 In Jer. 7–10 he addresses the people as they…
In Jer. 7–10 he addresses the people as they flocked into Jerusalem from the country, to attend the solemn services in the temple upon a fastday. Jehoiakim Jer. 26 had just ascended the throne, and was so incensed at this sermon that he would have put Jeremiah to death but for the influence of Ahikam. With the accession of Jehoiakim all hope of averting the ruin of the country had passed away. He represented the reverse of his father’s policy, and belonged to that faction, who placed their sole hope of deliverance in a close alliance with Pharaoh-Necho. As this party rejected the distinctive principles of the theocracy, and the king was personally an irreligious man, the maintenance of the worship of Yahweh was no longer an object of the public care. At this time upon a public fast-day, appointed probably because of the calamities under which the nation was laboring, Jeremiah was commanded by Yahweh to stand at the gate of the temple, and address to the people as they entered words of solemn warning. The whole sermon divides itself into three parts;
In Jer. 7–10 he addresses the people as they flocked into Jerusalem from the country, to attend the solemn services in the temple upon a fastday. Jehoiakim Jer. 26 had just ascended the throne, and was so incensed at this sermon that he would have put Jeremiah to death but for the influence of Ahikam. With the accession of Jehoiakim all hope of averting the ruin of the country had passed away. He represented the reverse of his father’s policy, and belonged to that faction, who placed their sole hope of deliverance in a close alliance with Pharaoh-Necho. As this party rejected the distinctive principles of the theocracy, and the king was personally an irreligious man, the maintenance of the worship of Yahweh was no longer an object of the public care. At this time upon a public fast-day, appointed probably because of the calamities under which the nation was laboring, Jeremiah was commanded by Yahweh to stand at the gate of the temple, and address to the people as they entered words of solemn warning. The whole sermon divides itself into three parts;
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(1) It points out the folly of the superstitious confidence placed by the people in the temple, while they neglect the sole sure foundation of a nation’s hope. A sanctuary long polluted by immorality must inevitably be destroyed Jer. 7:2–8:3.
(2) complaints follow of a more general character, in which the growing wickedness of the nation and especially of the leaders is pointed out Jer. 8:4–9:24.
(3) lastly the prophet shows the possibility of averting the evils impending upon the nation Jer. 9:25–10:25.
Jer 10:1-2. The temple had several entrances 2Ch 4:9; and the gate or door here mentioned is probably that of the inner court, where Baruch read Jeremiah’s scroll Jer 36:10. The prophet stood in the doorway, and addressed the people assembled in the outer court.
All ye of Judah - Better, literally all Judah (compare Jer 26:2).
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain Chaps. 7–10
3. THE THIRD DISCOURSE
Chaps. 7–10
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The time of this discourse may be determined pretty accurately, since Jeremiah 26. gives us information concerning the historical circumstances in which the discourse was delivered. We learn from it that in the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim Jeremiah received from Jehovah the commission to place himself in the fore-court of the temple, and to announce to all the Jews who had come to worship (comp. Jer_26:2 with Jer_7:2) that if they continued to act in opposition to the repeated admonitions of the prophets (Jer_26:5, and Jer_7:13; Jer_7:25) the Lord would make the temple like Shiloh, (comp. Jer_26:3-13 with Jer_7:3-14). Since the enemies who are to execute this judgment are still designated generally as a people coming from the North (comp. Jer_8:16), and not yet definitely as the Chaldeans, the discourse must have been delivered before the fourth year of Jehoiakim. Comp. infra on Jer_25:1. The place which the discourse occupies in the book is therefore in accordance with the principle of chronological are arrangement.
The contents of the discourse may be distinguished as follows:
Main thought: Indictment of the people on account of their three prevailing vices, with threatening of punishment.
I. FIRST CHARGE
I. Hypocritical Mingling Of The Worship Of Jehovah With Idolatry, And Other Moral Abominations
Jer_7:1 to Jer_8:3
1. Fundamental: the fundamental requirement and promise, Jer_7:1-7
2. Their demoralizing trust in the outward temple-service. Admonitory reference to Shiloh, Jer_7:8-15.
3. The hypocrisy of the worship of Jehovah, boasted of in Jer_7:4 sqq. is evinced by the idolatry practised elsewhere. Thus the nation is provoking a severe and inevitable judgment, Jer_7:16-20.
4. Refutation of the objection that the Lord Himself commanded the outward temple-service, Jer_7:21-28.
5. The abomination of idolatry in the highest degree a most evident proof of the hypocrisy of the people. Beginning of retribution, Jer_7:29-34.
6. The fulfilment of retribution corresponding to the idol abominations, Jer_8:1-3.
II. SECOND CHARGE
Their Ruinous Persistence In Evil
Jer_8:4-22
7. Their stiff-necked impenitence and its punishment, Jer_8:4-12.
8. Further portrayal of the visitation announced in Jer_7:12; Jer_8:13-17.
9. Continuation: The visitation ends with the carrying away captive of Israel, to the inexpressible grief of the people and the prophet, Jer_8:18-22.
III. THIRD CHARGE
The General Entire Absence Of Truth And Faith
Jer_9:1-21
10. Description of the prevailing deceit, Jer_9:1-8.
11. First punishment: Desolation of the land and dispersion of the people, Jer_9:9-15.
12. Second punishment: Death snatching away an innumerable sacrifice, Jer_9:16-21.
IV. CONCLUSION
Jer_9:22-25; Jer_10:16-25
13. The only means of escape and the reason why it is not used, Jer_9:22-25.
14. The beginning of the end of retribution: Command to the people to retire; Lament of the desolated land; last watch-cry of the prophet: the enemy is here, Jer_10:17-22.
15. Consolatory glance into the future, Jer_10:23-25.
______
I. FIRST CHARGE
The Hypocritical Mingling Of The Service Of Jehovah With Idolatry And Other Moral Abominations
Jer_7:1 to Jer_8:3
1. Fundamental: the fundamental requirement and promise
Jer_7:1-7
1 The word which came to Jeremiah from Jehovah, saying:
2 Stand in the gate of the house of Jehovah
And proclaim there this word, and say:
Hear the word of Jehovah, all ye of Judah,
Who have entered at these gates to worship Jehovah.
3 Thus saith Jehovah Zebaoth, the God of Israel;
Amend your ways and your doings,
So will I cause you to dwell1 in this place.
4 Trust2 not to3 those lying words:
“The Lord’s temple, the Lord’s temple, the Lord’s temple is this.”4
5 But amend your ways and your doings!
If ye execute judgment between every man and his neighbor,
6 Oppress not stranger, orphan and widow,
And shed not innocent blood in this place,
And go not after other gods to your destruction;
7 So will I cause you to dwell in this place,
In the land which I gave to your fathers,
From everlasting to everlasting.5
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
The prophet begins with friendly admonition and promise. In Jer_7:3 he briefly states in advance the fundamental requirement and promise. Jer_7:4-7 continue this theme by opposing to false confidence in the apparently infallible objective guarantee of salvation in the possession of the outward temple (Jer_7:4) exhortation to positive (Jer_7:5) and negative (Jer_7:6) fulfilment of the true subjective condition of salvation, after which however the promise, which includes all further salvation for Israel, is repeated more at length. We easily recognize in this strophe the outlines of the whole discourse, for these exhortations correspond, if not in order in contents, exactly with the following exhortations and threatenings, the latter having also for their subject pseudo-worship of Jehovah, idolatry, impenitence, falsehood, deceit, violence, and finally exile.
Jer_7:1-2. The word which came … to worship Jehovah. A similar introductory formula is found in Jer_11:1; Jer_18:1; Jer_21:1; Jer_25:1; Jer_30:1; Jer_32:1; Jer_34:1; Jer_35:1; Jer_40:1; Jer_44:1.—In the gate of the house. If we compare Jer_26:2, where the historical particulars relating to this discourse are given, we see that Jeremiah delivered it in the fore-court (comp. Jer_19:14). Further information is derived from Jer_36:10, where it is said that Baruch read the book of the words of Jeremiah “in the chamber of Gemariah, in the higher court, at the entrance of the new gate.” Now since this new gate is the same under which the princes called Jeremiah to account for this very discourse (Jer_26:10), it is highly probable that the gate spoken of was not that which formed the main eastern entrance of the outer court (Eze_11:1), but one of the gates which led from the outer into the inner or upper court. From this point the prophet could view the whole assembly of the people in the outer court, as well as the gates leading from without into it.—All ye of Judah. A great festival to Jehovah must have brought the whole people together, for they had not sunk into that state of entire alienation, which, ex. gr. prevailed under Manasseh, when they no longer worshipped the God of their fathers (2Ki_21:2), but now they served other gods together with Him (Jer_7:6).
Jer_7:3. Thus saith Jehovah … dwell in this place. These words express as to form the theme of the strophe, but at the same time also as to matter the positive main thought of the whole discourse, which however retires in what follows for the reason stated in Jer_7:24-28.—דֶרֶךְways and מַֽעֲלָלdoings are distinguished like habitus and actus, the former denoting the inward inclination or disposition of the heart (comp. Jer_5:16), the latter the outward fruits in the life (Jer_4:13; Jer_18:11; Jer_26:13; Jer_32:19).—Cause to dwell. Comp. Num_14:30.—This place. The temple is meant primarily as the centre of the theocracy. Comp. Jer_7:6, where the desecration of the holy places by the shedding of innocent blood is emphasized (2Ki_21:16; 2Ki_24:4; Mat_23:35), and then Jer_7:7, where this place and the land are distinguished, and Jer_7:13, where מָקום is distinguished from Shiloh and taken in the more restricted sense of the holy places of worship.
Jer_7:4. Trust not … temple is this. An example of similar threefold repetition is found in Jer_22:29; Isa_6:3 coll. 2Sa_19:1. For the sense comp. Mic_3:11.—המה. Without this word הֵיכָל would be the subject, and the only meaning would be: templum est, i. e., we have God’s temple. With this word הֵיבָל is predicate, and the former the subject, and the difference in the sense is this, that it is not the existence, the possession of the temple generally, which is declared, but the concrete objects, to which the predicate applies, are indicated. We must therefore render this הֵמָּהδεικτικῶς. The plural has been variously explained. The Chaldee refers the threefold repetition to the three main forms of worship and their appearance thrice in the year; Joseph Kimchi to the three divisions of the temple-building (court, sanctuary and holy of holies); Menochius (Vid.Neumann, S. 439) to the Jewish nation itself, coll. 1Co_3:16-17; Venema and others to the temple and priests, and with reference to אַתָּה־הוּא (Psa_102:28) finds also in הֵמָּה the meaning of continuance and immutability.—In a purely linguistic view הֵמָּה would apply best to the people, and the thought, that the people as the temple of God were safe from all danger to themselves or the sanctuary, would suit the connection. But the mention of the sanctuary at Shiloh (Jer_7:12; Jer_7:14) requires that in Jer_7:4 also the temple-edifice be referred to. Comp. especially Jer_7:14.—Nothing further then remains but to refer הֵמָּה to the various parts of the temple; not merely the three divisions of the edifice proper, but also the other parts—walls, gates, courts, halls, etc. Still however the plural is remarkable, and a satisfactory explanation of it a desideratum. At any rate we perceive that it was a prevalent delusion among the people that the temple could not be destroyed, because it was Jehovah’s. Three times is this emphatically repeated. And by the temple all else seemed to be secured. Neumann rightly calls attention to the circumstance that the people make use of the prouder expression היכל only, while the prophet speaks only of ביתיﬦ.
Jer_7:5-7. But amend your ways … from everlasting to everlasting. Not the outward temple with its service ensures the favor of Jehovah, but the service, which is offered in His temple by sanctified hearts and which manifests itself in works of righteousness. That such works as are here (Jer_7:5-6) enumerated pertain especially to the Old Testament “righteousness,” which is opposed not to grace but to violent unrighteousness, is proved by many passages: Psalms 5, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 15, 17; Jer_10:24-25; Jer_22:3-17; Isa_1:17, etc. Comp. Ortloph on the idea of צֶדֶק, etc., in Rudelb. u. Guer. 1860, III. S. 403.—The אַל before תִּשְׁפְּבוּ is quite abnormal, and there is no other instance of it. Graf correctly supposes that it owes its origin to the similarly sounding sentence, Jer_22:3.—To your destruction. Comp. Jer_25:7.—From everlasting (comp. Jer_7:25) belongs to dwell. Israel is to inhabit the land given to the fathers, from the original epoch (Jer_6:16; Psa_24:7) at which they took possession of it even to the remotest future. Comp. on Jer_25:5
Footnotes:
[1]Jer_7:3.—[“The Piel or intensive form of the verb must here have a continuative force, or it must have a permissive signification. There is no example of the simple signification to dwell attaching to this conjugation, so that the rendering of the Vulgate, which Blayney adopts: I will dwell with you is not sustained; comp. Jer_7:12.” Henderson.—S. R. A.]
[2]Jer_7:4.—לָכֶם after תִּבְטְחוּ (comp. Jer_7:8) is Dat. ethicus. Comp. 2Ki_18:21; 2Ki_18:24; Son_2:17; Naegelsb. Gr. § 112, 5, b.
[3]Jer_7:4.—אֵל־דִּבְדֵי. More frequently בָטַח is followed by כְּ or עַל (Jer_7:8; Jer_7:14) but אֵל is not unfrequent, Jdg_20:36; Judges 3 Ki. Jer_18:22; Isa_36:7, etc.
[4]Jer_7:4.—[Lit.: are these].
[5]Jer_7:7.—[Or: forever and ever].
2. Demoralizing trust in the outward temple-service. admonitory reference to shiloh
Jer_7:8-15
8 Behold, ye trust in such lying words to your hurt.
9 To steal, murder, commit adultery,6
Swear falsely and burn incense to Baal,
And follow other gods which ye know not,—
10 And then ye come7 and stand before me in this house,
Which is called by my name: and say:
We are delivered—to do all these abominations?
11 Is then this house which bears my name
Become a den of robbers in your eyes?
Behold! even I have seen it, saith Jehovah.
12 For go now to my place which was in Shiloh
Where I caused my name to dwell at the first,
And see what I have done to it
On account of the wickedness of my people Israel!
13 And now, because ye do all these works, saith Jehovah,
And I spoke to you most urgently,8 but ye heard not.—
I called to you, but ye gave no answer,—
14 Therefore I do to the house which bears my name
In which ye put your trust,
And the place which I gave to you and your fathers,
As I did to Shiloh.
15 And I cast you out from my presence,
As I cast out all your brethren,
The whole seed of Ephraim.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Jer_7:8-11 state that Israel did not follow the exhortation given in Jer_7:3 sqq., but regarded the external place of grace as though it were a spot where one only needed to present himself in order to be delivered from all the evil consequences of sin,—so that the sanctuary was misused and became a den of robbers. The Lord dispels this allusion as to the infallible power to save of the supposed irrevocably chosen place of grace by pointing to Shiloh: as it is with this, so will it be with the temple and Jerusalem (Jer_7:12-15).
Jer_7:8. Behold, ye trust … to your hurt. The statement corresponds to the warning in Jer_7:4, and affirms that this was not heeded by Israel. “To your hurt” depends on “trust.” It is a litotes. The delusion causes injury in a twofold way, by demoralizing the people and thus rendering them ripe for the divine judgment. Comp. Isa_44:10.
Jer_7:9. To steal, murder … which ye know not. These words in connection with Jer_7:10-11, designate the first effect of that hurtful confidence. The people, considering salvation as unconditionally guaranteed by the temple, fall into the delusion, that presence in the temple is sufficient to procure absolution after the practice of the most heinous abominations and license for new crimes, by which course the temple is turned into a place of security and concealment for robbers. The question expresses indignant amazement: What? Steal, murder, commit adultery, etc.? Such wickedness ye do, and then ye come, etc.—Incense to Baal, comp. Jer_11:13; Jer_11:17.—And follow other gods which ye know not is taken verbatim from Deu_11:28; coll. Jer_13:14. Comp. Jer_19:4; Jer_49:3.
Jer_7:10. And then ye come … all these abominations? The question is continued to נְצַלְנוּ, for it is this which is the object of the divine indignation, that the people can unite such moral contrasts.—Stand before me. The expression has the collateral idea of serving; comp. Deu_10:8; 1Ki_1:2; 1Ki_17:1; 1Ki_18:15; 2Ki_3:14; 2Ki_5:16; Jer_40:10; Eze_44:15, etc.—Which is called by my name. This expression corresponds to put my name upon (nomen indere, imponere), Num_6:27; 1Ki_9:3; 1Ki_9:5; comp. Exo_3:18; Exo_5:3; Deu_12:5; Deu_12:11; Deu_28:10; 2Sa_12:28; Jer_7:30; Jer_32:34; Jer_34:15.—We are delivered. The people regard their standing before God, their service in the temple as an unfailing means of removing all their guilt in a convenient external manner. The word therefore means: we are saved, freed from all the guilt and punishment of sin Comp. Luk_3:8.—Many commentators take לְמַעַן as=because: because ye have done these abominations? (ironical.) Others=although. The language will allow neither. It is the secondary object of their temple-service which is indicated. The primary, immediate object is expressed in נצלנוּ: they wish to purify themselves from their guilt. But as they do not use the right means for this, so also they are not actuated by the right motive,—it is not that they may henceforward hate and abandon their sin, but that like a sow they may return with the more gusto to their wallowing in the mire (2Pe_2:22).
Jer_7:11. Is then this house … saith Jehovah. In these words the prophet discovers to the people the very heart of their proceeding: with such usage the temple is not a place of salvation, but a refuge for robbers where they purify themselves from the blood and filth of their evil deeds, so as to be the readier for new ones.—Even I. This perception is confirmed ironically, but in a double sense. First by this word, secondly by act. In so far namely as the Lord treats the sanctuary at Jerusalem like that at Shiloh, He causes it to be understood that He regards it as a nest of robbers. That first point results from the evident reference of I have seen it to in your eyes, the second from the following For, Jer_7:12.
Jer_7:12. For go now … my people Israel. In these words it is explained how far the Lord actually regards the temple as a den of robbers: we learn that He will treat it as He did Shiloh. For is accordingly to be referred not to Jer_7:12 only, but to all that follows. The prophet thus shows the second calamitous effect (Jer_7:8) of those lying words (Jer_7:4).—To my place. This denotes the place as such, the spot on which the sanctuary stood, not the latter itself. On this spot nothing more was now to be seen of the sacred dwellings and vessels which once adorned it. A proof is thus furnished that when the Lord has once selected a place for His dwelling upon earth He is not irrevocably bound to this place to all eternity. Whether the city of Shiloh was then destroyed or not, and whether some ruins of the former sanctuary remained to testify of its previous existence, is a matter of indifference. Shiloh was still standing in the reign of Jeroboam I. (1Ki_11:20; 1Ki_12:15; 1Ki_14:2) and Jeremiah mentions it as though it were still in existence (Jer_41:5). Comp. Graf, ad loc.—Herzog’sReal-Encyc. XIV. S. 369. [“Dr. Robinson found its ruins under the name of Seilun on his way from Jerusalem to Shechem.” Henderson.]
Jer_7:13-15. And now, because ye do … the whole seed of Ephraim. The apodosis begins with Jer_7:14. With respect to the transition from the infinitive to the finite verb, see Grammatical rems. on Jer_7:9.—השׁכם. Comp. Jer_7:25; Jer_29:19; and Naegelsbach, Gr. § 93, f [Green’sGr. § 282].—The place. The prophet cannot mean the whole country, any more than in Jer_7:3; Jer_7:6-7. As in Jer_7:12, it is the spot on which the house stands. This spot of earth is the hallowed and hallowing centre of the whole country, on which all other dwelling-places are founded. Comp. Exo_3:5.—For Ephraim as a designation of the ten tribes videHos. Jer_4:17; Isa_7:2, etc.
Footnotes:
[6]Jer_7:9.—Similar infinitive constructions are found in Isa_21:5; Isa_22:13; Isa_59:4; Hos_4:2. Comp. Naegelsb. Gr. 92, 2 b.
[7]Jer_7:10.—On the transition from the infinitive to the finite verb, comp. Naegelsb. Gr. § 99, 3.
[8]Jer_7:13.—השׁכם. Comp. Jer_7:25; Jer_29:19; and Naegelsb. Gr. § 93 f. [Green, Gr. § 282].
3. The hypocrisy of the worship of Jehovah, Boasted of in Jer_7:4 sqq., is evinced by the idolatry practised elsewhere. Thus the nation is provoking a severe and inevitable judgment
Jer_7:16-20
16 And as to thee, pray not for this people,
And make not a cry and supplication for them,
Nor intercede with me; for I will not hear thee.
17 Seest thou not what they are doing
In the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?
18 The children gather wood and the fathers kindle the fire,
And the women knead the dough, to make cakes for the queen of the heavens,
And pour out libations to other gods, to aggrieve me.
19 Do they aggrieve me? saith Jehovah.
Do they not themselves to their own shame?
20 Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah:
Behold, my anger and my fury is poured out in this place,
On the men and the cattle,
And on the trees of the field and the fruits of the land,
That it may burn and not be extinguished.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
How fixedly the judgment announced in Jer_7:14-15 is determined upon by Jehovah, is evinced by this, that the prophet is forbidden to interpose with any plea (Jer_7:16). The motive of this seemingly harsh decree is indicated by reference to the idolatry still in full course in the cities of Judah and Jerusalem, and which forms a gloomy offset to that pseudo-Jehovah-worship mentioned in Jer_7:4. This idolatry may be directed primarily against Jehovah, but it will prove at last self-destructive to Israel (Jer_7:19-20).
Jer_7:16. And as to thee I will … not hear thee. Jerome remarks that “sanctorum preces Dei iræ possunt resistere, Exo_32:10 sq.; Psa_106:30; Num_16:46 sq.” Comp. 1Jn_5:16—רִנָּה with תִּפִלָּה is frequent, ex. gr., Psa_17:1; 1Ki_8:28, etc.—This verse is repeated Jer_11:14; Jer_14:11.
Jer_7:17-18. Seest thou not what they are doing … to aggrieve me. The motive of the severe prohibition in Jer_7:16.—The queen of the heavens is mentioned besides only in Jer_44:17-19; Jer_44:25. The form, which in Hebrew indeed has general analogies (ex. gr.נְבֶרֶת) but does not otherwise occur, bespeaks the foreign origin of the phrase as of the thing. The expression “heaven’s-queen” points to the worship of the stars, and indeed the moon as the feminine potence (together with the sun as the masculine) appears not seldom under this name. It is called by Apuleius (Metaph. XI. init.) directly regina cœli, and in Horace (Carm. Secul. 35) we find the words: Siderum regina bicornis audi Luna puellas. For more on this subject consult Abr. Calov.Diss. de Selenolatria Viteb. 1680 (also in Thes. theol. philol., Vol. I. p. 808 sqq.). To the further question, what deity is represented by the moon, we can only answer that since it, as the female principle of fructification, corresponds to the sun-god Baal as the male principle, the feminine deity corresponding to Baal, i. e., Astarte, must be represented by the moon. Herodian (V. 6, 10) says expressly, Οὐρανίαν Φοίνικες Ἀστροάρχην (Græcism for Astarte) ὀνομάζουσι, σελήνην εῖ̓ναι θέλοντες. Comp. Herod. III. 8.—On the Carthaginian inscriptions (Insc. Karth. 8), חַמְלֶכֶת (= הַן מְלֶכֶתi. e., the Νηἶυ, תָּנֵת, Ταναἶς, the Asiatic, originally Egyptian Artemis appears as the feminine opposite of בַּעַל חַמָּן, This is certainly no longer the original Phœnician Astarte, but a later modification with unchaste cultus, and probably admixture of star-worship. Comp. 2Ki_21:3; 2Ki_23:4; Jer_19:13.—Comp. Creuzer, Symbol. II. Kap. 4, § 1, 2, 3, 6; Appendix on the Carthag. religion, § 3. For the less recent literature on this passage consult Rosenmueller.—The בַּוָּנִים (Jer_44:19) are probably the Egyptian confection Neideh (Vid.Hitzigad hoc l. and FuerstH. W. B. s. v.כַּוָּן). According to the לְחַֽעֲצִיבָה, Jer_44:19, it is not improbable that the cakes were in the form of a moon; compare the cakes offered to Artemis as the moon-god in Athens under the name of σελῆναι (Vid.Grafad loc.)—On the heathen custom of celebrating the new moon with fires kindled in the streets and sweet cakes, comp. Spencer, De Legg. Hebr. ritual. L. III. Diss. IV. Cap. 3.—The etymology of בַּוָּן is uncertain. It is most probably derived from כּוּן, to prepare. Is it not perhaps connected with כִּיוּן (Amo_5:26)? With this adoration of the queen of heaven may have been connected as a later remnant the worship of the Collyridians, who existed in Arabia in the 4th century, and gave divine honors to the Virgin Mary, offering her little cakes of bread (κολλυρίς), Vid.Epiph.Hær. 79.—And pour out libations. The infinitive here may certainly depend on the to (לְ) before make (עֲשׂוֹת) (comp. Naegelsb.Gr. § 112, 8). But it must also be remarked that the Inf. הַסֵּיךְ is used by Jeremiah in a very peculiar manner absolutely: Jer_19:13; Jer_14:19 (where the ל perhaps from oversight stands instead of in Jer_7:17-18). At any rate it designates the drink-offerings pertaining to the meat-offering of cakes.
Jer_7:19-20. Do they aggrieve me? … that it may burn and not be extinguished.—On aggrieve comp. Eze_32:9.—themselves. אוֹתָם reciprocal (comp. Naegelsb.Gr. § 81. b).—fury is poured out (comp. Nah_1:6).—In this place. The divine anger is poured out immediately in the centre of the Theocracy (אֵל) and from thence immediately over the whole land (עַל).
4. REFUTATION OF THE OBJECTION THAT THE LORD HIMSELF COMMANDED THE OUTWARD TEMPLE SERVICE
Jer_7:21-28
21 Thus saith Jehovah Zebaoth, the God of Israel:
Take your burnt offerings with the sin offerings and eat flesh.
22 For I spoke not with your fathers in the day that I brought9 them out of Egypt,
Nor commanded them concerning burnt offerings and slain offerings.
23 But this I commanded them: “Hearken to my voice,
That I may be your God, and you my people,
And walk in all the ways that I command you,
That it may be well with you.”
24 But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear,
And walked after their own counsels10—
In the hardness of their evil heart,
And turned to the back and not to the face.11
25 From the day that your fathers went out of the land of Egypt,
To this day I send you all my servants,
The prophets, zealously and unremittingly.
26 But they hearkened not to me, nor inclined their ear.
But they stiffened their neck and acted more wickedly than their fathers.
27 And though thou speakest to them all these words.
Yet will they not hearken unto thee;
And though thou callest to them,
Yet will they not answer thee.
28 Therefore shalt thou say unto them:
This is the people that has not hearkened
To the voice of Jehovah, their God,
Nor accepted chastisement.
Truth is vanished and eradicated from their mouth.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
The hypocritical people might appeal to the fact that their outward temple service was in accordance with the precepts of the Law. To this however it is opposed, that from the beginning the Lord directed His chief regard not to external worship, but to the obedience of the heart, and to this gave the promise of prosperity (Jer_7:21-23). But the people never observed this requirement of the Lord, though He caused it to be repeated often and urgently by the prophets (Jer_7:24-26). They will close their ears even to the exhortation of Jeremiah, and thus call down upon themselves the judgment of incorrigibility (Jer_7:27-28).
Jer_7:21. Thus saith Jehovah … and eat flesh.—Take, סְפוּ (comp. Isa_29:1), may be derived from יָסַף or סָפַה. (Comp. Isa_30:1; Num_32:14). The primary idea seems to be “to scrape, scratch, sweep,” from which are derived the meanings both of to sweep up or together (comp. also Deu_32:23) and to scrape off (Isa_7:20) and sweep away (Psa_40:15). עַל also stands after the word in the passages cited. Comp. Jer_3:18.—And eat flesh, an expression of contempt: throw all your sacrifices and burnt-offerings together and devour them as meat. Comp. Jer_6:20.
Jer_7:22-23. For I spoke not . … may be well with you. When the Rabbins emphasize in the day, etc., or when others appealing to Lev_1:2, etc. find in this passage an indication of the voluntariness of the offerings, or at least of the view that only voluntary offerings are here spoken of, Graf is certainly right in designating such points as subtleties. But to find in the passage a proof that Jeremiah was ignorant of any legal enactments with respect to sacrifices at the time of the Exodus, since in his time the middle books of the Pentateuch, which owed their origin to Ezra, were not in existence, as Graf does, following Hitzig and others (comp. especially his latest work. On the historical books of the Old Test., Leipzig, 1866), is a proceeding for which there is no ground either in those books, in the writings of the preëxilic prophets generally (comp. only ex. gr., Amo_4:5 with Lev_7:13; Hos_4:7-9 with Lev_6:18; Lev_26:26), or in this particular passage. For it is indeed true that the words that I may be your God and you my people (the substance of which is found in Exo_6:7 coll. Deu_29:12) are a verbal quotation from the certainly peculiar 26th chapter of Leviticus (Jer_7:12), that the next line likewise resembles almost word for word Deu_5:33 (the expression in all the ways occurs in this sense only in this passage of Deut.), finally that that it may be well with you also is exclusively Deuteronomic (Jer_5:16; Jer_5:26; Jer_6:18; Jer 12:25, 28; Jer_22:27). But (1) the book of Deuteronomy presupposes the preceding books of the Pentateuch and cannot be understood without them. Thus it is explained that precepts relating to the sacrifices do not here occur except in a summary (Deu_12:6; Deu_12:11; Deu_12:13-14; Deu_12:27) or modified form, according to the circumstances (comp. Deu_12:15 with Lev_17:2 sqq.). (2) If this passage is to be understood in a literal sense, as by Hitzig and Graf, the prophet would declare not only something incredible in itself, but also what would be in the highest degree prejudicial to the assumed post-exilic composition of the middle books of the Pentateuch. for how could these place the origin of the sacrificial enactments in the period of the exodus, if prophetic utterances like this and Amo_5:25 expressly contradict it? (3) As in Exo_16:8 the words “Your murmurings are not against us, but against Jehovah,” declare not that the Israelites did not murmur at all against Moses and Aaron (which is expressly maintained in Jer_7:2), but only that the sin of murmuring against Moses and Aaron vanished in comparison with the sin which they committed in their murmuring against the Lord Himself,—as Hos_6:6 likewise denies pleasure in sacrifices not absolutely but only relatively, in so far that it does not enter into comparison with the pleasure of the Lord in true piety (comp. Gen. 32:29; 55:8; 1Sa_8:7)—so also in this passage the negation has a rhetorical, not a logical significance (comp. Winer, Gramm. N. T. Sprachidioms § 58, 7). Thus those commentators are right who find here this meaning, that the whole of the enactments relating to sacrifices do not enter into consideration in comparison with the importance of the moral Law. Comp. the parallel passages:—Isa_5:11; Isa_58:3 sqq.; isa 66:3; 1Sa_15:22; Mic_6:6-8; Psa_40:7 sqq.; Psalms 50; Psa_51:18-19; Pro_21:27; Mat_9:13. The expression: I will be your God and ye shall be my people, is found with special frequency in Jer_11:4; Jer_24:7; Jer_30:22; Jer_31:1; Jer_31:33; Jer_32:38. Almost as frequently in Eze_11:20; Eze_14:10; Eze_36:28; Eze_37:23; Eze_37:27. Twice also in Zechariah 2:15; Zec_8:8.
Jer_7:24. But they hearkened not … back not face.—In the hardness of their heart, comp. Deu_29:18; Jer_3:17.—In general comp. Jer_11:8; Psa_81:13.—ויהיו לאהור וגו֞. Comp. Jer_2:27. Literally:—they came to the back and not to the face, viz., from the standpoint of Jehovah. Comp. Naegelsb.Gr., § 69, 3, as to the substantives back and face taking the place of adjectives of participles.
Jer_7:25-26. From the day … more wickedly than their fathers.—לְמִן comp. Jer_7:7.—ואשׁלח. Vau constr after a definition of time. Comp. Naegelsb.Gr., § 88, 7.—Comp. Jer_11:7; Jer_25:4; Jer_26:5 : Jer_29:19; Jer_35:15; Jer_44:4.—Alone יוֹם never means “daily.” But with an infinitive construction it represents the idea “day” in the same sense as הַשְׁבֵּם the idea “early,” i. e., the sending has taken place day by day, daily and always early, i. e., not sleepily, dilatorily, but diligently and unremittingly, comp. besides Gr. § 93, h.—On Jer_7:26 comp. Deu_10:16; Jer_17:23; Jer_19:15.
Jer_7:27-28. And though thou speakest to them … from their mouth. There is a reason here for נוֹי. Although the word is also used of Israel without a bad side-meaning (comp. Exo_19:6 : Jos_3:17; Jos_4:1; Jos_10:3), yet we never find נוי יהוה, but always נוי ִעַם י is therefore chosen here to designate Israel as a common, profane nation. Comp. Isa_1:4.—The prophet is to pronounce the judgment of incorrigibility on Israel as the basis of the announcement of judgment which comes afterwards. On אֶמוּנָה comp. Jer_5:3, and the entire chapter. Truth or fidelity, is substantially lost: it is therefore no longer in their mouth. The prophet alludes to what was said in Jer_7:4 : even though they take the words upon their lips, these are but empty sounds. For he whose heart is empty can avail nothing with his mouth.
Footnotes:
[9]Jer_7:22.—[“A vast number of MSS., three of the early editions, and all the versions read, with the Keri, הוֹציאִי instead of הוֹצִיא.” Henderson.—S. R. A.]
[10]Jer_7:24.—בְּמֹעֵצוֹת is stat. absol. and therefore not co-ordinated with the following שְׁרִרוּת, but the following sentence forms a sort of apposition to it: They walked in counsels!—in hardness of their heart. Comp. Naegelsb. Gram. § 66.
[11]Jer_7:24.—[Blayney, Umbreit, Henderson render: and went (drew, turned) backward, and not forward. Noyes and Hitzig: turned the back and not the face.—S. R. A.]
5. The Abomination of Idolatry in the Highest Degree a Most Evident Proof of the Hypocrisy of the People. Beginning of Retribution
Jer_7:29-34
29 Shear off thy hair and cast it away,
And raise on the heights a wailing,
For Jehovah hath rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath.
30 For the children of Judah have done that which is evil in my sight, saith Jehovah.
They have set their abominations in the house,
Which bears my name, to pollute it.
31 And they have built the high places of Tophet,
Which is in the valley of Ben-Hinnom.
To burn their sons and daughters in the fire;
Which I commanded not, neither did it come into my mind.
32 Therefore behold! the days are coming, saith Jehovah,
That it will no more be called Tophet and vale Ben-Hinnom,
But the valley of slaughter:
And they will bury in Tophet, because there is no room.
33 And the carcases of this people shall be for food
To the birds of heaven and the beasts of earth,
And there will be none to scare them away.
34 And I will cause to cease from this city of Judah,
And from the streets of Jerusalem,
The voice of gladness and the voice of joy,
The voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride;
For the land shall become a desolation.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
How little the appeal of the Israelites to the chosen place of mercy, and to their observance of the ritual, could help them (Jer_7:29) the prophet shows by setting forth their desecration of the sanctuary by Baal-worship, and their infraction of the Law by abominable practices which were directly forbidden in it (Jer_7:30-31). Thus it is rendered most clearly manifest what shameful hypocrisy was concealed under the Jehovah-worship boasted of in Jer_7:4.
The rejection consequently announced in Jer_7:29 will consist in this, that the places in the vale of Hinnom hitherto considered sacred will be places of slaughter and burial, and that still a large number of unburied corpses will afford food for the beasts; the further consequence of which will be, that the land, bereft of its inhabitants, will become a barren waste (Jer_7:31-34).
Jer_7:29. Shear off thy hair … generation of his wrath. גִוֶר is properly crown: here it is used of the hair as the natural adornment of the head, comp. Num_6:19. The cutting off of the hair was a sign of mourning, Jer_16:6; Jer_48:37; Isa_15:2; Mic_1:16, etc. Comp. Herzog, Real-Enc. XVI., S. 363. [Henderson:—“Jerusalem is here addressed under the image of a female, who, in the depth of her grief for the loss of her children, deprives her head of its chief ornament, and betakes herself to the hills to bewail her bereavement.” Henry after Blayney:—“The word is peculiar to the hair of the Nazarites, which was the badge and token of their dedication to God, and it is called their crown. Jerusalem had been a city, which was a Nazarite to God, but must now cut off her hair, must be profaned, degraded and separated from God, as she had been separated to Him. It is time for those who have lost their holiness to lay aside their joy.”—S. R. A.]—On the feminine form in גָּזּיetc. Comp. Naegelsb. Gr., § 60, 7.—On the heights. Comp. Jer_3:21; Jer_9:9.—generation of his wrath. Comp. Isa_10:6; Pro_22:8.
Jer_7:30. For the children of Judah … to pollute it.—in my sight, does not depend on have done, but on that which is evil. Comp. Jdg_3:7; Jdg_3:12, etc., and Naegelsb. Gr., § 112, 5 b, (where moreover we must understand it in a physical sense [Isa_14:16] as distinguished from the spiritual sense, Gen_28:8, etc).—Their abominations. That Jeremiah refers to the abominable practices of Manasseh (2Ki_21:4-7) has been fully proved by Graf. I will only add that Jehoiakim represents the relapse into the principle forsaken by Josiah, and that this explains why responsibility for the sins of Manasseh is attributed to him and his contemporaries (2Ki_24:3; Jer_15:4), on which account also in this passage the abominations are spoken of as though they had been committed by Jehoiakim himself. This passage is repeated in Jer_32:34.
Jer_7:31. And they have built … come into my mind. בָּמוֹת is not merely high places, but in a derivative sense every place of worship erected for idolatrous service, or every building for that purpose, as is proved by passages like 2Ki_23:15, where the בָּמָה is distinguished from the altar in it, and is burnt,—Eze_16:16, where high places are mentioned as composed of garments. Here also they are not the altars alone, but the places of worship with the altars. There appear to have been several such places in Tophet, this being intimated by the expression תֹפֶּת הַטִּמֶאִיםJer_19:13. Tophet, as is well known, was a place in the valley of Ben-Hinnom, where the horrible sacrifices of children (comp. Selden, De Diis Syr. Syntagm. I. 6) were offered to Baal (Jer_19:5—with which Molech, Jer_32:35, is parallel, comp. Lev_18:21; Lev_20:2-5; 1Ki_11:7; 2Ki_23:10). But the derivation of the word is uncertain. Some (Lorsbach, Gesen., Hitzig, Ewald, Fuerst, and others) appeal to Isa_30:33 in favor of the rendering place of burning, deriving it from שַׁב=תַּףto burn. Others (Winer, Böttcher, Graf, Pressel) finding their support in Job_17:6, give the word the meaning of sputum, abomination, horror, from the Chaldee תּוּף=to spew out. Hofmann (in Weiss. u. Erf., II., 125) suggests the not improbable derivation from פִתָה and gives it the meaning of pit. A decision on this point is as difficult as with reference to the vale Ben-Hinnom. The situation of this valley is indeed fixed, as it is certain it was to the south of Jerusalem, but the views are various as to its exact location. Comp. Herzog, Real-Enc., IV. S. 710.—There is not perfect agreement even as to the name of the valley, the ancients regarding Hinnom as a proper name, of the moderns some deriving it from נָהַם (by transposition=the valley of wailing, so Hitzig and Graf), and others from אנן=הנן (with the same meaning, so Böttcher, De Inf., I. S. 82, 83). Were the valley only the vale of Hinnom, as in Jos_15:8; Jos_18:16; Neh_11:30, or the vale Beni-Hinnom (as in 2Ki_23:10 only, Chethibh) the apellative signification would have much in its favor. But as the name Vale Ben-Hinnom is the most frequent and certainly the original (Jos_15:8; Jos_18:16; Jer_7:31-32; Jer_19:2; Jer_19:6; 2Ch_28:3; 2Ch_33:6), the derivations given above are very insecure, and it is most advisable to retain the old interpretation.—To burn. Two passages coincide with this almost word for word: Jer_19:5 and Jer_32:35. In the latter passage, instead of this expression, we find to cause to pass through, which shows that it is not to be understood literally as Maimonides and other Jewish commentators suppose, but as an euphemism.—The words which I commanded not repeated in all three passages (comp. Jer_3:16), intimate that this custom was relatively a new one. Although the worship of Molech (the Ammonitish) is attributed even to Solomon (1Ki_11:7), yet the abomination of burning children was first introduced into Judah by Ahaz (2Ki_16:3). Comp. Movers, Phœn. I., S. 327 sqq.—In the Pentateuch this cult was forbidden, Deu_12:30; Deu_18:10.
Jer_7:32-34. Therefore behold! the days are coming … a desolation. The place of worship, held sacred by the idolatrous Jews, but in fact desecrated, shall even for them be forever polluted. That this would be accomplished by a massacre on the spot, is not stated in the text. This would not have polluted it forever, as we read of Josiah that he polluted the places of idolatrous worship either by the burning of human bones (2Ki_23:16; 2Ki_23:20) or by filling them up with these (Jer_7:14) or the reverse, by strewing the ashes of the idols on the graves (Jer_7:6). At any rate he must have defiled Tophet (Jer_7:10) and other places (Jer_7:8; Jer_7:13) in the same way. Here then also the pollution is caused by the interment, and the name “valley of slaughter” is connected with it only in so far that the vale is used as a place of burial only in consequence of the want of room, resulting from the great slaughter (comp. Jer_19:11; Eze_9:7). But even thus a great number of corpses will remain unburied, which will be food for beasts (comp. Deu_28:26, whence Jer_7:33 is taken verbatim, and Jer_16:4; Jer_19:7; Jer_34:20).—None to scare,etc. Comp. Lev_26:6; Deu_28:26; Mic_4:4; Nah_2:12; Zep_3:13; Jer_30:10; Jer_46:27. The further result of the slaughter is depopulation, the cessation of every sign of normal human existence, complete desolation of the land. (Jer_16:9; Jer_25:10-11, coll. Jer_33:11). [Henderson:—“In Jer_7:34, reference is made to the joyous processions in which the bride and bridegroom are led through the streets, accompanied by bands of singers and musicians, which are common in many parts of the East, and even among the Jews in some parts of Europe. See my Biblical Researches and Travels in Russia, p. 217.”—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 1. The Temple and its Worship no Adequate Ground…
1. The Temple and its Worship no Adequate Ground of Confidence.
Jer_7:1 to Jer_8:3.
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VANITY OF TRUSTING IN THE TEMPLE, Jer_7:1-16.
2. Gate of the Lord’s house — Comp. Jer_36:10. Probably one of the three gates to the inner court.
All… Judah — Probably spoken on the occasion of one of the annual feasts.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 1, 2. Absence from the LXX of all but…
1, 2. Absence from the LXX of all but “Hear … ye of Judah” suggests the probability that the rest has been supplied by an editor from ch. 26.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (1) This chapter and the three that follow form…
VII.
(1) This chapter and the three that follow form again another great prophetic sermon, delivered to the crowds that flocked to the Temple. There is nothing in the discourse which absolutely fixes its date, but the description of idolatry, as prevalent, and, possibly, the reference to the presence of the Chaldæan invader in Jer_8:16; Jer_10:22, fit in rather with the reign of Jehoiakim than with that of Josiah; and from the special reference to Shiloh in Jer_26:6; Jer_26:9, as occurring in a prophecy delivered at the beginning of that reign, it was probably this discourse, or one like it, and delivered about the same time, that drew down that king’s displeasure (see Jer_7:14).
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 Ch. 7-10. Severe rebukes of idolatry alternating with announcements…
Ch. 7-10. Severe rebukes of idolatry alternating with announcements of the impending judgment. The circumstances connected with this discourse, or part thereof, appear to be detailed in Jer 26. Among the parallelisms between the two sections, notice especially the reference to the fate of the temple of Shiloh. (comp. ver. 14 with Jer_26:6) The date of the original utterance of the prophecy is thus fixed for one of the early years of the reign of Jehoiakim. Jer_10:1-16, however, requires separate consideration.
Vers. 1-7. The Divine requirements and the corresponding promise.
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HOMILETICS Vers. 1-7. Preaching repentance.
I THE OCCASION. It was in the gate of the temple, where the crowd of worshippers would pass, and at the time of their going up to worship.
1. In a public place,
(1) that men might not have to seek the preacher, but rather be sought by him; and
(2) that all might hear, for truth, warnings of judgment, and gospels of deliverance are for all.
2. At the entrance to the place of worship, because
(1) worship should be associated with instruction;
(2) many people who observe religious ordinances need to be convinced of their sin and urged to repentance as much as the "publicans and sinners;" and
(3) we must repent of sin before we can be accepted by God; so Jeremiah was to preach to the people as they went in to the temple, not as they came out.
II THE ACCUSATION. The Jews are not accused of Church sins, neglecting religious ordinances, etc. Their sins were against common morality.
1. Though men may be very observant of religious ordinances they may yet be guilty of the grossest wicked ness (ver. 6).
2. God is most concerned with our conduct in daily life. Here is the true life, the life which occupies the larger part of our time, engages most of our energies, gives freest scope for good or evil.
III THE EXHORTATION. Practical amendment is sought.
1. There must be an amending. Repentance is not merely sorrow for the past; it is a change of desire and effort for the future.
2. This must be practical. The Jews are to amend their ways. True repentance is more a matter of conduct than of emotion, it must bring forth fruits. (Mat_3:8)
3. This must be definite. Particular sins are specified as to be abandoned (ver. 6). Men must repent of their own sins, their characteristic sins, their habitual sins. We are too ready to renounce the sins which do not belong to us, and to pass over our most familiar sins unnoticed.
4. This must be thorough. The Jews are to "thoroughly amend" their ways. A half-hearted repentance is a mockery. As well not flee from the City of Destruction at all as linger regretfully about its vicinity like Lot"s wife, only to suffer a similar fate to hers.
IV THE ADMONITION. The Jews are warned of the danger of a false ground of confidence (ver. 4), and threatened with approaching judgment.
1. If we believe that men are in danger, that is a false charity which hides the danger out of consideration for feelings of mere temporary comfort.
2. There is an advantage in using the minatory language of Scripture, though
a. with deep solemnity,
b. with sadness and kindliness of purpose,
c. without the amplification of imaginative sensationalism,
d. accompanied by clear indications of the way of escape and encouragements for hope in following it.
V THE PROMISE. (Ver. 7) Repentance is to be followed by forgiveness and the restoration of favor. God charges us with our sins, and threatens judgments, all in love that he may thus lead us to safety and blessedness. The most wicked men may find forgiveness and ultimate salvation if they will but repent and turn to God (ver. 6).
HOMILIES BY A.F. MUIR Vers. 1-3. Keeping the temple gate.
It was probably not the outer gate, but one of the gates which led from the outer to the inner or upper court. (cf. Jer_19:14 Jer_26:10 Jer_36:10) "From this point the prophet could view the whole assembly of the people in the outer court, as well as the gates leading from without into it" (Lange). Christ seems to have stood thus at times.
I THE PREACHER OF TRUTH DOES WELL TO CHOOSE THE MOST IMPRESSIVE POSITIONS, OCCASIONS, AND CIRCUMSTANCES FOR THE DELIVERY OF HIS MESSAGE. The great aim of the preacher is to get a hearing for what he has to say. Tact (to a certain degree), artistic juxtaposition and arrangement, sympathy with the spirit of the times, etc., are indispensable qualities to him who would give the Word of God bold and effective expression. Public occasions may, therefore, frequently be utilized for special services, etc. Passing movement and contemporary events may give fresh interest to permanent truth. A curious ingenuity is sometimes exhibited in making the preacher inconspicuous and reducing his office to a matter of routine. He ought always to feel that his message is an extraordinary one, requiring all the earnestness and effort of which he is capable to convey it with due effect. And even then it must have suffered at his hands, and in much he will be an unprofitable servant.
II RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCE MAY BE VERY FASHIONABLE, AND ALL BUT UNIVERSAL, WHERE THERE IS LITTLE REAL RELIGION. One has to distinguish between the outward and the inward, the religion of rite and ceremony and that of the heart. Here apparently the representatives of "all Judah" were assembled, and yet it was no sign of national piety, but rather the contrary. Instead of the carnal nature Being checked and corrected, it was directly fostered by such worship. Public worship is a phrase which often includes elements that have nothing to do with the worship of God. That the services of God"s house should be chaste and attractive will be generally admitted. But architectural adornments, musical accessories of an ornate or merely artistic nature, displays of rhetoric, and similar additions to the essential character of the worship, may prove popular and entertaining, and yet be spiritually pernicious. In the case of Judah the whole worship was on a low intellectual and spiritual key. The gods of heathenism and Jehovah were worshipped alike, and the licentious rites of idolatry mingled with the sacrifices of the Law. This had resulted in the temple being polluted and becoming a "den of thieves." Our aims in worship, the purity and concentration of our hearts, the moral relation between our every-day life and our temple service, have all very intimately to do with the question of the value of public religious observances.
III RIGHTEOUSNESS OUGHT TO BE PRELIMINARY TO WORSHIP. "Amend your ways and your doings" is the demand the prophet makes in proof of the genuineness of their worship. Religion is a matter of life, and not of showy observances and empty protestations. The best proof that we intend serving God is that we have already begun to do so in business and morals. This duty, although difficult, is the best preparation for exalted spiritual experiences and sincere adoration. Men are not fit to appear before God when their misdeeds are still being repeated and their moral habits are not under the influence of his Spirit.
IV UNREAL WORSHIP OF GOD IS CERTAIN TO BE DETECTED AND EXPOSED. We can imagine the shame of the nobility and people whom the prophet from his unlooked-for vantage-point so sharply rebuked. M.
HOMILIES BY S. CONWAY Vers. 1-34. The relations of righteousness and religion.
This chapter, as indeed so much other of Jeremiah"s prophecies, teaches not a little Concerning this great theme. In this chapter we note how it shows
I THAT RIGHTEOUSNESS IS THE PRINCIPAL THING.
1. It is God"s solemn demand (ver. 2).
(1) Jeremiah is charged to proclaim it in the Name of the Lord and as his word.
(2) He is to go where there will be a vast congregation of the people: "In the gate of the Lord"s house.
(3) Probably at a time of national gathering, at one of the feasts, so as to secure a yet larger audience.
(4) At a moment when the word of the Lord might be expected to win most attention from them as they were "entering in at the gates to worship the Lord.
1. It is God"s perpetual demand. See the whole chapter, the whole prophecy. "Amend your ways and your doings" (ver. 3) is its constant appeal.
2. At first it was his only command, and it is ever his first command. (ver. 22). Our first parents were commanded to obey before sacrifice or any rites of religion were appointed. And so with Israel (ver. 22). The moral Law was given before the ceremonial. And it was given in a far more imperative form. The moral Law begins Thou shalt;" the Levitical, (Lev_1:2-17; Lev_2:1) "If any man will." Hence from all the foregoing it is evident that righteousness stands before all else in the Divine esteem.
II RELIGION WAS GIVEN FOR THE SAKE OF AND AS AN AID TO RIGHTEOUSNESS. Righteousness is not for the sake of religion, but vice versa. No doubt they render mutual help, but the proper relation of the two is as aforesaid. And religion can be a help to righteousness and ought ever to be, even as it has often been and is.
1. My supplying fresh motives. Apart from religion, righteous conduct becomes simply morality, and bases itself upon laws of expediency, or at best draws its force from motives that rise no higher than earth and man and the present life. But religion gives the love of God in Christ as its all-constraining force. Under the influence of this, what have not men done and borne; and what will they not do and bear?
2. By lending intensity to those already in action. How puny the power of hope, when it has none other recompense than that which this life and this world can furnish, contrasted with its invincible force when the recompenses of eternity, made known to us by religion, are set before it and held out to it! And so with the motive of fear. What an immense addition is made to the deterrent force of fear when the idea of God and his awful displeasure are present before the mind! His love will all vain love expel, His fear all fear beside.
3. By furnishing a perfect example. In our blessed Lord"s life, short as it was in duration, and far removed from us as it is in time, place, and circumstance, nevertheless in it there is to be found a standard and model of righteous conduct for all ages and all lands, such as can be found nowhere else. His life has been the compass by which many a saint has steered across the difficult ocean of life, and by its aid arrived safely at the desired haven.
4. By winning for us, in response to our fervent prayers, the ever-present and potent help of the Divine and transforming Spirit. By his aid the very "body of sin" within us is crucified, and we become new creatures in Christ.
5. By its ordinances of worship: its continual teaching, its Church fellowship, and its varied sacred observances, keeping alive within us those beliefs and sentiments which are ever the most powerful prompters to all righteousness of life. Thus the Israelite of old found the Law of God (cf. Ps 119) his perpetual aid, and the worship of God"s house a constant solace and strength. And it is so still. By the truths and the ordinances of religion, the weak, wavering will is steadied, the feet are kept from falling, and the soul is preserved from death. Such ought ever to be the case, ever is so, where religion is the worship of God in spirit and in truth; and this was the Divine design and intent in giving it to us.
III BUT THEY ARE AT TIMES FOUND ASUNDER. Religion may flourish, but righteousness be only conspicuous by its absence. It was so in the time of the prophet. We see a whole apparatus of religion temple, altar, priests, sacrifices, services; nothing omitted in external observances. And there was a national profession of it; large sums of money were lavished on it, and there was a universal outward regard for it. But, on the other hand, all this went on whilst the most gross unrighteousness characterized the very people who outwardly were so religious (cf. vers. 5, 6, 9, 18). This was an appalling fact. Nor, alas! is it one that now has no existence; the same sad separation of religion from righteousness may be too often seen in our days as of old. The murderous banditti of Southern Europe are diligent at Mass, and pay all honor to the Virgin and saints. The midnight assassins of Ireland are all good Catholics. And many a chapel and church in our own land has amongst its seemingly most religious worshippers, men who are cruel, hard, fraudulent, impure at the prayer-meeting and sacrament, but very devils at home.
IV THEY MAY BE EVEN OPPOSED TO ONE ANOTHER. Not merely separate, but antagonistic. Yes, religion, which was designed to minister to righteousness, may not only be severed from it, but be actually found undermining it, sapping its very life and strength. Thus:
1. By begetting false confidence. (Cf. ver. 4) The Jews thought that all this religion must guarantee them immunity from the Divine displeasure, must ensure them his safeguard and protection. He, so they thought, could never suffer harm to come to his own temple temple of the Lord." And still it is hard to persuade our hearts that all our religion goes for nothing, and worse than nothing, when it brings forth no fruit of righteousness. So many prayers, such liberal gifts, such good desires, such correctness of creed and of outward demeanor, such devotional fervor, surely these things must propitiate Heaven, must ward off the Divine displeasure! (Cf. G. Eliot"s character, Bulstrode, the fraudulent but very religious banker, in "Middlemarch.")
2. By teaching men truths which they can readily wrest to evil. (Cf. ver. 10) The meaning (see Exposition) is not We cannot help ourselves; God has given us over to sin;" but "We are delivered by our religious observances sacrifices and the like; the score is cleared off; we are secured against harm; we may go and live as we list." Thus they tamed the grace of God into lasciviousness," and "continued in sin that," etc. And is not this done still? It is to be feared that not a few suck a poisonous pleasure from the Messed doctrine of the forgiving love of God. Thus the gospel itself may become a "savor of death unto death" to those who thus "make Christ the Minister of sin." And because religion has been seen so often severed from righteousness, and sometimes even ministering to unrighteousness, many have been and are eager to sweep it away altogether as a hindrance rather than a help to moral well-being. A highly educated German gentleman, whom the writer met abroad, expressed it as his strong and deliberate conviction that the religiousness and the decay of a people stand related as cause and effect. He argued that England must sink because her leading statesman was an eminently religious man. And were religion necessarily or generally severed from righteousness, still more if it were necessarily or generally opposed to righteousness, then it would deserve the denunciation of all right-minded men, and the sooner it were swept utterly out of the way the better. But all we can say is that if righteousness be not found in company with religion, it is to be found nowhere else; and if the Church of God, the great company of those who profess to be actuated by religious motives and aims, do not furnish and nurture God-like and righteous souls, then there is no other company on the face of the earth that does so. Bad as the Church may be, the world is far worse.
V WHAT, THEN, IS OUR DUTY? Not to inveigh against religion, still less to seek its destruction, but to do all we can to restore the original and God-designed relationship between it and righteousness. "What God hath joined together, let," etc. And it is on this restoration of right relationship between the two that God so strenuously and sternly insists here and throughout his Word. If (ver. 3) they will amend their ways, then his blessing; but if not, he will have no mercy. He cites the instance of Shiloh as a solemn warning to them (ver. 14). He forbids Jeremiah even to pray for them whilst they continue as they are (ver. 16). He pours his contempt upon all their religion, their burnt offerings, and sacrifices (ver. 21), whilst severed from righteousness. He tells them that all along in their history, from the first until now, he had asked for, though he had never received it from them, not religion merely, but righteousness obedience to his Word (vers. 21-28). Instead of that they had committed all abomination, and therefore they should miserably perish (vers. 29-34). How dreadful, then, must be the separation, and yet more the antagonism, between these whom God united! As he gave Eve to be a help-meet to Adam, so did he give religion to be the help-meet of righteousness. Let us tremble with a holy fear if we find ourselves able to go on contentedly in religious observances, whilst conscience becomes less and less sensitive, and our love and loyalty to righteousness grow feebler day by day. Our subject shows us that such a disastrous condition is possible. But that we may escape it, let us resolve that, inasmuch as God has given us religion for our help a help which our blessed Lord himself ever made use ofCold mountains and the midnight air Witnessed the fervor of his prayer; we will know the possibilities of help towards holiness which undoubtedly it contains. Let us set ourselves to seek the "baptism of the Holy Ghost" and "the endowments of power" which come therefrom. If we do thus set ourselves to seek these, they shall be ours, for they are most certainly promised; so shall religion and righteousness abide in that most intimate and hallowed union which God from the first designed for them, and our righteousness, ministered to by its God-given help-meet religion, shall far exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees, yea, shall advance ever nearer to that most glorious attainment, in which we shall be as our Savior bid us be as our Father in heaven is perfect. C.
HOMILIES BY D. YOUNG Vers. 1-14. The doom of the temple.
I THE MESSAGE TO THOSE CONCERNED CANNOT BE ESCAPED. The message is to men who make their boast and confidence in the temple. To be within temple reach seems to place them in a kind of fortress. Such must evidently be met on their own ground. And thus the prophet is sent to the temple gate. There, assuredly, all who took any deep interest in the temple would be found. Jeremiah himself belonged to the priests, and there is no saying but what, prophet as he was, he had to take an allotted share in the temple service. Possibly the message may have been repeated on several occasions, and likeliest of all on those occasions when the temple precincts were crowded with visitors. And when the temple was destroyed, would there not be many to remember that the threatening of destruction was uttered in the very gates of it? Thus we see that there is no want of directness and closeness in dealing with the unfaithful; and no want of courage and candor on the part of the man who was chosen to warn.
II THE MESSAGE IS TO MISTAKEN WORSHIPPERS. To look round with pride and say these buildings are the temple of God, was as the utterance of some first principle. These worshippers, precise enough in outward forms, had a superstitious feeling that whatever vicissitudes might come elsewhere, Jehovah would keep the place of worship secure. The mistake lay in thinking that God valued the temple for itself. Yet it had not been made by his command, in the same sense as the tabernacle had been; rather, it was accepted as a sign of David"s deep religious feeling and Solomon"s pious regard for his father"s wishes. There is nothing to show that out of his own will God would ever have commanded the erection of a temple. It was unseemly in the eyes of David that he should be dwelling in a house of cedar, when the ark of God was behind curtains. But this feeling had in it a certain barbaric element, a fondness for outward pomp and display. It was the best that was in the king"s heart, and so it was accepted. He did what he could. But there was no inherent sacredness in the temple, that it should be kept inviolate amid the wreck and defilement of everything else. The people needed to be taught this truth in very plain language. The feeling towards the building is made manifest in such a passage as Ezr_3:11-13. In fact, the more the people became alienated in heart from the God of the temple, the more enthusiastic, fanatical even, they seem to have become with regard to the mere building.
III THE WAY IN WHICH THE MISTAKE IS SOUGHT TO BE REMOVED. There is no heaping of scorn on the feeling of the people. Their feeling is rather made the occasion of strengthening the hold of God"s truth upon them. If they really value the temple, they are shown the way by which they may keep it and dwell within it. Jehovah shows very distinctly that in his eyes the true glory of Jerusalem is not the temple, but the sort of people who dwell in the city. It is better to have a community of the pious, the upright, the truly brotherly, dwelling in cottages, than to have whole streets of splendid palaces, inhabited by luxurious, self-indulgent oppressors. Men hold in high esteem buildings, pictures, books, statues, great fruits of human intellect. God looks at good actions; little but significant kindnesses the giving of the cup of cold water, the visiting of the sick, and the feeding of the hungry. A community of men, selfish to the core, will not be preserved for the sake of a splendid building; but that building may be preserved if a community of good men will be really pleased by its preservation. The truth, however, is that a community, living such a life as God here indicates should be chosen, would care very little about the pomps of a building. They would prefer to spend their substance in satisfying pressing needs of men. Many of the ecclesiastical buildings of today are inexcusably sumptuous. They are put up to gratify the lust of the eye, and meanwhile the spiritual glories of the upper room at Jerusalem and the Pentecostal miracle are quite forgotten. The publican, the penitent after God"s own heart; went up to the temple; but what were its material splendors to him, as he stood, smiting his breast, and saying, "God be merciful to me a sinner?
IV THE MESSAGE IS CLINCHED BY A CLOSELY FITTING EXAMPLE FROM HISTORY. One instance is enough to prove a negative. The feeling in the hearts of the people is that God will fence the temple site around, for the sake of the temple. But Shiloh is at once brought forward as a capital instance to the contrary. Evidently it still remained in a ruined, neglected state, for any one to go and see it. Israel knew what Shiloh had been at the first, and they could see how different it was now. In reading history, we are bound to profit by all of Divine warning that may appear in what we read. 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 Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain Stand in the gate . . . and proclaim.
Jer_7:1-7
Stand in the gate . . . and proclaim.
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Boldness in preaching
Some preachers are traders from port to port, following the customary and approved course; others adventure over the whole ocean of human concerns. The former are hailed by the common voice of the multitude, whose cause they hold, the latter blamed as idle, often suspected of hiding deep designs, always derided as having lost all guess of the proper course. Yet, of the latter class of preachers was Paul the apostle. Such adventurers, under God, this age of the world seems to us especially to want. There are ministers now to hold the flock in pasture and in safety, but where are they to make inroads upon the alien, to bring in the votaries of fashion, of literature, of sentiment, of policy, and of rank? Truly, it is not stagers who take on the customary form of their office and go the beaten round of duty, and then lie down content; but it is daring adventurers, who shall eye from the grand eminence of a holy and heavenly mind all the grievances which religion underlies, and all the obstacles which stay her course, and then descend with the self-denial and faith of an apostle to set the battle in array against them. (Edward Irving.)
Enter in at these gates to worship the Lord.--
The character required in those the would worship God
The heathen had a notion that the gods would not like the service and sacrifice of any but such as were like themselves, and therefore to the sacrifice of Hercules none were to be admitted that were dwarfs; and to the sacrifice of Bacchus, a merry god, none that were sad and pensive, as not suiting their genius. An excellent truth may be drawn from their folly: he that would like to please God must be like God. (H. G. Salter.)
Amend your ways and your doings.--
Religion, the best security to Church and State
I. Religion, and the general practice of it in a nation, is the surest establishment of states and kingdoms.
1. This is true in a natural way; because the duties of religion have a natural tendency to those things which are the foundations of that establishment, namely, peace, unity, and order.
2. But besides a natural tendency in virtue and goodness to the establishment of states and kingdoms, as many as believe religion must likewise believe that the general practice of it in a nation will be always attended with a supernatural blessing from God. For this is the result of all the declarations of God, as to the manner and rule of His dealings with mankind, whether persons or nations, that as many as faithfully serve and obey Him, shall be assuredly intituled to His favour and protection.
II. In every nation it is the proper business of the civil magistrates, as such, to vindicate and maintain the honour of religion. And when I am speaking of authority, and the vigorous application thereof by the magistrate, I cannot omit one thing, which is a mighty enforcement of it, a good example; which, in its nature, is the most forcible way of teaching and correcting, and without which, neither the instructions of ministers, nor the authority of magistrates, can avail, to the effectual discouragement and suppression of vice.
III. Without a serious regard to the moral and spiritual duties of religion, the greatest zeal in other matters, even though it be for the established worship of God, will not secure the Divine favour and protection, either to persons or nations. The external rites of religion are good helps to devotion, and proper means of maintaining order and decency in the public worship; and a zeal to preserve them, with a serious regard to those pious and wise ends, is very laudable: but to believe that zeal for them will atone for a neglect of the moral and spiritual duties of religion is a dangerous error. (E. Gibson, D. D.)
The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, are these.
The folly of trusting in external privileges
I. We are to show the extreme folly of trusting to any religious privileges, while our hearts remain unrenewed and our lives unholy. On what ground can we rely on the continuance of Gods favour under such circumstances? Should we, because a friend had conferred many benefits upon us, and forgiven us many offences, be justified in supposing that there would be no limit to his endurance? Yet the Jews--and their case is not singular--seemed to claim a special right to the continued favour of God, in virtue of their religious privileges; not considering that those privileges were a free gift; that they might at any time be withdrawn, without a shadow of injustice; and that while they lasted they were intended to operate, not as inducements to presumption, but as motives to love and thankfulness and obedience. They had in themselves no spiritual efficacy. Neither the character of God, nor His promises, held out any ground of hope on which to build such a conclusion. It would not have been consistent with His holiness, or wisdom, or justice, that the sinner should escape under the plea of any national or personal privileges, however great. And His promises, both temporal and spiritual, were all made in accordance with the same principle. If ye walk in My statutes, and keep My commandments and do them . . . then I will walk among you, and I will be your God;. . .but if ye will not hearken unto Me, and will not do all these commandments,. . .I will set My face against you. The whole tenor of Gods providential dispensations is likewise to the same effect. And accordingly, the Jews, great as were their national mercies, found on numerous occasions that they were not exempt from the just displeasure of their Divine Governor. Yet, with all these proofs of Gods righteous judgments, their constant cry was, The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord: they caught hold, as it were, of the horns of the altar with unhallowed hands; and, notwithstanding the threatenings of the Almighty, were ever prone to trust in those external privileges. At the very time when they were committing the grievous enormities of which the prophet Jeremiah convicts them, they were zealous for the outward worship of God, and boasted highly of their religious profession. But could any folly be greater than that of supposing that this insincere worship could satisfy Him who searcheth the heart and trieth the reins? The prophet forcibly points out the extreme folly and delusiveness of such expectations: Go, he says, unto My place which was in Shiloh, where I set My name at the first; and see what I did to it for the wickedness of My people Israel. And now, because ye have done all these works, saith the Lord, and I spake unto you, rising up early and speaking, but ye heard not; and I called unto you, but ye answered not; therefore will I do unto this house, which is called by My name, wherein ye trust, and unto the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh. Having thus considered the extreme folly of trusting to external privileges, while the heart is unrenewed and the life unholy, we are--
II. To show that this folly is too common in all ages; and that we ourselves, perhaps, are guilty of it. How many pride themselves in being zealous Protestants, or strict members of the Established Church, or regular attendants on public worship, while they live in the spirit of the world, and without any scriptural evidence of being in a state of favour with God! How many trust to the supposed orthodoxy of their faith; or to their zeal against infidelity, enthusiasm; while they are ignorant of the scriptural way of salvation, and indifferent to the great concern of making their calling and election sure! How many cherish a secret hope from the prayers of religious parents, the zeal and piety of their ministers. In short, innumerable are the ways in which persons deceive themselves on these subjects; fancying that the temple of the Lord is among them; and on this vain surmise remaining content and careless in their sins, and ignorant of all true religion. Now let us ask ourselves, in conclusion, whether such is our own case. On what are we placing our hopes for eternity? Are we resting upon anything superficial or external; upon anything short of genuine conversion of heart to God? True piety is not anything that can be done for us; it must be engrafted in us; it must dwell in our hearts, and show its blessed effects in our conduct. (Christian Observer.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain Jeremiah 7-10, 26
CHAPTER V
POPULAR AND TRUE RELIGION
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Jeremiah 7-10, 26
In the four chapters which we are now to consider we have what is plainly a finished whole. The only possible exception {Jer_10:1-16} shall be considered in its place. The historical occasion of the introductory prophecy, {Jer_7:1-15} and the immediate effect of its delivery, are recorded at length in the twenty-sixth chapter of the book, so that in this instance we are happily not left to the uncertainties of conjecture. We are there told that it was "in the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim son of Josiah, king of Judah," that Jeremiah received the command to stand in the forecourt of Iahvahs house, and to declare "to all the cities of Judah that were come to worship" there, that unless they repented and gave ear to Iahvahs servants the prophets, He would make the temple like Shiloh, and Jerusalem itself a curse to all the nations of the earth. The substance of the oracle is there given in briefer form than here, as was natural, where the writers object was principally to relate the issue of it as it affected himself. In neither case is it probable that we have a verbatim report of what was actually said, though the leading thoughts of his address are, no doubt, faithfully recorded by the prophet in the more elaborate composition. {Jeremiah 7} Trifling variations between the two accounts must not, therefore, be pressed.
Internal evidence suggests that this oracle was delivered at a time of grave public anxiety, such as marked the troubled period after the death of Josiah, and the early years of Jehoiakim. "All Judah," or "all the cities of Judah," {Jer_26:2} that is to say, the people of the country towns as well as the citizens of Jerusalem, were crowding into the temple to supplicate their God. {Jer_7:2} This indicates an extraordinary occasion, a national emergency affecting all alike. Probably a public fast and humiliation had been ordered by the authorities, on the reception of some threatening news of invasion. "The opening paragraphs of the address are marked by a tone of controlled earnestness, by an unadorned plainness of statement, without passion, without exclamation, apostrophe, or rhetorical device of any kind; which betokens the presence of a danger which spoke too audibly to the general ear to require artificial heightening in the statement of it. The position of affairs spoke for itself" (Hitzig). The very words with which the prophet opens his message, "Thus said Iahvah Sabaoth, the God of Israel, Make good your ways and your doings, that I may cause you to dwell (permanently) in this place!" (Jer_7:3, cf. Jer_7:7) prove that the anxiety which agitated the popular heart and drove it to seek consolation in religious observances, was an anxiety about their political stability, about the permanence of their possession of the fair land of promise. The use of the expression "Iahvah Sabaoth" Iahvah (the God) of Hosts is also significant, as indicating that war was what the nation feared; while the prophet reminds them thus that all earthly powers, even the armies of heathen invaders, are controlled and directed by the God of Israel for His own sovereign purposes. A particular crisis is further suggested by the warning: "Trust ye not to the lying words, The Temple of Iahvah, the Temple of Iahvah, the Temple of Iahvah, is this!" The fanatical confidence in the inviolability of the temple, which Jeremiah thus deprecates, implies a time of public danger. A hundred years before this time the temple and the city had really come through a period of the gravest peril, justifying in the most palpable and unexpected manner the assurances of the prophet Isaiah. This was remembered now, when another crisis seemed imminent, another trial of strength between the God of Israel and the gods of the heathen. Only part of the prophetic teachings of Isaiah had rooted itself in the popular mind-the part most agreeable to it. The sacrosanct inviolability of the temple, and of Jerusalem for its sake, was an idea readily appropriated and eagerly cherished. It was forgotten that all depended on the will and purposes of Iahvah himself; that the heathen might be the instruments with which He executed His designs, and that an invasion of Judah might mean, not an approaching trial of strength between His omnipotence and the impotency of the false gods, but the judicial outpouring of His righteous wrath upon His own rebellious people.
Jeremiah, therefore, affirms that the popular confidence is ill-founded; that his countrymen are lulled in a false security; and he enforces his point, by a plain exposure of the flagrant offences which render their worship a mockery of God.
Again, it may be supposed that the startling word, "Add your burnt offerings to your" (ordinary) "offerings, and eat the flesh (of them,)"{ Jer_7:21} implies a time of unusual activity in the matter of honouring the God of Israel with the more costly offerings of which the worshippers did not partake, but which were wholly consumed on the altar; which fact also might point to a season of special danger.
And, lastly, the references to taking refuge behind the walls of "defenced cities," {Jer_8:14; Jer_10:17} as we know that the Rechabites and doubtless most of the rural populace took refuge in Jerusalem on the approach of the third and last Chaldean expedition, seem to prove that the occasion of the prophecy was the first Chaldean invasion, which ended in the submission of Jehoiakim to the yoke of Babylon. {2Ki_24:1} Already the northern frontier had experienced the destructive onslaught of the invaders, and rumour announced that they might soon be expected to arrive before the walls of Jerusalem. {Jer_8:16-17}
The only other historical occasion which can be suggested with any plausibility is the Scythian invasion of Syria-Palestine, to which the previous discourse was assigned. This would fix the date of the prophecy at some point between the thirteenth and the eighteenth years of Josiah (B.C. 629-624). But the arguments for this view do not seem to be very strong in themselves, and they certainly do not explain the essential identity of the oracle summarised in Jer_26:1-6, with that of Jer_7:1-15. The "undisguised references to the prevalence of idolatry in Jerusalem itself (Jer_7:17; Jer_7:30-31), and the unwillingness of the people to listen to the prophets teaching," {Jer_7:27} are quite as well accounted for by supposing a religious or rather an irreligious reaction under Jehoiakim-which is every way probable considering the bad character of that king, {2Ki_23:37; Jer_22:13 sqq.} and the serious blow inflicted upon the reforming party by the death of Josiah; as by assuming that the prophecy belongs to the years before the extirpation of idolatry in the eighteenth year of the latter sovereign.
And now let us take a rapid glance at the salient points of this remarkable utterance. The people are standing in the outer court, with their faces turned toward the court of the priests, in which stood the holy house itself. {Psa_5:7} The prophetic speaker stands facing them, "in the gate of the Lords house," the entry of the upper or inner court, the place whence Baruch was afterwards to read another of his oracles to the people. {Jer_36:10} Standing here, as it were between his audience and the throne of Iahvah, Jeremiah acts as visible mediator between them and their God. His message to the worshippers who throng the courts of Iahvahs sanctuary is not one of approval. He does not congratulate them upon their manifest devotion, upon the munificence of their offerings, upon their ungrudging and unstinted readiness to meet an unceasing drain upon their means. His message is a surprise, a shock to their self-satisfaction, an alarm to their slumbering consciences, a menace of wrath and destruction upon them and their holy place. His very first word is calculated to startle their self-righteousness, their misplaced faith in the merit of their worship and service. "Amend your ways and your doings!" Where was the need of amendment? they might ask. Were they not at that moment engaged in a function most grateful to Iahvah? Were they not keeping the law of the sacrifices, and were not the Levitical priesthood ministering in their order, and receiving their due share of the offerings which poured into the temple day by day? Was not all this honour enough to satisfy the most exacting of deities? Perhaps it was, had the deity in question been merely as one of the gods of Canaan. So much lip service, so many sacrifices and festivals, so much joyous revelling in the sanctuary, might be supposed to have sufficiently appeased one of the common Baals, those half-womanish phantoms of deity whose delight was imagined to be in feasting and debauchery. Nay, so much zeal might have propitiated the savage heart of a Molech. But the God of Israel was not as these, nor one of these; though His ancient people were too apt to conceive thus of Him, and certain modern critics have unconsciously followed in their wake.
Let us see what it was that called so loudly for amendment, and then we may become more fully aware of the gulf that divided the God of Israel from the idols of Canaan, and His service from all other service. It is important to keep this radical difference steadily before our minds, and to deepen the impression of it, in days when the effort is made by every means to confuse Iahvah with the gods of heathendom, and to rank the religion of Israel with the lower surrounding systems.
Jeremiah accuses his countrymen of flagrant transgression of the universal laws of morality. Theft, murder, adultery, perjury, fraud, and covetousness, slander and lying and treachery, {Jer_7:9; Jer_9:3-8} are charged upon these zealous worshippers by a man who lived amongst them, and knew them well, and could be contradicted at once if his charges were false.
He tells them plainly that, in virtue of their frequenting it, the temple is become a den of robbers.
And this trampling upon the common rights of man has its counterpart and its climax in treason against God, in "burning incense to the Baal, and walking after other gods whom they know not"; {Jer_7:9} in an open and shameless attempt to combine the worship of the God who had from the outset revealed Himself to their prophets as a "jealous," i.e., an exclusive God, with the worship of shadows who had not revealed themselves at all, and could not be "known," because devoid of all character and real existence. They thus ignored the ancient covenant which had constituted them a nation. {Jer_7:23}
In the cities of Judah, in the streets of the very capital, the cultus of Ashtoreth, the Queen of Heaven, the voluptuous Canaanite goddess of love and dalliance, was busily practised by whole families together, in deadly provocation of the God of Israel. The first and great commandment said, Thou shalt love Iahvah thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve. And they loved and served and followed and sought after and worshipped the sun and the moon and the host of heaven, the objects adored by the nation that was so soon to enslave them. {Jer_8:2} Not only did a worldly, covetous, and sensual priesthood connive in the restoration of the old superstitions which associated other gods with Iahvah, and set up idol symbols and altars within the precincts of His temple, as Manasseh had 2Ki_21:4-5; they went further than this in their "syncretism," or rather in their perversity, their spiritual blindness, their wilful misconception of the God revealed to their fathers. They actually confounded Him-the Lord "who exercised lovingkindness, justice, and righteousness, and delighted in" the exhibition of these qualities by His worshippers {Jer_9:24} -with the dark and cruel sun god of the Ammonites. They "rebuilt the high places of the Tophet, in the valley of ben Hinnom," on the north side of Jerusalem, "to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire"; if by means so revolting to natural affection they might win back the favour of heaven-means which Iahvah "commanded not, neither came they into His mind." {Jer_7:31} Such fearful and desperate expedients were doubtless first suggested by the false prophets and priests in the times of national adversity under king Manasseh. They harmonised only too well with the despair of a people who saw in a long succession of political disasters the token of Iahvahs unforgiving wrath. That these dreadful rites were not a "survival" in Israel, seems to follow from the horror which they excited in the allied armies of the two kingdoms, when the king of Moab, in the extremity of the siege, offered his eldest son as a burnt offering on the wall of his capital before the eyes of the besiegers. So appalled were the Israelite forces by this spectacle of a fathers despair, that they at once raised the blockade, and retreated homeward. {2Ki_3:27} It is probable, then, that the darker and bloodier aspects of heathen worship were of only recent appearance among the Hebrews, and that the rites of Molech had not been at all frequent or familiar, until the long and harassing conflict with Assyria broke the national spirit and inclined the people, in their trouble, to welcome the suggestion that costlier sacrifices were demanded, if Iahvah was to be propitiated and His wrath appeased. Such things were not done, apparently, in Jeremiahs time; he mentions them as the crown of the nations past offences; as sins that still cried to heaven for vengeance, and would surely entail it, because the same spirit of idolatry which had culminated in these excesses, still lived and was active in the popular heart. It is the persistence in sins of the same character which involves our drinking to the dregs the cup of punishment for the guilty past. The dark catalogue of forgotten offences witnesses against us before the Unseen Judge, and is only obliterated by the tears of a true repentance, and by the new evidence of a change of heart and life. Then, as in some palimpsest, the new record covers and conceals the old; and it is only if we fatally relapse, that the erased writing of our misdeeds becomes visible again before the eye of Heaven. Perhaps also the prophet mentions these abominations because at the time he saw around him unequivocal tendencies to the renewal of them. Under the patronage or with the connivance of the wicked king Jehoiakim, the reactionary party may have begun to set up again the altars thrown down by Josiah, while their religious leaders advocated both by speech and writing a return to the abolished cultus. At all events, this supposition gives special point to the emphatic assertion of Jeremiah, that Iahvah had not commanded nor even thought of such hideous rites. The reference to the false labours of the scribes {Jer_8:8} lends colour to this view. It may be that some of the interpreters of the sacred law actually anticipated certain writers of our own day, in putting this terrible gloss upon the precept, "The firstborn of thy sons shalt thou give unto Me." {Exo_22:29}
The people of Judah were misled, but they were willingly misled. When Jeremiah declares to them, "Lo, ye are trusting, for your part, upon the words of delusion, so that ye gain no good!" {Jer_7:8} it is perhaps not so much the smooth prophecies of the false prophets as the fatal attitude of the popular mind, out of which those misleading oracles grew, and which in turn they aggravated, that the speaker deprecates. He warns them that an absolute trust in the "praesentia Numinis" is delusive; a trust, cherished like theirs independently of the condition of its justification, viz., a walk pleasing to God. "What! will ye break all My laws, and then come and stand with polluted hands before Me in this house, {Isa_1:15} which is named after Me Iahvahs House, {Isa_4:1} and reassure yourselves with the thought, We are absolved from the consequences of all these abominations?" (Jer_7:9-10). Lit. "We are saved, rescued, secured, with regard to having done all these abominations": cf. Jer_2:35. But perhaps, with Ewald, we should point the Hebrew term differently, and read, "Save us!" "to do all these abominations," as if that were the express object of their petition, which would really ensue, if their prayer were granted: a fine irony. For the form of the verb. {cf. Eze_14:14} They thought their formal devotions were more than enough to counterbalance any breaches of the decalogue; they laid that flattering unction to their souls. They could make it up with God for setting His moral law at naught. It was merely a question of compensation. They did not see that the moral law is as immutable as laws physical; and that the consequences of violating or keeping it are as inseparable from it as pain from a blow, or death from poison. They did not see that the moral law is simply the law of mans health and wealth, and that the transgression of it is sorrow and suffering and death.
"If men like you," argues the prophet, "dare to tread these courts, it must be because you believe it a proper thing to do. But that belief implies that you hold the temple to be something other than what it really is; that you see no incongruity in making the House of Iahvah a meeting place of murderers. {"spelunca latronum" Mat_21:13} That you have yourselves made it, in the full view of Iahvah, whose seeing does not rest there, but involves results such as the present crisis of public affairs; the national danger is proof that He has seen your heinous misdoings." For Iahvahs seeing brings a vindication of right, and vengeance upon evil. {2Ch_24:22; Exo_3:7} He is the watchman that never slumbers nor sleeps; the eternal Judge, Who ever upholds the law of righteousness in the affairs of man, nor suffers the slightest infringement of that law to go unpunished. And this unceasing watchfulness, this perpetual dispensation of justice, is really a manifestation of Divine mercy; for the purpose of it is to save the human race from self-destruction, and to raise it ever higher in the scale of true well-being, which essentially consists in the knowledge of God and obedience to His laws.
Jeremiah gives his audience further ground for conviction. He points to a striking instance in which conduct like theirs had involved results such as his warning holds before them. He establishes the probability of chastisement by a historical parallel. He offers them, so to speak, ocular demonstration of his doctrine. "I also, lo, I have seen, saith Iahvah!" Your eyes are fixed on the temple; so are Mine, but in a different way. You see a national palladium; I see a desecrated sanctuary, a shrine polluted and profaned. This distinction between Gods view and yours is certain: "for, go ye now to My place which was at Shiloh, where I caused My Name to abide at the outset" (of your settlement in Canaan); "and see the thing that I have done to it, because of the wickedness of My people Israel" (the northern kingdom). There is the proof that Iahvah seeth not as man seeth; there, in that dismantled ruin, in that historic sanctuary of the more powerful kingdom of Ephraim, once visited by thousands of worshippers like Jerusalem today, now deserted and desolate, a monument of Divine wrath.
The reference is not to the tabernacle, the sacred Tent of the Wanderings, which was first set up at Nob {1Sa_22:11} and then removed to Gibeon, {2Ch_1:3} but obviously to a building more or less like the temple, though less magnificent. The place and its sanctuary had doubtless been ruined in the great catastrophe, when the kingdom of Samaria fell before the power of Assyria (721 B.C.).
In the following words (Jer_7:13-15) the example is applied. "And now"-stating the conclusion-"because of your having done all these deeds" ("saith Iahvah," LXX omits), "and because I spoke unto you" ("early and late," LXX omits), "and ye hearkened not, and I called you and ye answered not": {Pro_1:24} "I will do unto the house upon which My Name is called, wherein ye are trusting, and unto the place which I gave to you and to your fathers-as I did unto Shiloh."
Some might think that if the city fell, the holy house would escape, as was thought by many like-minded fanatics when Jerusalem was beleaguered by the Roman armies seven centuries later: but Jeremiah declares that the blow will fall upon both alike; and to give greater force to his words, he makes the judgment begin at the house of God. (The Hebrew reader will note the dramatic effect of the disposition of the accents. The principal pause is placed upon the word "fathers," and the reader is to halt in momentary suspense upon that word, before he utters the awful three which close the verse: "as I-did to-Shiloh." The Massorets were masters of this kind of emphasis.)
"And I will cast you away from My Presence, as I cast" ("all": LXX omits) "your kinsfolk, all the posterity of Ephraim." {2Ki_17:20} Away from My Presence: far beyond the bounds of that holy land where I have revealed Myself to priests and prophets, and where My sanctuary stands; into a land where heathenism reigns, and the knowledge of God is not; into the dark places of the earth, that lie under the blighting shadow of superstition, and are enveloped in the moral midnight of idolatry. "Projiciam vos a facie mea." The knowledge and love of God-heart and mind ruled by the sense of purity and tenderness and truth and right united in an Ineffable Person, and enthroned upon the summit of the universe-these are light and life for man; where these are, there is His Presence. They who are so endowed behold the face of God, in Whom is no darkness at all. Where these spiritual endowments are nonexistent; where mere power, or superhuman force, is the highest thought of God to which man has attained; where there is no clear sense of the essential holiness and love of the Divine Nature; there the world of man lies in darkness that may be felt; there bloody rites prevail; there harsh oppression and shameless vices reign: for the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty.
"And thou, pray thou not for this people," {Jer_18:20} "and lift not up for them outcry nor prayer, and urge not Me, for I hear thee not. Seest thou not what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? The children gather sticks, and the fathers light the fire, and the women knead dough, to make sacred buns" {Jer_44:19} "for the Queen of Heaven, and to pour libations to other gods, in order to grieve." {Deu_32:16; Deu_32:21} "Is it Me that they grieve? saith Iahvah; is it not themselves" (rather), "in regard to the shame of their own faces" (Jer_7:16-19).
From one point of view, all human conduct may be said to be "indifferent" to God; He is self-sufficing, and needs not our praises, our love, our obedience, any more than He needed the temple ritual and the sacrifices of bulls and goats. Man can neither benefit nor injure God; he can only affect his own fortunes in this world and the next, by rebellion against the laws upon which his welfare depends, or by a careful observance of them. In this sense, it is true that wilful idolatry, that treason against God, does not "provoke" or "grieve" the Immutable One. Men do such things to their own sole hurt, to the shame of their own faces: that is, the punishment will be the painful realisation of the utter groundlessness of their confidence, of the folly of their false trust; the mortification of disillusion, when it is too late. That Jeremiah should have expressed himself thus is sufficient answer to those who pretend that the habitual anthropomorphism of the prophetic discourses is anything more than a mere accident of language and an accommodation to ordinary style.
In another sense, of course, it is profoundly true to say that human sin provokes and grieves the Lord. God is Love; and love may be pained to its depths by the fault of the beloved, and stirred to holy indignation at the disclosure of utter unworthiness and ingratitude. Something corresponding to these emotions of man may be ascribed, with all reverence, to the Inscrutable Being who creates man "in His own image," that is, endowed with faculties capable of aspiring towards Him, and receiving the knowledge of His being and character.
"Pray not thou for this people for I hear thee not!" Jeremiah was wont to intercede for his people. {Jer_11:14; Jer_18:20; Jer_15:1; cf. 1Sa_12:23} The deep pathos which marks his style, the minor key in which almost all his public utterances are pitched, proves that the fate which he saw impending over his country grieved him to the heart. "Our sweetest songs are those which tell of saddest thought"; and this is eminently true of Jeremiah. A profound melancholy had fallen like a cloud upon his soul; he had seen the future, fraught as it was with suffering and sorrow, despair and overthrow, slaughter and bitter servitude; a picture in which images of terror crowded one upon another, under a darkened sky, from which no ray of blessed hope shot forth, but only the lightnings of wrath and extermination. Doubtless his prayers were frequent, alive with feeling, urgent, imploring, full of the convulsive energy of expiring hope. But in the midst of his strong crying and tears, there arose from the depths of his consciousness the conviction that all was in vain. "Pray not thou for this people, for I will not hear thee." The thought stood before him, sharp and clear as a command; the unuttered sound of it rang in his ears, like the voice of a destroying angel, a messenger of doom, calm as despair, sure as fate. He knew it was the voice of God.
In the history of nations as in the lives of individuals there are times when repentance, even if possible, would be too late to avert the evils which long periods of misdoing have called from the abyss to do their penal and retributive work. Once the dike is undermined, no power on earth can hold back the flood of waters from the defenceless lands beneath. And when a nations sins have penetrated and poisoned all social and political relations, and corrupted the very fountains of life, you cannot avert the flood of ruin that must come, to sweep away the tainted mass of spoiled humanity; you cannot avert the storm that must break to purify the air, and make it fit for men to breathe again.
"Therefore"-because of the national unfaithfulness-"thus said the Lord Iahvah, Lo, Mine anger and My fury are being poured out toward this place-upon the men, and upon the cattle, and upon the trees of the field, and upon the fruit of the ground; and it will burn, and not be quenched!" {Jer_7:20} The havoc wrought by war, the harrying and slaying of man and beast, the felling of fruit trees and firing of the vineyards, are intended; but not so as to exclude the ravages of pestilence and droughts {Jeremiah 14} and famine. All these evils are manifestations of the wrath of Iahvah., cattle and trees and "the fruit of the ground," i.e., of the cornlands and vineyards, are to share in the general destruction, {cf. Hos_4:3} not, of course, as partakers of mans guilt, but only by way of aggravating his punishment. The final phrase is worthy of consideration, because of its bearing upon other passages. "It will burn and not be quenched," or "it will burn unquenchably." The meaning is not that the Divine wrath once kindled will go on burning forever; but that once kindled, no human or other power will be able to extinguish it, until it has accomplished its appointed work of destruction.
"Thus said Iahvah Sabaoth, the God of Israel: Your holocausts add ye to your common sacrifices, and eat ye flesh!" that is, Eat flesh in abundance, eat your fill of it! Stint not yourselves by devoting any portion of your offerings wholly to Me. I am as indifferent to your "burnt offerings," your more costly and splendid gifts, as to the ordinary sacrifices, over which you feast and make merry with your friends. {1Sa_1:4; 1Sa_1:13} The holocausts which you are now burning on the altar before Me will not avail to alter My settled purpose. "For I spake not with your fathers, nor commanded them, in the day that I brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, concerning matters of holocaust and sacrifice, but this matter commanded I them, Hearken ye unto My voice, so become I God to you, and you-ye shall become to Me a people; and walk ye in all the way that I shall command you, that it may go well with you!" (Jer_7:22-23) cf. Deu_6:3. Those who believe that the entire priestly legislation as we now have it in the Pentateuch is the work of Moses, may be content to find in this passage of Jeremiah no more than an extreme antithetical expression of the truth that to obey is better than sacrifice. There can be no question that from the outset of its history. Israel, in common with all the Semitic nations, gave outward expression to its religious ideas in the form of animal sacrifice. Moses cannot have originated the institution, he found it already in vogue, though he may have regulated the details of it. Even in the Pentateuch, the term "sacrifice" is nowhere explained; the general understanding of the meaning of it is taken for granted. {see Exo_12:27; Exo_23:18} Religious customs are of immemorial use, and it is impossible in most cases to specify the period of their origin. But while it is certain that the institution of sacrifice was of extreme antiquity in Israel as in other ancient peoples, it is equally certain, from the plain evidence of their extant writings, that the prophets before the Exile attached no independent value either to it or to any other part of the ritual of the temple. We have already seen how Jeremiah could speak of the most venerable of all the symbols of the popular faith. {Jer_3:16} Now he affirms that the traditional rules for the burnt offerings and other sacrifices were not matters of special Divine institution, as was popularly supposed at the time. The reference to the Exodus may imply that already in his day there were written narratives which asserted the contrary; that the first care of the Divine Saviour after He had led His people through the sea was to provide them with an elaborate system of ritual and sacrifice, identical with that which prevailed in Jeremiahs day. The important verse already quoted {Jer_8:8} seems to glance at such pious fictions of the popular religious teachers: "How say ye, We are wise, and the instruction" (A.V. "law") "of Iahvah is with us? But behold for lies hath it wrought-the lying pen of the scribes!"
It is, indeed, difficult to see how Jeremiah or any of his predecessors could have done otherwise than take for granted the established modes of public worship, and the traditional holy places. The prophets do not seek to alter or abolish the externals of religion as such; they are not so unreasonable as to demand that stated rites and traditional sanctuaries should be disregarded, and that men should worship in the spirit only, without the aid of outward symbolism of any sort, however innocent and appropriate to its object it might seem. They knew very well that rites and ceremonies were necessary to public worship; what they protested against was the fatal tendency of their time to make these the whole of religion, to suppose that Iahvahs claims could be satisfied by a due performance of these, without regard to those higher moral requirements of His law which the ritual worship might fitly have symbolised but could not rightly supersede. It was not a question with Hosea, Amos, Micah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, whether or not Iahvah could be better honoured with or without temples and priests and sacrifices. The question was whether these traditional institutions actually served as an outward expression of that devotion to Him and His holy law, of that righteousness and holiness of life, which is the only true worship, or whether they were looked upon as in themselves comprising the whole of necessary religion. Since the people took this latter view, Jeremiah declares that their system of public worship is futile.
"Hearken unto My voice": not as giving regulations about the ritual, but as inculcating moral duty by the prophets, as is explained immediately, {Jer_7:25} and as is clear also from the statement that "they walked in the schemes of their own evil heart" (omit: "in the stubbornness," with LXX, and read "moacoth" stat. constr.), "and fell to the rear and not the front."
As they did not advance in the knowledge and love of the spiritual God, who was seeking to lead them by His prophets, from Moses downwards, {Deu_18:15} they steadily retrogaded and declined in moral worth, until they had become hopelessly corrupt and past correction. (Lit. "and they became back and not face," which may mean, they turned their backs upon Iahvah and His instruction.) This steady progress in evil is indicated by the words, "and they hardened their neck, they did worse than their fathers." {Jer_7:26} It is implied that this was the case with each successive generation, and the view of Israels history thus expressed is in perfect harmony with common experience. Progress, one way or the other, is the law of character; if we do not advance in goodness, we go back, or, what is the same thing, we advance in evil.
Finally, the prophet is warned that his mission also must fail, like that of his predecessors, unless indeed the second clause of Jer_7:27, which is omitted by the Septuagint, be really an interpolation. At all events, the failure is implied if not expressed, for he is to pronounce a sentence of reprobation upon his people. "And thou shalt speak all these words unto them" ("and they will not hearken unto thee, and thou shalt call unto them, and they will not answer thee": LXX omits). "And thou shalt say unto them, This is the nation that hearkened not unto the voice of Iahvah its God, and received not correction: Good faith is perished and cut off from their mouth." {cf. Jer_9:3 sq.} The charge is remarkable. It is one which Jeremiah reiterates: see Jer_7:9; Jer_6:13; Jer_7:5; Jer_9:3 sqq.; Jer_12:1. His fellow countrymen are at once deceivers and deceived. They have no regard for truth and honour in their mutual dealings; grasping greed and lies and trickery stamp their everyday intercourse with each other; and covetousness and fraud equally characterise the behaviour of their religious leaders. Where truth is not prized for its own sake, there debased ideas of God and lax conceptions of morality creep in and spread. Only he who loves truth comes to the light; and only he who does Gods will sees that truth is divine. False belief and false living in turn beget each other; and as a matter of experience it is often impossible to say which was antecedent to the other.
In the closing section of this first part of his long address (Jeremiah 7:29-Jeremiah 8:3), Jeremiah apostrophises the country, bidding her bewail her imminent ruin. "Shear thy tresses" (coronal of long hair) "and cast them away, and lift upon the bare hills a lamentation!"-sing a dirge over thy departed glory and thy slain children, upon those unhallowed mountain tops which were the scene of thine apostasies: {Jer_3:21} "for Iahvah hath rejected and forsaken the generation of His wrath." The hopeless tone of this exclamation (cf. also Jer_7:15, Jer_7:16, Jer_7:20) seems to agree better with the times of Jehoiakim, when it had become evident to the prophet that amendment was beyond hope, than with the years prior to Josiahs reformation. His own contemporaries are "the generation of Iahvahs wrath," i.e., upon which His wrath is destined to be poured out, for the day of grace is past and gone; and this, because of the desecration of the temple itself by such kings as Ahaz and Manasseh, but especially because of the horrors of the child sacrifices in the valley of ben Hinnom, {2Ki_16:3; 2Ki_21:3-6} which those kings had been the first to introduce in Judah. "Therefore behold days are coming, saith Iahvah, and it shall no more be called the Tophet" (an obscure term, probably meaning something like "Pyre" or "Burning place": cf. the Persian tabidan "to burn," and "to bury," strictly "to burn" a corpse; also "to smoke," Sanskrit dhup: to suppose a reproachful name like "Spitting" = "Object of loathing," is clearly against the context: the honourable name is to be exchanged for one of dishonour), "and the Valley of ben Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter, and people shall bury in (the) Tophet for want of room (elsewhere)!" A great battle is contemplated, as is evident also from Deu_28:25-26, the latter verse being immediately quoted by the prophet. {Jer_7:33} The Tophet will be defiled forever by being made a burial place; but many of the fallen will be left unburied, a prey to the vulture and the jackal. In that fearful time, all sounds of joyous life will cease in the cities of Judah and in the capital itself, "for the land will become a desolation." And the scornful enemy will not be satisfied with wreaking his vengeance upon the living; he will insult the dead, by breaking into the sepulchres of the kings and grandees, the priests and prophets and people, and haling their corpses forth to lie rotting in face of the sun, moon, and stars, which they had so sedulously worshipped in their lifetime, but which will be powerless to protect their dead bodies from this shameful indignity. And as for the survivors, "death will be preferred to life in the case of all the remnant that remain of this evil tribe, in all the places whither I shall have driven them, saith Iahvah Sabaoth" (omit the second "that remain," with LXX as an accidental repetition from the preceding line, and as breaking the construction). The prophet has reached the conviction that Judah will be driven into banishment; but the details of the destruction which he contemplates are obviously of an imaginative and rhetorical character. It is, therefore, superfluous to ask whether a great battle was actually fought afterwards in the valley of ben Hinnom, and whether the slain apostates of Judah were buried there in heaps, and whether the conquerors violated the tombs. Had the Chaldeans or any of their allies done this last, in search of treasure for instance, we should expect to find some notice of it in the historical chapters of Jeremiah. But it was probably known well enough to the surrounding peoples that the Jews were not in the habit of burying treasure in their tombs. The prophets threat, however, curiously corresponds to what Josiah is related to have done at Bethel and elsewhere, by way of irreparably polluting the high places; {2Ki_23:16 sqq.} and it is probable that his recollection of that event, which he may himself have witnessed, determined the form of Jeremiahs language here.
In the second part of this great discourse {Jer_8:4-23} we have a fine development of thoughts which have already been advanced in the opening piece, after the usual manner of Jeremiah. The first half (or strophe) is mainly concerned with the sins of the tuition (Jer_8:4-13), the second with a despairing lament over the punishment (Jer_8:14-23; Jer_9:1). "And thou shalt say unto them: Thus said Iahvah, Do men fall and not rise again? Doth a man turn back, and not return? Why doth Jerusalem make this people to turn back with an eternal" (or perfect, utter, absolute) "turning back? Why clutch they deceit, refuse to return?" The LXX omits "Jerusalem," which is perhaps only a marginal gloss. We should then have to read "shobebah," as "this people" is masc.
The "He" has been written twice by inadvertence. The verb, however, is transitive in Jer_50:19; Isa_47:10, etc.; and I find no certain instance of the intrans, form besides Eze_38:8, participle. "I listened and heard; they speak not aright"; {Exo_10:29; Isa_16:6} "not a man repenteth over his evil, saying (or thinking), What have I done? They all" (lit. "all of him," i.e., the people) "turn back into their courses" (plur. Heb. text; sing. Heb. marg.), "like the rushing horse into the battle."
There is something unnatural in this obstinate persistence in evil. If a man happens to fall he does not remain on the ground, but quickly rises to his feet again; and if he turn back on his way for some reason or other, he will usually return to that way again. There is a play on the word "turn back" or "return," like that in Jer_3:12; Jer_3:14. The term is first used in the sense of turning back or away from Iahvah, and then in that of returning to Him, according to its metaphorical meaning "to repent." Thus the import of the question is: Is it natural to apostatise and never to repent of it? Perhaps we should rather read, after the analogy of Jer_3:1 "Doth a man go away on a journey, and not return?"
Others interpret: "Doth a man return, and not return?" That is, if he return, he does it, and does not stop midway; whereas Judah only pretends to repent, and does not really do so. This, however, does not agree with the parallel member, nor with the following similar questions.
It is very noticeable how thoroughly the prophets, who, after all, were the greatest of practical moralists, identify religion with right aims and right conduct. The beginning of evil courses is turning away from Iahvah; the beginning of reform is turning back to Iahvah. For Iahvahs character as revealed to the prophets is the ideal and standard of ethical perfection; He does and delights in love, justice, and equity. {Jer_9:23} If a man look away from that ideal, if he be content with a lower standard than the Will and Law of the All-Perfect, then and thereby he inevitably sinks in the scale of morality. The prophets are not troubled by the idle question of medieval schoolmen and sceptical moderns. It never occurred to them to ask the question whether God is good because God wills it, or whether God wills good because it is good. The dilemma is, in truth, no better than a verbal puzzle, if we allow the existence of a personal Deity. For the idea of God is the idea of a Being who is absolutely good, the only Being who is such; perfect goodness is understood to be realised nowhere else but in God. It is part of His essence and conception; it is the aspect under which the human mind apprehends Him. To suppose goodness existing apart from Him, as an independent object which He may choose or refuse, is to deal in empty abstractions. We might as well ask whether convex can exist apart from concave in nature, or motion apart from a certain rate of speed. The human spirit can apprehend God in His moral perfections, because it is, at however vast a distance, akin to Him-a "divinae particula aurae"; and it can strive towards those perfections by help of the same grace which reveals them. The prophets know of no other origin or measure of moral endeavour than that which Iahvah makes known to them. In the present instance, the charge which Jeremiah makes against his contemporaries is a radical falsehood, insincerity, faithlessness: "they clutch" or "cling to deceit, they speak what is not right" or "honest, straightforward." {Gen_42:11; Gen_42:19} Their treason to God and their treachery to their fellows are opposite sides of the same fact. Had they been true to Iahvah, that is, to His teachings through the higher prophets and their own consciences, they would have been true to one another. The forbearing love of God, His tender solicitude to hear and save, are illustrated by the words: "I listened and heard not a man repented over his evil, saying, What have I done?" (The feeling of the stricken conscience could hardly be more aptly expressed than by this brief question.) But in vain does the Heavenly Father wait for the accents of penitence and contrition: "they all return"-go back again and again {Psa_23:6} -"into their own race" or "courses, like a horse rushing" lit. "pouring forth": of rushing waters, {Psa_78:20} "into the battle." The eagerness with which they follow their own wicked desires, the recklessness with which they "give their sensual race the rein," in set defiance of God, and wilful oblivion of consequences, is finely expressed by the simile of the warhorse rushing in headlong eagerness into the fray. {Job_39:25} "Also" (or "even") "the stork in the heavens knoweth her appointed times, and turtledove, swift and crane observe the season of their coming; but My people know not the ordinance of Iahvah"-what He has willed and declared to be right for man (His Law; "jus divinum, relligio divina"). The dullest of wits can hardly fail to appreciate the force of this beautiful contrast between the regularity of instinct and the aberrations of reason. All living creatures are subject to laws upon obedience to which their well-being depends. The life of man is no exception; it too is subject to a law-a law which is as much higher than that which regulates mere animal existence as reason and conscience and spiritual aspiration are higher than instinct and sexual impulse. But whereas the lower forms of life are obedient to the laws of their being, man rebels against them, and dares to disobey what he knows to be for his good; nay, he suffers himself to be so blinded by lust and passion and pride and self-will that at last he does not even recognise the Law-the ordinance of the Eternal-for what it really is, the organic law of his true being, the condition at once of his excellence and his happiness.
The prophet next meets an objection. He has just alleged a profound moral ignorance-a culpable ignorance-against the people. He supposes them to deny the accusation, as doubtless they often did in answer to his remonstrances {cf. Jer_17:15; Jer_20:7 sq.} "How can ye say, We are wise"-morally wise-"and the teaching of Iahvah is with us!" ("but behold": LXX omits: either term would be sufficient by itself) "for the Lie hath the lying pen of the scribes made it!" The reference clearly is to what Jeremiahs opponents call "the teaching (or law: torah) of Iahvah"; and it is also clear that the prophet charges the "scribes" of the opposite party with falsifying or tampering with the teaching of Iahvah in some way or other. Is it meant that they misrepresent the terms of a written document, such as the Book of the Covenant, or Deuteronomy? But they could hardly do this without detection, in the case of a work which was not in their exclusive possession. Or does Jeremiah accuse them of misinterpreting the sacred law, by putting false glosses upon its precepts, as might be done in a legal document wherever there seemed room for a difference of opinion, or wherever conflicting traditional interpretations existed side by side? (Cf. my remarks on Jer_7:31). The Hebrew may indicate this, for we may translate: "But lo, into the lie the lying pen of the scribes hath made it!" which recalls St. Pauls description of the heathen as changing the truth of God into a lie. {Rom_1:26} The construction is the same as in Gen_12:2; Isa_44:17. Or, finally, does he boldly charge these abettors of the false prophets with forging supposititious law books, in the interest of their own faction, and in support of the claims and doctrines of the worldly priests and prophets? This last view is quite admissible, so far as the Hebrew goes, which, however, is not free from ambiguity. It might be rendered, "But behold, in vain," or "bootlessly" {Jer_3:23} "hath the lying pen of the scribes laboured"; taking the verb in an absolute sense, which is not a common use. {Rth_2:19} Or we might transpose the terms for "pen" and "lying," and render, "But behold, in vain hath the pen of the scribes fabricated falsehood." In any case, the general sense is the same: Jeremiah charges not only the speakers, but the writers, of the popular party with uttering their own inventions in the name of Iahvah. These scribes were the spiritual ancestors of those of our Saviours time, who "made the word of God of none effect for the sake of their traditions." {Mat_15:6} "For the Lie" means, to maintain the popular misbelief. It might also be rendered, "for falsehood, falsely," as in the phrase "to swear falsely," i.e., for deceit. It thus appears that conflicting and competing versions of the law were current in that age. Has the Pentateuch preserved elements of both kinds, or is it homogeneous throughout? Of the scribes of the period we, alas! know little beyond what this passage tells us. But Ezra must have had predecessors, and we may remember that Baruch, the friend and amanuensis of Jeremiah, was also a scribe. {Jer_36:26}
"The wise will blush, they will be dismayed and caught! Lo, the word of Iahvah they rejected, and wisdom of what sort have they?" {Jer_6:10} The whole body of Jeremiahs opponents, the populace as well as the priests and prophets, are intended by "the wise," that is, the wise in their own conceits; {Jer_7:8} there is an ironical reference to their own assumption of the title. These self-styled wise ones, who preferred their own wisdom to the guidance of the prophet, will be punished by the mortification of discovering their folly when it is too late. Their folly will be the instrument of their ruin, for "He taketh the wise in their own craftiness" as in a snare. {Pro_5:22}
They who reject Iahvahs word, in whatever form it comes to them, have no other light to walk by; they must needs walk in darkness, and stumble at noonday. For Iahvahs word is the only true wisdom, the only true guide of mans footsteps. And this is the kind of wisdom which the Holy Scriptures offer us; not a merely speculative wisdom, not what is commonly understood by the terms science and art, but the priceless knowledge of God and of His will concerning us; a kind of knowledge which is beyond all comparison the most important for our well-being here and hereafter. If this Divine wisdom, which relates to the proper conduct of life and the right education of the highest faculties of our being, seem a small matter to any man, the fact argues spiritual blindness on his part; it cannot diminish the glory of heavenly wisdom.
Some well meaning but mistaken people are fond of maintaining what they call "the scientific accuracy of the Bible," meaning thereby an essential harmony with the latest discoveries, or even the newest hypotheses, of physical science. But even to raise such a preposterous question, whether as advocate or as assailant, is to be guilty of a crude anachronism, and to betray an incredible ignorance, of the real value of the Scriptures. That value I believe to be inestimable. But to discuss "the scientific accuracy of the Bible" appears to me to be as irrelevant to any profitable issue, as it would be to discuss the meteorological precision of the Mahabharata, or the marvellous chemistry of the Zendavesta, or the physiological revelations of the Koran, or the enlightened anthropology of the Nibelungenlied.
A man may reject the word of Iahvah, he may reject Christs word, because he supposes that it is not sufficiently attested. He may urge that the proof that it is of God breaks down, and he may flatter himself that he is a person of superior discernment, because he perceives a fact to which the multitude of believers are apparently blind. But what kind of proof would he have? Does he demand more than the case admits of? Some portent in earth or sky or sea, which in reality would be quite foreign to the matter in hand, and could have none but an accidental connection with it, and would, in fact, be no proof at all, but itself a mystery requiring to be explained by the ordinary laws of physical causation? To demand a kind of proof which is irrelevant to the subject is a mark not of superior caution and judgment, but of ignorance and confusion of thought. The plain truth is, and the fact is abundantly illustrated by the teachings of the prophets and, above all, of our Divine Lord, that moral and spiritual truths are self-attesting to minds able to realise them: and they no more need supplementary corroboration than does the ultimate testimony of the senses of a sane person.
Now the Bible as a whole is a unique repertory of such truths; this is the secret of its age-long influence in the world. If a man does not care for the Bible, if he has not learned to appreciate this aspect of it, if he does not love it precisely on this account, I, in turn, care very little for his opinion about the Bible. There may be much in the Bible which is otherwise valuable, which is precious as history, as tradition, as bearing upon questions of interest to the ethnologist, the antiquarian, the man of letters. But these things are the shell, that is the kernel; these are the accidents, that is the substance; these are the bodily vesture, that is the immortal spirit. A man who has not felt this has yet to learn what the Bible is in his text as we now have it, Jeremiah proceeds to denounce punishment on the priests and prophets, whose fraudulent oracles and false interpretations of the Law ministered to their own greedy covetousness, and who smoothed over the alarming state of things by false assurances that all was well (Jer_8:10-12). The Septuagint, however, omits the whole passage after the words, "Therefore I will give their wives to others, their fields to conquerors!" and as these words are obviously an abridgment of the threat, Jer_6:12, {cf. Deu_28:30} while the rest of the passage agrees verbatim with Jer_6:13-15, it may be supposed that a later editor inserted it in the margin here, as generally apposite (cf. Jer_6:10 to with Jer_8:9), whence it has crept into the text. It is true that Jeremiah himself is fond of repetition, but not so as to interrupt the context, as the "therefore" of Jer_8:10 seems to do. Besides, the "wise" of Jer_8:8 are the self-confident people; but if this passage be in place here, "the wise" of Jer_8:9 will have to be understood of their false guides, the prophets and priests. Whereas, if the passage be omitted, there is manifest continuity between the ninth verse and the thirteenth: "I will sweep, sweep them away, saith Iahvah; no grapes on the vine, and no figs on the fig tree, and the foliage is withered, and I have given them destruction" (or "blasting").
The opening threat is apparently quoted from the contemporary prophet Zephaniah. {Zep_1:2-3} The point of the rest of the verse is not quite clear, owing to the fact that the last clause of the Hebrew text is undoubtedly corrupt. We might suppose that the term "laws" had fallen out, and render, "and I gave them laws which they transgress." {cf. Jer_5:22; Jer_31:35} The Vulgate has an almost literal translation, which gives the same sense: "et dedi eis quae praetergressa sunt." The Septuagint omits the clause, probably on the ground of its difficulty. It may be that bad crops and scarcity are threatened. {cf. Jeremiah 14, Jer_5:24-25} In that case, we may correct the text in the manner suggested above; Jer_17:18, for Amo_4:9). Others understand the verse in a metaphorical sense. The language seems to be coloured by a reminiscence of Mic_7:12; and the "grapes" and "figs" and "foliage" may be the fruits of righteousness, and the nation is like Isaiahs unfruitful vineyard {Isaiah 5} or our Lords barren fig tree, {Mat_21:19} fit only for destruction (cf. also Jer_6:9 and Jer_7:20). Another passage which resembles the present is Hab_3:17 "For the fig tree will not blossom, and there will be no yield on the vines; the produce of the olive will disappoint, and the fields will produce no food." It was natural that tillage should be neglected upon the rumour of invasion. The country folk would crowd into the strong places, and leave their vineyards, orchards, and cornfields to their fate. {Jer_7:14} This would, of course, lead to scarcity and want, and aggravate the horrors of war with those of dearth and famine. I think the passage of Habakkuk is a precise parallel to the one before us. Both contemplate a Chaldean invasion, and both anticipate its disastrous effects upon husbandry. It is possible that the original text ran: "And I have given (will give) unto them their own work" (i.e., the fruit of it: used of fieldwork, Exo_1:14; of the earnings of labour. {Isa_32:17} This, which is a frequent thought in Jeremiah, forms a very suitable close to the verse. The objection is that the prophet does not use this particular term for "work" elsewhere. But the fact of its only once occurring might have caused its corruption. (Another term, which would closely resemble the actual reading, and give much the same sense as this last) "their produce." This, too, as a very rare expression, only known from Jos_5:11-12, might have been misunderstood and altered by an editor or copyist. It is akin to the Aramaic and there are other Aramaisms in our prophet. One thing is certain; Jeremiah cannot have written what now appears in the Masoretic text.
It is now made clear what the threatened evil is, in a fine closing strophe, several expressions of which recall the prophets magnificent alarm upon the coming of the Scythians (cf. Jer_4:5 with Jer_8:14; Jer_4:15 with Jer_8:16; Jer_4:19 with Jer_8:18). Here, however, the colouring is darker, and the prevailing gloom of the picture unrelieved by any ray of hope. The former piece belongs to the reign of Josiah, this to that of the worthless Jehoiakim. In the interval between the two, moral decline and social and political disintegration had advanced with fearfully accelerated speed, and Jeremiah knew that the end could not be far off.
The fatal news of invasion has come, and he sounds the alarm to his countrymen. "Why are we sitting still" (in silent stupefaction)? "assemble yourselves, that we may go into the defenced cities, and be silent" (or "amazed, stupefied," with terror) "there! for Iahvah our God hath silenced us" (with speechless terror) "and given us water of gall to drink; for we trespassed toward Iahvah. We looked for peace" or, weal, prosperity, "and there is no good; for a time of healing, and behold panic fear!" So the prophet represents the effect of the evil tidings upon the rural population. At first they are taken by surprise; then they rouse themselves from their stupor to take refuge in the walled cities. They recognise in the trouble a sign of Iahvahs anger. Their fond hopes of returning prosperity are nipped in the bud; the wounds of the past are not to be healed; the country has hardly recovered from one shock, before another and more deadly blow falls upon it. The next verse describes more particularly the nature of the bad news; the enemy, it would seem, had actually entered the land, and given no uncertain indication of what the Judeans might expect, by his ravages on the northern frontier.
"From Dan was heard the snorting of his horses; at the sound of the neighings of his chargers all the land did quake: and they came in" (into the country) "and eat up the land and the fulness thereof, a city and them that dwelt therein." This was what the invaders did to city after city, once they had crossed the border; ravaging its domain, and sacking the place itself. Perhaps, however, it is better to take the perfects as prophetic, and to render: "From Dan shall be heard . . . shall quake: and they shall come and eat up the land," etc. This makes the connection easier with the next verse, which certainly has a future reference: "For behold I am about to send" (or simply, "I send") "against you serpents." {Isa_11:8}, a small but very poisonous snake; (Aquila basili Vulg. regulus), "for whom there is no charm, and they will bite you! saith Iahvah." If the tenses be supposed to describe what has already happened, then the connection of thought may be expressed thus: all this evil that you have heard of has happened, not by mere ill fortune, but by the Divine will: Iahvah Himself has done it, and the evil will not stop there, for He purposes to send these destroying serpents into your very midst. {cf. Num_21:6}
The eighteenth verse begins in the Hebrew with a highly anomalous word, which is generally supposed to mean "my source of comfort." But both the strangeness of the form itself, which can hardly be paralleled in the language, and the indifferent sense which it yields, and the uncertainty of the Hebrew MSS., and the variations of the old versions, indicate that we have here another corruption of the text. Some Hebrew copies divide the word, and this is supported by the Septuagint and the Syro-Hexaplar version, which treat the verse as the conclusion of Jer_8:17, and render "and they shall bite you incurably, with pain of your perplexed heart" (Syro-Hex. "without cure"). But if the first part of the word is "without" ("for lack of"), what is the second? No such root as the existing letters imply is found in Hebrew or the cognate languages. The Targum does not help us: "Because they were scoffing" "against the prophets who prophesied unto them, sorrow and sighing will I bring" "upon them on account of their sins: upon them, saith the prophet, my heart is faint," It is evident that this is no better than a kind of punning upon the words of the Masoretic text. I incline to read "How shall I cheer myself? Upon me is sorrow; upon me my heart is sick." The prophet would write for "against," without a suffix. {Job_9:27; Job_10:20} The passage is much like Jer_4:19.
Another possible emendation is: "Iahvah causeth sorrow to flash forth upon me": after the archetype of Amo_5:9; but I prefer the former.
Jeremiah closes the section with an outpouring of his own overwhelming sorrow at the heart rending spectacle of the national calamities. No reader endued with any degree of feeling can doubt the sincerity of the prophets patriotism, or the willingness with which he would have given his own life for the salvation of his country. This one passage alone says enough to exonerate its author from the charge of indifference, much more of treachery to his fatherland. He imagines himself to hear the cry of the captive people, who have been carried away by the victorious invader into a distant land: "Hark! the sound of the imploring cry of the daughter of my people from a land far away! Is Iahvah not in Sion? or is not her King in her?". {cf. Mic_4:9} Such will be the despairing utterance of the exiles of Judah and Jerusalem; and the prophet hastens to answer it with another question, which accounts for their ruin by their disloyalty to that heavenly King; "O why did they vex Me with their graven images, with alien vanities?" Compare a similar question and answer in an earlier discourse. {Jer_5:19} It may be doubted whether the pathetic words which follow-"The harvest is past, the fruit gathering is finished, but as for us, we are not delivered!"-are to be taken as a further complaint of the captives, or as a reference by the prophet himself to hopes of deliverance which had been cherished in vain, month after month, until the season of campaigns was over. In Palestine, the grain crops are harvested in April and May, the ingathering of the fruit falls in August. During all the summer months, Jehoiakim, as a vassal of Egypt, may have been eagerly hoping for some decisive interference from that quarter. That he was on friendly terms with that power at the time appears from the fact that he was allowed to fetch back refugees from its territory. {Jer_26:22 sq.} A provision for the extradition of offenders is found in the far more ancient treaty between Ramses II and the king of the Syrian Chetta (fourteenth century B.C.). But perhaps the prophet is alluding to one of those frequent failures of the crops, which inflicted so much misery upon his people, {cf. Jer_7:13; Jer_3:3; Jer_5:24-25} and which were a natural incident of times of political unsettlement and danger. In that case, he says, the harvest has come and gone, and left us unhelped and disappointed. I prefer the political reference, though our knowledge of the history of the period is so scanty that the particulars cannot be determined.
It is clear enough from the lyrical utterance which follows (Jer_8:21-23), that heavy disasters had already befallen Judah: "For the shattering of the daughter of my people am I shattered; I am a mourner: astonishment hath seized me!" This can hardly be pure anticipation. The next two verses may be a fragment of one of the prophets elegies (qinoth). At all events, they recall the metre of Lamentations 4 and 5:
Doth balm in Gilead fail?
Fails the healer there?
Why is not bound up
My peoples deadly wound?
"Oh that my head were springs,
Mine eye a fount of tears!
To weep both day and night
Over my peoples slain."
It is not impossible that these two quatrains are cited from the prophets elegy upon the last battle of Megiddo and the death of Josiah. Similar fragments seem to occur below {Jer_9:17-18; Jer_9:20} in the instructions to the mourning women, the professional singers of dirges over the dead.
The beauty of the entire strophe, as an outpouring of inexpressible grief, is too obvious to require much comment. The striking question "Is there no balm in Gilead, is there no physician there?" has passed into the common dialect of religious aphorism: and the same may be said of the despairing cry, "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved!"
The wounds of the state are past healing; but how, it is asked, can this be? Does nature yield a balm which is sovereign for bodily hurts, and is there nowhere a remedy for those of the social organism? Surely that were something anomalous, strange, and unnatural. {cf. Jer_8:7} "Is there no balm in Gilead?" Yes, it is found now here else (cf. Plin., "Hist. Nat.," 12:25 ad init. "Sed omnibus odoribus praefertur balsamum, uni terrarum Judaeae, concessum"). Then has Iahvah mocked us, by providing a remedy for the lesser evil, and leaving us a hopeless prey to the greater? The question goes deep down to the roots of faith. Not only is there an analogy between the two realms of nature and spirit; in a sense, the whole physical world is an adumbration of things unseen, a manifestation of the spiritual. Is it conceivable that order should reign everywhere in the lower sphere, and chaos be the normal state of the higher? If our baser wants are met by provisions adapted in the most wonderful way to their satisfaction, can we suppose that the nobler-those cravings by which we are distinguished from irrational creatures-have not also their satisfactions included in the scheme of the world? To suppose it is evidence either of capricious unreason, or of a criminal want of confidence in the Author of our being.
"Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no healer there?" There is a panacea for Israels woes-the "law" or teaching of Iahvah; there is a Healer in Israel, Iahvah Himself, {Jer_3:22; Jer_17:14} who has declared of Himself, "I wound and I heal." {Deu_32:39; Deu_30:17; Deu_33:6} "Why then is no bandage applied to the daughter of my people?" This is like the cry of the captives, "Is Iahvah not in Sion, is not her King in her?" {Jer_8:19} The answer there is, Yes! it is not that Iahvah is wanting; it is that the national guilt is working out its own retribution. tie leaves this to be understood here; having framed his question so as to compel people, if it might be, to the right inference and answer.
The precious balsam is the distinctive glory of the mountain land of Gilead, and the knowledge of Iahvah is the distinctive glory of His people Israel.
Will no one, then, apply the true remedy to the hurt of the state? No, for priests and prophets and people "know not-they have refused to know" Iahvah. {Jer_8:5} The nation will not look to the Healer and live. It is their misfortunes that they hate not their sins. There is nothing left for Jeremiah but to sing the funeral song of his fatherland.
While weeping over their inevitable doom, the prophet abhors with his whole soul his peoples wickedness, and longs to fly from the dreary scene of treachery and deceit. "O that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men"-some lonely khan on a caravan track, whose bare, unfurnished walls, and blank almost oppressive stillness, would be a grateful exchange for the luxury and the noisy riot of Judahs capital-"that I might leave my people and go away from among them!" The same feeling finds expression in the sigh of the psalmist, who is perhaps Jeremiah himself: "O for the wings of a dove!" {Psa_55:6 sqq.} The same feeling has often issued in actual withdrawal from the world. And under certain circumstances, in certain states of religion and society, the solitary life has its peculiar advantages. The life of towns is doubtless busy, practical, intensely real; but its business is not always of the ennobling sort, its practice in the strain and struggle of selfish competition is often distinctly hostile to the growth and play of the best instincts of human nature; its intensity is often the mere result of confining the manifold energies of the mind to one narrow channel, of concentrating the whole complex of human powers and forces upon the single aim of self-advancement and self-glorification; and its reality is consequently an illusion, phenomenal and transitory as the unsubstantial prizes which absorb all its interest, engross its entire devotion, and exhaust its whole activity. It is not upon the broad sea, nor in the lone wilderness, that men learn to question the goodness, the justice, the very being of their Maker. Atheism is born in the populous wastes of cities, where human beings crowd together, not to bless, but to prey upon each other; where rich and poor dwell side by side, but are separated by the gulf of cynical indifference and social disdain; where selfishness in its ugliest forms is rampant, and is the rule of life with multitudes:-the selfishness which grasps at personal advantage and is deaf to the cries of human pain; the selfishness which calls all manner of fraud and trickery lawful means for the achievement of its sordid ends; and the selfishness of flagrant vice, whose activity is not only earthly and sensual, but also devilish, as directly involving the degradation and ruin of human souls. No wonder that they whose eyes have been blinded by the god of this world, fail to see evidence of any other God; no wonder that they in whose hearts a coarse or a subtle self-worship has dried the springs of pity and love can scoff at the very idea of a compassionate God; no wonder that a soul, shaken to its depths by the contemplation of this bewildering medley of heartlessness and misery, should be tempted to doubt whether there is indeed a Judge of all the earth, who doeth right.
There is no truth, no honour in their dealings with one another; falsehood is the dominant note of their social existence: "They are all adulterers, a throng of traitors!" The charge of adultery is no metaphor. {Jer_5:7-8} Where the sense of religious sanctions is weakened or wanting, the marriage tie is no longer respected; and that which perhaps lust began, is ended by lust, and man and woman, are faithless to each other, because they are faithless to God.
"And they bend their tongue, their bow, falsely." The tongue is as a bow of which words are the arrows. Evildoers "stretch their arrow, the bitter word. to shoot in ambush at the blameless man." {Psa_64:4; cf. Psa_11:2} The metaphor is common in the language of poetry; we have an instance in Longfellows "I shot an arrow into the air," and Homers familiar, "winged words," is a kindred expression. Others render, "and they bend their tongue as their bow of falsehood," as though the term "sheqer, mendacium" were an epithet qualifying the term for "bow." I have taken it adverbially, a use justified by Psa_38:20; Psa_69:5; Psa_119:78; Psa_119:86. In colloquial English a man who exaggerates a story is said to "draw the long bow."
Their tongue is a bow with which they shoot lies at their neighbours, "and it is not by truth"-faithfulness, honour, integrity-"that they wax mighty in the land"; their riches and power are the fruit of craft and fraud and overreaching. As was said in a former discourse, "their houses are full of deceit, therefore they become great, and amass wealth." {Jer_5:27} "By truth," or more literally "unto truth, according to the rule or standard of truth according {cf. Isa_32:1} to right"; Gen_1:11 "according to its kind." With the idea of the verb, we may compare Psa_112:2 "Mighty in the land shall his seed become." {cf. also Gen_7:18-19} The passage Jer_5:2-3, is essentially similar to the present, and is the only one besides where we find the term "by truth." The idiom seems certain, and the parallel passages, especially Jer_5:27, appear to establish the translation above given; otherwise one might be tempted to render: "they stretch their tongue, their bow, for lying," {Jer_5:2} "and it is not for truth that they are strong in the land." "Noblesse oblige" is no maxim of theirs; they use their rank and riches for unworthy ends.
"For out of evil unto evil they go forth"-they go from one wickedness to another, adding sin to sin. Apparently, a military metaphor. What they have and are is evil, and they go forth to secure fresh conquests of the same kind. Neither good nor evil is stationary; progress is the law of each-"and Me they know not, saith Iahvah"-they know not that I am truth itself, and therefore irreconcilably opposed to all this fraud and falsehood.
"Beware ye, every one of his companion, and in no brother confide ye; for every brother will surely play the Jacob, -and every companion will go about slandering. And they deceive each his neighbour, and truth they speak not: they have trained their tongue to speak falsehood, to pervert" {their way, Jer_3:21} "they toil." {Jer_20:9; cf. Gen_19:11} "Thine inhabiting is in the midst of deceit; through deceit they refuse to know Me, saith Iahvah" (Jer_8:3-5). As Micah had complained before him, {Mic_7:5} and as bitter experience had taught our prophet, {Jer_11:18 sqq., Jer_12:6} neither friend nor brother was to be trusted; and that this was not merely the melancholy characteristic of a degenerate age, is suggested by the reference to the unbrotherly intrigues of the far-off ancestor of the Jewish people, in the traditional portrait of whom the best and the worst features of the national character are reflected with wonderful truth and liveliness, Every brother will not fail to play the Jacob (Gen_25:29 sqq., Gen_27:36; Hos_12:4), to outwit, defraud, supplant: cunning and trickery will subserve acquisitiveness. But though an inordinate love of acquisition may still seem to be specially characteristic of the Jewish race, as in ancient times it distinguished the Canaanite and Semitic nations in general, the tendency to cozen and overreach ones neighbour is so far from being confined to it that some modern ethical speculators have not hesitated to assume this tendency to be an original and natural instinct of humanity. The fact, however, for which those who would account for human nature upon purely "natural" grounds are bound to supply some rational explanation, is not so much that aspect of it which has been well known to resemble the instincts of the lower animals ever since observation began, but the aspect of revolt and protest against those lower impulses which we find reflected so powerfully in the documents of the higher religion, and which makes thousands of lives a perpetual warfare.
Jeremiah presents his picture of the universal deceit and dissimulation of his own time as something peculiarly shocking and startling to the common sense of right, and unspeakably revolting in the sight of God, the Judge of all. And yet the difficulty to the modern reader is to detect any essential difference between human nature then and human nature now-between those times and these. It is still true that avarice and lust destroy natural affection; that the ties of blood and friendship are no protection against a godless love of self. The work of slander and misrepresentation is not left to avowed enemies; your own acquaintance will ratify their envy, spite, or mere ill will in this unworthy way. A simple child may tell the truth; but tongues have to be trained to expertness in lying, whether in commerce or in diplomacy, in politics or in the newspaper press, in the art of the salesman or in that of the agitator and the demagogue. Men still make a toil of perverting their way, and spend as much pains in becoming accomplished villains as honest folk take to excel in virtue. Deceit is still the social atmosphere and environment, and "through deceit" men "refuse to know Iahvah." The knowledge, the recognition, the steady recollection of what Iahvah is, and what His law requires, does not suit the man of lies; his objects oblige him to shut his eyes to the truth. Men "do not will" and "will not," to know the moral impediments that lie in the way of self-seeking and self-pleasing. Sinning is always a matter of choice, not of nature, nor of circumstances alone. To desire to be delivered from moral evil is, so far, a desire to know God.
"Thine inhabiting is in the midst of deceit": who that ever lifts an eye above the things of time has not at times felt thus? "This is a Christian country." Why? Because the majority are as bent on self-pleasing, as careless of God, as heartlessly and systematically forgetful of the rights and claims of others, as they would have been had Christ never been heard of? A Christian country? Why? Is it because we can boast of some two hundred forms or fashions of supposed Christian belief, differentiated from each other by heaven knows what obscure shibboleths, which in the lapse of time have become meaningless and obsolete; while the old ill will survives, and the old dividing lines remain, and Christians stand apart from Christians in a state of dissension and disunion that does despite and dishonour to Christ, and must be very dear to the devil? Some people are bold enough to defend this horrible condition of things by raising a cry of Free Trade in Religion. But religion is not a trade, not a thing to make a profit of, except with Simon Magus and his numerous followers both inside and outside of the Church.
A Christian country! But the rage of avarice, the worship of Mammon, is not less rampant in London than in old Jerusalem. If the more violent forms of oppression and extortion are restrained among us by the more complete organisation of public justice, the fact has only developed new and more insidious modes of attack upon the weak and the unwary. Deceit and fraud have been put upon their mettle by the challenge of the law, and thousands of people are robbed and plundered by devices which the law can hardly reach or restrain. Look where the human spider sits, weaving his web of guile, that he may catch and devour men! Look at the wonderful baits which the company monger throws out day by day to human weakness and cupidity! Do you call him shrewd and clever and enterprising? It is a sorry part to play in life, that of Satans decoy, tempting ones fellow creatures to their ruin. Look at the lying advertisements, which meet your eyes wherever you turn, and make the streets of this great city almost as hideous from the point of view of taste as from that of morality! What a degrading resource! To get on by the industrious dissemination of lies, by false pretences, which one knows to be false! And to trade upon human misery-to raise hopes that can never be fulfilled-to add to the pangs of disease the smart of disappointment and the woe of a deeper despair, as countless quacks in this Christian country do!
A Christian country: where God is denied on the platform and through the press; where a novel is certain of widespread popularity if its aim be to undermine the foundations of the Christian faith; where atheism is mistaken for intelligence, and an inconsistent agnosticism for the loftiest outcome of logic and reason; where flagrant lust walks the streets unrebuked, unabashed; where every other person you meet is a gambler in one form or another, and shopmen and labourers and loafers and errand boys are all eager about, the result of races, and, all agog to know the forecasts of some wily tipster, some wiseacre of the halfpenny press!
A Christian country: where the rich and noble have no better use for profuse wealth than horse training, and no more elevating mode of recreation than hunting and shooting down innumerable birds and beasts; where some must rot in fever dens, clothed in rags, pining for food, stifling for lack of air and room; while others spend thousands of pounds upon a whim, a banquet, a party, a toy for a fair woman. I am not a Socialist, I do not deny a mans right to do what he will with his own, and I believe that state interference would be in the last degree disastrous to the country. But I affirm the responsibility before God of the rich and great; and I deny that they who live and spend for themselves alone are worthy of the name of Christian.
A Christian country: where human beings die, year after year, in the unspeakable, unimaginable agonies of canine madness, and dogs are kept by the thousand in crowded cities, that the sacrifice to the fiend of selfishness and the mocking devil of vanity may never lack its victims! There is a more than Egyptian worship of Anubis, in the silly infatuation which lavishes tenderness upon an unclean brute, and credulously invests instinct with the highest attributes of reason; and there is a worse than heathenish besottedness in the heart that can pamper a dog, and be utterly indifferent to the helplessness and the sufferings of the children of the poor. And people will go to church, and hear what the preacher has to say, and "think he said what he ought to have said," or not, as the case may be, and return to their own settled habits of worldly living, as a matter of course. Oh yes! it is a Christian country the name of Christ has been named in it for fifteen centuries past; and for that reason Christ will judge it.
"Therefore, thus said Iahvah Sabaoth: Lo, I am about to melt them and put them to proof"; {Job_12:11; Jdg_17:4; Jer_6:25} "for how am I to deal in face of" ("the wickedness of," LXX: the term has fallen out of the Hebrews text: cf. Jer_4:4, Jer_7:12) "the daughter of My people?" This is the meaning of the disasters that have fallen and are even now falling upon the country. Iahvah will melt and assay this rough, intractable human ore in the fiery furnace of affliction; the strain of insincerity that runs through it, the base earthy nature, can only thus be separated and purged away. {Isa_48:10} "A deadly arrow" (LXX a "wounding" one, i.e., one which does not miss, but hits and kills) "is their tongue; deceit it spake: with his mouth peace with his companion he speaketh, and inwardly he layeth his ambush." {Psa_55:22} The verse again specifies the wickedness complained of, and justifies our restoration of that word in the previous verse.
Perhaps, with the Peshito Syriac and the Targum, we ought rather to render: "a sharp arrow is their tongue." There is an Arabic saying quoted by Lane, "Thou didst sharpen thy tongue against us," which seems to present a kindred root {cf. Psa_52:3; Psa_57:4 Pro_25:18} The Septuagint may be right, with its probable reading: "deceit are the words of his mouth." This certainly improves the symmetry of the verse.
"For such things" (emphatic) "shall I not"-or "should I not," with an implied "ought-shall I not punish them, saith Iahvah, or on such a nation shall not My soul avenge herself?" {Jer_5:9; Jer_5:29, after which the LXX omits "them" here} These questions, like the previous one, "How am I to deal"-or, "how could I act-in face of the wickedness of the daughter of My people?" imply the moral necessity of the threatened evils. If Iahweh be what He has taught mans conscience that He is, national sin must involve national suffering, and national persistence in sin must involve national ruin. Therefore He will "melt and try" this people, both for their punishment and their reformation, if it may be so. For punishment is properly retributive, whatever may be alleged to the contrary. Conscience tells us that we deserve to suffer for ill-doing, and conscience is a better guide than ethical or sociological speculators who have lost faith in God. But Gods chastisements as known to our experience, that is to say, in the present life, are reformatory as well as retributive; they compel us to recollect, they bring us, like the Prodigal, back to ourselves, out of the distractions of a sinful career, they humble us with the discovery that we have a Master, that there is a Power above ourselves and our apparently unlimited capacity to choose evil and to do it: and so by Divine grace we may become contrite and be healed and restored.
The prophet thus, perhaps, discerns a faint glimmer of hope, but his sky darkens again immediately. The land is already to a great extent desolate, through the ravages of the invaders, or through severe droughts, {cf. Jer_4:25; Jer_8:20(?}; Jer_12:4). "Upon the mountains will I lift up weeping and wailing, and upon the pastures of the prairie a lamentation, for they have been burnt up," {Jer_2:15; 2Ki_22:13} "so that no man passeth over them, and they have not heard the cry of the cattle: from the birds of the air to the beasts, they are fled, are gone." {Jer_4:25} The perfects may be prophetic and announce what is certain to happen hereafter. The next verse, at all events, is unambiguous in this respect: "And I will make Jerusalem into heaps, a haunt of jackals; and the cities of Judah will I make a desolation without inhabitant." Not only the country districts, but the fortified towns, and Jerusalem itself, the heart and centre of the nation, will be desolated. Sennacherib boasts that he took forty-six strong cities, and "little towns without number," and carried off 200,150 male and female captives, and an immense booty in cattle, before proceeding to invest Jerusalem itself; a statement which shows how severe the sufferings of Judah might be, before the enemy struck at its vitals.
In the words "I will make Jerusalem heaps," there is not necessarily a change of subject. Jeremiah was authorised to "root up and pull down and destroy" in the name of Iahvah.
He now challenges the popular wise men {Jer_8:8-9} to account for what, on their principles, must appear an inexplicable phenomenon. "Who is the (true) wise man, so that he understands this," {Hos_14:9} "and who is he to whom the mouth of Iahvah hath spoken, so that he can explain it" ("unto you?" LXX). "Why is the land undone, burnt up like the prairie, without a passer by?" Both to Jeremiah and to his adversaries the land was Iahvahs land; what befell it must have happened by His will, or at least with His consent. Why had He suffered the repeated ravages of foreign invaders to desolate His own portion, where, if anywhere on earth, He must display His power and the proof of His deity? Not for lack of sacrifices, for these were not neglected. Only one answer was possible, to those who recognised the validity of the Book of the Law, and the binding character of the covenant which it embodied. The people and their wise men cannot account for the national calamities; Jeremiah himself can only do so, because he is inwardly taught by Iahvah himself: {Jer_7:12} "And Iahvah said." It may be supposed that Jer_7:11 states the popular dilemma, the anxious question which they put to the official prophets, whose guidance they accepted. The prophets could give no reasonable or satisfying answer, because their teaching hitherto had been that Iahvah could be appeased "with thousands of rams, and ten thousand torrents of oil." Mic_6:7 On such conditions they had promised peace, and their teaching had been falsified by events. Therefore Jeremiah gives the true answer for Iahvah. But why did not the people cease to believe those whose word was thus falsified? Perhaps the false prophets would reply to objectors, as the refugees in Egypt answered Jeremiahs reproof of their renewed worship of the Queen of Heaven: "It was in the years that followed the abolition of this worship that our national disasters began" (Jer_44:18). It is never difficult to delude those whose evil and corrupt hearts make them desire nothing so much as to be deluded.
"And Iahvah said: Because they forsook" (lit. "upon" = on account of "their forsaking") "My Law which I set before them", {Deu_4:18} "and they hearkened not unto My voice," {Deu_28:15} "and walked not therein" (in My Law; LXX omits the clause); "and walked after the obstinacy of their own" ("evil": LXX) "heart, and after the Baals" {Deu_4:3} "which their fathers taught them"-instead of teaching them the laws of Iahvah. {Deu_11:19} Such were, and had always been, the terms of the answer of Iahvahs true prophets. Do you ask "upon what ground" ("al mah") misfortune has overtaken you? Upon the ground of your having forsaken Iahvahs "law" or instruction, His doctrine concerning Himself and your consequent obligations towards Him. They had this teaching in the Book of the Law, and had solemnly undertaken to observe it, in that great national assembly of the eighteenth year of Josiah. And they had had it from the first in the living utterances of the prophets.
This, then, is the reason why the land is waste and deserted. And therefore-because past and present experience is an index of the future, for Iahvahs character and purpose are constant-therefore the desolation of the cities of Judah and of Jerusalem itself will ere long be accomplished. "Therefore thus said Iahvah Sabaoth," the God of Armies and "the God of Israel; Lo, I am about to feed them" or, "I continue to feed them"-to wit, "this people" (an epexegetical gloss omitted by the LXX) "with wormwood, and I will give them to drink waters of gall" Deu_29:17. An Israelite inclining to foreign gods is "a root bearing wormwood and gall"-bearing a bitter harvest of defeat, a cup of deadly disaster for his people; {cf. Amo_6:12} "and I will scatter them among the nations, whom they and their fathers knew not." {Deu_28:36; Deu_28:64} The last phrase is remarkable as evidence of the isolation of Israel, whose country lay off the beaten track between the Trans-Euphratean empires and Egypt, which ran along the seacoast. They knew not Assyria, until Tiglath Pilesers intervention (circ. 734), nor Babylon till the times of the New Empire. In Hezekiahs day, Babylon is still "a far country." {2Ki_20:14} Israel was in fact an agricultural people, trading directly with Phoenicia and Egypt, but not with the lands beyond the Great River. The prophets heighten the horror of exile by the strangeness of the land whither Israel is to be banished.
"And I will send after them the sword, until I have consumed them." The survivors are to be cut off; {cf. Jer_8:3} there is no reserve, as in Jer_4:27, Jer_5:10, Jer_5:18; a "full end" is announced; which, again, corresponds to the aggravation of social and private evils in the time of Jehoiakim, and the prophets despair of reform.
The judgment of Judah is the ruin of her cities, the dispersion of her people in foreign lands, and extermination by the sword. Nothing is left for this doomed nation but to sing its funeral song; to send for the professional wailing women, that they may come and chant their dirges, not over the dead, but over the living who are condemned to die: "Thus said Iahvah Sabaoth" (here as in Jer_7:6, LXX omits the expressive "Sabaoth"), "Mark ye well" the present crisis, and what it implies (cf. Jer_2:10; LXX wrongly omits this emphatic term), "and summon the women that sing dirges, that they come, and unto the skilful women send ye, that they come" (LXX omits), "and hasten" (LXX "and speak and") "to life up the death wail over us, that our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids pour down waters." The "singing women" of 2Ch_35:25, or the "minstrels" of St. Mat_9:23, are intended. The reason assigned for thus inviting them assumes that the prophets forecast is already fulfilled. Already, as in Jer_8:19, Jeremiah hears the loud wailing of the captives as they are driven away from their ruined homes: "For the sound of the death wail is heard from Sion, How are we undone! We are sore ashamed"-of our false confidence and foolish security and deceitful hopes-"for," after all, "we have left the land, for our dwellings have cast (us) out!" The last two lines appear to be parallels, which is against the rendering, "For men have cast down our dwellings." {Cf. Lev_18:25; Lev_22:28} From the wailing women, the address now seems to turn to the Judean women generally; but perhaps the former are still intended, as their peculiar calling was probably hereditary and passed on from mother to daughter: "For hear, ye women, the word of Iahvah, and let your ear take in the word of His mouth! and teach ye your daughters the death wail, and each her companion the lamentation"; for
"Death scales our lattices,
Enters our palaces,
To cut off boy without,
The young men from the streets."
"And the corpses of men will fall"-the tense certifies the future reference of the others-"like dung" {Jer_8:2} "on the face of the field" 2Ki_9:37, of Jezebels corpse-left without burial rites to rot and fatten the soil-"and like the corn swath behind the reaper, and none shall gather (them)." The quatrain {Jer_8:20} is possibly quoted from some familiar elegy; and the allusion seems to be to a mysterious visitation like the plague, which used to be known in Europe as "the Black Death." {cf. Jer_15:2; Jer_18:21; Jer_43:11} In this time of closed gates and barred doors, death is represented as entering the house, not by the door, but "climbing up some other way" like a thief. {Joe_2:9; St. Joh_10:1} Bars and bolts will be futile against such an invader. The figure is not continued in the second half of the stanza. The point of the closing comparison seems to be that whereas the corn swaths are gathered up in sheaves and taken home, the bodies will lie where the reaper Death cuts them down.
"Thus said Iahvah: Let not a wise man glory in his wisdom, and let not the mighty man glory in his might! Let not a rich man glory in his riches, but in this let him glory that glorieth, in being prudent and knowing Me," {LXX omits pronoun, cf. Gen_1:4} "that I, Iahvah, do lovingkindness" ("and" LXX and Orientals), "justice and righteousness upon the earth: for in these I delight, saith Iahvah."
It is not easy, at first sight, to see the connection of this, one of the finest and deepest of Jeremiahs oracles, with the sentence of destruction which precedes it. It is not satisfactory to regard it as stating "the only means of escape and the reason why it is not used" (the latter being set forth in Jer_7:24-25); for the leading idea of the whole composition, from Jer_7:13 to Jer_9:22, is that retribution is coming, and no escape, not even that of aremnant, is contemplated. The passage looks like an appendix to the previous pieces, such as the prophet might have added at a later period when the crisis was over, and the country had begun to breathe again, after the shock of invasion had rolled away. And this impression is confirmed by its contents. We have no details about the first interference of the new Chaldean power in Judah; we only read that in Jehoiakims days "Nebucladrezzar the king of Babylon came up, and Jehoiakim became his servant three years: then he turned and rebelled against him" {2Ki_24:1} But before this, for some two or three years, Jehoiakim was the vassal of the king of Egypt to whom he owed his crown, and Nebuchadrezzar had lo reduce Necho before he could attend to Jehoiakim. It may be, therefore, that the worst apprehensions of the time not having been realised, in the year or two of lull which followed, the politicians of Judah began to boast of their foresight and the caution and sagacity of their measures for the public safety, instead of ascribing the respite to God; the warrior class might vaunt the bravery which it had exhibited or intended to exhibit in the service of the country; and the rich nobles might exult in the apparent security of their treasures and the new lease of enjoyment accorded to themselves. To these various classes, who would not be slow to ridicule his dark forebodings as those of a moody and unpatriotic pessimist, {Jer_20:7; Jer_26:11; Jer_29:26; Jer_37:13} Jeremiah now speaks, to remind them that if the danger is over for the present, it is the lovingkindness and the righteous government of Iahvah which has removed it, and to declare that it is only suspended and postponed, not abolished forever: "Behold, days are coming, saith Iahvah, when I will visit" (his guilt) "upon every one that is circumcised in foreskin" (only, and not "in heart" also): "upon Egypt and upon Judah, and upon Edom and upon the ben Ammon and upon Moab, and upon all the tonsured folk that dwell in the wilderness: For all the nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart." Egypt is mentioned first, as the leading nation, to which at the time the petty states of the west looked for help in their struggle against Babylon. {cf. Jer_27:3} The prophet numbers Judah with the rest, not only as a member of the same political group, but as standing upon the same level of unspiritual life. Like Israel, Egypt also practised circumcision, and both the context here requires and their kinship with the Hebrews makes it probable that the other peoples mentioned observed the same custom (Herod., 2:36, 104), which is actually portrayed in a wall painting at Karnak. The "tonsured folk" or "cropt heads" of the wilderness are north Arabian nomads like the Kedarenes, {Jer_49:28; Jer_49:32} and the tribes of Dedan, Tema, and Buz Jer_25:23, whose ancestor was the circumcised Ishmael. {Gen_25:13 sqq., Gen_17:23} Herodotus records their custom of shaving the temples all round, and leaving a tuft of hair, on the top of the head (Herod., 3:8), which practice, like circumcision, had a religious significance, and was forbidden to the Israelites. {Lev_19:27; Lev_21:5}
Now why does Jeremiah mention circumcision at all? The case is, I think, parallel to his mention of another external distinction of the popular religion, the Ark of the Covenant. {Jer_3:15} Just as in that place God promises "shepherds according to Mine heart which shall shepherd" the restored Israel "with knowledge and prudence," and then directly adds that, in the light and truth of those days, the ark will be forgotten; {Jer_3:15-16} so here, he bids the ruling classes, the actual shepherds of the nation, not to trust in their own wisdom or valour or wealth, {cf. Jer_17:5 sqq.} but in "being prudent and knowing Iahvah," and then adds that the outward sign of circumcision, upon which the people prided themselves as the mark of their dedication to Iahvah, was in itself of no value, apart from a "circumcised heart," i.e., a heart purified of selfish aims and devoted to the will and glory of God. {Jer_4:4} So far as Iahvah is concerned, all Judahs heathen neighbours are uncircumcised, in spite of their observance of the outward rite.
The Jews themselves would hardly admit the validity of heathen circumcision, because the manner of it was different, just as at this day the Muhammadan method differs from the Jewish. But Jeremiah puts "all the house of Israel," who were circumcised in the orthodox manner, on a level with the imperfectly circumcised heathen peoples around them. All alike are uncircumcised before God; those who have the orthodox rite, and those who have but an inferior semblance of it; and all alike will in the day of judgment be visited for their sins. {cf. Amos 1}
With the increasing carelessness of moral obligations, an increasing importance would be attached to the observance of such a rite as circumcision, which was popularly supposed to devote a man to Iahvah in such sense that the tie was indissoluble. Jeremiah says plainly that this is a mistaken view. The outward sign must have an inward and spiritual grace corresponding thereto; else the Judeans are no better than those whose circumcision they despise as defective. His meaning is that of the Apostle, "Circumcision verily profiteth, if thou keep the law; but if thou be a breaker of law, thy circumcision hath become uncircumcision." {Rom_2:25} "Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God, " scil., is everything. {1Co_7:19} It is "faith working by love," it is the "new creature" that is essential in spiritual religion. {Gal_5:6; Gal_6:15}
Haec dicit Dominus: Non glorietur sapiens in sapientia sua. Glancing back over the whole passage, we discern an inward relation between these verses and the preceding discourse. It is not the outward props of statecraft, and strong battalions, and inexhaustible wealth, that really and permanently uphold a nation; not these, but the knowledge of Iahvah, a just insight into the true nature of God, and a national life regulated in all its departments by that insight. At the outset of this third section of his discourse, {Jer_9:3-6} Jeremiah declared that corrupt Israel "knew not" and "refused to know" its God. At the beginning of the entire piece Jer_7:3 sq.), he urged his countrymen to "amend their ways and their doings," and not go on trusting in "lying words" and doing the opposite of "lovingkindness and justice and righteousness," which alone are pleasing to Iahvah, {Mic_6:8} Who "delighteth in lovingkindness and not sacrifice, and in the knowledge of God more than in burnt offerings." {Hos_6:6} And just as in the opening section the sacrificial worship was disparaged, taken as an "opus operatum," so here at the close circumcision is declared to have no independent value as a means of securing Divine favour. {Jer_9:25} Thus the entire discourse is rounded off by the return of the end to the beginning; and the main thought of the whole, which Jeremiah has developed and enforced with so much variety of feeling and oratorical and poetical ornament, is the eternally true thought that a service of God which is purely external is no service at all, and that rites without a loving obedience are an insult to the Majesty of Heaven.
Jer_10:17-25. The latter part of Jeremiah 10 resumes the subject suspended at Jer_9:22. It evidently contemplates the speedy departure of the people into banishment. "Away out of the land with thy pack" (or "thy goods"; "property," Targ. "merchandise," the Heb. term, which is related to "Canaan," occurs here only), "O thou that sittest in distress!" (or "abidest in the siege." {Jer_52:5; 2Ki_24:10} Sion is addressed, and bidden to prepare her scanty bundle of bare necessaries for the march into exile. So Egypt is bidden to "make for herself vessels of exile," Jer_46:19. Some think that Sion is warned to withdraw her goods from the open country to the protection of her strong walls, before the siege begins, as in Jer_8:14; but we have passed that stage in the development of the piece, and the next verse seems to show the meaning: "For thus hath Iahvah said, Lo, I am about to sling forth the inhabitants of the land this time"-as opposed to former occasions, when the enemy retired unsuccessful, {2Ki_16:5; 2Ki_19:36} or went off satisfied with plunder or an indemnity, like the Scythians {see 2Ki_14:14} -"and I will distress them that they may find out" the truth, which now they refuse to see. The aposiopesis "that they may find out!" is very striking. The Vulgate renders the verb in the passive: Tribulabo eos ita ut inveniantur. This, however, does not give so good a sense as the Masoretic pointing, and Ewalds reference of the term to the goods of the panic-stricken fugitives seems flat and tasteless ("the inhabitants of the land will this time not be able to hide their goods from the enemy!"). The best comment on the phrase is supplied by a later oracle: "Lo, I am about to make them know this time-I will make them know My hand and My might; that they may know that My name is Iahvah." {Jer_16:21} Cf. also Jer_17:9; Ecc_8:17.
The last verse (Jer_10:17) resembles a poetical quotation; and this one looks like the explication of it. There the population is personified as a woman; here we have instead the plain prose expression, "inhabitants of the land." The figurative, "I will sling them forth" or "cast them out," explains the bidding of Sion to "pack up her bundle" or "belongings"-there seems to be a touch of contempt in this isolated word, as much as to signify that the people must go forth into exile with no more of their possessions than they can carry like a beggar in a bundle. The expression, "I will distress them," seems to show that "thou that sittest in the distress" is proleptic, or to be rendered "thou that art to sit in distress," which comes to the same thing.
And now the prophet imagines the distress and the remorse of this forlorn mother, as it will manifest itself when her house is ruined and her children are gone and she realises the folly of the past:-{cf. Jer_4:31}
"Woes me for my wound!
Fatal is my stroke!"
(perhaps quoted from a familiar elegy). "And yet I-I thought," {Jer_22:21; Psa_30:7} "Only this"-no more than this-"is my sickness: I can bear it!" The people had never fully realised the threatenings of the prophets, until they began to be accomplished. When they heard them, they had said half-incredulously, half-mockingly, Is that all? Their false guides, too, had treated apparent danger as a thing of little moment, assuring them that their half reforms, and zealous outward worship, were sufficient to turn away the Divine displeasure. {Jer_6:14} And so they said to themselves, as sinners are still in the habit of saying, "If the worst come to the worst, I can bear it. Besides, God is merciful, and things may turn out better for frail humanity than your preachers of wrath and woe predict. Meanwhile-I shall do as I please, and take my chance of the issue."
The lament of the mourning mother continues: "My tent is laid waste and all my cords are broken; My sons went forth of me" (to battle) "and are not; There is none to spread my tent any more, And to set up my curtains." {Amo_9:11} Overhearing, as it were, this sorrowful lamentation ("qinah"), the prophet interposes with the reason of the calamity: "For the shepherds became brutish" or "behaved foolishly," stulte egerunt (Vulg.)-the leaders of the nation showed themselves as insensate and silly as cattle-"and Iahvah they sought not"; {Jer_2:8} "Therefore"-as they had no regard for Divine counsel-"they dealt not wisely," {Jer_3:15; Jer_9:23; Jer_20:11} "and all their flock was scattered abroad."
Once more, and for the last time, the prophet sounds the alarm: "Hark! a rumour! lo, it cometh! and a great uproar from the land of the north; to make the cities of Judah a desolation, a haunt of jackals!" It is not likely that the verse is to be regarded as spoken by the mourning country; she contemplates the evil as already done, whereas here it is only imminent. {cf. Jer_4:6; Jer_6:22; Jer_1:15} The piece concludes with a prayer (Jer_10:23-25), which may be considered either as. an intercession by the prophet on behalf of the nation, {cf. Jer_18:20} or as a form of supplication which he suggests as suitable to the existing crisis. "I know, Iahvah, that mans way is not his own; That it pertaineth not to a man to walk and direct his own steps: Correct me, Iahvah, but with justice; Not in Thine anger, lest Thou make me small!" Partly quoted, {Psa_6:1; Psa_38:1} "Pour out Thy fury upon the nations that know Thee not, And upon tribes that have not called upon Thy name; For they have devoured Jacob" ("and will devour him") ("and consumed him"), "and his pasture they have desolated!" {Psa_79:6-7, quoted from this place. In Jeremiah the LXX omits "and will devour him"; while the psalm omits both of the bracketed expressions.}
The Vulgate renders Jer_7:23 "Scio, Domine, quia non est hominis via ejus; nec viri est ut ambulet, et dirigat gressus suos." I think this indicates the correct reading of the Hebrew text; cf. Jer_9:23, where two infinitives absolute are used in a similar way. The Septuagint also must have had the same text, for it translates, "nor will (can) a man walk and direct his own walking." The Masoretic punctuation is certainly incorrect; and the best that can be made of it is Hitzigs version, which, however, disregards the accents, although their authority is the same as that of the vowel points: "I know Iahvah that not to man belongeth his way, not to a perishing" (lit. "going," "departing") "man-and to direct his steps." Any reader of Hebrew may see at once that this is a very unusual form of expression. {For the thought, cf. Pro_16:9; Pro_19:21; Psa_37:23}
The words express humble submission to the impending chastisement. The penitent people does not deprecate the penalty of its sins, but only prays that the measure of it may be determined by right rather than by wrath. {cf. Jer_46:27-28} The very idea of right and justice implies a limit, whereas wrath, like all passions, is without limit, blind and insatiable. "In the Old Testament, justice is opposed, not to mercy, but to high-handed violence and oppression, which recognise no law but subjective appetite and desire. The just man owns the claims of an objective law of right."
Non est hominis via ejus. Neither individuals nor nations are masters of their own fortunes in this world. Man has not his fate in his own hands; it is controlled and directed by a higher Power. By sincere submission, by a glad, unswerving loyalty, which honours himself as well as its Object, man may cooperate with that Power, to the furtherance of ends which are of all possible ends the wisest, the loftiest, the most beneficial to his kind. Self-will may oppose those ends, it cannot thwart them; at the most it can but momentarily retard their accomplishment, and exclude itself from a share in the universal blessing.
Israel now confesses, by the mouth of his best and truest representative, that he has hitherto loved to choose his own path, and to walk in his own strength, without reference to the will and way of God. Now, the overwhelming shock of irresistible calamity has brought him to his senses, has revealed to him his powerlessness in the hands of the Unseen Arbiter of events, has made him see, as he never saw, that mortal man can determine neither the vicissitudes nor the goal of his journey. Now he sees the folly of the mighty man glorying in his might, and the rich man glorying in his riches; now he sees that the how and the whither of his earthly course are not matters within his own control; that all human resources are nothing against God, and are only helpful when used for and with God. Now he sees that the path of life is not one which we enter upon and traverse of our own motion, but a path along which we are led; and so, resigning his former pride of independent choice, he humbly prays, "Lead Thou me on!" Lead me whither Thou wilt, in the way of trouble and disaster and chastisement for my sins; but remember my human frailty and weakness, and let not Thy wrath destroy me! Finally, the suppliant ventures to remind God that others are guilty as well as he, and that the ruthless destroyers of Israel are themselves fitted to be objects as well as instruments of Divine justice. They are such
(1) because they have not "known" nor "called upon" Iahvah; and
(2) because they have "devoured Jacob" who was a thing consecrated to Iahvah, {Jer_2:3} and therefore are guilty of sacrilege. {cf. Jer_50:28-29}
It has never been our lot to see our own land overrun by a barbarous invader, our villages burnt, our peasantry slaughtered, our towns taken and sacked with all the horrors permitted or enjoined by a non-Christian religion. We read of but hardly realise the atrocities of ancient warfare. If we did realise them, we might even think a saint justified in praying for vengeance upon the merciless destroyers of his country. But apart from this, I see a deeper meaning in this prayer. The justice of this terrible visitation upon Judah is admitted by the prophet. Yet in Judah many righteous were involved in the general calamity. On the other hand, Jeremiah knew something of the vices of the Babylonians, against which his contemporary Habakkuk inveighs so bitterly. They "knew not" nor "called upon" Iahvah; but a base polytheism reflected and sanctioned the corruption of their lives. A kind of moral dilemma, therefore, is proposed here. If the propose of this outpouring of Divine wrath be to bring Israel to "find out" {Jer_7:18} and to acknowledge the truth of God and his own guiltiness, can wrath persist, when that result is attained? Does not justice demand that the torrent of destruction be diverted upon the proud oppressor? So prayer, the forlorn hope of poor humanity, strives to overcome and compel and prevail with God, and to wrest a blessing even from the hand of Eternal Justice.
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.…
CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES. 1. Chronology of the chapter. Keil regards chaps. 7 to 10 as later addresses, delivered during Josiah’s reign. Bagster places an interval of merely two years between chaps. 6 and 7, dating this B.C. 610, two years before Josiah’s death. The A.V. places it ten years after Jehoiakim became king. But Dahler, Graf, Naeg., Lange, Hend., and Dr. Payne Smith identify this chapter with chap. 26. (cf. the corresponding verses, Jer_7:2; Jer_7:13-14, with Jer_26:2; Jer_26:5-6 respectively), and, therefore, date chap. 7 “in the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim.” Yet identity of verses is not itself conclusive of chapters being synchronous, for the book abounds in repetitions of theme and language. Besides (as Keil points out) there is no trace in this discourse, chap. 7–10, of the hostility towards Jeremiah which became so impetuous and implacable in Jehoiakim’s days (contrast this address with chap. Jer_26:14-15, sq.). However, this chapter depicts such idolatrous degradations as agree more with the relapse under Jehoiakim than with the reforms of Josiah’s reign (see Jer_8:9; Jer_8:18; Jer_8:21).
Jehoiakim came to the throne B.C. 608. Assyrian chronology changes that date to B.C. 589.
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2. Cotemporary Scriptures: 2Ki_23:34-37; 2Ch_36:4-5; cf. Habakkuk 1. Ezekiel lived through the epoch of Josiah’s death, the abject dethronisation of Jehoahaz, and Jehoiakim’s installation as king; but his prophecies date after the first group of captives had been carried into Babylon.
3. National History. B.C. 605 [Assyrian date, 586]. Josiah had fallen in battle with Pharaoh Necho at Megiddo (2Ki_23:29-30). Jehoahaz had reigned three months, and now Jehoiakim was king—Pharaoh Necho having placed him on the throne of Judah as vassal king, and laid the land under tribute to Egypt (2Ki_23:33; 2Ki_23:35). During, his wicked and abject reign the nation hastened back to idolatry and vice.
4. Cotemporaneous History. Two years before Josiah’s death Nineveh was wrested from Egypt by the combined assault of the Medes (under Cyaxares) and Babylonians (under Nabopolassar)—these two rising empires being intent on crushing the despotism of the Pharaohs. Against this Babylonian usurper Pharaoh Necho marched B.C 608; and by successful war at Charchemish, recovered a temporary Egyptian ascendancy. This ascendancy terminated finally in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, when Nebuchadnezzar led his father’s forces against Necho, vanquished Egypt, and inaugurated the Chaldean dominion. Cf. Critical Notes on chap. 1.
5. Geographical References. Jer_7:12. “Shiloh,” situate north of Bethel, in tribe of Benjamin (Jdg_21:19), distinguished as being the first sacred resting-place of the ark, and therefore the centre of the nation’s worship. Ark abode there for a period of cir. 300 years (Jos_18:1; 1Sa_4:3-4). Scene of Samuel’s call, and Eli’s judgeship. Must have been a populous town then; still existed in the reign of Jeroboam I. (1Ki_14:2); but in Jeremiah’s time it had sunk to a mean village. Divine displeasure over idolatry led to its degradation from historic eminence. Dr Robinson traced its site in the Arabic Seilun. Jerome wrote, “At Silo, where once was the tabernacle and ark of the Lord, there can scarcely be pointed out the foundation of an altar.” Jer_7:31. “Valley of the Son of Hinnom,” skirting the western base of Mount Zion, and meeting the valley of Jehosaphat; a most picturesque scene, with gardens, groves, and cool refreshing shade; regarded as the temple of Palestine. Jerome says, “The valley of Hinnom was watered by the springs of Siloam, and was pleasant and well wooded; and at this day delightful gardens are situate there” (cf. Personal References below). “The high places of Tophet” were artificial mounts on which sacrificial altars were reared, on the heights on the south side of the valley, and facing Mount Zion.
6. Personal References. Jer_7:15. “Ephraim,” put for Israel, the ten tribes God had “cast out.” Their having had the ark so long did not protect them from banishment; nor would Judah, escape, though possessing the Temple (Jer_7:4). Jer_7:18. Queen of Heaven—i.e., the moon. She was revered as a deity by Persians and Syrians. Her name מְלֶכֶת was a fem form of מֹלֵךְ, Molech, or מֶלֶךְ, Molech. In Babylonia her name was Molatta. She was regarded as the wife of Molech or Baal, the king of heaven. The sun and moon were worshipped thus as being the generative powers of nature. Jer_7:31. “Tophet,” perhaps a contemptuous name given by Jeremiah to their god, Baal [see Literary Criticism on chap. Jer_3:24]; or else not a proper name at all, the word “Tophet” meaning merely a thing or place of abhorrence; and any place where human sacrifices were offered was stigmatised as a Tophet, or place of horror (See Addenda to chap. Jer_5:31, “High Places of Tophet”). Jer_7:31. “Son of Hinnom,” a name without traceable personal identification. Mentioned in connection with the “valley” so early as in Jos_15:8. Possibly he was some ancient or fabulous hero. The valley called Vale Ben-Hinnom in the Old Testament, is sometimes in Heb. shortened into Ge-Hinnom, גֵ־הִנֹּם; is rendered by the LXX. Γαίεννα; and hence the New Testament name Gehenna. To end the idolatrous abominations practised there, Josiah had poured into the valley the city’s refuse and corruption, to consume which perpetual fires were kept burning. From the torturous fires of Molech, and the ever-burning fires to consume the loathsome refuse cast into it, Gehenna became suggestive and figurative of the place of eternal torment.
7. Manners and Customs. Jer_7:18. “Make cakes to queen of heaven: probably specially prepared for her worship, made round and flat like the disc of the moon, and burnt to her honour, with added libations. Jer_7:21. “Burnt offerings” were wholly consumed upon the altar fire; “sacrifices” were in part eaten by the offerers. This “Eating the flesh” was regarded as a reconciliation meal, God and the offerer dividing and sharing the sacrifice. Jer_7:29. Cut off thine hair:” the ancient sign of mourning (cf. Job_1:20; Mic_1:16). “Lamentation on high places” (cf. Isa_15:2; Jdg_11:37-38). Jer_7:30. “Abominations in the house;” this refers to what Manasseh had done (2Ki_21:3-5), and of which sacrifice the people had never repented, notwithstanding Josiah’s external reforms. Jer_7:31. “Burn sons and daughters in the fire:” probably not burnt alive, but first slain (see Eze_16:21). Jer_7:34. “Voice (or sound) of the bridegroom and bride:” an allusion to the musical procession with which the bridal pair were accompanied through the streets; a custom still, in many parts of the East, among the Jews.
8. Literary Criticisms. Jer_7:3. “I will cause you to dwell.” Hend. would give to the Piel form of the verb a continuative force, “I will still cause you to dwell:” for they were already there; and this is no promise of re-occupancy. Blayney and the Vulgate adopt, “I will dwell with you.” Speaker’s Com., “I will let you dwell.” Jer_7:4. “Temple of the Lord are these,” i.e., the sacred buildings of the Temple (Hend.) Or, as the pronoun is masc., some think the Jews themselves. But the Jews boasted in their material edifices, and were not sufficiently spiritual to claim for themselves a personally indwelling God. Jer_7:7. “For ever and ever,” lit. “to from eternity and unto eternity:” the strongest Heb. formula for perpetuity. The antecedent may be either, I gave the land, or I will cause you to dwell. Jer_7:9. “Will ye steal,” &c.; a succession of infinitives. “What! to steal, to murder,” &c. Jer_7:10. “We are delivered to do all,” &c., i.e., by Temple attendances and observances “We are secured” against evil consequences while we continue to sin; no harm will come to us. It expresses daring self-justification, and blasphemous self-assurance. (Comp. Noticeable Topics, end of chap. Sermon by Horton). Jer_7:12. “Set My name at the first,” i.e., in the first period of the Jewish commonwealth. (See above, Geographical References. “Shiloh”). Jer_7:18. “Queen of heaven,” margin of A. V. “frame, or workmanship of heaven.” The Syriac and LXX so translate; although in corresponding verses (chap Jer_44:17-19), the LXX render the word “queen” ἡ βασίλισσα τῶν οὐρανῶν. The Vulgate has “regina cœli” in every instance. Jer_7:22. “For I spake not,” &c., if this be taken as a denial of their Divine institution, it must be understood as stating that God imposed moral duties (Jer_7:23) at an earlier date than He instituted the sacrificial code (cf. Exo_15:26; Exo_19:5, with Deuteronomy 5, 6). Or as a repudiation of their sacrifices it suggests their repulsiveness to God when alone, unattended with performance of the higher obligations: “I spake not” that sacrifices might be presented, while moral duties were at the same time refused. The words may be rendered, “I spake not to your fathers for the sake of (A.V. ‘concerning’) burnt offerings,” &c., they were not the primary results God sought; He desired not sacrifices, but spiritual obedience. Jer_7:24. “Went backwards,” lit. “were backwards,” i.e., their faces turned from Me (Psa_78:57). Jer_7:28. “Truth” (see criticisms on the word, chap. Jer_5:3). Jer_7:29. “Cut hair,” נֵזֶר a diadem (2Sa_1:10). The Nazarite’s hair so called (Num_6:7, rendered “consecration”) as being the symbol of his consecration to God, ergo of his royalty and dignity: and hence, leaving the primary meaning, the long, unshorn hair of a woman. This “diadem” she must “cast away,” for she is no longer consecrate to God: she has violated her sanctity and forfeited her alliance with Jehovah.
HOMILETIC OUTLINES ON SECTIONS OF CHAPTER 7
Verses
Jer_7:1-7.
Righteous requirements and gracious promise.
Verses
Jer_7:8-15.
Demoralising trust placed in external piety.
Verses
Jer_7:16-20.
Indignity done to God in uniting His worship with idolatry.
Verses
Jer_7:21-28.
Reliance on the value of outward religious service refuted.
Verses
Jer_7:29-34.
Retribution for idolatrous abominations.
Jer_7:1-7. RIGHTEOUS REQUIREMENTS AND GRACIOUS PROMISE
Jehoiakim, an irreligious king; consequently the maintenance of divine worship was not now, as when Josiah reigned, an object of public care and royal encouragement. Probably this concourse in the temple assembled on a public fast-day. Jeremiah commissioned to use the opportunity for making known God’s revulsion from “a form of godliness, not having the power thereof.”
1. Express communication from Jehovah: “word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord.” 2. Proclaimed in a solemn scene: “stand in the gate of the Lord’s house.” 3. Addressed to a vast audience: “hear, all Judah.” 4. Relating to professedly godly persons: “that enter in at these gates to worship the Lord.” 5. Spoken with the weight and sanction of Highest Authority: not the outcome of his own patriotic fervour, or pious solicitude, but “Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel.” 6. Summoning to thorough reformation: “amend,” &c. (Jer_7:4). 7. Granting gracious permission and opportunity: the door of hope not closed, the day of grace prolonged.
I. In what Divinely approved piety consists. God leaves them in no uncertainty as to what He demands of man: we do not grope in darkness towards truth; are not left to conjectures and adventures. “This is the way, walk ye in it.” “The wayfaring man, though a fool, shall not err therein.” Here is urged both a refusal and a requirement.
1. Repudiation of superficial piety (Jer_7:2; Jer_7:4). Mere “entering” sanctuary, formal “worship,” pride in religious externals. “Not they who say unto Me, Lord, Lord,” &c. (Addenda to chap, Jer_7:4, “Ecclesiasticism.”)
2. Delineation of essential righteousness (Jer_7:5-6). Personal goodness, justice and mercy to others, fidelity to God. Compare our Lord’s reply to question, “What do to inherit eternal life?” (Luk_10:27).
II. To what extent true reformation must be carried. “Thoroughly … thoroughly” (Jer_7:5). With resolution, with sincerity, with completeness. Note what it embraces; self, “amend,” &c.; others, “execute judgment,” &c.; God, no “other gods.”
1. Personal renewal: “ways”—i.e., general principles and methods of life: “doings”—i.e., separate and minute deeds. Entire change of self. “Neither circumcision, &c., but a new creature.”
2. Uprightness of conduct: specially acting justly and mercifully. We are “created in Christ Jesus unto good works.”
3. Cessation from wrong: and this wrong is of three forms—harming the weak, “hurting” ourselves, and dishonouring God (Jer_7:6).
III. With what rewards godliness is encouraged. Civil and sacred privileges (Jer_7:7).
1. Present advantages. “In this place;” Jerusalem or temple; where holy comforts and favours cluster, the meeting-place of God. “Godliness hath the promise of the life which now is.”
2. Imperishable prospects. “This land for ever.” “Begotten to a lively hope, to an inheritance incorruptible, and fadeth not away.”
IV. To what disasters irreligion tends. The conditional promise implies a possible reverse, dark and sad.
1. Loss of boasted heritages. Not “dwell in this place;” the temple and city, with all civil and religious advantages forfeited; exiles.
2. Banishment from God Himself. “Removed from land” into captivity. To be cast out from where God dwelt, “Zion,” equivalent to a Jew to being banished from Him who dwelt in Zion. “Depart from Me, ye cursed.” “Punished with everlasting destruction, from the presence of the Lord, and the glory of His power.”
Jer_7:8-15. DEMORALISING TRUST PLACED IN EXTERNAL PIETY
A startling truism that evil simulates good. Satan himself takes the form of “angel of light” in order to cover his own hideousness and deceive others. Sinners hide conscious wrong by pretentious righteousness. Two results:
1. Self-deception. A dangerous device to assume a mock piety. Deceivers come to “deceive themselves.” Reflex action of insincerity: “believe a lie,” and thus ignore danger while courting and hastening to destruction. Wicked taken in their own net, fall into pit digged for others, are hung on gallows themselves prepared for different use.
2. Self-degradation. Pretence of goodness blinds sinners to the revulsion and awfulness of iniquity: “conscience seared.” Evil looks less heinous to sinners themselves when clothed with the garb of pietism. Licence is thus given to iniquity, and sin grows at once bolder, self-excusing, shameless, and runs unchecked to vile excesses. Christ pronounced those men worst and most hopeless who robed villainy with piety (Mat_23:25-33).
I. The attitude of devotional sincerity (Jer_7:10). 1. In right place: “this house.” 2. In right posture: “stand before Me.” “Ye outwardly appear righteous unto men” (Mat_23:28). Judged of at that moment, all seemed well. But what manner of men were they when away from God’s house? Life has two sides: most men seem good when in holy scenes and on sacred occasions; what is their conduct elsewhere? Moreover, there may be vast difference in a man’s outer and inner life; and God looks within; so that even when standing piously before Him they may be loathsome in His sight. Attitude is not everything.
II. The subtlety of religious delusions. 1. False trusts: “in lying words” (Jer_7:9), and “this house wherein ye trust” (Jer_7:14). Ready to believe in smooth words of lying prophets (Jer_7:31), or to rest upon mere cant phrases (Jer_7:4), or to repose on religious externals (Jer_7:14). 2. Presumptuous assurance: “We are delivered” (Jer_7:10)—i.e., having performed our religious observances in the temple, we have atoned for past sins, and are free to start afresh. Romanists assume the same licence: attend “mass,” and so leave all burdens behind, and gain liberty for indulgences in sin. Protestants, too, who “attend the Sacrament” and return to worldliness. They also who trust in penitent prayers, and excuse themselves in wrong: “sin that grace may abound.” God hates every false way.
III. The degradations of spiritual falsity. The delusion that sin may be continued with impunity or easily escaped acts as an encouragement to every form of wrong. Hypocrites, who make external ceremonies a kind of expiation, readily fall into the seductions of sin, and follow the enticements of their own evil hearts. To what depths did these sink! 1. Glaring immoralities (Jer_7:9). 2. Revolting idolatries (Jer_7:9). 3. Ecclesiastical profanities (Jer_7:11).
IV. The futility of sacred messages. “I spake unto you, rising up early,” &c. (Jer_7:13). 1. Instructions and admonitions were not withheld: thus God did His part to restrain and rectify them. 2. Invitations to true religion were sent: “I called you:” thus they were allured and entreated as well as warned. 3. Indifference and insensibility marked their conduct: they were without disposition to repent, without desire for holiness; so they trifled still by offering to God a ceremonial piety, but refusing practical godliness. Note: The most potent and urgent messages from God are neutralised by the carnal security in which hypocrites entrench themselves.
V. The overthrow of sinners and their subterfuges (Jer_7:14-15). 1. Zion seemed a secure possession. They “trusted” in it; relied upon the fact that God had given it in covenant with their fathers; they deemed it inalienable and imperishable (Psa_132:14). Yet, being used for evil ends (Jer_7:11), and made a delusive trust (Jer_7:4; Jer_7:14), it had lost its worth in God’s sight, and should come to ruin as Shiloh had done. Nothing retains its sacredness or its security when prostituted to purposes of falsehood and impiety. 2. Judah believed herself safe from banishment. David was of Judah; God had made special promises to this royal tribe. Messiah was to come of it. Judah arrogated to herself a safety Israel did not possess. But no privileges or promises screen the guilty from judgment. God’s special plans never interfere with His common laws. Sinners are condemned, wicked shall not escape; and these laws will not be suspended, even though we seek to hide ourselves behind covenants and decrees.
Application: Delusion works demoralisation. Demoralisation ensures destruction.
Jer_7:16-20. INDIGNITY TO JEHOVAH IN UNITING HIS WORSHIP WITH IDOLATRY
“Seest thou what they do?” (Jer_7:17). The sight was abhorrent to God. They had professed to accept Him as their Lord, by standing before Him in His house (Jer_7:10); but their conduct outside the temple, in the very “streets of Jerusalem,” as well as throughout the “cities of Judah,” was flauntingly audacious and provoking. Such hypocrisy was loathsome to God.
Compromises, combining God’s worship with idolatrous practises, incense Jehovah. They dishonour Him, rob worship of all worth, render religion a mockery and homage a vanity. By their compromises they wronged and provoked God; for
1. They divided His glory, by raising idols to equality with Him. 2. They degraded His glory, by lowering Him to equality with them. For by sharing worship between God and “other gods,” they treated Him as worthy no more homage than they.
I. Man’s astounding insolence towards Jehovah. Their idolatrous conduct had as its motive malice; and as its end, “that they might provoke God to anger” (Jer_7:18). They aimed at that result. But, in so doing, men may ignite a fire they would fain yet cannot quench. 1. The Divine anger is a solemn reality. 2. Man’s conduct is capable of provoking the anger of the Almighty! 3. Indignity to God evokes indignation from God. Wonderful man’s power! Terrible this dire abuse of it!
II. Outrages done to God revert on the sinner (Jer_7:19). Which means, Is it Me they provoke; or will they not rather provoke themselves to wrath against themselves, and to confusion and shame? 1. They injure themselves more than they incense God. 2. They will bear the heavier consequences of their wickedness. God is dishonoured and provoked thereby, but they ensure destruction to themselves and “revelation of the righteous judgment of God.” Sinners will then be wrathful with themselves; “gnashing of teeth:” and reap “shame” for every dishonour they have done to the Lord.
III. Pitiful intercession refused on their behalf (Jer_7:16). Jeremiah was compassionate, and ready to interpose with prayers: but, 1. God corrects the prophet’s mistaken charity. Piety before patriotism; what is due to God before unthinking intervention on the behalf of wrongdoers. Pity must not blindly interpose to prevent justice. “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” 2. God directs attention to their guilty deeds. “Seest thou,” &c. (Jer_7:17). Jehovah sees; and He fathoms the depths of malice which prompt men’s hostile actions.
IV. Anger provoked in God will be assuredly poured out (Jer_7:20). 1. As a deluge, in fulness and fury: “poured out.” 2. Falling upon the whole people: on the offenders themselves (“man”), and their treasures (“this place, on beasts, trees, fruits”). 3. Unquenchable in its ravaging work: for it will be a deluge of “fire,” and will “burn” inextinguishably. “Who will dwell with the everlasting burnings?” “Flee to the mountain, lest thou be consumed.”
Jer_7:21-28. RELIANCE ON THE VALUE OF OUTWARD RELIGIOUS SERVICE REFUTED
Jeremiah swept this false security utterly from beneath them: their ceremonial observances were worthless in themselves, except as an expression of spiritual homage and loyalty, and were without Divine sanction, except as they were accompanied by practical godliness. He appeals to the original covenant of God with them, and affirms: i. That the moral code was primarily given; the ceremonial laws followed at a later date, and as a concession to their weakness, when, by the worship of the golden calf, they had proved themselves unworthy of, and unfitted for, a purely spiritual dispensation. ii. That the moral code was of primary importance. God could readily dispense with sacrificial offerings if their practical obedience were maintained; but however lavish their sacrifices, all were repulsive if obedience was withheld.
HENRY—“See with what contempt God here speaks of their ceremonial service (Jer_7:21). Go on in, and add to, your sacrifices, and ‘eat flesh,’ for that is all the good you will obtain from them; no other benefit while you live in disobedience!
“I. He shows them that obedience was the only thing He required of them (Jer_7:22-23). He appeals to the original contract when they were first formed into a people (Exo_15:26). The condition of their being God’s people was, ‘If you will obey my voice indeed’ (Exo_19:5). Afterwards He gave them ceremonial institutions, as trials of their obedience, and assistances to their repentance and faith. The Levitical law begins thus, ‘If any man of you will bring an offering’ (Lev_1:2; Lev_2:1), as if intended rather to regulate sacrifice than to require it.
“II. He shows them that disobedience was the only thing which offended Him. They broke God’s commandments in their conversation, while observing them, in some instances, in their devotion (Jer_7:24-25). 1. They set up their own will in competition with God’s. ‘Hearkened not, nor inclined their ear’ to God’s laws; and made their own counsels their guide, and evil imaginations became their law. 2. If they began well, they did not proceed, but soon flew off: ‘went backward.’ 3. When God sent messages to them by His prophets, they were still disobedient (Jer_7:25). As deaf to the prophets as they were to the law (Jer_7:26). 4. Their practice and character were still the same: worse, and not better, than their fathers. (a.) Jeremiah can himself witness to their disobedience (Jer_7:27). (b.) He must therefore own they deserved God’s displeasure and abandonment to destruction (Jer_7:28). Notorious for their obstinacy, incapable of receiving or uttering ‘truth:’ false both to God and man.”
Jer_7:29-34. RETRIBUTION FOR IDOLATROUS ABOMINATIONS
“Cut off thine hair,” &c. (see Lit. Crit. supra on Jer_7:29): both as a token of extreme woe, and also of the loss of the consecrated character.
I. A mournful occasion for bitterest grief (Jer_7:29). 1. Loss of holiness entails loss of happiness. 2. Rejection by God and abandonment to His wrath suggest alarming calamities. Spiritual, in that the soul loses her light, her security, her comfort, her hope; and temporal, in that protection, promises, benefactions, are all forfeited and alienated. A desolate case! Yet not loss of God alone, but the positive woes of “His wrath.” All good things withdrawn, all evil things threatened.
II. A revolting spectacle of impious desecration (Jer_7:30-31) 1. Insulted God to His face in His own house by their abominations. A loathsome intrusion upon and pollution of sacred scenes. Equally so when sin is cherished in our hearts (Eze_14:4). 2. Practised the most heinous atrocities in their idolatrous homage (Jer_7:31). Deeds so dreadful as never to have “come into the mind” of God. Man’s fertility in wicked inventions.
III. A terrible visitation of righteous judgments (Jer_7:32-33). 1. Slaughterers (of their own children) shall be visited with slaughter (from the Chaldeans) 2. The scene of cruel death (of helpless infants) shall be burdened with the dead; the victims of the avenging sword should be more than graves could inter. 3. Ravaging beasts of prey would usurp the very spot where now living men assembled for idolatrous ceremonies; so complete would be the devastation of human life. “Ge-Hinnom,” a figure of hell. (See Personal Allusions, Jer_7:31, above.)
IV. A woful desolation of happy scenes (Jer_7:34). 1. All joy silenced in the now cheerful streets. 2. All life departed from now crowded cities. 3. All beauty and fertility swept from the now luxuriant soil; “the land desolate.” Music, life, and fertility: these symbolise the sum of Divine favours: God’s choicest benefactions. Their loss portrays illimitable woe. So utterly does sin reverse all the blessedness of life and the hopes of religion.
HOMILETIC OUTLINES ON SUCCESSIVE VERSES OF CHAPTER 7
Jer_7:1-2. Preliminary Notes.
Though the people were rioting in idolatry they yet visited God’s temple; and even came thither from “all Judah” (Jer_7:2): “all the cities of Judah” (Jer_26:2). This discourse must have been delivered on a public feast-day or fast-day, for on no ordinary occasion would so representative an assembly be convened. Probably it was an assembly specially summoned; the apathy and alienation of the people being too settled to allow of their coming together in such vast numbers from distant “cities,” unless called to Jerusalem by royal edict, or impelled to come in consequence of national calamities. The occasion was well suited for a searching and solemn appeal to the national conscience. Jeremiah seems to have stood in the inner gate, and faced the crowds as they thronged in at the outer gates into the open court. He detained them there with his faithful discourse ere they passed through “the gate,” where he himself stood, into the inner court, where worship was performed and sacrifice offered. He thus stood between them and further religious mockeries, calling them to pause, reflect, and repent.
Jer_7:2. Theme: A COMMISSION TO PREACH
Certainly, this is not running without being sent. Some mistake their avocation,—rush to a “charge” which God has not committed to them. The result: “Things without life, giving sound.” Nothing higher than that; words, but no “word,”—no definite message for men from God. How different when the speaker must testify the truth Divinely intrusted to him! (Rom_10:15). Jeremiah’s case is identical with that of every true preacher (Jer_7:1).
I. The Divine regulation of the preacher’s work. 1. The scene of the preacher’s labour: “stand in the gate,” &c., definitely localised by God. 2. The opportunity: “ye that enter,” the very hour fixed by God, as they were entering; an auspicious and appropriate moment. 3. The audience: “all ye of Judah,” and ye of Judah “that enter;” extensive, yet limited; for the Gospel and truth are for all, yet only for those who will hear. 4. The topic: “this word,” definite and direct. Many themes might fill our thoughts and our speech, but God has something to say, and “we cannot but speak the things,” &c. Note its origin (Jer_7:1). (Addenda to chap. 7, “The Preacher.”)
II. The preacher’s performance of his Divine commission. Like Jeremiah, who subordinated himself and his powers to God’s requirements, he fulfils his “charge.” 1. In literal obedience. “Stands” where he is directed, speaks what he is commanded. 2. With fearless ardour. “Proclaimed;” not cowardlily whispered it, nor humbly apologised for it. 3. As Jehovah’s witness (Jer_7:3): an ambassador, a spokesman for God and in His name. It makes obedience easy, though the duty be onerous and dangerous, to realise that there is a solemn Authority behind us and our words.
III. The practical lessons of this prophetic incident. (See Preliminary Notes on Jer_7:1, above.) 1. Large audiences present special opportunities; and a preacher, like “Wisdom, cries in the chief places of concourse.” 2. Professedly religious persons need the preacher’s word. Simply because they “enter gates to worship” does not show them beyond error and without need of earnest ministrations. 3. Before men worship, they require solemn and special warning; need be summoned to pause and know what worship God accepts and demands (Php_3:3). 4. God discerns the spirit, as well as the attitude, of those who enter His temple for outward worship. 5. He sends messages according to the condition of the people: warning for those in error, consolation for the sad, calls for the weary, &c. Hence, hearers should seriously take heed to what they hear: for the message suggests God’s estimate of them and their needs.
Jer_7:3. (See on Jer_7:5-7.) “Your ways,” = general lines of conduct, common habits, prevailing laws of feeling, thought, and practice. “Your doings,” = the separate and individual acts which, by frequency and repetition, form habits. “I will cause you to dwell,” i.e. peaceably, protected from the spoiler and from captivity. It promises nothing new, but pledges the continuance of the blessings long enjoyed (Jer_7:7). “In this place,” primarily, the temple, as the central joy and privilege of Israel; and, secondarily, “the land,” of which the temple is the ornament and glory.
Theme: SINNERS SUMMONED TO SELF-IMPROVEMENT. “Thus saith the Lord, Amend your ways!”
Faulty conduct is to be rectified. God asks practical righteousness; correcting the wrong of our life, culturing the good and the godly.
Unwarrantable to teach that human virtue and goodness are nothing to God, are, indeed, repulsive to Him. “He hath shown thee, O man, what is good:” and both summons to attempt it, and approves its attainment.
Equally unscriptural to teach that God bids men desist from effort to rise out of evil into a good and godly life (Isa_55:6-7; Rom_8:13). True, no self-improvement can save a soul. Jesus alone saves. But there is room for the free action of a man to “cease from evil and do good” both before and after his conversion to Christ.
This Divine call
I. Marks out the prevailing faultiness of an irreligious life. Both your “ways and doings,” in large and small matters, in principles and practices. Yet, observe, here is no call to abandon altogether their course of life, but to alter it; remedy the errors and mistakes and blemishes. Ceremonialism not itself wrong and forbidden, but it should be accompanied by practical righteousness. 1. The direction of the life may not be wholly wrong: not required to reverse or abandon their ways, but “amend them.” 2. Yet good deeds may be performed in an evil manner: life, a series of faults, in spirit and method. 3. So a life ostensibly good may be repulsive to God: so much so, as to threaten the loss of God and the “holy city.”
II. Sanctions man’s resolute efforts to rectify his faults. “Amend.” So far from repudiating man’s endeavour to reform his wrongs, and acquire virtue and goodness, God here calls to it. Hence it is: 1. Possible to man. 2. Approved by God. 3. Incumbent on each. (Mar_10:20-21.)
III. Pledges God’s beneficent recognition of man’s diligent reform. 1. This implies a terrifying alternative: that, neglecting the duty of rectifying existing evils, God would outlaw them. 2. This covenants a gracious recompense: that, “redeeming the time,” and living “soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world,” He would retain them in His merciful favour, and give them a perpetual heritage in Canaan. For this end, “the grace of God hath appeared” (Tit_2:11-15); and Christ “gave Himself for us;” and to such rectitude of life men are to be “exhorted with all authority.”
Jer_7:4. Theme: SANCTIMONIOUS SELF-DELUSIONS.
When religious sincerity is absent from the heart, all religious words upon the lips, whether pious talk or sanctuary exercises, are “lying words.” Generally, too, when the heart’s religion is false, the lip religion is more emphatic: it utters itself with a threefold fervour. Hollow things emit most sound. So “The temple of the Lord,” thrice over: words must speak out lustily when the consciousness bears no witness. Mighty rivers flow in silence; shallow streams compensate for their poverty by making more noise.
First, Concerning lying words.
I. They falsify God’s character: implying that God would not destroy His temple, though profaned; that He connived at their criminality: their sins would not lead the glory to depart, or the sanctuary to be destroyed.
II. They delude men’s souls: allure to false trusts, import a vain hope between a sinner and the punishment of sin. “The temple” promised them a guarantee against and an asylum from ruin, thus encouraging presumption and iniquity.
III. They pervert sacred things: God’s house was abused,—became a rendezvous of villainy, evil felt itself secure there. God’s altar was perverted; instead of its sacrifices being regarded as a surrender of sin, they were offered to condone and license sin. God’s covenants were misused. He had, indeed, promised to dwell for ever in Zion, and to give His people a lasting heritage and resting-place there; but they ignored the conditions of this promise, that they should be a “holy people,” and keep unstained His “holy sanctuary.”
Thus sinners allow themselves to “continue in sin that grace may abound;” silence, rebukes of conscience by boasting the cleansing blood of Christ; make the cross an asylum for sin rather than a resting-place from sin.
Second, Concerning trusting in lying words.
The triple repetition of “the temple of the Lord” may express the intense feeling, the vigorous assurance, with which this confidence in their safety, because they had the sanctuary among them, was cherished. The triple utterance seems to denote intensity. (Comp. also Isa_6:3; Jer_22:29.) Or, the repetition may suggest the frequency with which this boast of possessing God’s temple was heard among them. Henry says, “It was the cant of the times. If they heard an awakening sermon, they lulled themselves asleep again with this, ‘We cannot but do well, for we have the temple of the Lord among us.’ It is common for those who are farthest from God to boast themselves most of their being near to the church.”
Jeremiah’s remonstrance against this delusive and sanctimonious cry suggests, concerning the Jews—
I. A preference for peaceful prophesyings. Most probably this illusory boast in having the temple was the theme of false prophets, who prophesied smooth things among them (comp. Mic_3:11). The sentence looks like a quotation from the teachings of one of these deceitful leaders; which was speedily caught up into popular currency, and become the answering retort whenever Jeremiah denounced the people or foretold the coming woes. They sought to drown his serious words with this mocking boast. They desired only to hear what flattered them, even though it beguiled them.
II. A repose on false securities. This audacious appeal to the temple may be thus interpreted: “The temple of the Lord” in Jerusalem has been consecrated as His abode; therefore, enemies shall not conquer and capture the city; we are, therefore, safe within its shelter. “The temple of the Lord” is the throne of His glory; and He will not vacate His throne for heathen to possess it; an invincible stronghold have we; we are, therefore, safe under its strong protection. “The temple of the Lord” has been given in covenant to His people; it cannot therefore be alienated. God’s word may not fail; we, therefore, are safe in enjoyment of covenanted blessings. Thus men say still, “We are in the church!” “We have been baptized!” “We are the elect!” Refuges of lies.
III. A vaunting over external sanctities. “Men in all ages have evinced a proneness to attribute to external and ceremonial circumstances a virtue which does not inhere in them” (Hend.). Because, forsooth, these Jews presented themselves thrice a year in this temple, they imagined they had done all Jehovah required of them: He could not withdraw His favour from such a pious nation! Or, because within the temple the sacrifices and ceremonies went on continually, they were doing all that was required by Him, and were entitled to His gracious regard. Or, because as a nation they maintained by their contributions the temple fabrics and ministries, they had purchased a right to Divine care and blessings: “These temple edifices were only kept up at great cost; how generous have we been for God’s cause, how deserving therefore are we” (comp. Zep_3:11). God accepts no substitute for personal holiness. Punctilious outward observance, lavish and ceaseless sacrifices, free bestowment of wealth, all are repudiated when they are made the boast of the proud and the excuse of impiety. (Addenda to chap. Jer_7:4, “Ecclesiasticism.”)
Jer_7:5. Theme: THOROUGHNESS. “If ye will thoroughly amend, and thoroughly execute judgment.”
Over against their self-delusive words (Jer_7:4), Jeremiah places the indispensable requirements of Jehovah: not an outward ceremonial piety, but a personal religious life; not a partial and evasive obedience, but a righteousness all-inclusive and practical,—“thoroughly” (Luk_11:42). Only when temple-worship (Jer_7:2) is the expression of sincere and sanctified hearts, and is attended and attested by works of righteousness, is it accepted of God. He asks that our whole life, equally in sacred and secular scenes, “towards God and towards men,” be holiness unto the Lord.
I. The largeness of the Divine outgoings toward men justifies His demand for thoroughness. He who asks “thoroughness” should himself so act, or there is inconsistency in the demand. But certainly in the lavishment of God’s gifts, the beneficence of His dealings, the wealth of His covenanted promises, and His faultless fidelity in fulfilling His word, He had done all things “thoroughly” for Judah.
In general, and with universal application, it stands that: 1. There is no incompleteness in God’s works, or paucity in His provisions for human good. Look out on nature, look into revelation, ponder redemption, and all show God’s works and ways for man to be lavish, perfect, “thorough.” 2. There is no neglect by God of one side of human need while attending to the other. He did not overlook their temporal good while working for their spiritual, nor vice versa. Judah had been thus one-sided; but not God. Ergo, as God’s ways with men are characterised by thoroughness, He is justified in asking and entitled to receive thoroughness in man’s response of obedience and love. (Addenda to chap. Jer_7:5, “Thoroughness.”)
II. The sphere and action of religion compasses our whole life with thoroughness. There is no part or phase of our life which escapes the control of religion; so that he who is truly religious, responsive to the dictates and demands of religion, is thoroughly religious. Thus:
1. It claims and controls the whole of our nature and faculties.
2. It asserts an empire over every act of our life, “whatsoever we do.”
3. It extends its sway to, and utters its counsels upon, all the relationships and duties of society. (See Jer_7:5-6.)
4. It reaches all along the path of our life, from birth into eternity. Religion is thorough in its comprehensive rule over, and directions for, the life of man.
III. The response which God receives from man should be distinguished by thoroughness. Wherever else man practises reservation, here he should hold back no part of the price. Our godliness should be thorough if it is to be happy to ourselves or honouring to God.
1. It is the natural issue of honest acceptance of religion. The heart that finds and resolves for Christ, and obeys its own instinctive promptings, cannot yield a mere partial response.
2. It is the inevitable return of filial gratitude. “How much owe I unto my Lord?” “Ye are not your own; body, soul and spirit are the Lord’s.”
3. It is the essential law of piety. God deserves all. “Love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, &c., and neighbour as thyself.” He who responds rightly yields himself fully to all the claims of God (Rom_12:1).
IV. The piety which refuses full obedience to God is a lamentable violation of the sacred law of thoroughness. Christ says, “I would thou wert cold or hot.” He loathes the “lukewarm.” He Himself held nothing back from us; gave Himself, His life, His redemption, His perfect virtue, all for us; “what shall we render unto the Lord?” Less than “all for Christ” is wholly undeserving.
1. It is a mean return for the grace we have received.
2. It is a worthless fulfilment of religious obligations. God abhors a compromising piety, a divided heart.
3. It is a discreditable exhibition of godliness. Degrades piety in the eyes of scoffers, and evokes swift rebuke. (Comp. Act_5:1-11.)
“Thine am I by all ties;
But chiefly Thine,
That through Thy sacrifice,
Thou, Lord, art mine:
By Thine own cords of love, so sweetly wound
Around me, I to Thee am closely bound.”
Only in full dedication of our love to God and life for men in Christ’s name, can we approach the standard of godly thoroughness.
Jer_7:5-6. Comments.
In thus particularising the evils they must discard, the prophet (1.) implies that justice and equity were violated, that cruelty and perfidiousness, fraud and rapine, prevailed amongst them; and (2.) enjoins upon them the observance of the moral law as evidence of their sincere repentance and loyalty to God. He thus demanded “fruits meet for repentance,” which would make their religion a practical reality, not a mere lofty sentiment.
“Shedding innocent blood” refers (1.) To judicial murders (condemnation of innocent persons). (2.) To violent attacks on prophets and godly men, as in Manasseh’s case (2Ki_21:16).”—Keil. (Comp. chap. Jer_26:15; Jer_26:23.)
“Innocent blood” probably points with indignant emphasis to the murder and sacrifice of infants to Molech (Jer_7:31.)
Jer_7:7. Theme: THE EVERLASTING INHERITANCE. “I gave to your fathers for ever and ever.”
I. Its duration conditional. God covenants with men for an inalienable heritage; but the terms require that they do not themselves alienate it by unfaithfulness and apostasy.
II. Its forfeiture possible. Men’s sins neutralise sacred covenants. No standing in grace but our sin may overthrow. We may lose our securest and most boasted possessions.
III. Its continual enjoyment desired. (1.) By God; for He gave the inheritance to them, and pleads with them to retain it. (2.) By man; for as the Jews valued and hoped to keep their land, so we desire to preserve for ourselves a place in grace, and obtain an eternal home in the promised land. But desire is not sufficient; obligations must be fulfilled. “If ye amend, &c., then will I cause you to dwell in this land,” &c. (Addenda to chap. 7, “Covenant.”)
Note the terms of their “everlasting possession” of Canaan, in the original covenant (Gen_17:8): “I will be their God.” But instead, “they walk after other gods” (see Jer_7:6); hence the covenant was broken, and the gift reverted to its Donor.
Jer_7:8. Theme: INJURIOUSNESS OF FALSE THEORIES.
These “lying words” were either teachings of delusive prophets, or their own unwarantable arguments. (See on Jer_7:4, above.) They “cannot profit,” i.e., they tend to mischief.
Calvin remarks that their words of falsehood turned to a contrary end what God had instituted. Services performed in the temple were designed to preserve unity of faith among the whole people. Sacrifices were intended to show the people: 1. They deserved the death which victims endured. 2. Expiation was only by blood, typical of the blood of Jesus Christ. But there was no repentance for sin, no true appropriation of sacrificial merit—for they were not led to holy faith; nay, their ceremonies licensed them to freer sin. Thus they were “lying words,” when the signs were separated from their end.
Dealing dishonestly with God brings delusions upon ourselves; and the three steps are: 1. Wilful dishonesty. 2. Self-delusion. 3. Inevitable destruction.
Jer_7:9-10. Theme: DETESTABLE GUILT UNDER SANCTION OF RELIGION.
“Will ye steal, murder, &c., and come and stand before Me, and say, We are delivered to do all these abominations?”
An outcry of Divine revulsion and indignation. In the presence of such profanity even God stands appalled; and utters Himself in exclamations of horror: “What! to steal? to murder? &c. And yet come and stand before Me in this house!”
1. What appalling criminality is here! Surely such sins could only have been perpetrated in some “dark place of the earth, full of the habitations of cruelty.” But lo! in Jerusalem!—in the very centre of sacred revelations and holy privileges.
2. What treachery against Jehovah is here! Surely the result of ignorance; “they knew not what they did;” for had they known the right, they never could have done such wrongs (Jer_7:10), insulted God and polluted His house. Alas! they knew the right; but sinned thus foully amid fullest light, and notwithstanding the persuasions and protests of God’s prophet. Consider, with amaze:
I. Into what revolting iniquities godly men may relapse (Jer_7:9). Yes, “godly men;” for they believed, and boasted themselves such (Jer_7:10).
1. The glaring enormity of their sins. Set forth in two trios: (a.) Violation of civil laws and domestic decencies: “steal, murder, commit adultery;” outraged the security of property, sacredness of life, sanctity of homes. (b.) Violation of sacred laws and Divine obligations: “swear falsely, incense to Baal, walk after other gods.” “Swear falsely” may mean perjury, or be an allusion to former charges (comp. Jer_4:2, Jer_5:2), of swearing by false gods. Then this second trio of crimes points to their idolatrous oaths, idolatrous homage, idolatrous service: “swear, burn incense, walk after.”
2. The special aggravation of their guilt. They knew better; their guilt was wilful, habitual, and persistent; their sins were manifold; they committed themselves to evil fearlessly, without restraint, in open shamelessness; they did not even shun the worst and most horrible forms of sin—violence to property, life, and virtue; they wronged each other and then insulted God. (a.) Rejection of God’s laws. (b.) Outrage of social rights and happiness. (c.) Adoration presented to that abominable thing, Baal. (d.) Substitution of unknown deities in God’s stead: thus they deserted Jehovah notwithstanding all they “knew” of His grace, miraculous favours, and resplendent glories, and sought out idols of whom they knew nothing. Thereby they injured their own selves, their happiness, peace, and safety; “to your own hurt” (Jer_7:6). Wrong always avenges itself upon wrongdoers. (Comp. Heb_10:26, sq.).
II. Unto what audacious effronteries and excuses hypocrisy may attain. (Jer_7:10; cf. Eze_23:39.)
1. Their detestable attitude of piety. There was no piety in their hearts, yet there they “stand” in their brazen hypocrisy “before Me,” as though having done nothing offensive, and having no cause for confusion of face.
2. Their insolent pollution of holy scenes. “In this house,” where such godly kings and worshippers have done true homage; where your pious king Josiah so recently restored religious services. “Which is called by My name,”—which bears My name (Hitzig); on which my glory rests (Keil). In the holy place of the tabernacles of the Most High these polluted hypocrites dared to come!
3. Their blasphemous language of self-extenuation. “We are delivered,” &c.; i.e., by our temple sacrifices we have atoned for our sins, and therefore are free to start afresh upon new courses of wickedness (Speaker’s Com.) We are discharged from our guilt; now it shall do us no hurt (Henry). We have appeased God’s wrath by our offerings, and turned aside all punishment for our sins, now we may go on again in “doing abominations.” Their standing before God and service in the temple, were put in substitution for the holy living God required, and used as an excuse for continuance in sin, and as a guarantee against threatened punishment. (Addenda to chap. 7, “Insolent profanity.”)
[“They thought themselves freed from guilt when they had offered their sacrifices, and at liberty again to be immoral and idolatrous. We might think such a state of infatuation impossible, but it has existed among those calling themselves Christians, and exists now. Gataker mentions a common saying among ignorant Papists, ‘We must sin to be shriven, and shriven to sin.’ The turning of the grace of God into lasciviousness is the same thing.”—Ed. of Calvin.]
Jer_7:11. Theme: ROBBERY IN THE SANCTUARY.
It was no mere conjecture, an exaggerated supposition. “Behold, even I have seen it, saith the Lord.” The charge points to:
I. The robbery of the temple services of their cleansing design. By such miscreants as you are (Jer_7:9), consorting here and coming here with the design to secure immunity to sin and impunity from punishment, ye rob My temple of its true end, its services of their significance and intention, and make this house an asylum for malefactors,—a robbers’ retreat. There they comforted themselves in their iniquities, acquired fresh assurance in sinning, and used the place designed to terminate sin, by expiating it on the altar and extinguishing it in the heart, as a shelter for encouraging, licensing, and fortifying themselves in iniquity.
II. The spoliation of its services of their acceptableness to God. They were fragrant and well-pleasing to Him as expressions of penitence for sin and the return of the soul in humility and faith to Him; but abhorrent when, as now, they were used superstitiously as convenient external methods for quieting the conscience and licensing crime. Better that there be no temple and no sacrifices, than that men should use them so perversely. Thus they robbed the services of all worth to God, and made them an evil savour to Him.
III. The discredit cast upon Jehovah’s holiness and glory. These vile worshippers, encouraging their profanity in God’s very house, virtually made God the patron of their enormities. So all who use Christianity as a cloak for their sins, or as a convenient expiation of daily evils, which are neither repented of nor abandoned, make Christ a minister of sin. Religion is thereby travestied, and the holy Lord degraded,—His character is contaminated. It was charged upon Christ, “Friend of publicans and sinners,” as implying He Himself was no better than those who gathered around Him, ignoring the fact that Christ only befriended sinners in order to save them from further sinning.
IV. The withholding from God of His true deserts. “He desired not sacrifice; the sacrifices of God are a broken heart and contrite spirit.” He asked not ceremonial homage, but the adoration of the reverent soul; not altar-services, but life obedience. “Will a man rob God?” Yes: see Mal_1:7; Mal_1:10; Mal_1:13-14; Mal_3:8. So do all who offer Him the mere “form of godliness;” hymns sung without heart, prayers offered with spiritless routine, service rendered without joyous love, gifts bestown without grace in the heart, profession made where there is no true piety behind; the flippant cry, Lord, Lord! but not doing the things that He commands; the Olivet “Hosannah!” followed by the Pretorium “Crucify Him!” the impulsive testimony, “I will go with Thee to prison and judgment,” ending in, “I know not the man.” Heartless piety is a robbery of the best and most prized offerings which the holy God can receive.
V. The grief and indignation of God over such profanity. “Behold, even I have seen it.” His eyes behold, and His eyelids try the children of men. The fair show in the flesh carries well with men, but Jesus, when He found the leafy tree fruitless, cursed it! “I hate robbery for a burnt-offering.” (Addenda to chap. 7, “Sacrilege.”)
Note: The limestone ranges of Palestine were full of inaccessible caves, whither robbers sheltered themselves securely from the penalties of their violent deeds. In like manner, these “robbers” sought refuge in the sanctuary from the consequences of guilt, but were in no disposition to abandon their evil ways: for they “loved the gains” and indulgences “of unrighteousness,” the “pleasures of sin.”
“Den of robbers;” words adopted by Christ in upbraiding the defilers of the temple (Mat_21:13), and suggesting the parallel in the spiritual prostitution and moral degradation of Jerusalem in Jeremiah’s days and our Lord’s time. The like evil state merited like condemnation, and led on to like disasters and overthrow.
Jer_7:12-14. Theme: VIOLATED SANCTUARIES DOOMED.
No place, however sacred, Shiloh or Jerusalem, will be spared from overthrow, when wickedness has desecrated its sanctity. Jehovah Himself will “overturn and overturn” where His reign is impeded and His holiness impugned by profanity. Nothing evil shall escape, because, forsooth, it once bore a better character. Shiloh, God’s first resting-place, falls into disrepute because of iniquity. Even “angels, who kept not their first estate,” were outcast from their former dignity and blessedness. Israel, though once “holiness to the Lord” (Jer_2:3), was banished into captivity. “The righteousness of the righteous man shall not deliver him in the day of his transgression” (Eze_33:12). Violated sanctuaries are overthrown.
I. A historic fact (Jer_7:12). 1. Easily verified: “Go to Shiloh and see.” 2. Fully accounted for: “On account of the wickedness,” &c. 3. God’s own work: “See what I did to it.” Where “I set My name at the first,” there see My work of desolation. For God will let no profaned thing stand.
II. A present peril (Jer_7:13-14).
1. No exemption because of special favour. Shiloh was God’s “first” resting-place; it had, therefore, the tender charm of being His earliest abode, and the honour of antiquity.
2. Like provocations evoke like consequences (Jer_7:13). The evils which came upon “my people Israel” will not be evaded by Judah if Jerusalem is desecrated by “abominations” as Shiloh was by “wickedness.”
3. No self-assurance of immunity will avert the result. “This house wherein ye trust” (Jer_7:14), and of whose security ye boast (Jer_7:4), will perish notwithstanding. Our confidence will be of no avail.
III. A symbolic truth. Pass from material fabrics to the larger application, and—1. There are temples still which bear God’s holy name,—not only sanctuaries, but ecclesiastical systems and sects, on which Christians pride themselves, and of which they boast (Jer_7:4). And there are personal shrines, believing hearts, where Christ has rested; and many, many are the Christian hearts wherein His Spirit still dwells, as truly as in the “house at Shiloh” and “temple at Jerusalem” (2Co_6:16; Eph_2:21-22). 2. God’s indwelling presence may be alienated and lost. Not a safe theory that “once a Christian always a Christian.” 3. To retain the Divine presence we must maintain the “holiness which becometh His house.” 4. There are souls which have known the light and love of God now desolated. Like ancient Shiloh and beautiful Jerusalem, and the graceful churches of Asia—forsaken: so Judas and Demas, and those who have “made shipwreck of faith and a good conscience.” (See Heb_10:38.) And “if any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are” (1Co_3:16-17).
Jer_7:13. Theme: GOD’S EARNESTNESS IN DEALING WITH SINNERS.
The earnestness and activity which prophets exhibited in seeking to rouse the nation to realise and avert the nearing destruction, God appropriates to Himself: it was Jehovah Himself earnest and active. His prophets were but channels along which the Divine fervour flowed. It was God who “rose early and spake.” Shows
I. Deep solicitude. “Rising up early, I spake, I called.” 1. Apprehensive of Judah’s danger. 2. Anxious for Judah’s salvation. 3. Awake to Judah’s help. God did not, does not, wait till entreated to act for imperilled sinners’ good: He “rises early,” ere men realise peril, and “seeks to save.”
II. Zealous effort. Solicitude does not remain passive: rises and calls. 1. God is astir when efforts are made for human weal: “Rising up.” 2. God works at most auspicious hours: “Early;” while opportunity is yet before the sinner, and when his heart is most open to sacred influences. 3. God Himself speaks to man by those He sends: “I spake.” He is too concerned individually in man’s welfare to stand apart from endeavouring to rescue and help.
III. Incessant ministries. “Rising up early and speaking,” a metaphor for ceaseless vigilance and endeavour. (Comp. Jer_25:4, Jer_26:5, Jer_29:19.) 1. Abundantly. 2. Assiduously. 3. Continuously.
IV. Pleading appeals. God’s messages were characterised by the same qualities as His efforts; they were earnest and fervent also. 1. Direct in their aim: “Spake to you.” 2. Diverse in their tone: “I spake,” with quiet solemnity; “I called, with urgent importunity.
V. Barren results. “Ye heard not, ye answered not.” 1. Heedlessness of the heavenly word. 2. Resistance of Divine importunity. 3. Abuse of “the abundant grace.” 4. Provocative of merited wrath (Jer_7:14). When speaking is fruitless, God acts: “Therefore will I do,” &c.
“God is earnest, do not stay:
Thou may’st perish e’en to-day.”
Jer_7:15. Theme: RUINED NATIONALITIES.
How do Jehovah’s majesty and might stand out upon our thought when we see Him dealing thus with whole nations! What magnitude! To Him the “nations are but as a drop in the bucket:” it awes and solemnises us to see God lifting up an entire kingdom, “Ephraim,” and “casting it out of sight,” from their land and their God; and now declaring He will do similarly with Judah. Who will not fear before Him?
“All your brethren:” whose were the covenants, and promises, and fathers, as much as they are yours; yet their sacred ancestry and privileges afforded them no protection.
“The whole seed of Ephraim:” i.e., the ten tribes; superior, therefore, in numbers, resources for defence, and power of resistance. Yet all proved worthless when God’s disfavour was incurred. Profaned places and profane people God abhors and will reject.
I. There is comprehensive breadth in God’s proceedings. Moves with majestic tread, controls great nations with His will, determines the fate of empires with a word. Greater still: He “loved the world,” and will judge “all peoples and nations.”
II. There is appalling magnitude in God’s overthrows. The whole ten tribes outcast from Him: now Judah to be swept away in contempt! For “casting out” is an act of contempt as well as violence. What mighty empires are wrecks! Great Babylon, Nineveh, Rome, God stamped them into dust.
III. There is solemn forewarning in God’s judgments. God proceeds uniformly in the administrations of His justice. What He did to Israel for her “wickedness,” He will do also for Judah if her cause of condemnation be equal (Jer_7:14). The experiences of others stand as an admonition and a warning. Like sins incur like sentences (Luk_13:2-5).
Jer_7:16. Theme: INTERCESSORY PRAYER FORBIDDEN.
Jeremiah did sometimes check himself in uttering direful prophecies, and betake himself to passionate and mournful prayer; stopped short, as it were, God’s word of doom to man, and interposed man’s word of pleading to God. (Comp. Jer_14:7-9; Jer_14:19-22, Jer_18:20.) What preacher has not likewise interrupted proclamation with invocation? Who, that carries dark tidings, has not paused first near God in the anguish of prayer? Pity, patriotism, piety, all conspire often to drive the prophet from his feet to his knees (comp. 1Sa_12:23.) (Addenda to chap. 7, “Intercessory prayer.”)
I. A specification of the varied aspects of prayer.
General petitions: “Pray.” Supplicatory entreaty (with loud voice and pathos): “Lift up cry.” Importunate pleading: “Make intercession.”
[There are three things forbidden. Be not an intercessor (i.e., undertake not their cause as one who mediates between a judge and a criminal); nor a deprecator of evils (i.e., lamenting their woes, and crying suppliantly for mercy); nor a solicitor of favours (i.e., entreating Me to deal graciously with them). Interceding mercy, lamenting evils, entreating favours.—Ed. of Calvin.]
II. The power of earnest prayer Divinely acknowledged. He bids Jeremiah restrain it, refrain from it. It would stand in God’s way as a barrier, a hindrance. Thus with Moses (Exo_32:10). “Let Me alone!” pleads God. The Almighty is both restrained and constrained by “the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man” (Num_11:2; Num_14:13-20; Num_16:22).
III. Prevailing intercessory prayer is dependent on conditions.
1. The slate of the people must be remediable. 2. The hour of hope must not have been lost. When Moses prevailed the people were but stepping into the Theocracy; they sinned, but it was through lack of training and knowledge. Now they had known all inducements to godliness, nothing more could be done to keep them right; God had exhausted His resources of persuasion upon them. In this condition neither the intercession of Moses, Samuel, or Jeremiah could avail for them (see chap. Jer_15:1). Their day of grace was gone. (See also Joh_5:16.)
IV. No prayerful outcry may interpose to stay God’s imperative justice. And now their case demanded retribution, for every persuasive had been abused. The Intercessor could plead, “Let be this year also!” and was heard, because there were yet other remediable processes availing; “Till I dig about it,” &c. But if after that it continued fruitless, “Cut it down!” This was Judah’s case.
“God here forbids prayer for them, for they have sinned unto death, therefore, pray not for their life, the life of their souls (1Jn_5:16). See here: 1. That God’s prophets are praying men. 2. That God’s praying prophets have a great interest in heaven, how little soever they have on earth. 3. It is an ill omen to a people when God restrains the spirits of His ministers and people from praying for those condemned. 4. Those that will not regard good ministers’ preaching cannot expect any benefit by their praying. If you will not hear us when we speak from God to you, God will not hear us when we speak to Him for you.”—Henry.
Jer_7:17-18. Theme: UNABASHED APOSTASY.
Not hidden from gaze, but in open streets, shameless! Though Jehovah’s temple rose in dignity before their eyes, and even threw its colossal shadow across the streets where they practised their idolatries, they were not restrained, “neither could they blush.”
I. Religious devotion the secret of general and tireless activities. Though erroneous, nevertheless it impels to service and sacrifice as nothing else can do. Much more should it inspire diligence when true. All hands to the work. And “both hands earnestly,” for much to be done.
1. Enlists all ages and sexes. 2. Incites each to appropriate effort. 3. Combination in service effects speedy results and sure success.
II. Noble energies lavished upon ignoble superstitions.
For what end was all this? Alas! look out upon heathen scenes, where devotees squander years, treasures, life; and for what? Look also on votaries of pleasure, pursuers of wealth, &c.; the eager lives with which modern civilised society is full; for what end do men live and labour?
III. Prostituted homage awakens the indignation of God. For here it was not done in ignorance, but wantonly and wilfully.
1. Perversion of the true aim and design of man’s being. God made man for Himself—a jealous God. 2. Ignores God’s claim on human service, loyalty, and love. He merited their trust and devotion. 3. Enslaves men’s soul in ruinous vices. “O Israel! destroyed thyself.” 4. Provoking Heaven’s wrath by despising His love. Deliberate design, “that they may provoke,” &c. What a reversion of our true relation to God, and our experience at His hand; for “God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ!”
Jer_7:19. Theme: REFLEX CONSEQUENCES OF SIN.
They harmed themselves more than God (cf. Deu_32:16; Deu_32:21; Job_35:6; Job_35:8; Pro_8:23): for
i. They forfeited present consolation and assurance. “There is no place to the wicked.”
ii. They entailed future confusion and calamity. Shame would come, and with it ruin.
Jer_7:21. Theme: SACRIFICES CONTEMNED AND COUNTERMANDED.
“Put your burnt-offerings,” &c. I will not accept them. Take away your burnt-offerings which ye are about to lay upon Mine altar as a whole burnt-sacrifice to Me. I will have none of them (comp. Jer_6:20); put them on your own tables, and eat them yourselves. They are not burnt-offerings, holy to God, but are mere flesh, to be eaten by men. So our Lord said to the Jews concerning the temple, “Your house” (it is no longer God’s, for ye have profaned it by your sins, and therefore He has forsaken it) “is left unto you desolate.”—Wordsworth.
Jer_7:22. “I SPAKE NOT CONCERNING SACRIFICES.”
The apparent contradiction between this statement and the fact that the Mosaic institutes abound in sacrificial enactments may be removed in two ways:
i. That moral obligation was inculcated upon the Hebrews before the sacrificial code (cf. Exo_15:26; Exo_19:5). Then follows the proclamation of the moral code, amidst all the solemnities of Sinai. Not till afterwards were regulations given respecting sacrifices, which properly belonged to the Levitical law. Hence God reminds them here, “I spake not in the day that I brought them out of Egypt.”
ii. It is not unusual for the Hebrews to express in absolute terms what is to be understood relatively and comparatively. Thus “to hate,” = to love less (Gen_29:30-31; Mal_1:2-3). According to this idiom the meaning will be: That ritual observances were regarded by God as matters of secondary importance (see Luk_14:26; Mat_10:37; Hos_6:6; 1Sa_15:22); and that when these are substituted for moral duties and supreme love to Himself, God retorts with merited reprobation (comp. Hend.). Similarly our Lord states negatively what was of inferior importance: “Labour not for the meat which perisheth; but for that which endureth” (Joh_6:27).
Calvin thinks “Jeremiah seems to speak too contemptibly of sacrifices; for they were seals of God’s grace, and had been instituted to lead men to repentance of sin, and to realise they merited the death which the victim endured. But it is true that God commanded nothing respecting mere sacrifices for their own sake; it was never His will to be served with mere external rites; His design in instituting them was to remind the Jews of their sin, and also to show to them the way of reconciliation.”
Venema suggests that there is a repudiation of sacrifices as the basis of God’s covenant with His people. Obedience and not sacrifice was the condition of this sacred relationship. God did not say, “If you sacrifice to Me, I will be your God;” but, “If you obey My voice, I will be your God and you shall be My people.”
Evidently the antithesis, “Not concerning sacrifice.… But this thing, Obey!”—points to the basis and terms of the Sinaitic covenant; and what is here affirmed is, that when that covenant was made and entered into, obedience was the supreme and essential factor in that covenant. To withhold obedience, therefore, and to substitute mere sacrifice, was to withhold that on which the continuance of God’s covenant relationship absolutely depended. In Amo_5:25, God reminds them that for forty years He dispensed altogether with sacrifices, ergo, they could not be of primary importance.
Note: Hitzig, Graf, and others find in this passage proof that Jeremiah was ignorant of that part of the Pentateuch which contains sacrificial enactments; “that at his time nothing was known of the legislation on sacrifice given by God on Sinai.” This gives them an argument for denying that Moses was the author of the middle books of the Pentateuch, and for ascribing their authorship to Ezra. But this is manifestly a “wresting the Scriptures.” No canon of criticism can sustain such an interpretation of these words. They do not deny the Divine authority of sacrifices, but assign to them a subservient place. (Addenda to chap. 7, “Sacrifices.”)
Jer_7:22-23. Theme: SACRIFICES SUBSTITUTED FOR OBEDIENCE
An external piety offered to God, while righteousness and true holiness are withheld.
I. Men are constantly adopting expedients by which to evade obedience. Obedience entails self-conquest, and daily service, and a surrendered life; sacrifice, on the contrary, is soon offered, and costs less. 1. An easier offering. 2. A shorter process. 3. A smaller surrender.
II. God prefers an obedient life to any sacrificial oblation.
Obedience is preferable to sacrifice: 1. As denoting a better spirit. 2. As involving a fuller compliance. 3. As containing a gentler law—not suffering, but service. “For I desired mercy, not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt-offerings.” “And to love Him with all the understanding, &c., is more than all whole burnt-offering and sacrifice. Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, and said, Thou art not far from the kingdom of God!”
Jer_7:24. God had commanded them (Jer_7:23), “Walk ye in all the way,” &c.; but instead, they “walked in the counsels and in the imaginations (properly, stubbornness) of their evil heart.” (See on chap. Jer_3:17.) The result was: they moved in a totally opposite direction from that in which God designed. Note: God’s way for us is not merely deserted, but positively reversed, when we follow our own way. (Comp. Isa_53:6; Heb_3:12.) To pursue our “counsels” we have to turn our back upon both God and His commands.
Theme: BACKWARD.
On going backward in regard to the great matter of practical religion.
I. Illustrations of going backward in regard to religion.
An advanced state of religious knowledge, of moral purity, of spiritual power may be attained, from which men may go backward. Illustrations:
1. From the history of the Jewish nation. Compare best days of Solomon, when temple was dedicated, with these when Jeremiah preached at gate. National mind darkened, conscience enfeebled, heart hardened. People gone backward in Divine knowledge, moral rectitude, devout feeling (Isa_1:3-4; Isa_1:21-23).
2. Churches may go backward—e.g., Galatia (Gal_3:1-3; Gal_5:7-8), Ephesus (Rev_2:4), Sardis (Rev_3:1).
3. Individual life furnishes saddest illustrations. (a.) Brought up in Christian home; go back into thoughtlessness, dissipation, and infidelity. (b.) Awakened by the power of truth, and gained a place in the household of faith; go backward and “make shipwreck of faith and good conscience. (c.) Trod noblest heights of Christian service; go backward to stagnation and ease. “Demas hath forsaken,” &c. (2Ti_4:10).
II. Consider, for conviction and warning, some of the causes of this going backward. Negatively: (1.) God never causes a human being to go backward from what is pure and good and true. (2.) Nor must the charge be laid at the door of men or of Satan. 1. The primary cause of retrogression must be sought in man himself, in his inclination to the things which are behind; in spiritual feebleness. 2. The secondary causes are temptations; the lusts, pleasures, and gains he desires to enjoy. 3. His weakness in yielding results from neglect of the means of strength, the Word of God, prayer, means of instruction and grace.
III. Contemplate some consequences of going backward in regard to religion. Jewish history full of records of misery, affliction, desolation, conquest, captivity, which resulted from apostasy. But what are the consequences of apostasy from Christian profession and life? 1. The displeasure of the great God (Heb_10:38). 2. Such as turn back are liable to sink into the very lowest depths of irreligion (2Pe_2:20-22). 3. Experience of deepest remorse and reproach of conscience.
(1.) Stand fast in the Lord. (2.) Despair not, but return.—Rev. R. Ann, “Christian World Pulpit.”
Jer_7:24-29. Theme: DISOBEDIENCE TO GOD’S WORD.
I. Its cause. 1. Not neglect on God’s part to make known His Word to men (Jer_7:25). 2. Not the imperfect performance by the preacher of his duties (Jer_7:27); but, 3. The hardness of men’s hearts; who (a.) walk after their evil imaginations and counsels (Jer_7:24); (b.) do not hear or believe (Jer_7:28), and do not wish to improve (Jer_7:26).
II. Its consequences. 1. Increasing moral corruption (Jer_7:24; Jer_7:26). 2. Rejection on the part of God (Jer_7:29).—Naeg.
Jer_7:25-28. Theme: SAD CHARACTERISTICS OF AN UNBELIEVING EPOCH.
i. Contempt of the preaching of the Divine Word.
ii. Stiff-neckedness in respect to the visitations of Divine chastisements.
iii. Increase of wickedness in spite of all the warnings of the past.—From Lange.
Theme: A PEOPLE RIPE FOR DESTRUCTION. When?
i. When it despises the visitations of Divine grace (Jer_7:25).
ii. When it hardens itself in unbelief against God’s Word and voice (Jer_7:26-27).
iii. When in spite of Divine judgments it departs the more into sin (Jer_7:26; Jer_7:28).—Idem.
Theme: ISRAEL A WARNING EXAMPLE OF PREVAILING UNBELIEF.
Their example is admonitory to us in our own times.
i. With respect to their ingratitude for God’s gracious visitations.
ii. With respect to their opposition to the true friends of the nation.
iii. With respect to their frivolity in view of inevitable destruction.—Idem.
Jer_7:27. Theme: GOD’S FOREKNOWLEDGE OF THE SINNER’S REFUSAL OF HIS WORD.
The infinitely perfect God knows all things. Ignorance incompatible with His originating and governing power. This true not only of material things, but of mind, thoughts, and actions of all His intelligent and moral creatures. So that all we freely do is known to Him, and His government is adapted to all such creatures. Jeremiah is to tell Judah God’s will, make known His Word; yet it is added, “They will not hearken.” We understand their condition as described Jer_7:23-24; Eze_2:7. But there is a peculiarity in telling them, and yet knowing they will not regard.
I. Seek for instances illustrative of text, where God knew His Word would not be regarded, nor His messages answered.
1. The original transgression of our first parents. God’s Word clear, easy, distinct; yet He knew how they would act; saw hearts.
2. The old world. He saw rise of evil and progress; yet Noah preached 120 years, built ark; Spirit strove.
3. Pharaoh, Moses and Aaron are sent, miracles wrought, God’s messages proclaimed, demands enforced; yet He knew Pharaoh would harden his heart and sin to his destruction.
4. Jews as a nation. How prophets and holy men went to them. John also and Christ Yet God knew their unbelief and cruelty. Christ referred to this in His own ministry; He declared their obstinacy and ruin. So that text is but one of many cases in Word of God.
II. How can this be explained and defended? Unless God did know results such as described:
1. He would be imperfect; not the all-wise, infallible God, and He could not govern His world. But His perfect knowledge of the future
2. Does not make Him the cause of the rebellion He foretells. He does not predestinate it, but foreknows it. Just as He foreknew Noah’s sin, yet did not make him drunk; murder of Abel, yet did not impel Cain to the deed, &c. The astronomer by calculation foreknows every visible and invisible eclipse of the year, but does not produce them.
3. He never influences men to do wrong because He foresees it (Act_2:23). Though God designed His Son to be a Saviour, and hence a sacrifice, and foresaw the conduct of the Jews, they freely and wickedly crucified Him.
4. There are many ends to be attained by God. By His speaking, though He knows men will not hearken:
(a.) God exhibits His true desire for their salvation. He truly, earnestly calls. (b.) He thereby treats men as reasonable and responsible beings. (c.) He thus leaves them without excuse. “I called, but ye refused,” &c.
Conclusion: (1.) Man’s free agency is his glory. (2.) God’s infinite goodness is undoubted. (3.) Our duty is most manifest; to hear, obey, believe. (4.) Thus men will be finally inexcusable, having had means employed for their restoration to holiness and God.—J. Burnes, D.D.
Comments.
“But they will not hearken unto thee.” Howbeit, speak—“whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear”—for a testimony against them.—Trapp.
“It was a most grievous trial to the prophet to know that his words would pass away with the air and produce no good. His mind must have been greatly depressed; for he doubtless laboured for the good of his own nation. Yet his sympathy and sorrow (for he loved his nation and felt great grief in declaring God’s coming judgments) did not prevent him from executing in a bold manner and with unshaken zeal what God had committed to him.… God then declares to his servant what would be the issue, in order that he might not cease to execute his office with invincible courage, even if no fruit appeared.”—Calvin.
Jer_7:28. “This is a nation that obeyeth not,” &c. Rather, This is the nation. “Israel occupies so unique a position among all nations that for it to disobey God is marvellous. (See Isa_1:3; Jer_2:11)”—Speaker’s Com.
The prophet is not here bidden to address the Jews, but to pronounce on them a sentence, that the whole world might know how base and detestable had been their contumacy, and how abominable their impiety.—Calvin.
“Truth is perished.” The ancient versions and the Targum render אֱמוּנָה (truth) by πίστις, fides, faith or fidelity. (See on chap. Jer_5:3.) Their conduct was utterly perfidious toward man as well as God.
“Is cut off from their mouth”—i.e., their language has become wholly insincere, mere mockery, profession without intention; their lips flippantly used Jehovah’s name, and could “swear by Him” (chap. Jer_5:2); but duplicity, falsity, was their settled habit in speech as in practice. No “truth” remained in either their word or deed.
Jer_7:29. Comments.
“Cut off thine hair.” The word rendered “hair” is nêzer, and signifies a crown. From it the Nazarites obtained their name, for their hair was the badge of their consecration to God, their crown (Num_6:5; Num_6:7). Cutting off this hair was equivalent to abandonment of the consecrated character. Her profanation entailed the loss of her crown (comp. Lam_5:16); her dignity, as well as her adornment and beauty (1Co_11:15) were forfeit.
Neumann would retain the literal interpretation of the word, and regard the command as implying the abandonment by Judah of national dignity, the total forfeiture of the crown; for her royalty, the kingly office, was lost entirely to the nation in the Babylonish captivity, never again restored.
Jer_7:29-34. Here is
I. A loud call to weeping and mourning (Jer_7:29). Jerusalem had been—1. A joyous city; now she must “take up lamentation.” 2. A consecrated city; now she must “cut off her hair,” in token both of sorrow and slavery; she must be degraded, separated from God, as she had been separated to Him. It is time for those who have lost their holiness to lay aside their joy.
II. Just cause given for this great lamentation.
1. The sin of Jerusalem appears here very heinous (Jer_7:30). Two things charged upon them in their idolatry: (a.) They were very impudent in it towards God, and set Him at defiance (Jer_7:30). (b.) They were very barbarous in it towards their own children (Jer_7:31). (Addenda to chap. Jer_7:31, “High places of Tophet.”)
2. The destruction of Jerusalem appears here very terrible. General misery (Jer_7:29). Sin makes those the “generation of God’s wrath” who had been the generation of His love. He disowns them. And He will give them up to the terrors of their own guilt. (a.) Death shall triumph over them (Jer_7:32-33). So great shall be the slaughter that even the spacious valley of Tophet shall not be able to contain the slain. (b.) Joy shall depart from them (Jer_7:34). God can soon mar the mirth of the most jovial, and make it to cease; which is a reason why we should “rejoice with trembling” (with reverence).—Henry.
Jer_7:30. “They have set their abominations in the house.” So do those now that broach heresies in the Church.—Trapp.
Jer_7:31. Theme: SINFULNESS OF WILL-WORSHIP. “Which I commanded them not.”
Hence it is justly concluded that i. To add anything to God’s Word (as of necessity to salvation), and to enforce it as an article of saving faith; and ii. To propose anything as an object of worship which God has not authorised, is hateful in His sight. Here, therefore, is a solemn protest against the worship of the Virgin Mary, the invocation of saints and angels, and other like acts of “will-worship” (Col_2:23), as prayers for the dead. What is not “commanded” in Scripture is, therefore, forbidden as an object of worship.—Wordsworth.
“The purpose of God was to teach His people both unto whom they should offer sacrifice, and what sacrifice was to be offered. To burn their sons in fire unto Baal He did not command them; He spake no such thing, neither came it into His mind; therefore this they ought not to have done. The prophet chooses rather to charge them with the fault of making a law unto themselves, than with the crime of transgressing a law which God made. For when the Lord hath once Himself precisely set down a form of executing that wherein we are to serve Him, the fault appeareth greater to do that which we are not, than not to do that which we are, commanded.”—Hooker, “Eccles. Pol.,” quoted in Wordsworth.
On creating objects of superstitious homage.
“God here cuts off from men every occasion for evasions, since He condemns by this one phrase, ‘I have not commanded them,’ whatever the Jews devised. There is, then, no other argument needed to condemn superstitions than that they are not commanded by God; for when men allow themselves to worship God according to their own fancies, and attend not to His commands, they pervert true religion. And if this principle were adopted by the Papists, all those fictitious modes of worship in which they absurdly exercise themselves would fall to the ground. When God says that ‘it never came into His mind,’ He suggests that men assume too much wisdom when they devise what He never required—nay, what He never knew.”—Calvin.
Jer_7:30-34
i. Sacrilege (Jer_7:30), and ii. Superstitions (Jer_7:31), would entail iii. Slaughter (Jer_7:32-33) and iv. Sorrow (Jer_7:34); joy silenced, homes solitary, and the land spoiled. “The wages of sin is death.” (Addenda to chap. Jer_7:32. “Punishment”)
NOTICEABLE TOPICS IN CHAPTER 7
Topic: THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH (Jer_7:3-7).
I. The Church externally. Fulfils beneficent purposes, administers external benefits. 1. What are her ministries? The Word, sacrament, &c. 2. How far are her external ministries essential? Romanism and Protestantism reply differently. 3. What reasons have we for guarding against danger? The Church may be overestimated (Jer_7:4).
II. The Church internally. Her true constitution and character are indicated. 1. It is essentially a community of saints and true believers (Jer_7:5-7). 2. Its existence is manifested—(a.) In the holy walk of its members (Jer_7:3; Jer_7:5-6). (b.) In the blessings of the Divine presence (Jer_7:3; Jer_7:7).—Naeg.
Topic: EXTERNAL ECCLESIASTICISM (Jer_7:8-15).
An earnest warning against mere outward adherence to, and trust in, church ordinances and services, unaccompanied by practical piety and heart religion.
I. Its essence. 1. False confidence in church testimony (Jer_7:8). 2. Delusive trust in the unconditional saving efficacy of sanctuary rites (Jer_7:10).
II. Its consequences. 1. Demoralisation (Jer_7:9-10). 2. Desecration of the holy (Jer_7:11). 3. Destruction of the offenders (Jer_7:12-15).—Idem.
Topic: ABUSE OF RELIGION: IMMORALITY JUSTIFIED BY TEMPLE OBSERVANCES (Jer_7:9-10).
Nothing more usual among hypocrites than to mingle and confound in their lives what is commendable and what is sinful—virtue and vice—palliating their wickedness with some pretences and appearance of goodness. Here they attended upon the ordinances of the temple, and from them drew a licence to sinful courses, crying, “The temple of the Lord,” &c. (Jer_7:4).
I. Their abominable hypocrisy. Consisting in their profaneness, in “theft, murder,” &c. (Jer_7:9); and their formality, in “coming and standing before God in His house.” These words may be taken in a sense
i. Absolutely and positively. This question, Will ye steal, &c., has included in it an assertion, ye do so; and an accusation, for by God’s direction Jeremiah charged upon this people their guilt in these respects. Regard this profaneness and formality as meeting in the same persons. 1. Their consistency; they may go together, it is possible. Men may “steal,” &c., and yet “come before God in His house;” and men may “stand before God,” &c., and yet be guilty of such crimes. The reason is, that bare external works of religion have no changing or improving influence upon the heart. On the other side, corrupt affections, which tend to such wicked practices, do not restrain men from external performance of religious duties. It is no impediment to wrong-doing now and then to go to church; yea, frequenting ordinances may give licence to lust. 2. Their concomitancy: they do go together. No rare business for profane men to be at the duties of religion. There is double ground for it. (a.) To blind the eyes of men. (b.) To stop the mouth of conscience. All this shows a sad and miserable condition. Its relevancy to Popery, which encourages outward attendance upon ordinances, yet lets loose “the lusts which war against the soul.”
ii. Interrogatively and expostulatory. “Will ye steal, … and come and stand,” &c.? The Lord calls this people to an account for this admixture of profaneness and formality. This expostulation has a double emphasis with it.
1. How can ye do so in regard of yourselves? How satisfy your minds and consciences with such kind of doings? God appeals to their own judgment, can ye think it fitting? This is the great unhappiness of hypocrites and formalists, they are condemned of themselves. Their actions were incongruous and repugnant.
2. How can ye do so in regard of Me? Can ye think to please Me by such ways? The Lord thus not only argues with them, but reproves them. (a.) He taxes them for their formality in that they thought to propitiate Him by their bare external performances. He requires external duties of religion; their actions in this respect were good, but their affections were bad (comp. Isa_29:13; Mat_15:8; Eze_33:31). This was odious in God’s sight, as a piece of sacrilege—robbing God of His due; of dissimulation—pretends to worship, but denies God the frame of his heart, although “He desires truth in the inward parts;” and it is un rofitable—neither bettering the heart, nor restraining from evil practices. (b.) He taxes them for their presumption, in that they durst approach Him in their sinful indulgence (comp. Isa_1:11-12; Isa_56:3; Psa_50:16-17; Lev_10:3). Here is an aggravation of their sinfulness; for there is a trespassing upon God in His majesty—to come before Him in such vile habits showed they did not much regard Him; and there is a suspicion of God in His wisdom—they think He will not see or take notice of their vileness, and assay to flatter Him by some fair pretences. Also, here is an intimation of their greater danger. Will ye do it? Dare ye be so bold? Do ye consider the hazard ye run? There are three sorts of judgments which are commonly consequent upon such daringly guilty conduct: Spiritual—become more hardened and confirmed, increase their corruptions; Temporal—He inflicts grievous calamity on such, of which Scripture supplies instances: Eternal—the vengeance of everlasting destruction; “hypocrites have their portion in the lake,” &c. The greater sin has always the greater danger.
II. Their notorious stupidity. “And say, We are delivered to do all these abominations!” Different translations. The Septuagint (and Arabic) read the words thus: We have withdrawn or abstained from all, &c., i.e., they impudently deny their manifest wickedness. The Syriac thus: Deliver us, because we have abstained, &c.; more impudent still, not only to deny their notorious guilt, but also plead innocency as meritorious of preservation. But there are other translations specially to attend to. The Chaldee paraphrase (with which agrees the Geneva and Old English translation): “We are delivered, though,” &c. The rendering of St. Jerome and the Vulgate: “We are delivered, because,” &c. The authorised English version: “We are delivered, that we may,” &c., i.e., it is lawful to commit, &c.
1. Their security and insensibleness of their present condition in regard of sin: “We are delivered, though we commit, &c.; making their iniquities no hindrance to their preservation, as in Isa_28:15. There is a various ground for this carnal security: (a.) A false conceit in them of the mercy and indulgency of God (Psa_9:7). (b.) A freedom and preservation from judgment and punishment at the present. “We are delivered, and therefore shall be” (Ecc_8:11). (c.) Carnal refuges and reliances: they think it impossible they will be punished; and the Lord in this expostulation, Do ye say so? implies, Ye are mistaken in saying so.
2. Their stupidity; according to the reading, “We are delivered, because,” &c. Thinking that not only shall they receive no hurt in their sins, but that they shall have good for them; that the more they abound in abominations, the more they shall abound in deliverances (comp. Jer_44:17). Our iniquities are advantageous to us!
3. Their incorrigibleness and persistency, or their ingratitude and perverse improvement of God’s deliverances and preservations of them: “We are delivered to commit them,” i.e., as an opportunity for the more free commission of them. As if God had delivered them on purpose that they might “continue in sin.” This is met by the remonstrance of the text: “Will ye say so?” What a fearful thing is this! Such a mood calls for heaviest judgments, for they are the worst of sinners: means are perverted and mercy is abused; they are not bettered by God’s spiritual physic, and His “goodness,” which should “lead to repentance,” is turned into an occasion of wantonness. God will surely bring His dire woes on such, and make them at last and effectually to know that they are not “delivered to commit all these abominations.”—Th. Horton, D.D., A. D. 1678.
Topic: WHAT CAN CHILDREN DO FOR GOD? (Children’s Sermon): “The children gathered wood” (Jer_7:18).
A description here of honours which heathen pay to their gods. Though these idols were such stupid things, every one works for them. Should not, therefore, every one do work for our God? He is better than idols; and had done for us great things; and for such a God you ought to work.
I. God is setting up a kingdom in this world. A very glorious and gracious kingdom: “righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost” Righteousness—teaches us to do justice; peace—to love peace and pursue it; joy—God makes all happy who come into His kingdom.
II. God expects us all to work to set up this kingdom. Christ came to set it up; ministers preach and labour for it; missionaries go to heathen; all God’s people aid. Every one has something to do; and God expects each should do it.
III. Children can do something to set up this kingdom. The children did something when Christ rode into Jerusalem; “spread garments” and cried “Hosanna!” 1. You can pray; that God would make you subjects of this kingdom. 2. You can talk; speak to others about Jesus, pardon, God, heaven. 3. You can work; give to missionary society, deny yourselves to send Bibles to heathen.
IV. Children are always happy when trying to set up this kingdom. Why? Because make others happy. Angels are happy because they are employed in making others happy. God is happy, for He blesses every one. And, when we act like God, we ourselves are happy.
V. God will never forget the labours of little children for Him. When children wanted to come to Jesus, He noticed their disposition, and said, “Never prevent a child from coming to Me!” then took in arms and blessed. When they sang in temple, He noticed their song, and said, “Hearest thou what these say!” Josiah was only eight years old when he became king; and, because he was a good boy, it is put down in the Book of God that he gave money to the priests to build God’s house, and did everything in his power to serve God. God loves everything done for Him by children, because it is a proof of their obedience and love. May He give you His Holy Spirit and bless you, make you willing to labour for Christ now, that have His approval when you die, and dwell with Him in heaven.—James Sherman, A. D. 1844.
Topic: SACRED OVERTHROWS; MONUMENTAL WARNINGS. “See what I did to Shiloh” (Jer_7:12).
The world is full of historic overthrows: Nineveh, Babylon, Rome, Herculaneum; each with an admonitory lesson—that its peculiar guiltiness evokes Heaven’s curse. But even holy edifices are among the ruins; though sanctioned both by antiquity and Divine authority. Sin shakes the strongest foundation, and the structure falls. Confidence in the inalienable sacredness and therefore security of a place is a delusion against which the ruins of holy scenes admonish us. Sacredness does give security; but if the former is lost, the latter is forfeit. Henry remarks:
I. Shiloh was ruined, though it had God’s sanctuary in it, when by wickedness it profaned that sanctuary. There God “set His name at the first” (Jos_18:1); but sin arose. Was it protected by its having the tabernacle? God forsook it (Psa_78:60); and we read of the city afterwards only as a monument of Divine vengeance upon holy places when they harbour wicked people. It is good to consult precedents and make use of them. “Remember Lot’s wife;” remember Shiloh, and seven Churches of Asia; and know that the ark and candlestick are movable things (Rev_2:5; Mat_21:43).
II. Shiloh’s fate would be Jerusalem’s doom, unless speedy and sincere repentance prevent it not. 1. Jerusalem was as sinful as ever Shiloh was (Jer_7:13). 2. Jerusalem should be as miserable as ever Shiloh was (Jer_7:14).
“The tabernacle and the sanctuary at Shiloh have disappeared; so also the temple built by Solomon, and the Ark of the Covenant itself; and even the temple re-erected without the ark by Zerubbabel; so too the temple of Herod. All the places consecrated by the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ and the ministry of His apostles have been destroyed, and given up to the abomination of desolation: Jerusalem, with the Mount of Olives and Golgotha, Bethlehem, Nazareth, the whole of Palestine, Asia Minor and Greece, became Christian, and yet fell a prey to the Crescent. All the less may Rome count on perpetuity, since the chair of Peter rests not on Divine, but on arbitrary human institution.”—Naeg.
ADDENDA TO CHAP. 7: ILLUSTRATIONS AND SUGGESTIVE EXTRACTS
Jer_7:4. “Proclaim there this word.”
The preacher.
“He that negotiates between God and man,
As God’s ambassador, the grand concerns
Of judgment and of mercy, should beware
Of lightness in his speech. ’Tis pitiful
To court a grin when you should woo a soul:
To break a jest when pity should inspire
Pathetic exhortation; and address
The skittish fancies with facetious tales
When sent with God’s commission to the heart.”
—COWPER.
Jer_7:4. “The temple of the Lord!” Ecclesiasticism. “They clung with a desperate tenacity to the hope that the local sanctity of Jerusalem was a sufficient safeguard against all calamities; and repeated, with that energy of iteration which only belongs to Eastern fanatics, the very name of the temple of Jehovah as an all-sufficing talisman.”—Stanley, “Jewish Church.”
“It is much easier to give oneself to a church or a sect than to God.”—Toplady.
“Men seem to think, Only let me get into the Church that has apostolicity, and catholicity, and orthodoxy!… An organised institution I believe in; but the New Testament idea of a Church was a moral society of those who had a common faith, hope and love. That Church which is most positive about its apostolicity, that thinks there is no other Church but itself in the world, is a mere crustaceous, not a spiritual, Church. And that Church which has the most altars, the most vestments, the most externalities, the most things that appeal to the lower nature of men, which has the most physical embodiment, and therefore occupies the largest space in men’s sight, is farthest from the true spiritual Church.”—Beecher.
Jer_7:5. Thoroughness. “I have tried for twenty years to be a half-way Christian,” said a business man on whom life’s cares pressed heavily, and over whom worldly allurements were very powerful, “and find it is impossible; we must be at one or the other extreme. And as for myself, I am determined to do my whole duty, and be a complete Christian.”
A proud Indian chief became deeply convicted of sin, and, trembling under a sense of guilt, sought the missionary, and proffered his belt of wampum to be freed from his anguish of fear. “No,” said the missionary, “Christ cannot accept such a sacrifice.” The Indian departed, but soon returned offering his rifle and the skins he had taken in hunting. “No,” was the reply, “Christ cannot accept such a sacrifice.” Again the Indian went away, but with a troubled conscience once more returned, and offered his wigwam, wife, child, everything, for peace and pardon. “No,” was still the reply, “Christ cannot accept such a sacrifice.” The chief seemed oppressed with surprise for a moment; then, lifting up tearful eyes to heaven, he feelingly cried out, “Here, Lord, take poor Indian too!”—Dictionary of Illustrations.
“Place not thy amendment only in increasing thy devotion, but in bettering thy life. This is the damning hypocrisy of this age, that it slights all good morality and spends its zeal in matters of ceremony, and a form of godliness without the power of it.”—Fuller.
Jer_7:7. Covenant. “God’s promises are with a condition, which is as an oar in a boat or stern of a ship, and turns the promise another way.”—Trapp.
The two Rabbis. A little while after the city of Jerusalem was destroyed, two Jewish rabbis were walking over its ruins. Both seemed affected at the mournful sight, but one wept, the other smiled. Turning to his companion, the one asked, “How can you smile now, when you see our holy city laid low in ruins?” “Nay,” replied the other, “let me rather ask you, Why do you weep?” “I weep,” said the first, “because I behold around me the fearful judgments of the Almighty. Our beautiful city is no more—our holy temple is laid waste—our brethren, where are they now?” “All that,” replied the other, “is the reason why I smile. I see, like you, how sure God’s judgments are; but I can learn how true must be His promises. God hath said, ‘I will destroy Jerusalem.’ I see He has; but He has also said, ‘I will rebuild Jerusalem.’ Shall I not believe His word?”
Jer_7:10. Insolent profanity. The very heathen refused to admit any polluted person to their religious services. That saying of Æneas to his father, when he came from the war, is a clear proof: Tu genitor, &c., “Father, do you meddle with the sacrifices; but as for me, it is a sinful thing to touch them till I have washed myself in the fountain.” This was an outward external rite amongst them for cleansing themselves. These heathen cried out to the people that came to sacrifice, “All you that are unclean and profane, go far from these sacrifices.” Not only the Word of God, but the very light of nature taught them not to meddle with holy things till they were sanctified.—Caryl.
In the mystical sacrifices of Ceres, profane persons were excluded, the priest calling out, ἕκας ἕκας ὅστις ἄλιτρος.
“I venerate the man whose heart is warm,
Whose hands are pure, whose doctrines and whose life,
Coincident, exhibit lucid proof
That he is honest in the sacred cause.”
—COWPER.
Jer_7:11. Sacrilege. The spirit of God will not have holy things profaned. Belshazzar converted the consecrated vessels of the temple into instruments of luxury and intemperance. Herod polluted the sepulchres of saints by a sacrilegious search for treasures presumed to be hidden there, and God made fire to rise out of the earth and consume the searchers. Antiochus ransacked the temple of the Lord. Heliodorus emptied the treasures of their consecrated monies. Pompey defiled the Sabbath and the sanctuary. Crassus robbed the house of God of 10,000 talents. But inquire into the event of these insolences, and we shall find that true then of which later ages give many examples, that ruin is the child of sacrilege, that mischief setteth a period to the lives and designs of profane men.—Bishop Reynolds.
Jer_7:16. Intercessory prayer. Luther had boundless confidence in the power and prevalency of prayer. “At the time the Diet of Nuremberg was held,” says Tholuck, “Luther was earnestly praying in his own dwelling; and at the very hour when the edict granting free toleration to all Protestants was issued, he ran out of his house, crying out, ‘We have gained the victory! Do you understand that?’ ” On another occasion, Melancthon was sinking into death through severe illness, and Luther entered his chamber. “We cannot spare you yet!” was Luther’s exclamation to his dying friend; and then he threw himself upon his knees in wrestling prayer. Then, seizing Melancthon’s hand, he said, “Be of good courage, Philip: thou shalt not die!” After his recovery, Melancthon wrote to Camerarius, “If Luther had not come to me, I should certainly have died; he recalled me from the gates of the grave.”
“More things are wrought by prayer
Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice
Rise like a fountain for me night and day,” &c.—TENNYSON’S “Morte d’Arthur.”
Jer_7:22. Sacrifices. Christ never despised sacrifice, but relatively He undervalued it. The idea of sacrifice among the Jews had taken precedence of humanity, justice, and right. (See Mat_5:23-24.) What does it mean but this, Do not think that sacrifice to God is the highest religious duty. Sacrifice depends for its value on preceding moral qualities. A principle is higher than the ordinance which you take to exhibit that principle. The life of religion in the soul is first in importance: the instruments by which you develop that life are of secondary consideration.—H. W. Beecher.
Jer_7:23. Obedience. Some persons would make religion to consist of little else than a self-denying course of the practice of virtue and obedience. They make it a kind of house-of-correction work. But no! I love the service of my God; like the bird, I fly on the wings of obedience to His holy will.—Chalmers.
Jer_7:31. “High places of Tophet.” In the parallel passages (Jer_19:5, Jer_32:35), Jeremiah substitutes the word “Baal,” thus identifying the two names. Probably “Tophet” was a contemptuous name for “Baal,” derived from תּוּף, to spit out, an object, therefore, of loathing. The word occurs in Job_17:6, and is rendered “tabret,” i.e., “I was as a contemptuous thing.” And it is to be noticed that in the consecutive verses (Isa_30:32-33) the word occurs twice, and is rendered “tabret” and “Tophet” respectively. Dr. W. Smith affirms that “the Hebrew words are nearly identical,” and hence concludes that “Tophet was probably the king’s ‘music-grove’ or garden, denoting originally nothing evil or hateful.” But Ewald, Hitzig, Gesenius, and others, appeal to Isa_30:33, “Fire and much wood; the breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it,” in favour of the meaning, place of burning, from תַף, to burn. This beautiful valley Josiah “defiled” (2Ki_23:10), pouring into it all the filth of the city, till it became a foul and revolting scene. Others suggest its significance to be “a drum,” because that instrument was employed to drown the cries of victims who were “caused to pass through the fire.” “To the worship of Molech a temple was dedicated in the valley of Hinnom, and infants sacrificed, to drown whose cries, when the little innocents were locked in the burning embraces of the brazen image, a loud flourish of trumpets and cymbals was constantly kept up, whence the place was called Tophet. Hezekiah and Manasseh, both slaves to this revolting superstition, immolated their sons to the savage divinity.”—Paxton.
Jer_7:32. Punishment. The seed holds in embryo the form into which, by an inviolable law, it will develop; the full development will be but an enlargement and likeness of the germ. Sin is thus embryonic; our guilty deeds will expand into results which will reflect in intensity their origin. Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”
“Punishment is the recoil of crime; and the strength of the back-stroke is in proportion to the original blow.”—French.
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.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain Jer 7:9-10
Jer 7:9-10
There is a deal of vague floating excuse in our minds, which practically amounts to making what we call Fate a scapegoat for our sins. There are two forms which such an attempt at excuse for wrong-doing may assume: (1) "We are delivered to do all these abominations "by certain inflexible laws, over which we can exercise no control,—say some; (2) "We are delivered to do all these abominations" by the force of our nature, which it is not in our power to alter,—say others. Such are generally the two forms which this argument from fate assumes.
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I. Our idea of God’s dealings with us is very largely influenced by the condition of the age in which we live. Our thoughts of the Divine government will be largely influenced and coloured by the principles of human government which prevail around us. For example, states make laws, and often they press very severely and unjustly upon individuals. We cannot help it. Our finite wisdom and our limited power prevent our making perfect laws, or rather render it impossible for us to make the necessary and wise exceptions to them in dealing with individuals. Now we must not transfer to God our own finality and failure. God’s laws are universal and general; God’s dealings with men are particular and individual. Each one has to learn the moral law of God and its bearing on his own nature. That very law, and the constancy of its action on you, are your real safeguards; it makes you a free man, not a slave of fate.
II. The other form which fatalism takes as an excuse for sin is: I am born with a particular nature, and I cannot help it. To say that you have a particular kind of nature which cannot resist a particular class of sin is to offer to God an excuse which you would never accept from your fellow-men. You treat every one of your fellow-men as having power to resist the inclination of his natural disposition, so far as its indulgence would be injurious to you. You never find fault with a man for any faculty or temper which he may have, but you do hold him responsible for the direction and control of it. The great heroes whom we justly reverence are not those who have destroyed, but those who have preserved and used aright the natural impulses and passions which have been given them.
T. T. Shore, The Life of the World to come, p. 109.
References: Jer 7:10.—H. W. Beecher, Forty-eight Sermons, vol. i., p. 295. Jer 7:12.—Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times," vol. i., p. 168; E. Paxton Hood, Preacher’s Lantern, vol. i., p. 474. Jer 7:18.—W. Hay Aitken, Mission Sermons, vol. iii., p. 207; J. Sherman, Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. ix., p. 299. Jer 8:4-7.—E. Blencowe, Plain Sermons to a Country Congregation, 1st series, p. 53. Jer 8:6.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. iv., No. 169.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain Jeremiah's Fifth Prophecy (or Group of Prophecies). Address at…
Jeremiah's Fifth Prophecy (or Group of Prophecies). Address at the Temple Gate (Reign of Josiah or Beginning of that of Jehoiakim)
The prophet takes advantage of a solemn gathering of the people at Jerusalem to stand at one of the Temple gates as they pass in, and warns them against their superstitious confidence that the possession of the Temple was itself a charm against danger from without. As immorality had already brought about the overthrow of an older sanctuary (Shiloh) as well as of the Ten Tribes, so shall it be with them. Punishment for the wickedness of leaders and people can only be averted by a speedy amendment of life.
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It is possible that these chapters may be an expanded account of the prophecy closely resembling them, which is recorded in Jeremiah 26 as spoken at the commencement of Jehoiakim's reign. But it is more likely that the two occasions are distinct.
1-20. Ceremonies and sacred places shall be no defence.
4. God, said the false prophets, will never allow His Temple to be overthrown: cp. Mic_3:11.
The temple, etc.] The threefold repetition suggests 'the energy of iteration that only belongs to Eastern fanatics' (Stanley, 'Jewish Church,' ii, 438).
5-7. Their tenure of the Temple is conditional on obedience to the covenant made by God with their fathers.
10. We are delivered] By the discharge of this formality we are set free for a return to wickedness.
11. Den of robbers] a place of retreat in the intervals between acts of violence: see Mat_21:13 and parallel passages.
12. Shiloh] a town of Ephraim, in a central position, chosen by Joshua as the restingplace of the ark and for the Tabernacle. It was a considerable place in the time of the Judges (Jdg_21:19, Jdg_21:21). Its fall into idolatry was followed by loss of the ark (1 Samuel 4) and subsequent captare and cruel treatment (Psa_78:58.) Thenceforward it became insignificant, so that Jeroboam, when setting up calves for his rival worship, passed it by.
15. Ephraim] meaning, as often (e.g. Isa_7:2), the ten northern tribes in captivity for nearly a century.
16. So in Jer_14:7, when Jeremiah does intercede for them, the prayer is rejected.
18. Queen of heaven] identified either with the moon or with the Assyrian Ishtar, the planet Venus. The Jewish women were specially given to that worship, offering incense and cakes stamped with a representation of the goddess: cp. Jer_44:17.
19. Do they provoke me] Their sin does not provoke God to a mere helpless anger, but to a wrath that is quick to punish and destroy them.
21-28. The moral law has always taken precedence of the ceremonial.
21. Put your burnt offerings, etc.] Multiply your victims ad libitum. It will avail you nought.
22, 23. This need not be more than a forcible oratorical expression, not meaning that no ceremonial laws were given to Israel when brought out of Egypt, but that in the promulgation of the Ten Commandments on Sinai there was no direction concerning sacrifice. These were the only precepts which had the honour of being treasured up in the ark. Thus from the first they were shown to hold the chief place: cp. Isa_1:11-14. 'The law of obedience was the earliest law of all (Gen_2:16.), and the most important; that of sacrifice was of secondary importance' (Deane).
24. Imagination] see on Isa_3:17;
27. Jeremiah need not therefore expect that his words will be heeded.
29-34. Where they sinned there shall they be punished.
29. Cut off thine hair] in token of mourning, or as a Nazirite shaved his head after immediate contact with a dead body (Num_6:9) to mark defilement. The hair was the mark of consecration of the High Priest (Exo_29:6) and of the Nazirite (Num_6:5). Here it is the mark of Jerusalem as chief city of a consecrated people.
31. Valley of Hinnom] on the W. and S. sides of the city, Tophet being near the E. extremity of the S. reach. The valley had an evil name, (a) as the place of human sacrifices; (b) as defiled by Josiah; (c) as the receptacle of the offal and filth of the city. Hence it afterwards became with the Jewish Rabbis the visible emblem of the place of future punishment, Gehenna: cp. Mat_5:22. To burn, etc.] in honour of Moloch, often identified with Baal, the sun-god (see on Genesis 22; 2Ki_16:3).
32. Till there be no place] rather, 'for want of room's (elsewhere). The carnage of war shall extend far beyond the valley.
Some think that the immediate result of this discourse was the trial of the prophet, as recorded in Jer_26:24, when the mob rose against him and he was saved with difficulty.
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 that came
The word that came
The general character of the message in the temple gate is, like the first and second messages, one of rebuke, warning, and exhortation, but this message is addressed more to such in Judah as still maintaining outwardly the worship of Jehovah; it is a message to religious Judah, e.g. Jer 7:2; Jer 7:9; Jer 7:10; Jer 9:10; Jer 9:11.
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 Prophet’s Temple Address (7-9)
The Prophet’s Temple Address (7-9)
CHAPTER 7
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1. Amend your ways and your doings (Jer 7:1-15)
2. No prayer-answer to be expected (Jer 7:16-20)
3. Sacrifices rejected; Obedience demanded (Jer 7:21-28)
4. Jerusalem’s rejection (Jer 7:29-34)
Jer 7:1-15. We call this next address of the prophet “the temple address,” because he was commanded to stand in the gate of the LORD’s house. There he stood, a solitary figure, and said: “Hear the Word of the LORD, all ye of Judah, that enter in at these gates to worship Jehovah.” Their worship was but external. They trusted in the temple of the Lord, as if with the house itself some kind of a blessing was connected and the house would shield them from disaster. Micah gives the same delusion of the apostate people: “Yet will they lean upon the LORD, and say, is not the LORD among us? no evil can come upon us” Mic 3:11. Such a false trust in ordinances and outward worship is only too evident in Christendom also. The masses of unsaved people with their religious observances think it is a protection and insures the Lord’s help and blessing. They trusted in lying words. They were thieves, murderers, adulterers, perjurers and idolators, and they thought if they go to the house of the LORD they would be delivered from these abominations. The Lord calls upon them to amend their ways and their doings, to work a better righteousness. They had made His house a den of robbers. This verse (Jer 7:11) was quoted by our Lord in Mat 21:13. He tells them of the fate of Shiloh when it was overthrown on account of the wickedness of Israel; such would be the fate of the temple Psa 78:60. They would be cast out as the whole seed of Ephraim had been cast out.
Jer 7:16-20. The Lord told the prophet that no prayer of intercession would be answered. “I will not hear thee.” What a word this is, coming from Him, who had told Israel to cry unto Him and He would answer. They had provoked Him by making cakes to the queen of heaven. They had fallen in with the worship of a female idol, so prevalent among the idolatrous nations which surrounded them, like the Phoenicians, the Assyrians, the Egyptians and the Babylonians. The Babylonian Venus, Ishtar, was called by them the queen of heaven. The Assyrian called her Beltis, the female form of Baal; they placed in the sculpture a star over her head and called her “the mistress of the heavens.” The Phoenicians worshipped this “queen of heaven” under the name of Ashtoreth or Astarte. This wicked worship, with which all kinds of immoral ceremonies were connected, had been adopted by the Jews. The women made cakes to present to this goddess. Jewish tradition tells us that the image of the idol was stamped on each cake. This worship of “the queen of heaven” is perpetuated in the mystical Babylon, Rome, the great whore and mother of harlots Rev 17:1-18. Mary is called by Romanists “the queen of heaven” and “mistress of the heavens.” It can be proven that Mariolatry is but the continuation of the Babylonish worship of the goddess they called “queen of heaven.” If the Lord was provoked to anger because the women of Israel brought cakes to this queen of heaven, how much more is He provoked to anger with the idolatries of papal Rome?
Jer 7:21-28. He brands their sacrifices as worthless. He gave no command concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices in the day He brought them out of Egypt. Destructive critics have built upon this verse (22) a puerile argument to prove that the law of sacrifices was not given by Moses, but introduced many centuries later. When the Lord first led them out of Egypt, He gave them no laws as to sacrifices, but asked obedience. They harkened not; nor did they in Jeremiah’s day. It is a nation that obeyeth not the voice of the Lord, nor receiveth correction.
Jer 7:29-34. The hair was cut off as a sign of mourning Job 1:20. Jerusalem is to lament in the high places. They have defiled His house. On the heights of Tophet, in the valley of the son of Hinnom, they had burned their children as a sacrifice to Molech 2Ki 23:10. The days were now to come when the same place should become the place of slaughter. The carcasses of the people should then be meat for the beasts of the earth; they should lie there unburied. Such was to be Jerusalem’s rejection and judgment.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain God’s Requirement And Promise
God’s Requirement And Promise
v. 1. The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, the fact that he received his messages by inspiration of God being brought out time and again, saying,
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v. 2. Stand in the gate of the Lord’s house, very likely that which led from the outer court to the Court of Israel, and proclaim there this word, where the worshiping multitudes from the entire country might hear him, and say, Hear the word of the Lord, all ye of Judah, that enter in at these gates to worship the Lord. The address seems to indicate that the sermon here recorded was held at one of the great festivals of the Jews, when great throngs visited the capital and the Temple.
v. 3. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, He whose power and mercy the children of Israel had so often experienced. Amend your ways and your doings, their habits of living and the individual acts of their life, and I will cause you to dwell in this place, permitting them to continue their residence in Jerusalem, the seat of the Lord’s Temple.
v. 4. Trust ye not in lying words, in those words of falsehood which were so often dinned in their ears by their wicked leaders, The Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord, are these! the various buildings making up the entire Temple. The repetition of the proud cry is intended to picture the sublime self-assurance of the people under the leadership of the false prophets.
v. 5. For if ye throughly amend your ways and your doings, making a decided stand for a behavior in complete accordance with the holy will of God; if ye throughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbor, so that justice is exercised in all conditions of life, toward all men;
v. 6. if ye oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, the three points which were emphasized time and again in the Law of God, and shed not innocent blood in this place, throughout Jerusalem and Judah, neither walk after other gods to your hurt, idolatry invariably challenging the punishment of the Lord, provoking Him to righteous anger:
v. 7. then will I cause you to dwell in this place, permitting them to continue as inhabitants of Jerusalem and Judah, in the land that I gave your fathers, forever and ever, for a long period of uninterrupted possession. The Lord is eager to show His kindness and mercy to all those who will hearken to Him; His blessings, also in temporal goods, are upon those that fear Him.
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, "Stand
This idiom is used to introduce a special message from God. See how you translated a similar phrase in Jeremiah 1:4. AT: "This is the message that Yahweh gave to Jeremiah. He said, 'Stand" or "This is the message that Yahweh spoke to Jeremiah: 'Stand" (See: Idiom)
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all you of Judah
"all you people of Judah"
translationWords
word
Jeremiah
Yahweh
gate
house of God
preach
word of God
kingdom of Judah
worship
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 7:1-15 Jeremiah disabused the people of their belief that…
7:1-15 Jeremiah disabused the people of their belief that God’s Temple would guarantee their safety (cp. 26:1-6).
7:1-2 The people were probably at the entrance of the Lord’s Temple for one of the annual festivals (see also 17:19; 26:2).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.