Deeper Commentary
Jeremiah 9:1 Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes a spring of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!- Jeremiah wishes he had more emotional capacity than he has as a person. His desire to weep may mean that he wept before God, and therefore thought he could change God's mind about Judah's judgment.
But like us, Jeremiah didn’t always have such a heart of compassion.
Initially he didn’t even want to preach to his people. And he even prayed
that he would so grieve for them in regard to the message he gave them,
that he would cry for them day and night. And this prayer was
heard. For by Lamentations, this is just what he was doing. And if what we
read of Jeremiah troubles us, we too can pray for a heart that bleeds, and
through the experience of life which the Lord allows us, He will develop
such a heart in those who want it. You may be so caught up in your
business, your family, your ecclesia even, your web of social contact…
that in honest moments, you know that your heart doesn’t bleed as it
should. You see the needs and pain and struggle of men and women, but it
doesn’t touch your heart very deeply. Jeremiah may well have been like
this; but he prayed for a new heart, and so can you. Jeremiah had actually
been commanded by God to have such a level of grief for His people:
“Therefore thou shalt say this word unto them; Let mine eyes run down with
tears night and day, and let them not cease: for the virgin daughter of my
people is broken” (Jer. 14:17). Jeremiah’s grief was God’s word of care
and concern to the people; and so it can be with us. Jeremiah was to be
like this, to reflect God’s passion for His people; so he prayed that he
would have such a heart of true compassion [note that the chapters in
Jeremiah are totally out of sequence chronologically]; and in the end, he
found it.
The Biblical record contains a large number of references to the
frequent tears of God’s people, both in bleeding hearts for other people,
and in recognition of their own sin. And as we have seen, these things are
related. Consider:
- “My eye pours out tears to God” [i.e. in repentance?]
(Job 16:20)
- Isaiah drenches Moab with tears (Is. 16:9)
- Jeremiah is a fountain of tears for his people (Jer. 9:1;
Lam. 2:8)
- David’s eyes shed streams of tears for his sins (Ps.
119:136; 6:6; 42:3)
- Jesus wept over Jerusalem (Mt. 23:37)
- Blessed are those who weep (Lk. 6:21)
- Mary washed the Lord’s feet with her tears (Lk. 7:36-50)
- Paul wept for the Ephesians daily (Acts 20:19,31).
We have to ask whether there are any tears, indeed any true emotion, in
our walk with our Lord. Those who go through life with dry eyes are surely
to be pitied. Surely, in the light of the above testimony, we are merely
hiding behind a smokescreen if we excuse ourselves by thinking that we’re
not the emotional type. Nobody can truly go through life humming to
themselves “I am a rock, I am an island… and an island never cries”. The
very emotional centre of our lives must be touched. The tragedy of our
sin, the urgency of the world’s salvation, the amazing potential provided
and secured in the cross of Christ…surely we cannot be passive to these
things. We live in a world where emotion and passion are decreasing. Being
politically correct, looking right to others… these things are becoming of
paramount importance in all levels of society. The passionless,
postmodernist life can’t be for us, who have been moved and touched at our
very core by the work and call and love of Christ to us. For us there must
still be what Walter Brueggemann called “the gift of amazement”, that
ability to feel and say “Wow!” to God’s grace and plan of salvation for
us.
Jeremiah wished he had more moisture in his body, so that he could
weep both day and night for Judah- and yet he goes on to describe them as
proceeding from evil to evil in an ever downward spiral, shooting lies
everywhere… Everyone is special, nobody is like anyone else. This is how
God sees His children, and we should reflect this perspective. It is this
which will make us arrestingly different from the people with whom we
daily walk. We will cry out with Jeremiah: “Is it nothing to you, all ye
that pass by?”, unmoved and lost as they are in their own petty issues
(Lam. 1:12).
Jeremiah 9:2 Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men;
that I might leave my people, and go from them! For they are all
adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men- "Lodging place" is the
same word translated "lodge" in Jer. 14:8. There, Jeremiah seems to see it
as tragic that God had felt this way about His people. And indeed it was
and is. The desire to leave them was because they were adulterous women
and dishonest men. "Treacherous" is used about Judah's marital infidelity
in Jer. 3:8,20; Hos. 5:7. And so the God of all grace, the most
surpassingly loving husband, wanted to become an endlessly travelling man,
weary of the road, who wanted to just turn in to a one night motel and
rest from His weariness. He elsewhere speaks as if the emotional drain of
the relationship wearied Him (Jer. 15:6). This of course is Almighty God
adjusting Himself to mortal man, allowing Himself to feel through our
limitations.
We can too easily assume that these are the thoughts of Jeremiah. But the references to "my people" in the passage point us toward God as the person expressing these feelings. And then in Jer. 9:3 we have the speaker defined: "... and they know not me, said the Lord". These were God's thoughts. He wished He had human tear ducts to weep with... this was how He felt for them. There is a mutuality between God and His people. Several passages in Jeremiah shows how the prophet feels or says something, and Yahweh responds to it (e.g. Jer. 9:1,2 = Jeremiah; v.3 = God; v. 10 = Jeremiah; v. 11 = God's response).
Jeremiah 9:3 They bend their tongue, as their bow, for falsehood; and they are
grown strong in the land, but not for truth: for they proceed from evil to
evil, and they don’t know Me, says Yahweh- Jeremiah's mourning turns
into that of God Himself. The process of inspiration meant that Jeremiah
felt as God did. The proceeding from evil to evil refers to how God was
confirming them in the downward path they had chosen; see on Jer. 7:21,24.
Specifically,
their gossiping was associated with 'proceeding from evil to
evil' (Jer. 9:3); it is part of a downward spiral of spirituality. Once
gossip starts a quarrel, it's like water bursting out of a dam; soon the
whole land of Israel will be flooded (Prov. 17:14 NIV). Because gossip is such an epitome of the flesh, it is ranked along with
sins like fornication, idolatry and murder in Ez. 22:9. There are passages
in Jeremiah which describe slander and gossiping as being the reason why
God condemned Judah (Jer. 6:28; 9:3-8). The soap operas of the world are
full of this kind of gossip and intrigue; they glorify it. And the more we
feed ourselves with these things, the more likely we will be to see gossip
as just part of life. And yet let's not mistake the words of the prophets;
it is seen as murder, because effectively it puts to death a man's
relationship with his fellows. God hates the man who sows such
discord among brethren through gossip in the church (Prov. 6:19). "The
words of a talebearer are as wounds, and they go down into the innermost
parts of the belly" (Prov. 26:22). That casual remark, that passing on of
information under the guise of 'concern'- it was a body blow to the one
you gossiped about, a blow so hard that it caused deep internal damage.
Jeremiah 9:4 Beware everyone of his neighbour, and don’t trust in any brother;
for every brother will utterly supplant, and every neighbour will go about
with slanders-
This
speaks to Israel as if they were all
Esau,
being warned about the cunning of his brother Jacob: “Take ye heed every
one of his neighbour, and trust ye not in any brother: for every brother
will utterly supplant”. Again, in a clever way, both Jacob and Esau are
shown to be in the wrong, and Jacob is therefore treated as Esau. See on
:26. Perhaps Jeremiah's over positive view of his own people and the
priesthood, which would've included his own family and brothers, needed
some correction; he is warned here that they will seek to slander and
destroy him, which in fact they later did.
Jeremiah 9:5 They will deceive each one his neighbour and will not speak the
truth: they have taught their tongue to speak lies; they weary themselves
to commit iniquity-
Jeremiah 9:6 Your habitation is in the midst of deceit; through deceit they
refuse to know Me, says Yahweh- The ESV is correct: "Heaping
oppression upon oppression, and deceit upon deceit, they refuse to know
me, declares the LORD". The sense is of a downward spiral of spiritual
declension. They were so obsessed with immediate wealth that they deceived
and oppressed their brethren to get it. This is true of some Pentecostal
pastors today just as much as it was of Israel in those days. And indeed,
materialism is an addiction, and it leads to an ever increasing spiral of
deceit and oppression, however indirect or operated through third parties,
in order to attain it.
Jeremiah 9:7 Therefore thus says Yahweh of Armies, Behold, I will melt them,
and try them; for how should I deal with the daughter of My people?-
This rhetorical question reflects the 'humanity of God'. He really was as
it were in despair at what to do in order to keep them as His people.
There was so much dross that He could only melt them in the fire of the
Babylonian invasion in order to remove that dross. But it happened that
they were resistant even to that; Ezekiel uses the same figure about the
same people at this time, and he says that the cauldron holding the metal
was destroyed by the heat, and no dross was removed.
Not only in our own self-examination should there be unity between our
judgment and that of the Father; elsewhere it is Jeremiah who was told to "know and try"
Israel's way, just as God said that He did (Jer. 6:27 cp. 9:7; 17:10). Our
'judging' of others, as well as ourselves, must be according to God's
judgments of them. And further; if we know the judgments of God, then we
will be more strongly motivated in our preaching and pastoral work, to
pull men out of the fire of condemnation (Jude 23).
Jeremiah 9:8 Their tongue is a deadly arrow; it speaks deceit: one speaks
peaceably to his neighbour with his mouth, but in his heart he lays wait
for him- The idea in Jer. 5:16 was that every arrow in the quiver of
the invaders would bring death; but this was because the tongue of the
Jews had been as deadly arrows. This reflects the huge importance God
places upon honest words and not being hurtful with our tongues.
Jeremiah 9:9 Shall I not visit them for these things, says Yahweh-
The "things" are those of :8, the apparently relatively minor sins of
deceit and dishonest words. We would rather think that the "things" in
view would be idolatry. But dishonest words and hypocritical speaking are
of such critical importance to God.
Shall not My
soul be avenged on such a nation as this?-
Jeremiah 9:10 For the mountains will I take up a weeping and wailing, and for
the pastures of the wilderness a lamentation, because they are burned up,
so that none passes through; neither can men hear the voice of the
livestock; both the birds of the sky and the animals are fled, they are
gone- Jeremiah so believed the words he was relaying to Israel, that
he now interjects with his own grief at what was to happen.
Jeremiah 9:11 I will make Jerusalem heaps, a dwelling place of jackals; and I
will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant- As
explained on Jer. 9:10, this didn't completely happen to the extent here
prophetically envisaged. As noted on :10, we note again the shift of
speaker from Jeremiah to God. What began as Jeremiah's interjection of
pain in :10 now merges into the actual prophetic thoughts of God. The
jackal comes to eat what the lion has left in the carcase; the idea was
that after the lions of Babylon had finished with Jerusalem, there would
be others who came to totally destroy her. But this didn't historically
happen, because it seems God relented from the full execution of His
wrath. The language here of Jerusalem's destruction into heaps haunted by
jackals is applied to Babylon (Jer. 51:37). What latter day Babylon does
to Jerusalem shall be done to her; and that is the theme of the book of
Revelation, where the seals of judgment upon Israel become the vials of
judgment upon the beast system.
Jeremiah 9:12 Who is the wise man, that may understand this? Who is he to whom
the mouth of Yahweh has spoken, that he may declare it?-
Whoever truly understood God's word would declare it. Hearing God's word in faith is associated with declaring it (Jer.
9:12). “Your participation in the [preaching of the] gospel” is paralleled
with “your faith” (Phil. 1:5). If we really believe, we will be involved
in the preaching of what we believe.
Why is the land perished and burned up like a wilderness, so that none
passes through?-
Jeremiah 9:13 Yahweh says, Because they have forsaken My law which I set before
them, and have not obeyed My voice, neither walked therein- God's law
and His voice are paralleled. The word was to be seen as a living word,
God actively in ongoing communication with people; rather than a set of
regulations which could be partially obeyed on the level of cultural
conformity to the faith of their fathers. And that is a challenge which
echoes to God's people of all generations.
Jeremiah 9:14 But have walked after the stubbornness of their own heart, and
after the Baals, which their fathers taught them- The choice was
between walking after God's word (:13), or walking after their own hearts.
This is where God's word is not like any other literature. It is to take a
grip upon the human heart and to inculcate a way of thought which is
contrary to our own natural heart or thinking. This points up the danger
of using the Bible simply to reinforce our own natural ideas, whilst
disregarding the rest. "Stubbornness" also can mean "imagination". Dt.
29:19 speaks directly of Judah at this time- when they heard the words of
the curses for disobedience, they would think they would still have peace
because they walked in the imaginations [s.w. "stubbornness"] of their own
hearts. The false prophets were preaching exactly such "peace" (Jer. 6:14;
8:11). The heart [mind] is a fountain of imagination, of fantasy, and it
is this which can be redirected by the influence of God's word and Spirit
upon the human heart. But the sense of "stubbornness" in the Hebrew word
for "imagination" shows that by exercising our own imaginations without
the influence of God's word, we become set in those ways of thought, until
they come to define us.
Jeremiah 9:15 Therefore thus says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, Behold,
I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood, and give them water of
gall to drink- This judgment was taken by the Lord Jesus on the
cross, who was there "the servant of Yahweh", which Israel had been
intended to be. Wormwood and gall were what would be the result of false
teachers encouraging the people to commit idolatry (Dt. 29:18). So they
had fed themselves with these things, and their judgment to drink them was
therefore God's confirmation of people in what they themselves had chosen.
And that is how all His judgments operate.
Jeremiah 9:16 I will scatter them also among the nations, whom neither they nor
their fathers have known- Judah were to be scattered to the
Babylonian empire, whom they had not "known"; although they eagerly served
their gods, to the point of sacrificing their children to them. But they
didn't "know" them in the Hebraic sense of having relationship with them.
For Yahweh was and is unique in offering passionate personal relationship.
This sets the background for the magnificent statement in :24 that God's
true people "know" Him.
And I will send the sword after them, until I have consumed them- As explained on Jer. 9:10, this didn't completely happen to the extent here prophetically envisaged. The jackals who were to come after the Babylonian lions to finish off the carcass (see on :11) didn't come.
Jeremiah 9:17 Thus says Yahweh of Armies, Consider, and call for the mourning
women, that they may come; and send for the skilful women, that they may
come- The wonder of this is to be 'considered'; for as explained on
:18, it is quite something for God Almighty to invite mourning over "us",
the failed relationship He was in with Israel, with all the tragedy of
that statement. The idea of mourning women was that they were intended to
provoke mourning in others, and this was God's desire too. Or it could be
that in line with the statement in :1, both God and Jeremiah felt unable
to lament as much as they wished, they were at full personal capacity, and
'needed' others to mourn in addition.
Jeremiah 9:18 And let them make haste, and take up a wailing for us, that our
eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids gush out with waters-
Jeremiah 9:19 For a voice of wailing is heard out of Zion, How are we ruined!
We are greatly confounded- We are either ashamed of our sins in repentance; or we will be made
ashamed of them in the judgment (Jer. 6:15 RVmg.)- it’s shame either way.
We either wail for our sins now, or we will wail for them at judgment day
(Jer. 9:19,20).
Because we have forsaken the land, because they have cast down our dwellings- The idea is "Our dwellings have cast us out". This is picturing the inhabitants of Zion as they realize they are going to be taken into captivity. Hence GNB: "Listen to the sound of crying in Zion: "We are ruined! We are completely disgraced! We must leave our land; our homes have been torn down". The homes that were torn down are those of the wealthy, the historical records emphasize that both the "great houses" and the temple were thrown down. So those "in Zion" who are wailing are the wealthy leadership; for it was they and not the poor of the land who were taken into captivity. The mourning women are called to add their voice to these women who are actually wailing as they face captivity (:18).
Jeremiah 9:20 Yet hear the word of Yahweh, you women, and let your ear receive
the word of His mouth; and teach your daughters wailing, and each one her
neighbour lamentation-
To "hear the word of Yahweh" is a call to repentance. Even when facing
captivity, these women could still repent. We note in Jeremiah that the
women are given more emphasis than in contemporary accounts. Later in
Jeremiah we learn that they were absolutely behind the behaviour of their
men. If they lamented for the tragedy of what had happened in spiritual
terms, and not just for the human tragedy of it all, then they would soon
return. We see God's enthusiasm for their repentance, imagining it,
wanting to even teach them repentance.
The women were to teach this song of repentance through lamentation to others. Those who heard God's call to repentance are to naturally teach repentance to others (Jer. 9:20 cp. 19). If we have really received forgiveness, and have thereby grasped hold of salvation here and now, the wonder of our own experience will inevitably lead us to tell others, as it did David and Peter.
Jeremiah 9:21 For death has come up into our windows, it is entered into our
palaces; to cut off the children from outside, and the young men from the
streets- This is part of the dirge of repentance God wanted them to
learn (:20). They were to accept that the judgment of death had come upon
them like a flood, right up to their windows out of which they were
looking. Their great houses, or "palaces", had been entered by death. But
they were still alive. It was like the living lamenting their own death.
The idea was that they recognized that the judgment of death was correct
and appropriate; and yet by grace they would be saved out of it. It was as
if from the windows they were watching the children and youths perishing
in the streets- even though they had sacrificed their own firstborns to
the idols. This was the picture alluded to in Zech. 8:5, where in the
reborn Zion, the youth and children would play happily in the streets when
all possibility of such condemnation was taken away.
Jeremiah 9:22 Speak, Thus says Yahweh- It is as if the funeral dirge
was being taught to them in stanzas.
The dead bodies of men shall fall as dung on the open field, and as the handful after the harvester; and none shall gather them- This is a repeat of Jeremiah's prophetic words, but the repentant women are asked to repeat them. By so doing they would demonstrate their acceptance of the justice of the condemnation. The harvester dropped handfuls of grain which the impoverished gleaners like Ruth then picked up; but there would be no gleaners. Repentance involves accepting that God's judgments are right, and placing them in our own mouths in agreement.
Jeremiah 9:23 Thus says Yahweh, Don’t let the wise man glory in his wisdom,
neither let the mighty man glory in his might, don’t let the rich man
glory in his riches- This is still part of the song of mourning and
repentance which Yahweh wanted them to sing (see on :20). The false
prophets were the "wise men" of Jer. 8:9. And so the repentant dirge was
to involve a repudiation of those men in favour of a humble acceptance of
God's word and principles (:24). The rich and mighty are identified here
with the "wise men". They had become wealthy through religiously and
spiritually abusing the people. The wealthy women who were about to go
into captivity (for the "poor of the land" didn't go into captivity) were
to resign the importance of personal wealthy and glory. This too is part
of repentance.
Jeremiah 9:24 But let him who glories glory in this, that he has understanding,
and knows Me- The repentance song (:20) was to involve the
recognition that the only true understanding is repentant relationship
with Yahweh. This must be given full weight today, where "understanding"
and "knowledge" have become understood to mean pure academic, theological
knowledge. But the true understanding is in repentance and from our knees,
arising to relationship with God. The glory in 'knowing' Yahweh is set
against the background of :16. Judah were to be scattered to the
Babylonian empire, whom they had not "known"; although they eagerly served
their gods, to the point of sacrificing their children to them. But they
didn't "know" them in the Hebraic sense of having relationship with them.
For Yahweh was and is unique in offering passionate personal relationship.
That I am Yahweh who exercises loving kindness, justice, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, says Yahweh- The women were about to go into captivity and had lost their loved ones. But the repentance song involves accepting that Yahweh is just, and full of grace, kindness and righteousness. His "delight" is in them; He just loves doing them. But Israel had turned away from them. Although God does slay the wicked, He has no "delight" in that (Ez. 18:23,32 s.w.). Repentance involves the faith that God's dominant desire is kindness and salvation, although He does justly judge sin. This would have been a hard funeral dirge to sing, lamenting over the dead bodies of those who had just been slain. Repentance and humility before God involves accepting that He is essentially just as well as gracious. And so many find this song hard to sing. It is the spirit of Hab. 3:17,18, where despite the hard reality of the Babylonian destruction, Habakkuk still rejoices and exalts in the God whose ways he obviously struggled to immediately understand. This is in fact the true understanding and knowledge of God.
Jeremiah 9:25 Behold, the days come, says Yahweh, that I will punish all those
who are circumcised along with the uncircumcised- Jer. 9:25 RV speaks of punishing “them which are circumcised in their
uncircumcision”. As Paul makes clear, one can be circumcised physically
but not spiritually. A person can be circumcised yet effectively
uncircumcised at one and the same time. This is the nature of the
spiritual schizophrenia which so afflicts us.
Jeremiah 9:26 Egypt, Judah, Edom and the children of Ammon, Moab and all that
have the corners of their hair cut off, who dwell in the wilderness; for
all these nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are
uncircumcised in heart-
This
makes it clear right back then that circumcision was a matter of the heart
more than the flesh; and that therefore there was no essential difference
between a spiritually uncircumcised Israel and their apostate cousins. See
on :4. The surrounding nations had their various signs of identification,
often connected with how their hair or beards were cut. The sign of
identity God had chosen was not visible; it was upon the most concealed
part of the male body. And this spoke of how the real sign of identity as
God's people was in fact nothing external, but in the state of heart, a
way of thinking with the flesh cut off from it. This is why we may look
the same as others in this world, on some counts. But the difference is in
our hearts.
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