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<h4>And you shall swear, ‘As Yahweh lives’, in truth, in justice, and in righteousness. The nations shall bless themselves in Him, and in Him shall they glory- When Israel return to the Lord and swear in truth that “the Lord lives”, then all the other nations of the world will be blessed in the coming of the Kingdom. Their repentance is a prerequisite for the second coming. The implication is that this could have happened at Jeremiah’s time, see on :1. It didn’t, and so the fulfilment is reapplied and rescheduled to the last days.</h4><h4>The implication is that God’s people swore that "Yahweh lives" but without moral justice and right behaviour. To believe that God exists is therefore to act like Him, in truth, justice and righteousness. To live otherwise is to effectively deny His existence. His very existence is therefore an imperative to live and be as He is.</h4>


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<h4>For thus says Yahweh to the men of Judah and to Jerusalem, Break up your fallow ground- This repentance could have brought about some kind of Kingdom situation as described in :1,2. The idea of using fallow ground is that they were to realize their potential- which was that it Judah repented and so did the ten tribes, then those tribes would be regathered into a reestablished Kingdom of God in Israel. We too must "break up our fallow ground" (Heb. ’plough the unploughed’), analayze ourselves from outside ourselves, and use our time and our “all things” to the utmost of their potential (<a href='B:350 10:12'>Hos 10:12</a>). We were created "unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them" (<a href='B:560 2:10'>Eph 2:10</a>); we were redeemed that we might be zealous of good works (<a href='B:630 2:14'>Tit 2:14</a>)- not that we might drift through life playing with our hobbies and with the fascinations of our careers.</h4><h4>And don’t sow among thorns- The Lord’s parable of the sower alludes here. The thorns to Him meant the cares of life and the desire for wealth in the here and now (<a href='B:480 4:19'>Mar 4:19</a>). This was Judah’s problem; all their idolatry was choosing the fertility cults in order to get immediate material blessing.</h4>


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<p>Circumcise yourselves to Yahweh, and take away the foreskins of your heart, you men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem; lest My wrath go forth like fire, and burn so that none can quench it, because of the evil of your doings- To self circumcise is the picture of intimate involvement with oneself. This is what they were asked to do to their own minds and hearts; see on :9. They could have avoided the wrath to come by quenching the fire of that wrath through reformation of their own hearts. We note the paramount importance of the heart; there is no specific call to quit idolatry or any specific manifestation of sin, because the essence was and is in the heart. Here at the beginning of Jeremiah’s ministry, the implication is that the wrath could be quenched still; but the time would come when it could not be. By the time of <a href='B:300 7:20'>Jer 7:20</a>, God was saying that His wrath could no longer be quenched (as <a href='B:120 22:17'>2Ki 22:17</a>; <a href='B:140 34:25'>2Ch 34:25</a>). And yet even after this point, God still speaks as if it could be quenched by repentance (<a href='B:300 21:12'>Jer 21:12</a>). Even to the point of self-contradiction, God was so eager to have His wrath quenched. And this God is our God. His eagerness for human repentance should be reflected in our attitudes, both to others and to our own sins. Breaking relationship with people by casting them out of fellowship is not reflective of that.</p>


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<h4>Declare in Judah and publish in Jerusalem; say, ‘Blow the trumpet in the land!’ Cry aloud and say, ‘Assemble yourselves! Let us go into the fortified cities!’- The "cities" may be an intensive plural for the one great city, Zion. For in :7 it seems that God’s wrath was at a point where the other cities would be destroyed, but if the people entered Jerusalem in repentance, then although the invaders would surround her, He would miraculously deliver her. This of course is what had happened a few generations before in the time of Hezekiah and the Assyrian invasion. God was willing to use that as a prototype for their salvation now from Babylon. A restored Kingdom of God could have emerged after the destruction of the Assyrians; but Judah didn’t really repent, and Hezekiah let the baton drop. But now, out of their sin and the need to judge it, there was to be another opportunity. See on :8; <a href='B:300 5:1'>Jer 5:1</a>; <a href='B:300 6:23'>Jer 6:23</a>.</h4><h4>Right in the context of God predicting the fall of Jerusalem, Jeremiah is presented as a strong, fortified city, made strong by God against any opposition (<a href='B:300 1:18'>Jer 1:18</a>). The implication was that the faithful should identify with Jeremiah if they wished to avoid the destruction of Jerusalem. Jeremiah uses the same term for "fortified city" here in urging the faithful to run into one in the face of the Babylonian advance. But that fortified city was himself and the community of the faithful.</h4>


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<p>Set up a standard towards Zion. Flee for safety! Don’t wait; for I will bring evil from the north, and a great destruction- See on :5; <a href='B:300 5:10'>Jer 5:10</a>. There was to be destruction in the land, but there was potentially safety / salvation in Jerusalem for those who were obedient and repentant. This was a test to Judah, because they trusted in their defenced cities (<a href='B:300 5:17'>Jer 5:17</a>). But the prophecy of Jeremiah 4 (and <a href='B:400 5:11'>Mic 5:11</a>) asks them to believe that these cities would fall, and there would be salvation only in Jerusalem. And yet they were disobedient, and did go into those other defenced cities (:29; <a href='B:300 8:14'>Jer 8:14</a>).</p>


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<h4>A lion is gone up from his thicket, and a destroyer of nations; he is on his way, he is gone forth from his place, to make your land desolate, that your cities be laid waste, without inhabitant- Already God had raised up the Babylonians. They had only recently come to prominence by defeating Assyria, and were still somewhat of an unknown quantity at the time Jeremiah’s ministry began. The extent of destruction threatened here didn’t totally come; the majority of the peasants remained in the land, and they still brought food offerings to the temple even after the destruction of Jerusalem (<a href='B:300 41:5'>Jer 41:5</a>). In wrath God remembered mercy.</h4><h4>The collapsing of time at the judgment would mean that the events used to punish the world could fall upon the rejected from the judgment seat. These unfortunate individuals will be threshed, as will the world be (<a href='B:470 3:12'>Mat 3:12</a>; <a href='B:730 16:16'>Rev 16:16</a>). This is foreshadowed by the way apostate Israel were treated like the surrounding Gentile world ("nations") in the time of their judgments (<a href='B:300 4:7'>Jer 4:7</a>).</h4>


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<p>For this clothe yourself with sackcloth, lament and wail; for the fierce anger of Yahweh hasn’t turned back from us- The implication is that such repentance would turn back Yahweh’s wrath; Joel uses similar language. Sackcloth and wailing suggested a death had happened; they were to believe they were condemned and the death sentence had been passed, and to lament it; and yet they could repent. I suggested on :5 that they were being encouraged to copy the example of Hezekiah turning away the Assyrians; and his urgent appeal for repentance had led to Yahweh’s fierce anger being turned back (s:w. <a href='B:140 29:10'>2Ch 29:10</a>; <a href='B:140 30:8'>2Ch 30:8</a>).</p>


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<p>It shall happen at that day, says Yahweh, that the heart of the king shall perish, and the heart of the princes; and the priests shall be astonished, and the prophets shall wonder- We note the continued stress upon the state of their heart; see on :4. The focus is not upon how they would beslain, tortured, have their eyes put out etc:- but upon the mental, internal panic and collapse they would experience. The physical "desolation" of the land would be matched by the internal, psychological desolation of the priests (s:w. "astonished"). Jeremiah felt the same as the other priests; he was desolated / astonished (s:w:) at the desolation of Jerusalem (<a href='B:310 1:4'>Lam 1:4</a>; <a href='B:310 1:13'>Lam 1:13</a>). We can read this as meaning that he as the righteous totally identified with the wicked; or that he was too identified with the wicked priests, and felt like them when instead he should have perceived that this was exactly the astonishment of the priests which he had prophesied.</p>


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<p>Then I said, Ah, Lord Yahweh! Surely You have greatly deceived this people and Jerusalem in saying, ‘You shall have peace;’ whereas the sword reaches to the heart- Again, as noted on :9, Jeremiah perceives that the judgments will be upon their hearts. The promise of peace was if the people repented; but Jeremiah considered it so obvious that they wouldn’t repent that he therefore accuses God of being unreasonable in even speaking of the possibility of peace. Here we see Jeremiah’s struggle with God; his experience of Divine inspiration didn’t make him just a mere instrument for relaying God’s word. He was personally involved in it. I noted on :5 and :8 the similarities with the siege of Jerusalem at the time of Hezekiah; and the same word was used by Rabshakeh in warning that Hezekiah and Isaiah were deceiving the people by saying there would be peace through Divine salvation (<a href='B:140 32:15'>2Ch 32:15</a>). This further indicates that Jeremiah was out of step with God in his feelings. God perhaps corrects things by saying that the people were deceiving themselves in thinking that the Babylonians would withdraw, because their false prophets had deceived them to think this (<a href='B:300 29:8'>Jer 29:8</a>; <a href='B:300 37:9'>Jer 37:9</a>).</p>


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<p>At that time shall it be said to this people and to Jerusalem, A hot wind from the bare heights in the wilderness towards the daughter of My people, not to winnow, nor to cleanse- The high places ("bare heights") were the scene of their apostasy with the idols. This wind represented the invasion; but "wind" and "spirit" are the same word in Hebrew, and the idea as in Ezekiel’s vision of the cherubim was that the invasion would be moved by God’s Spirit. It came down, as it were, from the high places. At this point, God’s wrath was such that He intended simply to destroy; but elsewhere He says that the judgments were indeed "to cleanse" His people in a national sense (<a href='B:330 20:38'>Eze 20:38</a> s:w:). Again we see Him relenting; although perhaps the idea is that those destroyed were not personally cleansed, although the cleansing was to be thus achieved on a national level.</p>


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<p>A full wind for these things shall come from Me. Now I will also utter judgements against them- This is the language of the judge uttering the final judgment after the case has been considered. LXX "a spirit of full vengeance shall come upon me" may indeed be the idea; but God never carried out "full vengeance", in wrath He remembered mercy.</p>


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<h4>Behold, he shall come up as clouds, and his chariots shall be as the whirlwind: his horses are swifter than eagles- As noted on :11, this is the equivalent to Ezekiel’s vision of the clouds and chariots of the cherubim, God’s Spirit in action, being manifested in the chariots and dust clouds thus formed by the invaders.</h4><h4>Woe to us! For we are ruined- This is Jeremiah’s interjection. He sees the personal truth of the message he is relaying. Likewise Jeremiah responds to the prophecy he has to utter against the hated Philistines by begging the Father to limit these judgments, presumably on account of their repentance: “O thou sword of the Lord, how long will it be ere thou be quiet? Put up thyself into thy scabbard, rest, and be still” (<a href='B:300 47:6'>Jer 47:6</a>). Here likewise he almost interrupts a prophecy he is giving to Israel about judgment to come by appealing for them therefore to repent (<a href='B:300 4:13-14'>Jer 4:13-14</a>). Our handling of the prophecies of judgment to come should have a like effect upon us: they should inspire us to an inevitable witness. Each of our days cannot be just ‘the same old scene’ when we see the world in this way.</h4>


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<p>Jerusalem, wash your heart from wickedness, that you may be saved. How long shall your evil thoughts lodge within you?- This is Jeremiah’s personal appeal for repentance; he so believed that what he had prophesied would come true. Again the appeal is for reformation of thought patterns; see on :4. "Evil" is literally ’vain’, a word often associated with the "vanities" of the idols. But the essence of idolatry, then as now, was vain thinking, emptiness of heart. That to this day is the essence of idolatry, and the prophetic call is not let this vanity lodge within us, but to cast out those thoughts.</p>


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<p>For a voice declares from Dan, and publishes evil from the hills of Ephraim- These were areas within the ten tribe kingdom which had already been carried captive. The idea is that from there would come advance warning of the Babylonian advance; just as Judah ought to have taken warning from the judgment upon the ten tribes.</p>


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<p>Tell the nations; behold, publish against Jerusalem, ‘Watchers come from a far country and lift up their voice against the cities of Judah- Why should the Gentile nations also be informed of the Babylonian advance? Presumably in the hope that they too would repent and turn to Yahweh; for this was the Divine intention. "Watchers" could simply mean ’besiegers’ (s:w. <a href='B:290 1:8'>Isa 1:8</a>; <a href='B:330 6:12'>Eze 6:12</a>); or it could be a reference to the Angels who watch over God’s word to perform it (<a href='B:300 1:11-13'>Jer 1:11-13</a>), and who would bring the invaders on their journey, like Ezekiel’s cherubim.</p>


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<p>As keepers of a field, they are against her all around, because she has been rebellious against Me’, says Yahweh- "They (the enemy) are lying in wait on the fields round about". This would support the translation "besiegers" in :16. The rebellion of the people is specifically stated as being in their hearts (<a href='B:300 5:23'>Jer 5:23</a> s:w:). The state of the heart is such a repeated theme here.</p>


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<h4>Your way and your doings have brought these things to you. This is your wickedness; for it is bitter, for it reaches to your heart- Their "way" refers to their way of thought and internal imagination, the trodden paths of mental reactions and thoughts, which led to their "doings".</h4><h4>Jeremiah speaks of the pain of his heart after having spoken of the pain that would reach unto the heart of Judah (<a href='B:300 4:18-19'>Jer 4:18-19</a>). The pain of their heart became the pain of his heart. And yet Jeremiah had the mind of God in this sense, as David was after God’s own heart. This is reflected by the way in which it is very difficult at times in Jeremiah to decide who is speaking- Jeremiah, or God. <a href='B:300 9:1-3'>Jer 9:1-3</a>; <a href='B:300 9:10-11'>Jer 9:10-11</a> is a good passage to work through from this perspective, asking ‘Who is speaking? Jeremiah, or God?’. Their minds were clearly so intertwined. Both of them are described, in consecutive verses, as rising up early to plead with Israel (<a href='B:300 25:3-4'>Jer 25:3-4</a>).</h4>


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<p>My anguish, my anguish! I am pained at my very heart; my heart is disquieted in me; I can’t hold my peace; because you have heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war- See on :18. Despite being betrayed and hated by his own people, Jeremiah felt such pain for the judgment to come upon them- he was still struck with pain at the thought of their judgment. If we too have a heart that bleeds, we will come to know the mind of Jeremiah, who as he proclaimed the judgments of his last days, interrupted his sermon with this outburst. His very soul heard the message which he preached, and he interrupts his proclamation of it with this emotional outburst; this was no mindless distribution of bills or casual mention of our church. He was pained in his heart to the extent that he seems to have had some form of seizure. This is how much Jeremiah felt for those he preached to and warned, both within and without of the ecclesia. And he speaks of the pain of his heart after having spoken of the pain that would reach unto the heart of Judah (<a href='B:300 4:18-19'>Jer 4:18-19</a>). The pain of their heart became the pain of his heart.</p>


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<p>Destruction on destruction is cried; for the whole land is laid waste: suddenly are my tents destroyed, and my curtains in a moment- In this whole section, it is hard to decide whether this is Jeremiah or Yahweh speaking in the first person. Jeremiah, as every true preacher, was no mere relayer of God’s word. He was personally involved in the message, sharing the heart of God whilst also full of heartbreak for his own people- just like the Lord Jesus.</p>


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<p>How long shall I see the standard, and hear the sound of the trumpet?- Again we can question whether Jeremiah was correct in feeling that he didn’t want to hear any more judgment to come upon his people. And yet despite this, the personal pronouns in the next verse clearly relate to God rather than Jeremiah. He shared the mind of God, whilst being also so terribly pained for his people- a fine insight into the Lord’s mind.</p>


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<p>For my people are foolish, they don’t know me. They are foolish children, and they have no understanding. They are skilful in doing evil, but to do good they have no knowledge- Clearly the "me" is God, and yet the surrounding context suggests Jeremiah is speaking. Again we see how the thinking and spirit of Yahweh was meshed with that of His servant and preacher. This is how our witness should be.</p>


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<p>I saw the land and, behold, it was waste and void; and the heavens, and they had no light- Clearly an allusion to the language of Genesis, supporting the idea that there wehave a description of the formation of eretz Israel rather than the entire planet. The judgments were intended to bring the eretz back to what it was then; but implicit in this judgment is the expectation of new creation. See on :31.</p>


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<p>I saw the mountains, and behold, they trembled, and all the hills moved back and forth- The vision before Jeremiah suggests that the land of Israel was to return to the state it was in when the creation process began.</p>


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<p>I saw, and behold, there was no man, and all the birds of the sky had fled- This would suggest that "no man" was to be left on the land. But this didn’t happen at this time; only the leadership were taken captive, and soon after the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem, local Jews still came to worship at the temple site (<a href='B:300 41:5'>Jer 41:5</a>). In wrath God remembered mercy; or perhaps responded to some degree of repentance or intercession from a minority.</p>


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<p>I saw, and behold, the fruitful field was a wilderness, and all its cities were broken down at the presence of Yahweh, before His fierce anger- Israel were told to "throw down", "break in pieces" and "utterly destroy" the idols and altars of Canaan. There were times during their history when they obeyed this command by purging themselves from their apostasy in this. The Hebrew words used scarcely occur elsewhere, except very frequently in the context of how God "broke down", "threw down" and "destroyed" Israel at the hands of their Babylonian and Assyrian invaders as a result of their not ’breaking down’ (etc:) the idols. "Throw down" in <a href='B:20 34:13'>Exo 34:13</a>; <a href='B:50 7:5'>Deu 7:5</a>; <a href='B:50 12:3'>Deu 12:3</a>; <a href='B:140 31:1'>2Ch 31:1</a> is the same word in <a href='B:140 36:19'>2Ch 36:19</a>; <a href='B:300 4:26'>Jer 4:26</a>; <a href='B:300 31:28'>Jer 31:28</a>; <a href='B:300 33:4'>Jer 33:4</a>; <a href='B:300 39:8'>Jer 39:8</a>; <a href='B:300 52:14'>Jer 52:14</a>; <a href='B:330 16:39'>Eze 16:39</a>; <a href='B:410 1:6'>Nah 1:6</a>. "Cut down" in <a href='B:50 7:5'>Deu 7:5</a>; <a href='B:50 12:3'>Deu 12:3</a>; <a href='B:140 31:1'>2Ch 31:1</a> later occurs in <a href='B:290 10:33'>Isa 10:33</a>; Jeremiah 48; Jeremiah 25; <a href='B:310 2:3'>Lam 2:3</a>. So Israel faced the choice: either cut down your idols, or you will be cut down in the day of God’s judgment. Those who worshipped idols were like unto them. The stone will either fall on us and destroy us, or we must fall on it and become broken men and women (<a href='B:470 21:44'>Mat 21:44</a>). For the man untouched by the concept of living for God’s glory, it’s a hard choice.</p>


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<p>For thus says Yahweh, The whole land shall be a desolation; yet will I not make a full end- Earlier God had threatened to make a full end, the same phrase is found in <a href='B:290 10:23'>Isa 10:23</a> and <a href='B:430 1:18'>Zep 1:18</a>. But now God promises that He will not make a full end (<a href='B:300 5:10'>Jer 5:10</a>; <a href='B:300 5:18'>Jer 5:18</a>; <a href='B:300 4:27'>Jer 4:27</a>; <a href='B:300 30:11'>Jer 30:11</a>; <a href='B:300 46:28'>Jer 46:28</a>). God is not capricious; but His love and pity is such that He is unafraid to not do according to His wrath. In wrath God remembered mercy; or perhaps responded to some degree of repentance or intercession from a minority. And this God is our God.</p>


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<p>For this the land will mourn, and the heavens above be black; because I have spoken it, I have purposed it, and I have not relented, neither will I go back from it- See on <a href='B:350 13:14'>Hos 13:14</a>. God was prepared to relent (<a href='B:300 18:8'>Jer 18:8</a>; <a href='B:300 26:3'>Jer 26:3</a>; <a href='B:300 26:13'>Jer 26:13</a>; <a href='B:300 26:19'>Jer 26:19</a>; <a href='B:300 42:10'>Jer 42:10</a>), and yet He says in <a href='B:300 4:28'>Jer 4:28</a> that He will not. This is not self-contradiction, but rather a reflection f the depth of how God’s compassion is finally greater than His judgment of sin. The whole mental and emotional trauma made God weary of all the relenting, so deeply did He feel it (<a href='B:300 15:6'>Jer 15:6</a>). There has to come a moment when the pull of the flow toward the waterfall of condemnation is now too strong, and the plunge is inevitable. It is that moment which perhaps we need to fear more than anything else in human experience. It happened to Israel- their hearts too were hard, and in the end, after a period, God have them over to their hard hearts (<a href='B:230 81:11-12'>Psa 81:11-12</a>)- the implication being that even whilst He hardened their hearts, He kept them by grace from the full consequences::. but in the end, the final inevitable drag towards the waterfall set in. This is why there were times when even repentance, as a change of mind, could not save Jerusalem from destruction (<a href='B:300 4:28'>Jer 4:28</a>; <a href='B:300 15:1-9'>Jer 15:1-9</a>; <a href='B:300 16:12'>Jer 16:12</a>; <a href='B:330 7:1-9'>Eze 7:1-9</a>). This was the moment after the inevitable tug towards the waterfall beings, but before the actual plunge. It’s Saul cowering before the witch of Endor, lying face down in the dirt that fateful night::. and this is the human condition we should most dread.</p>


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<p>Every city flees for the noise of the horsemen and archers; they go into the thickets and climb up on the rocks: every city is forsaken, not a man dwells therein- This was avoidable; if Judah had obeyed the commandment to flee their fenced cities and go into Jerusalem. See on :6. They refused God’s peace and safety in Jerusalem, and so they fled into the rocks and thickets.</p>


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<h4>You, when you are made desolate, what will you do? Though you clothe yourself with scarlet, though you deck you with ornaments of gold, though you enlarge your eyes with paint, in vain do you make yourself beautiful; your lovers despise you, they seek your life- The very nations whose help and blessing Judah had sought, and whose idols she had worshipped, were now coming to demand her life. Just as those idols had demanded the lives of her firstborn children, and she had given them. Now her life itself would be required by them.</h4><h4>Perhaps more than anything, the prophetic descriptions of condemnation were aimed at attacking the indifference which pervaded Israel. And so the power of sexual imagery is used to the full in the description of rejected Israel as a whore all dressed up with no place to go, so utterly unwanted and despised (<a href='B:300 4:30-31'>Jer 4:30-31</a>). This was and is the tragedy of Divine rejection of those who have so desperately sought the approval of this world, when all too late they find this world is over for good. We so minimize sin. Just a bit of injustice, a little touch of selfishness, a moment of hypocrisy… but all this is obscene treatment of our God. We read the description of the red clothing, gaudy jewellery and heavy make up of the harlot Israel in Ezekiel and Jeremiah… and this is how inappropriate is mere external religion (<a href='B:300 4:30'>Jer 4:30</a>). And we’re all guilty of that, in some ways at some times.</h4>


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<p>For I have heard a voice as of a woman in travail, the anguish as of her who brings forth her first child, the voice of the daughter of Zion, who gasps for breath, who spreads her hands saying, Woe is me now! For my soul faints before the murderers- The imagery here pictures a woman who is dying in childbirth, but who will still produce a live birth. Just as the imagery of decreation has implicit within it the hope of new life, so here. Although the woman would die, the hope was that she would bring forth a new generation who would respond. The woman in travail is the woman of :30 who desperately dresses as a prostitute in order to placate her former lovers, when she realizes they have come to murder her. And she is in fact heavily pregnant, about to give birth with her murderers standing around her. This was the pathetic, awful picture of Judah’s position. This kind of shocking imagery is deployed to try to shake them out of their indifference, as it should us too.</p>


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<h4>Run back and forth through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and seek in the broad places of it, if you can find a man, if there are any who does justice, who seeks truth; and I will pardon her- This reflected how God is in search of man. What joy therefore when He finds a man, and the man who is searching finds Him. This is the joy of the lost being found in the parables of Luke 15. Jeremiah’s search for believers was a reflection of God’s. God hunts for us like a lion, Job came to realize; and in this "You show yourself wonderful to me" (<a href='B:220 10:16'>Job 10:16</a>). And we are searching for God. God is not indifferent to our searching for Him. Those awestruck moments of wonder, of radical amazement, are where God finds us at the time we are searching for Him. Both sides are seeking each other; and in those moments, they meet. As a Jewish poet put it: "And going out to meet thee / I found thee coming toward me". In those moments, heaven and earth kiss each other. There is a click, a flash, between Almighty God and us- as we stand at a bus stop, turn left into Acacia Avenue, lay there on our bed meditating.</h4><p>Here is another allusion to the situation during the Assyrian invasion; see on <a href='B:300 4:5'>Jer 4:5</a>; <a href='B:300 4:8'>Jer 4:8</a>. Hezekiah obtained forgiveness and acceptance for those who kept the Passover “otherwise than it was written”- thanks to his prayer (<a href='B:140 30:18'>2Ch 30:18</a>). In Hezekiah’s time, all Israel had to repent to avert total destruction- but even though they didn’t, the prayer of Hezekiah saved the nation (<a href='B:300 26:13'>Jer 26:13</a>; <a href='B:300 26:19'>Jer 26:19</a>). All of Jerusalem would have been forgiven if there was even one that truly executed judgment after the pattern of Phinehas (or is this a reference to Messiah?).</p><p>"Seeks truth" can also be "is not greedy". Jeremiah speaks of running to and fro in the streets of Jerusalem, searching her squares, to see if he could find a single man who did justice and wasn’t greedy (<a href='B:300 5:1'>Jer 5:1</a>; <a href='B:300 5:5'>Jer 5:5</a>; <a href='B:300 6:6'>Jer 6:6</a>; <a href='B:300 6:13'>Jer 6:13</a>; <a href='B:300 8:10'>Jer 8:10</a>). Why get so ballistic because people are greedy and have no real sense of justice? Isn’t that part of the human deal, don’t we see it every single day? Yes we do. But the challenge of the prophets is to feel its’ awfulness and realize that for this, an awful judgment is coming from God. It is indeed hard to see the world from God’s perspective; but this is what the spirit of prophecy was and is all about.</p><h4>We wonder whether there were really no other righteous in Jerusalem apart from Jeremiah. There was Josiah, but he died in disobedience to God’s wishes, fighting against Egypt for Babylon. There was Baruch, but he seems to have had a heart for materialism (<a href='B:300 45:5'>Jer 45:5</a>). Ezekiel was not in Jerusalem but already in captivity.</h4>


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<p>Though they say, ‘As Yahweh lives;’ surely they swear falsely- Josiah’s reformation had clearly not touched their hearts. The implication is that God’s people swore that "Yahweh lives" but without moral justice and right behaviour. To believe that God exists is therefore to act like Him, in truth, justice and righteousness. To live otherwise is to effectively deny His existence. His very existence is therefore an imperative to live and be as He is.</p>


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<p>O Yahweh, don’t Your eyes look on truth? You have stricken them, but they were not grieved. You have consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction. They have made their faces harder than a rock. They have refused to return- Jeremiah had similar oscillations of feeling as God also had. This is his response to the command to go and search for even one man who did righteousness (:1). He is complaining that surely God sees the situation anyway, which he had to report- Israel had not grieved to repentance. And they were psychologically hardened against that possibility. But then in :4,5 his pity for them returns and he as it were tries again. We are hardened in our path, one way or the other. The Lord hardened His face like a rock (<a href='B:290 50:7'>Isa 50:7</a>; <a href='B:490 9:51'>Luk 9:51</a>); and yet the wicked similarly harden their faces like a rock to go in the way of the flesh (<a href='B:300 5:3'>Jer 5:3</a>). Jeremiah had his face hardened in response to his own hardening of face (<a href='B:300 1:17'>Jer 1:17</a>; <a href='B:300 5:3'>Jer 5:3</a>), and the wicked in Israel likewise were hardened (<a href='B:300 3:3'>Jer 3:3</a>; <a href='B:300 4:30'>Jer 4:30</a>)</p>


text:
<h4>Then I said, Surely these are poor. They are foolish; for they don’t know the way of Yahweh, nor the law of their God- See on :3. Jeremiah apparently relents from his giving up with the people in :3. He realizes that the people simply don’t know God’s way and law- because the priests, of whom he was one, had not taught them. "Poor" is better "lean"; skinny and foolish is the language of a misled flock. The priests had not led them as intended. Notice how "the law" is not a set of disconnected, discrete commandments and regulations; it was to inculcate a way of life and thought, "the way of Yahweh", with which here it is paralleled.</h4><h4>But "law" is better "judgment", as AV. Knowing God’s present judgment should have a powerful practical effect upon us. If we know the judgment of God against certain types of behaviour, we will keep away from them totally. It is only the rejected who refuse to know "the judgment of their God" (<a href='B:300 5:4'>Jer 5:4</a> AV). We are living our lives under judgment. Knowing God’s judgment-principles, we will wish to separate from all that will finally be condemned and destroyed. Israel chose to be oblivious of what they well knew; there was no (awareness of) God’s judgment in their way of life (<a href='B:290 59:8'>Isa 59:8</a>) and therefore they lacked that innate sense of judgment to come which they ought to have had, as surely as the stork knows the coming time for her migration (<a href='B:300 8:7'>Jer 8:7</a>)</h4>


text:
<p>I will go to the great men, and will speak to them; for they know the way of Yahweh, and the law of their God. But these with one accord have broken the yoke, and burst the bonds- As so often, there is an intentional ambiguity as to the speaker. This is Jeremiah’s response to the command to go and seek at least one man to stand in the gap; but by :7 we have God speaking. Again we see how Jeremiah’s feelings and positions were so meshed with those of God; as should be with us, the Spirit of God had become part of his spirit. Jeremiah speaks as if he had expected that those amongst "the great men" would know Yahweh’s law and way; but he is disappointed, he finds not a single one there ("all with one accord::."). Again we see Jeremiah’s overly positive and hopeful view of Israel; which was also a reflection of God’s view, so in love with them was He still. Breaking the bonds suggests they had broken their covenant relationship. Judah had "broken the yoke and burst the bonds" of their covenant relationship with God, but He by grace had broken the yoke and bonds of those who enslaved them (<a href='B:300 2:20'>Jer 2:20</a>; <a href='B:300 30:8'>Jer 30:8</a>).</p>


text:
<p>Therefore a lion out of the forest shall kill them, a wolf of the evenings shall destroy them, a leopard shall watch against their cities; everyone who goes out there shall be torn in pieces; because their transgressions are many, and their backsliding is increased- Even in this expression of wrath, there is the implication that the people would still be safe within their cities [an intensive plural for the great singular city, of Jerusalem?] if they remained within it. As explained on <a href='B:300 4:5'>Jer 4:5</a>; <a href='B:300 4:8'>Jer 4:8</a>, one of the many potential possibilities was that the cities would be destroyed apart from Jerusalem, and if they repentantly fled into Jerusalem they would be saved.</p>


text:
<h4>How can I pardon you? Your children have forsaken Me, and sworn by what are no gods- The tension within God is apparent. Hosea’s the clearest on this. God wants nothing more to do with His adulterous people; and then He pleads with them to come back to Him, breaking His own law, that a put away woman can’t return to her first husband. “How shall I give thee up, Ephraim?::. mine heart is turned within me, my repentings are kindled together” (<a href='B:350 11:8'>Hos 11:8</a>). And Jeremiah has more of the same: “How can I pardon you… shall I avenge myself on a nation such as this? Shall I not punish them for these things?” (<a href='B:300 5:7-9'>Jer 5:7-9</a>; <a href='B:300 5:28-29'>Jer 5:28-29</a>). God reveals Himself as oscillating between punishing and redeeming, judging sin and overlooking it. God is open to changing His stated plans (e:g. to destroy Nineveh within forty days, to destroy Israel and make of Moses a new nation). He isn’t like the Allah of Islam, who conducts a monologue with his followers; the one true God of Israel earnestly seeks dialogue with His people, and as such He enters into all the contradictory feelings and internal debates which dialogue involves. ‘God loves the sinner and hates the sin’ has always seemed to me problematic, logically and practically. Love is in the end a personal thing; in the end love and hate are appropriate to persons, not abstractions. And the person can’t so easily be separated from their actions. Ultimately, it is persons who will be saved or condemned. The prophets reveal both the wrath and love of God towards His people, in the same way as a parent or partner can feel both wrath and love towards their beloved.</h4><h4>When I had fed them to the full, they committed adultery, and assembled themselves in troops at the prostitutes’ houses- Here and in :8 there is continued the tragic theme that the more God blessed His people with material blessings, the more they went away from Him. This continues a major Biblical theme- that God’s loving material blessings of His people led them to idolatry (<a href='B:50 32:15'>Deu 32:15</a>). The prosperity Gospel must give due weight to this sad experience of God’s people historically. Those blessings gave them a taste for materialism, which led them to madly seek more such blessings from anybody and anything which might immediately yield them. The prostitutes were representative of the various idols they served, although that service often involved sleeping with the cult prostitutes.</h4>


text:
<h4>They were as fed horses roaming at large- We all know the downward spiral into sin… how once we start, we can’t stop. But when Israel were like this, they are likened to a female horse camel in insatiable heat (Jer 2:23-25; Jer 5:7-9). We’d just rather not read that, or retranslate the words to make it seem somehow different. But we’re dealing with serious matters here. Sin is serious to God.</h4><p>Everyone neighed after hisneighbour’s wife- Being unfaithful to their covenant with God led them to being unfaithful to their marital covenant. Our relationship with God is reflected in our family lives.</p><h4>Our early morning thoughts are fair indicators of how we really are with God. Interestingly, Israel are criticized for their early morning attitudes- in the mornings (AV) they fantasized after their neighbours’ wives (<a href='B:300 5:8'>Jer 5:8</a>; <a href='B:350 7:6'>Hos 7:6</a>), got up and wanted to get drunk again (<a href='B:290 5:11'>Isa 5:11</a>), had unjust thoughts about others (<a href='B:300 21:12'>Jer 21:12</a>; <a href='B:400 2:1'>Mic 2:1</a>). That’s quite some emphasis- God was so unhappy with what His people thought about in the mornings. And <a href='B:430 3:7'>Zep 3:7</a> is perhaps the most challenging of all- God condemned His people because they rose each morning and cast off all their opportunities (Heb:), despite Him every morning [potentially] revealing His word to them (<a href='B:430 3:5'>Zep 3:5</a>). They allowed themselves to be simply too busy to see all that God potentially enabled for them every single day. And what about us? God has prepared huge potential achievement for each of us- but we tend to fritter our days away in busyness and poor planning and lack of a self-disciplined life.</h4>


text:
<p>Shouldn’t I punish them for these things? says Yahweh; and shouldn’t My soul be avenged on such a nation as this?- God had been Israel’s wife and was in love with her. His deep desire for avenging was therefore absolutely connected with His great love for her. There had to be response from Him. This rhetorical question, enquiring as to whether Yahweh should take vengeance on Israel, is thrice repeated in Jeremiah (<a href='B:300 5:9'>Jer 5:9</a>; <a href='B:300 5:29'>Jer 5:29</a>; <a href='B:300 9:9'>Jer 9:9</a>). The answer of course is "Yes, God would be justified in doing so". And that answer was perhaps the repentance which God sought in order to avert the coming of His judgment.</p>


text:
<p>Go up on her walls, and destroy; but don’t make a full end. Take away her branches; for they are not Yahweh’s- The destruction of the branches implied that the stock of the vine [a prophetic symbol for Israel] was to remain. This was another way of saying that a "full end" would be made, although Jeremiah was to walk around the walls of Jerusalem and prophecy their fall- the collapse of all human strength. See on :10. We see here the power of the prophetic word- Jeremiah uttering these prophecies was as good as the destruction happening, and he therefore was the vehicle through which it would happen. Realizing this may account for the psychological breakdown of Jeremiah we see in Lamentations. On <a href='B:300 4:5-6'>Jer 4:5-6</a> we saw that an earlier prophetic potential had been that Jerusalem would be saved, but the fortified cities of Judah would fall. Now it seems that possibility had been precluded by their impenitence, and so Jerusalem too would fall. This is how God works in our lives too, working out various prophetic potentials.</p>


text:
<p>For the house of Israel and the house of Judah have dealt very treacherously against Me, says Yahweh- This was why Jerusalem was going to fall, and the plan for her survival as outlined on <a href='B:300 4:5-6'>Jer 4:5-6</a> was now cancelled. "Treachery" means literally to cover; they thought God would not notice, and this was the reason for His anger with them. And we can take a lesson from this. His omniscience requires from us a totally open attitude toward Him and ourselves.</p>


text:
<p>They have denied Yahweh and said, It is not He; neither shall evil come on us; neither shall we see sword nor famine- This was a denial of the very essence of Yahweh, "I am that I am"; and they said "It is not He", or "He is not". This was effectively atheism, although they would have hotly denied that charge. The damage of false teaching is that this is where it leads people; for it was the false prophets who taught that there would be no evil coming, and the predictions of sword and famine by Jeremiah and Ezekiel would not happen (:13). To deny God’s word is therefore to deny Him, to say "He is not". For "the word was God", He is identified with His word, and our attitude to His word is our attitude to Him.</p>


text:
<p>The prophets shall become wind, and the word is not in them. Thus shall it be done to them- This appears to be a statement of the people and false prophets about Jeremiah and the faithful prophets (so :14 implies). "Spirit" and "wind" are the same word in Hebrew. They treated the spirit within Jeremiah as just air, a wind that would pass away. This is why God responds in :14 by saying that His word in Jeremiah would become a fire and not simply wind. Again there is the implication that it was Jeremiah’s words which would bring the fire of destruction upon Jerusalem, and this accounts for Jeremiah’s psychological breakdown in Lamentations when he views the results of that fire.</p>


text:
<p>Therefore thus says Yahweh, the God of Armies, Because you speak this word, behold, I will make My words in your mouth fire and this people wood, and it shall devour them- See on :13. The prophetic word in Jeremiah’s mouth was like fire, and it was the people who were to be "devoured" by it (<a href='B:330 15:5'>Eze 15:5</a>; s:w. <a href='B:300 5:14'>Jer 5:14</a>; <a href='B:300 17:27'>Jer 17:27</a>; <a href='B:300 21:14'>Jer 21:14</a>). The amazing grace explained in Ezekiel 15 was in the fact that the ’devoured by fire’ vine twig would be refined in Babylon and still used by God to re-establish His Kingdom.</p>


text:
<h4>Behold, I will bring a nation on you from far, house of Israel, says Yahweh. It is a mighty nation. It is an ancient nation- Babylon was "ancient" in that God had raised it up for this time and purpose. Whatever the geopolitical issues of the day, it was Yahweh who would bring this distant nation against Israel. We wonder why Babylon is not named at this point, whereas it clearly is in Jeremiah’s later prophecies. Perhaps it was because these prophecies were still conditional; they were capable of fulfilment in peoples other than the Babylonians, had Judah at that time repented; although the judgment for their sins had to come at some point. But the channel of those judgments was still flexible, depending upon their repentance. See on <a href='B:300 6:3'>Jer 6:3</a>.</h4><h4>A nation whose language you don’t know, nor understand what they say- This was to be part of their judgment, and it is applied in <a href='B:530 14:21'>1Co 14:21</a> to those in the church at Corinth who falsely claimed that speaking in unintelligible babble was the Spirit gift of speaking in foreign languages. This was in fact therefore a sign that the church was judging itself, acting as if they were the sinful Jews of Jeremiah’s day whose judgment was to be dominated by those speaking a language they didn’t understand.</h4>


text:
<p>Their quiver is an open tomb, they are all mighty men- The idea was that every arrow in their quiver would bring death; but this was because the tongue of the Jews had been as deadly arrows (<a href='B:300 9:8'>Jer 9:8</a>). They were "mighty men" in that they were the earthly representatives of the Angelic elohim, God’s "mighty ones". Ezekiel makes the same point- the Angel cherubim chariots were to be the chariots of Babylon.</p>


text:
<h4>They shall eat up your harvest and your bread, which your sons and your daughters should eat. They shall eat up your flocks and your herds. They shall eat up your vines and your fig trees- "Eat up" is used of how Babylon "consumed" Jerusalem with fire (<a href='B:160 2:3'>Neh 2:3</a>; <a href='B:160 2:13'>Neh 2:13</a> etc:). The people and their land were to be "consumed" by the fire which was contained in the words Jeremiah spoke (<a href='B:300 5:14'>Jer 5:14</a>; <a href='B:300 5:17'>Jer 5:17</a>). But all who devoured / consumed them would be "held guilty" (<a href='B:300 2:3'>Jer 2:3</a>; <a href='B:300 10:25'>Jer 10:25</a>; <a href='B:300 30:16'>Jer 30:16</a>). And yet in depression, Jeremiah lamented that the fire had consumed (<a href='B:310 2:3'>Lam 2:3</a>; <a href='B:310 4:11'>Lam 4:11</a>), when it was His owns words which had been that devouring fire. His lament was therefore tantamount to a statement of regret that he had been used as the vehicle for this devouring fire.</h4><h4>They shall beat down your fortified cities in which you trust with the sword- There was to be destruction in the land, but there was potentially safety / salvation in Jerusalem for those who were obedient and repentant (<a href='B:300 4:5-7'>Jer 4:5-7</a>). This was a test to Judah, because they trusted in their defenced cities (<a href='B:300 5:17'>Jer 5:17</a>). But the prophecy of Jeremiah 4 (and <a href='B:400 5:11'>Mic 5:11</a>) asks them to believe that these cities would fall, and there would be salvation only in Jerusalem. And yet they were disobedient, and did go into those other defenced cities (<a href='B:300 8:14'>Jer 8:14</a>).</h4>


text:
<p>But even in those days, says Yahweh, I will not make a full end with you- Earlier God had threatened to make a full end, the same phrase is found in <a href='B:290 10:23'>Isa 10:23</a> and <a href='B:430 1:18'>Zep 1:18</a>. But now God promises that He will not make a full end (<a href='B:300 5:10'>Jer 5:10</a>; <a href='B:300 5:18'>Jer 5:18</a>; <a href='B:300 4:27'>Jer 4:27</a>; <a href='B:300 30:11'>Jer 30:11</a>; <a href='B:300 46:28'>Jer 46:28</a>). God is not capricious; but His love and pity is such that He is unafraid to not do according to His wrath. In wrath God remembered mercy; or perhaps responded to some degree of repentance or intercession from a minority. And this God is our God.</p>


text:
<p>It will happen, when you say, ‘Why has Yahweh our God done all these things to us?’ Then you shall say to them, ‘Just like you have forsaken Me and served foreign gods in your land, so you shall serve strangers in a land that is not yours’- Jeremiah was commanded to prophecy this when the judgment happened. Perhaps he did, but Lamentations records him struggling with the "Why, God:::?" questions, and concluding that it was all unreasonably severe judgment. He really is portrayed as a man in struggle with God, despite being of His mind and Spirit in so much.</p>


text:
<p>Declare this in the house of Jacob, and publish it in Judah saying- This was to go to all Judah and not just Jerusalem, as previous prophetic words.</p>


text:
<p>‘Hear now this, foolish people, and without understanding; who have eyes, and don’t see; who have ears, and don’t hear- These words are quoted about the Jews in the Lord’s day. But it is not to say that they were incapable of hearing or seeing, for this is part of an appeal to hear and respond (:22). The idea is that they had the eyes to see, but wouldn’t. It’s like the appeal to break up their fallow ground (<a href='B:300 4:3'>Jer 4:3</a>)- they were to use their potential. They were without understanding because they chose not to open their eyes and ears. Not understanding Divine teaching therefore has a moral basis to it; it’s not mere intellectual failure, but is rooted in a deep psychological desire not to repent.</p>


text:
<p>Don’t you fear Me?’ says Yahweh ‘Won’t you tremble at My presence, who have placed the sand for the bound of the sea by a perpetual decree, that it can’t pass it? and though its waves toss themselves, yet they can’t prevail; though they roar, yet they can’t pass over it’- They refused to fear God and sense His presence because they were persuaded that they had done nothing wrong (:12). This is the narrative story that is endlessly repeated in the hearts of so many: ’I am a good person, I don’t sin, the problem is with us, get off me and stop trying to make me feel my behaviour displeases God’. They had the potential to understand this (:21), but refused to live according to it. The reference to the sea and waves being limited as to their destructive effect is clearly a reference to the seas of the Gentile invaders; God had promised not to make a full end of Israel, and so the waves of the invaders would not be allowed to totally destroy the land / eretz. This was part of God’s covenant with Israel, His "perpetual decree". It was this experience of grace which ought to have made Judah tremble at the presence of the God of such grace.</p>


text:
<p>But this people has a revolting and a rebellious heart; they have revolted and gone- Again the issue is with their heart; they were the stubborn and rebellious son of <a href='B:50 21:18'>Deu 21:18</a>; <a href='B:50 21:20'>Deu 21:20</a> (s:w:) who had to be slain. Their refusal to understand (:21) was not therefore a case of intellectual failure, but was rooted in a desire to revolt from the God who had so loved them and walk away ("gone") from Him. Jeremiah mourned Israel’s lack of spiritual sensitivity and failure to live up to their potential- they had eyes, but didn’t see, they were God’s servant, but a blind one; His messenger, but unable to hear any message (<a href='B:290 42:19'>Isa 42:19</a>). So the prophets weren’t satisfied just because a minority responded to their message of God’s love. They were heartbroken because the majority rejected it. I suspect we tend to think that 1 response in 1000 is good, 1 in 10,000 isn’t bad. But what about the other 999, or 9,999, who receive our tracts, hit our websites, hear our witness- and don’t respond? Is our witness in the spirit of the prophets? Are we happy that the tiny minority respond, and don’t spare a thought for the tragedy of the majority who don’t? Not only their tragedy, but the tragedy for God?</p>


text:
<p>Neither do they say in their heart, ‘Let us now fear Yahweh our God who gives rain, both the former and the latter, in its season; who preserves to us the appointed weeks of the harvest’- Yet again the emphasis is upon the heart. They failed to perceive that the rains in Palestine were arranged by God for the optimal times- just after sowing and just before harvesting, and then no rain during the harvesting season. Those "weeks of the harvest" were appointed by God for them. But they refused to "see" that (:21).</p>


text:
<p>Your iniquities have turned away these things, and your sins have withheld good from you- The rains, so carefully designed to give them an optimal growing season and harvest (see on :24), were turned away from them because these were the blessings of the covenant which they had broken. The potential good that was planned would not come. This failure to realize potential is such a major theme of the prophets, and it can be seen in human life just as much today.</p>


text:
<p>For among My people are found wicked men. They watch, as fowlers lie in wait. They set a trap. They catch men- God had told Jeremiah at the start of his ministry that He would watch over His word to perform it; but in the false Israel, there were false prophets who likewise watched over the fulfilment of their evil plans. "Trap" is the same word used about the "mount of corruption" in Jerusalem which Josiah had destroyed (<a href='B:120 23:13'>2Ki 23:13</a>). But his reforms were only tokenistic; the false prophets remained, setting up similar traps of corruption. It is the same word translated ’destruction’, which the Babylonians would bring (<a href='B:300 51:25'>Jer 51:25</a>; <a href='B:330 5:16'>Eze 5:16</a>). But as the Babylonians would entrap Jerusalem in the siege, so they had in essence done to themselves already.</p>


text:
<p>As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit. Therefore they became great and grew rich- The bird traps featured live birds within them, encouraging other birds to fly in to the trap or cage. This is how advertising works- see how this wonderful thing happened to this person, so why not join them within the cage. The wealth of the false prophets attracted the people to act like them.</p>


text:
<p>They have grown fat. They shine; yes, they excel in deeds of wickedness. They don’t plead the cause, the cause of the fatherless, that they may prosper; and they don’t judge the right of the needy- The "wicked men" of :26 were therefore the spiritual and civil leadership, and their wealth was gained through oppressing the poor. This was mentioned rather than their idolatry, because it is attitudes to the poor which are of such huge significance to God. The very same reasons are given by Ezekiel for the Babylonian judgment at this time (<a href='B:330 22:29'>Eze 22:29</a>).</p>


text:
<p>Shall I not punish for these things? says Yahweh. Shall not My soul be avenged on such a nation as this?- See on :9. The judgment was against the "nation", whereas :26-28 appear to condemn the ruling classes. God does not judge the righteous along with the wicked. The corruption of these men had spread throughout society; as noted on :27, they were a self-advertisement for getting wealth by abusing others, and all society were attracted to it. The abuse of the leadership was ’loved’ by the people (:31).</p>


text:
<p>An astonishing and horrible thing has happened in the land- God was ’astonished’ in that again, He limited His omniscience in order to enter fully into relationship with His people. He had higher hopes for His people, and is portrayed as shocked and shattered when those hopes were dashed. The false prophecies uttered in His Name and supported by His priests were particularly shocking to Him (:31).</p>


text:
<h4>The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule by their own authority; and My people love to have it so- The entire society was guilty because leaders only act as the people want; see on :29. The priests were to teach the people God’s law, but the prophets who claimed to give God’s word gave false words in His Name. Hence there was a conspiracy between prophets and priests. And yet all Israel were to be priests. Although there was a special priesthood, it was clearly God’s intention that all Israel should be like priests; they were to be a "Kingdom of priests" (<a href='B:20 19:6'>Exo 19:6</a>). Israel were all “saints”, and yet saints and priests are paralleled in passages like <a href='B:230 132:16'>Psa 132:16</a>. Israel in the wilderness had clothes which didn’t wear out- just as the Priestly clothes didn’t, and were handed down from generation to generation (so <a href='B:20 29:29'>Exo 29:29</a> implies). Israel were to teach every man his neighbour and brother, saying, Know the Lord (<a href='B:650 8:11'>Heb 8:11</a>). God therefore saw all Israel as represented by the priests(<a href='B:350 4:9'>Hos 4:9</a>; <a href='B:290 24:2'>Isa 24:2</a>; <a href='B:300 5:31'>Jer 5:31</a>; <a href='B:300 8:10'>Jer 8:10</a>).</h4><h4>What will you do in the end of it?- This is typical of the rhetorical questions in Jeremiah. They were designed to elicit an acceptance by the people that all this would come to an appropriate end in a dramatic destruction. And it was a recognition of this which was vital for repentance. All the time, God is seeking to elicit repentance- from people we would likely have given up with long before.</h4>


text:
<h4>Flee for safety, you children of Benjamin, out of the midst of Jerusalem, blow the trumpet in Tekoa and raise up a signal on Beth Haccherem; for evil looks forth from the north, and a great destruction- On <a href='B:300 4:5-6'>Jer 4:5-6</a> we saw that an earlier prophetic potential had been that Jerusalem would be saved, but the fortified cities of Judah would fall. Now it seems that possibility had been precluded by their impenitence, and so Jerusalem too would fall. This is how God works in our lives too, working out various prophetic potentials. Tekoa and Beth Haccherem were to the south of Jerusalem; the idea is that the invaders from the north would take Jerusalem and pursue its inhabitants further south.</h4><h4>The frequent predictions of judgment upon Israel were effectively calls to repentance, whereby the predicted judgment need not actually happen. The more Israel resisted the call, the more they were as it were tightening the bands which the prophetic word had laid around them: "Now therefore be not mockers, lest your bands be made strong; for I have heard from the Lord God of hosts a consumption, even determined upon the whole earth" (<a href='B:290 28:22'>Isa 28:22</a>). Thus <a href='B:300 6:2'>Jer 6:2</a> appears to be a specific prophecy of future destruction in Jerusalem: "The comely and delicate one, the daughter of Zion, will I cut off" (RV). But the preceding verse is in fact a call for the "daughter of Zion" to "Flee for safety out of the midst of Jerusalem" (<a href='B:300 6:1'>Jer 6:1</a> RV). If they had obeyed that call, then the prophecy of cutting off wouldn’t have come true. Note in passing that this is the basis for the Lord’s command to flee out of Jerusalem in the "last days" of AD70 and before His return to earth. The prophecies of destruction within Jerusalem had [in AD70] and will yet have an element of conditionality about them. Hence the appeal of <a href='B:300 6:8'>Jer 6:8</a>; <a href='B:300 6:26'>Jer 6:26</a> to the "daughter of Zion" to "be instructed" and to mourn in repentance; if this had been done, in Jeremiah’s time, in AD70 and if it will be done in our last days, so many prophecies of certain judgment will not in fact be fulfilled.</h4>


text:
<p>The comely and delicate one, the daughter of Zion, will I cut off- See on :1. The translation could refer to good pastureland, which fits with :3. Or LXX: "And thy pride, O daughter of Sion, shall be taken away".</p>


text:
<p>Shepherds with their flocks shall come to her; they shall pitch their tents against her all around; they shall feed each one in his place- Again we note that "Babylon" is not mentioned here, and the idea of nomadic shepherds encamping around Jerusalem leads us to think that the nomadic Scyths are in view here. One prophetic potential was that had Judah repented, then the invasion of the Scythian tribes mentioned in Ezekiel 38 would have happened but would have been destroyed by Divine intervention, and then a repentant Judah would have built the temple system of Ezekiel 40-48. But this potential didn’t come about. The Babylonians weren’t characterized as shepherds, and yet they fulfilled the essence of the prophecy by besieging Jerusalem. See on <a href='B:300 5:15'>Jer 5:15</a>.</p>


text:
<h4>Prepare war against her; arise, and let us go up at noon- Attacks were usually made at dawn and not in the midday heat, but the invaders were to be so enthusiastic, having prepared / sanctified war against Jerusalem. This jihad is going to be seen in the last days, when these prophecies will come to their ultimate term.</h4><h4>Woe to us! For the day declines, for the shadows of the evening are stretched out- Here we see how Jeremiah totally identifies with the people he is teaching. In the midst of stating how the invaders would act and speak, he himself cries out "Woe to us!". He sees that the word he is preaching is absolutely true and will really happen. The day of opportunity for repentance is drawing to a close, although it is a long evening, stretching out a long time, because God really so sought their repentance before the night of the invasion came.</h4>


text:
<p>Arise, and let us go up by night, and let us destroy her palaces- As noted on :4, Jeremiah is predicting the words of the invaders, although he himself interjects an outburst of "Woe unto us!" in :4. The "palaces" refer not only to the temple, but to the houses of the wealthy, built on exploitation of the poor (<a href='B:300 5:28'>Jer 5:28</a>). The historical records in Jeremiah and 2 Chronicles stress that "the great houses" were destroyed.</p>


text:
<p>For Yahweh of Armies said, Cut down trees, and cast up a mound against Jerusalem: this is the city to be visited; she is wholly oppression in the midst of her- The invaders were under the direct command of Yahweh of Armies; their armies were His armies, reflecting the Angelic armies of heaven. Just as Ezekiel’s cherubim were Angelic chariots, manifested in the chariots of Babylon. God commanded the invaders to cut down trees in order to make siege engines. This was specifically the opposite of how He had commanded Israel to make war (<a href='B:50 20:19-20'>Deu 20:19-20</a>). We could draw the conclusion that what God expects of His people, He doesn’t expect of the Gentile world; indeed He may expect the very opposite. This would suggest that it is inappropriate for Christians to demand that the secular world adopts exactly their positions.</p>


text:
<p>As a well casts forth its waters, so she casts forth her wickedness: violence and destruction is heard inher; before Me continually is grief and woundedness- The violence and destruction were what the Jews were doing to each other; and so violence and destruction came upon them. That judgment was merely a continuation of how they themselves acted. The continual bubbling forth of their wickedness, as from a perpetual fountain, was matched in God’s continual woundedness. That God can be wounded by our behaviour::. is a stunning concept. This reveals the extent to which God has sensitized Himself toward man, when we are but ants before Him, the King of the cosmos. The same word is used of the deep wounding of God’s people by the invaders (<a href='B:300 14:17'>Jer 14:17</a>; <a href='B:300 30:14'>Jer 30:14</a>); but God felt that Himself even before they did.</p>


text:
<h4>Be instructed, Jerusalem- The appeal for Jerusalem to be "instructed" uses the same word translated "punish" (<a href='B:30 26:18'>Lev 26:18</a>). The idea was that the punishments were to be instruction; they were not the lashing out of an offended Deity. It was God’s hope, even ’fantasy’ would not be too strong a word, that His people would realize this, and come to say "You punished / instructed me, and I was instructed" (<a href='B:300 31:18'>Jer 31:18</a> s:w:).</h4><h4>Lest My soul depart from you; lest I make you a desolation, a land not inhabited- See on :1,2. Here and <a href='B:330 23:18'>Eze 23:18</a> speaks of how God’s soul "departed" from His people- but the same word is translated to hang / crucify (<a href='B:40 25:4'>Num 25:4</a>; <a href='B:100 21:6'>2Sa 21:6</a>; <a href='B:100 21:9'>2Sa 21:9</a>; <a href='B:100 21:13'>2Sa 21:13</a>). It’s as if God was crucified in His pain for Israel. And in the death of His Son He went through that pain. And so never, ever, ever::. can we nor Israel complain that our pain is greater than God’s. Never. The pain of God at Israel’s sin leads Him to exclaim (almost in the language of piercing and crucifixion): "Before me continually is grief and wounds" (<a href='B:300 6:7'>Jer 6:7</a>). We can wound God by our sin, so sensitive is He to us. In the end, we read that God’s "soul" departed from them, because "the Lord has rejected you" (<a href='B:300 6:8'>Jer 6:8</a>; <a href='B:300 6:30'>Jer 6:30</a>). This is the same language used about Saul- God rejected him, and so His spirit departed from him (<a href='B:90 15:23'>1Sa 15:23</a>; <a href='B:90 16:14'>1Sa 16:14</a>). The implication was that God’s very soul / spirit is "with" us, and therefore He can be so terribly wounded by us in His heart by the rebellions of those in covenant relationship with Him. For His heart / soul / spirit is so close to us His beloved people.</h4>


text:
<h4>Thus says Yahweh of Armies, They shall thoroughly glean the remnant of Israel like a vine- The idea is that virtually no grapes would be left. And yet in fact the majority of the population, the working classes, were left in the land by the Babylonians. They had a policy of only taking the upper classes into captivity, and they did this with Judah. So here we see again God speaking in a wrath which He didn’t completely fulfil.</h4><h4>Turn again your hand as a grape gatherer into the baskets- The idea seems to be as GNB: "So you must rescue everyone you can while there is still time". Perhaps the fact that not all were destroyed nor taken captive, as seems to be implied would happen, was because of the success of Jeremiah’s ministry.</h4>


text:
<p>To whom shall I speak and testify, that they may hear? Behold, their ear is uncircumcised, and they can’t listen. Behold, the word of Yahweh has become a reproach to them. They have no delight in it- This would be Jeremiah somewhat rebellious response to the command in :9: "So you must rescue everyone you can while there is still time" (GNB). Jeremiah’s response to this is that made by many believers today: ’But nobody’s interested in repentance’. They had been asked to circumcise their hearts (<a href='B:300 4:4'>Jer 4:4</a>), but Jeremiah considers that none have done so. And therefore, they would not listen, in the sense of responding. Jeremiah’s lament that the people had no joy ordelight in God’s word is the basis for his comment that when he found God’s words, they were his joy (<a href='B:300 15:16'>Jer 15:16</a>). We might therefore detect there a sense of spiritual superiority over the Jews for whom God’s word was not their joy.</p>


text:
<h4>Therefore I am full of the wrath of Yahweh. I am weary with holding in- Seeing the world through the eyes of both God and man, Jeremiah said that God’s wrath was his wrath, “I am full of the wrath of Yahweh”, and yet he stood before God “to turn away thy wrath from them” (<a href='B:300 18:20'>Jer 18:20</a>). Hence the huge psychological tension within the prophets. Like God Himself in <a href='B:300 15:6'>Jer 15:6</a>, Jeremiah was "weary" of the stress and tension of continually threatening inevitable judgment and yet offering the utter grace of a way out of it. And so Jeremiah asks God to as it were be done with it, and pour out His anger.</h4><h4>Pour it out on the youths in the street, and on the assembly of young men together; for even the husband with the wife shall be taken, the aged with him who is full of days- This did happen, in response to Jeremiah’s request that it happen; and yet after the Babylonian invasion, he bitterly laments the suffering of young and old in Jerusalem in just the same language&nbsp; (<a href='B:310 2:12'>Lam 2:12</a>; <a href='B:310 2:19'>Lam 2:19</a>; <a href='B:310 2:21'>Lam 2:21</a>; <a href='B:310 5:14'>Lam 5:14</a>). The lesson is that what we pray for in depression and desperation, we may receive. And we should be therefore careful what we pray for.</h4>


text:
<h4>Their houses shall be turned to others, their fields and their wives together; for I will stretch out My hand on the inhabitants of the land, says Yahweh- This is God’s response to Jeremiah’s request that God pour out His wrath and end the tension of threatening to do so but not doing it (:11). God likewise says in <a href='B:300 15:6'>Jer 15:6</a> that because He was weary with repenting, with changing His mind, He would "stretch out My hand" in judgment, using the same phrase found here.</h4>


text:
<h4>For from their least even to their greatest, everyone is given to covetousness; and from the prophet even to the priest, everyone deals falsely- That all of society was guilty is a major theme of the prophets. They were attracted by the idea of immediate wealth, they coveted this, and therefore turned to idols which offered this. Hence covetousness is here paralleled with dealing falsely, which is what they were doing by proclaiming faithfulness to Yahweh whilst serving other gods.</h4>


text:
<p>They have healed also the hurt of My people superficially, saying, ‘Peace, peace!’ when there is no peace- There were false prophets both in Judah as the Babylonians approached, and also amongst those of them already in exile (<a href='B:300 6:14'>Jer 6:14</a>; <a href='B:300 8:11'>Jer 8:11</a>; <a href='B:330 13:16'>Eze 13:16</a>). They were assuring the sinful people that in fact they were at peace with God, and that contrary to the prophetic message of desolation at the hand of the Babylonians, they would instead have "peace". This is described in Jeremiah as "lightly" healing the great wound or illness of Judah. That wound is described ambiguously; it was a wound or breach in themselves caused by God’s smiting of them in the earlier Babylonian incursions (<a href='B:300 14:19'>Jer 14:19</a>), but also caused by them to God Almighty. "Lightly" carries with it the idea of not serious, light hearted, superficial, trifling. And we must likewise beware of this kind of religion that is pedalled in the name of Christianity; not facing our personal issues, and using a few Bible words from here and there to superficially cover over the most fundamental issues of our eternal destiny. And this was and is so attractive. But sin and its consequences are far deeper than any superficial, light hearted covering. It requires nothing less than the blood and word of the Lord Jesus.</p>


text:
<h4>Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? No, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush- We are either ashamed of our sins in repentance; or we will be made ashamed of them in the judgment (<a href='B:300 6:15'>Jer 6:15</a> RVmg:)- it’s shame either way. We either wail for our sins now, or we will wail for them at judgment day (<a href='B:300 9:19-20'>Jer 9:19-20</a>). Our shame should be before God for our sins against Him, and not before men. Hence the prophets often criticize Israel for not being ashamed of their sins before God. Our shame before men leads to anger; our shame before God is resolved in repentance and belief in His gracious forgiveness. Thus Jeremiah recalls how his repentance involved being ashamed, and yet then being "instructed" (<a href='B:300 31:19'>Jer 31:19</a>). It’s through knowing this kind of shame efore God that we come to a position where we are unashamed.</h4><h4>Therefore they shall fall among those who fall; at the time that I visit them, they shall be cast down, says Yahweh- The allusion is to falling down before idols. By doing so they were living out how they were to fall before the nations of those idols. They would be cast down by God, but they had cast themselves down. Sin is its own condemnation.</h4>


text:
<p>Thus says Yahweh, Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, ‘Where is the good way?’ and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. But they said, ‘We will not walk in it’- The "old" paths are literally ’the paths of olahm’, the ways of eternity, the way that will lead to eternal life. This is the real sense of the phrase; it has been much misused by those whose native conservatism leads them to imagine that the old ways of their denomination must be correct and worthy of defence, just because the phrase "old paths" occurs in the Bible. But this is a mistranslation. Out of all the ways before Israel suggested by the various idols, they were to choose the paths [or perhaps it can be read as an intensive plural, the one great path, referred to by the people as "it"] that leads to eternity. The ways of the idols led at very best only to temporary betterment.</p>


text:
<p>I set watchmen over you saying, ‘Listen to the sound of the trumpet!’. But they said, ‘We will not listen!’- The rejection of Jeremiah was in line with the repeated rejection of the earlier prophets / watchmen. It’s unlikely that they actually said "We will not listen", but God counts attitudes for what they effectively are, and imputes such statements to men as this is what their attitudes are effectively saying. And it is by such words that we shall be judged, and saved or condemned.</p>


text:
<p>Therefore hear, you nations, and know, congregation, what is among them- The appeal to God’s people is parallel with an appeal to the Gentile nations. It was the Divine intention that His people would repent along with the surrounding Gentile nations, and all come together in a revived Kingdom of God in Israel under a Messianic king.</p>


text:
<p>Hear, earth! Behold, I will bring evil on this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not listened to My words; and as for My law, they have rejected it- As noted on :17, the people never formally rejected God’s law and words (:20), but this was effectively their attitude, and so these words and positions were counted to them. This was what their thoughts implied; and we note the judgment of thoughts as being of primary importance to God.</p>


text:
<h4>To what purpose comes there to Me frankincense from Sheba, and the sweet cane from a far country? your burnt offerings are not acceptable, nor your sacrifices pleasing to Me- They had "rejected" God’s law (:19) but still were obedient to parts of it. This is typical of where form becomes more important than content in the lives of religious people. The culture becomes the religion. Israel mixed Yahweh worship with that of the idols, hence the offerings were of materials from "a far country"; Babylon is probably in view.</h4><h4>Like many of the surrounding peoples, the Jews were sure that because they had a temple, because they offered sacrifice to their God and went through required rituals, therefore they were OK. The prophets exposed all this as scandalous pretension, revealing Israel’s cherished beliefs and suppositions about these things as meaningless and false. Their surrounding world taught that if you offered sacrifice to your god, all went smoothly. And yet Jeremiah blasts them: “To what purpose does frankincense come [up] to me… your burnt offerings are not acceptable” (<a href='B:300 6:20'>Jer 6:20</a>).</h4>


text:
<p>Therefore thus says Yahweh, Behold, I will lay stumbling blocks before this people. The fathers and the sons together shall stumble against them. The neighbour and his friend shall perish- God confirms men in the way in which they choose to go. He can deceive those who don’t have the love of the truth (<a href='B:600 2:10'>2Th 2:10</a>), and so here He would lay stumbling blocks. Ezekiel was prophesying at about the same time to the same people, although from Babylon. He too mentions this feature of God laying stumbling blocks before the wicked, although he says that the prophets gave such people warning (<a href='B:330 3:20'>Eze 3:20</a>):&nbsp; But they had in fact themselves laid the stumbling blocks of their idolatry within their hearts (<a href='B:330 14:3'>Eze 14:3</a>). So here God is only psychologically confirming them in what they had themselves chosen. He works directly on human hearts, through "an evil spirit from the Lord" as with Saul, or positively through the transforming of His Holy Spirit. This theme is continued in :22.</p>


text:
<p>Thus says Yahweh, Behold, a people comes from the north country. A great nation shall be stirred up from the uttermost parts of the earth- Whoever the invaders refer to, be it Babylon or the Scythians (see onJer 5:15; <a href='B:300 6:3'>Jer 6:3</a>), they were from the very borders of the eretz promised to Abraham, which is "the earth" in view. They were "stirred up" in the same way as the spirit of Cyrus was later stirred up (s:w. <a href='B:150 1:1'>Ezr 1:1</a>). As noted on :21, God works directly upon human hearts, placing ideas and desires within the human psyche. Just as God stirred or raised up Babylon to invade, so He would stir up, or psychologically provoke, other nations to come and judge her (<a href='B:300 50:9'>Jer 50:9</a>; <a href='B:300 50:41'>Jer 50:41</a>; <a href='B:300 51:1'>Jer 51:1</a>; <a href='B:300 51:11'>Jer 51:11</a>). This is greatly emphasized. The activity of God directly upon human hearts is a great theme of the Biblical revelation, and is to encourage us that He is eager to transform hearts, and to place desires within us beyond our own unaided psychological ability.</p>


text:
<p>They take hold of bow and spear. They are cruel, and have no mercy. Their voice roars like the sea, and they ride on horses, each one set in array, as a man to the battle, against you, daughter of Zion- The present tense is used although the events were still future; they were that certain of coming true, because God’s word is sure. This is the language of the Assyrian invasion in Hezekiah’s time, and I suggested on <a href='B:300 4:5'>Jer 4:5</a>; <a href='B:300 4:8'>Jer 4:8</a>; <a href='B:300 5:1'>Jer 5:1</a> that the events in Judah at that time are often alluded to in Jeremiah. There was still the possibility that at the last moment, salvation by grace would be revealed in Jerusalem. But <a href='B:290 17:12-13'>Isa 17:12-13</a> had said that the great rushing of the attackers like the waves was going to be turned back. There was still that potential.</p>


text:
<p>We have heard its report; our hands become feeble: anguish has taken hold of us, pains as of a woman in labour- The audience of Jeremiah generally rejected his message, insisting that no evil was going to come (<a href='B:300 5:12'>Jer 5:12</a>). So the "we" refers to Jeremiah and the minority who repented. They were in labour, to bring forth the new Zion, the envisaged reborn community of Israel. In Micah, the daughter of Zion was to be in labour pangs (symbolic of their troubles in the 70 years captivity), and then give birth to a new nation as a result of this (<a href='B:400 4:9-10'>Mic 4:9-10</a>), as well as her Messiah (<a href='B:400 5:2'>Mic 5:2</a>), who would lead Judah in destroying Babylon (<a href='B:400 4:13'>Mic 4:13</a>; <a href='B:400 5:5-8'>Mic 5:5-8</a>). But Judah didn’t want to destroy Babylon. Most of them preferred to carry on living there. So, no Messiah. At that time. Another different sequence of prophetic fulfilment had to develop:&nbsp; But this potential was there even before the Babylonian invasion.</p>


text:
<p>Don’t go forth into the field, nor walk by the way; for the sword of the enemy and terror are on every side- This is a warning from Jeremiah; those who believed no evil would come would have disbelieved him (<a href='B:300 5:12'>Jer 5:12</a>), and perished as a result. It’s rather like the command in the Olivet Prophecy to flee to the mountains.</p>


text:
<p>Daughter of My people, clothe yourself with sackcloth, and wallow in ashes! Mourn, as for an only son, most bitter lamentation; for the destroyer shall suddenly come upon us- Jeremiah again appeals for repentance, to believe that death would come and so to mourn as if they had received their punishment. See on :1,2. The Canaanite tribes spoke of how their gods were married to their land and would defend it. But the prophets, especially Hosea, reveal Yahweh as married to His people. “Thus says the Lord, O my dear people [bath ‘ami- as if they are God’s partner]… make mourning… for suddenly the destroyer will come upon us” (<a href='B:300 6:22'>Jer 6:22</a>; <a href='B:300 6:26'>Jer 6:26</a>). God delicately speaks as if He is married to Israel, and that even in their sufferings, He would suffer with them, as a husband suffers with his wife. “The destroyer will come upon us” even sounds as if God let Himself in a way be ‘destroyed’ in Israel’s destruction; for each of us dies a little in the death of those we love.</p>


text:
<h4>I have made you a tester of metals and a fortress among My people; that you may know and try their way- This doesn’t mean that Jeremiah decided who was the faithful, the true metal, by testing their way Rather, the word of God which he preached was a test of the people, and their response to it revealed "their way". Thereby it was God who tried the way of His people (s:w. <a href='B:300 17:10'>Jer 17:10</a>). Those who responded positively would find Jeremiah and his words to be a fortress, and could save themselves thereby.</h4><h4>Not only in our own self-examination should there be unity between our judgment and that of the Father; Jeremiah was told to "know and try" Israel’s way, just as God said that He did (<a href='B:300 6:27'>Jer 6:27</a> 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 (<a href='B:720 1:23'>Jud 1:23</a>).</h4>


text:
<p>They are all grievous rebels, going about with slanders; they are brass and iron: they all of them deal corruptly- This may be Jeremiah’s response to the command to use God’s prophetic word to refine the people. He reports that the people are corrupted brass and iron, their encounter with God’s prophetic word had not refined them. They were epitomized by slander. This could refer to the false prophecies they believed which slandered God. But it seems more natural to take this as meaning that slander was their characteristic sin. Because gossip is such an epitome of the flesh, it is ranked along with sins like fornication, idolatry and murder in <a href='B:330 22:9'>Eze 22:9</a>. And so there are passages in Jeremiah which describe slander and gossiping as being the reason why God condemned Judah (<a href='B:300 6:28'>Jer 6:28</a>; <a href='B:300 9:3-8'>Jer 9:3-8</a>). 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 (<a href='B:240 6:19'>Pro 6:19</a>). "The words of a talebearer are as wounds, and they go down into the innermost parts of the belly" (<a href='B:240 26:22'>Pro 26:22</a>). 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.</p>


text:
<p>The bellows blow fiercely; the lead is consumed of the fire: in vain do they go on refining; for the wicked are not plucked away- This is the tragedy of Israel throughout their history, just as it is the tragedy of so many life histories. Terrible sufferings have been experienced, but still repentance and transformation has not been elicited. The fire was so intense that the lead itself was burned up by it, without achieving the desired cleansing:&nbsp; And the bellows, according to the AV, were also burned. Babylon themselves would be destroyed.</p>


text:
<p>Men will call them rejected silver, because Yahweh has rejected them-&nbsp; The idea is that "men", the inhabitants of the earth, will come to see Yahweh’s judgments from His perspective. "Rejected" is the same word translated "rejected" in <a href='B:300 6:19'>Jer 6:19</a> where Israel rejected God’s word. Their response to that word was therefore their judgment, and the refining fire upon them. It is also translated "despised", and Judah had despised the covenant and word of God (<a href='B:30 26:15'>Lev 26:15</a>; <a href='B:30 26:43-44'>Lev 26:43-44</a> s:w:). But as those verses in Leviticus bring out, although Israel rejected / despised God, He would not "for all that" reject / despise them eternally. This is the great paradox of God’s grace to Israel, which serves as eternal encouragement to His sinful people of all ages. He does not actually operate a measure for measure &nbsp;policy, of treating His people as they treat Him; although this is not to say that He will not judge them. That generation were "rejected" (<a href='B:300 7:29'>Jer 7:29</a>), but that is not to say that there was no hope for their future acceptance; the rejection by God was not eternal.</p>


text:
<p>The word that came to Jeremiah from Yahweh saying- This appears to be parallel to the incidents of Jeremiah 26, as Jeremiah’s prophecies and events in his life aren’t at all chronological within the book of Jeremiah.</p>


text:
<p>Stand in the gate of Yahweh’s house and proclaim there this word and say, ‘Hear the word of Yahweh, all you of Judah, who enter in at these gates to worship Yahweh- This was probably not one of the outer gates, but one of he three gates which led from the inner court to the outer. Probably it was the gate where Baruch later recited the prophecies of Jeremiah, called "the new gate of the Lord’s house", located in the "upper" i:e. inner court (<a href='B:300 36:10'>Jer 36:10</a> cp. 26:10). Probably the time was one of the three great feasts, when the people of Judah would have come up to the temple.</p>


text:
<p>Thus says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place- Jeremiah especially reveals the grace which God was so eager to show to the exiles. <a href='B:300 7:3-7'>Jer 7:3-7</a> made it clear that Judah’s return to the land was to be conditional upon them not oppressing the poor- only “then will I cause you to dwell in this place” (AV). Yet in His grace and zeal for His people, it seems God overlooked that condition- for the returned exiles did oppress (<a href='B:160 5:1-5'>Neh 5:1-5</a>), and yet they returned to the land. And yet they would’ve dwelt in Zion “for ever and ever” (<a href='B:300 7:7'>Jer 7:7</a>) if they had not been abusive to others and truly loved God.</p>


text:
<p>Don’t trust in lying words by saying, Yahweh’s temple, Yahweh’s temple, Yahweh’s temple, are these- Time and again Jeremiah accuses the people of purposefully inciting God to anger through their worshipping of Him (<a href='B:300 7:18-19'>Jer 7:18-19</a>; <a href='B:300 11:17-18'>Jer 11:17-18</a>; <a href='B:300 25:6'>Jer 25:6</a>; <a href='B:300 44:3-8'>Jer 44:3-8</a>)- whereas the onlooker would’ve likely commented that at least they were doing something , and Jeremiah should just calm himself down about it all. He uses a grating sarcasm in <a href='B:300 7:21-23'>Jer 7:21-23</a>: “Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat the flesh… I did not speak to your fathers or command them concerning burnt offerings…but this command I gave them: Obey my voice”. The people loved their temple: “The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord…’, they said. And Jeremiah responds: “You trust in deceptive words to no avail” (<a href='B:300 7:4'>Jer 7:4</a>; <a href='B:300 7:8'>Jer 7:8</a>). And time and again, the prophets predicted the destruction of the temple by the God of Israel. This was radical stuff in those days; the idea was that the survival of a god depended upon the survival of his temple or shrine. No pagan god would threaten to destroy his own shrine. Israel’s God was so different.</p>


text:
<p>For if you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings; if you thoroughly execute justice between a man and his neighbour- Perhaps their "ways" refer to the well trodden ways and paths of thought within the mind, reflected in "doings". "Amend" is the word used of how Cain was bidden "do well", to amend his ways, and a sin offering was even provided for him (<a href='B:10 4:7'>Gen 4:7</a>). Hereby Israel are set up as Cain, a parallel which the Lord (<a href='B:500 8:44'>Joh 8:44</a>) and New Testament writers also perceive. Judah had "trimmed" or "amended" their ways to seek relationships with the surrounding nations (<a href='B:300 2:33'>Jer 2:33</a> s:w:), willing to accept their gods and whatever cult obligations to them which were required. But they would not amend their ways for Yahweh. "Amend" is the word translated ’to do well to’ in <a href='B:300 7:23'>Jer 7:23</a>. If they amended their ways, God would amend or change His plans of judgment. Here we behold the openness of God, His deep sensitivity to human repentance and change.</p>


text:
<p>If you don’t oppress the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow, and don’t shed innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your own hurt- Because they oppressed Gentiles, therefore they were to be oppressed by them (<a href='B:50 28:29'>Deu 28:29</a>; <a href='B:50 28:33'>Deu 28:33</a>; <a href='B:300 50:33'>Jer 50:33</a> s:w:). Their judgments were appropriate to their sins. Innocent blood was shed in the temple; it was there that the idols were worshipped and child sacrifice made. This is in proximity to the description of that temple as a den of robbers (<a href='B:300 7:11'>Jer 7:11</a>), and these two ideas are found in Eze 1810 : "If he fathers a son who is a robber, a shedder of blood, and who does any one of these things". These were all things going on at the time of Ezekiel. The exiles needed to repent of these things. These actual things had been practiced by the ruling classes who were now in exile with Ezekiel. The same word is used to express how the Jerusalem temple had been turned by the priests into a "den of robbers" or oppressors (<a href='B:300 7:11'>Jer 7:11</a>). Jeremiah as a priest is addressing the leaders of the priests. One reason Judah was destroyed was because Manasseh was a ’shedder of blood’ (<a href='B:120 21:16'>2Ki 21:16</a>; <a href='B:120 24:4'>2Ki 24:4</a>). Perhaps this was being focused upon by some, complaining that God was unfairly punishing them for Manasseh’s sins. But the reality was that in essence, his descendants and wider family had done the same as he had done. For they too had been involved in the shedding of the innocent blood of their own children to the idol cults (<a href='B:230 106:38'>Psa 106:38</a>).</p>


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<p>Then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, from of old even for evermore- The whole exile and return need never have happened- the prophecies of this need not have come true in the way they did, for even before the Babylonian invasion, Judah had been offered the prospect of eternally remaining in their land, if they repented. And after it happened, Jeremiah commented: “Your prophets… did not expose your sin to ward off your captivity” (<a href='B:310 2:14'>Lam 2:14</a> NIV). It could have been ‘warded off’ by the peoples’ repentance. Note how Jeremiah, himself a prophet at the time, so wishes to take the blame upon himself for not&nbsp; pleading more powerfully with the people. Perhaps we will have similar feelings when the time of tribulation breaks forth in the very last days.</p>


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<p>Behold, you trust in lying words, that can’t profit- The attraction to them of the false prophets was that they offered "profit". It was materialism and a chronic coveting of instant wealth which led them to idolatry, which the prophets taught. This was because those idols were fertility cults offering good harvests and prosperity in return for worshipping them. It was idolatry which "can’t profit" (s:w. <a href='B:90 12:21'>1Sa 12:21</a>; <a href='B:290 44:9-10'>Isa 44:9-10</a>; <a href='B:300 2:8'>Jer 2:8</a>), and this was what the "lying words" were all about.</p>


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<p>Will you steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, burn incense to Baal and walk after other gods that you have not known- This was the behaviour inculcated by the false prophets of :8. They "walked after" gods they did not "know", in the Hebraic sense of having a relationship with. Idols don’t have relationships with people; they are worshipped in the minds of the idolaters. Yahweh alone has real, legitimate two way relationship with His people.</p>


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<p>And come and stand before Me in this house, which is called by My name, and say, We are saved; so that you may do all these abominations?- The lack of conscience and shamelessness of the people is quite a theme in Jeremiah. They thought that their connection with Yahweh and the temple was some kind of ’once saved always saved’ position which meant they could not really sin. This led them to what appears terrible hypocrisy; doing the things of :9 and then coming into the temple to proclaim their innocence. Indeed it seems Judah purposefully committed their worst sacrilege in the temple on the Sabbath, "in the same day" (<a href='B:330 23:38'>Eze 23:38</a>). The child sacrifices of <a href='B:330 23:39'>Eze 23:39</a> were committed on the Sabbath. They had justified their perversions by claiming that they were in fact a form of Yahweh worship. That was the only way their consciences could be numbed to do as they did. This is the scenario of <a href='B:300 7:7-10'>Jer 7:7-10</a>; they offered their children in nearby Gehenna and then came into the temple, reasoning that they were "delivered", saved from Egypt and from threatened judgment, in order to be able to sin without conscience. This was the Old Testament form of continuing in sin because grace abounded (<a href='B:520 6:1'>Rom 6:1</a>).</p>


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<p>Is this house, which is called by My name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I, even I, have seen it, says Yahweh- A robbers’ "den" is a place where they retreat in safety, certain that in their den they are safe from prosecution or the judgment of those they had stolen from. This is what they considered the temple to be. But there was no special, holy place which of itself provided a literal space which shielded from the eyes of Yahweh’s judgment. Their holy concept of sacred space, and protection within it, was a false teaching from their prophets.</p>


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<h4>But go now to My place which was in Shiloh, where I caused My name to dwell at the first- Commonly enough, the New Testament speaks of baptism as a calling upon the Name of the Lord. This must be understood against its Hebrew background-qara’ beshem Yahweh, which originally referred to approaching God in sacrifice (<a href='B:10 12:7-8'>Gen 12:7-8</a>; <a href='B:230 116:4'>Psa 116:4</a>; <a href='B:230 116:17'>Psa 116:17</a>). God placed His Name upon places in order to make them suitable places for sacrifice to be offered to Him (<a href='B:50 12:4-7'>Deu 12:4-7</a>; <a href='B:50 12:21'>Deu 12:21</a>; <a href='B:300 7:12'>Jer 7:12</a>). Baptism was thus seen as a sacrificial commitment to Yahweh in solemn covenant.</h4><h4>And see what I did to it for the wickedness of My people Israel- This reminder is in the context of :11, where we saw that Israel considered the temple a sacred space which somehow automatically preserved them from any prosecution for their sins. And so they were reminded that God doesn’t operate sacred spaces like that. God’s earlier sacred space in Shiloh had been destroyed because of the wickedness of the people, and the Jerusalem temple was not going to be any different. If the people had taken a more Biblical approach, they would have realized that the Scriptures spoke of God’s people being taken captive out of their land; the existence of the temple was not going to save them from that.</h4>


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<p>Now, because you have done all these works, says Yahweh, and I spoke to you, rising up early and speaking, but you didn’t hear; and I called you, but you didn’t answer- Several times God speaks of His rising up early in the morning through the ministry of the prophets, every single day since Israel left Egypt (<a href='B:140 36:15'>2Ch 36:15</a>; <a href='B:300 7:13'>Jer 7:13</a>; <a href='B:300 7:25'>Jer 7:25</a>). The figure is stressed- God Himself rose up early every day to teach and appeal to His people (<a href='B:300 32:33'>Jer 32:33</a>). Alarm clocks have changed our appreciation of this. Have you ever had to make yourself wake up before dawn, without an alarm clock? You can only do it by having a deep internal, subconscious awareness that you must get up early. You don’t sleep well, you keep waking up and wondering if it’s time to get up. So to make oneself rise up early was easily understood as a figure expressing great mental effort. And God did this every day for centuries::.</p>


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<p>Therefore thus will I do to the house which is called by My name, in which you trust, and to the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I did to Shiloh- Trust in the physical temple as a place of salvation and automatic shielding from God’s judgment is seen today, in that religious people tend to trust in the external structures and symbols of their religion. This is the problem with religion; and human beings are wired with a tendency toward such external religion. The way of Yahweh is the way of the heart, of the Spirit; and external religion militates against this. Their "trust" was in the external form of their religion rather than the essential content- which should have been Yahweh. This "trust" was in the lying words of the prophets who taught this false idea about Jerusalem (:4,8).</p>


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<p>I will cast you out of My sight, as I have cast out all your brothers, even the whole seed of Ephraim- As pointed out to them earlier, the fate of the ten tribes was to be theirs. They considered God’s "sight" or presence (s:w:) to be uniquely in the Jerusalem temple. This was not in fact the case, but for the sake of getting through to them, God accepts this for a moment to be true (as the NT language of demons does); and says that in any case, they will be cast out of Jerusalem and His presence in Zion. Ezekiel puts it another way, in saying that God’s presence would depart, and the visions of the cherubim departing put that in visual terms. Here, God says that they will be cast out of His presence, even assuming that presence remained in Zion.</p>


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<h4>Therefore don’t pray for this people, neither lift up a cry nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to Me; for I will not hear you- Perhaps God was purposefully alluding to how Abraham’s intercession saved Lot out of Sodom. But in this case, therefore, the sins of Jerusalem were worse than those of Sodom, and this precluded the power of such intercession. See on :27. For the sake of our prayers, in some cases sins of others can be forgiven when otherwise they wouldn’t be. For the sake of our conversion of our erring brethren, they can be saved from eternal death and have their sins covered. The Lord’s prayer says as much- we ask God to forgive us our &nbsp;sins; not ‘me my sins’. Only once Israel had passed a certain level of sinfulness was Jeremiah told to cease prayer for them (<a href='B:300 7:16'>Jer 7:16</a> cp. 11:14). Until that point, God seems to have been willing to read Jeremiah’s prayer for them as their prayer (his “cry” was seen as theirs). And <a href='B:330 14:14'>Eze 14:14</a>; <a href='B:330 14:18'>Eze 14:18</a> imply the same- Noah, Daniel and Job could have delivered Israel at this time up to a certain point, but they were so hardened in sin at Jeremiah and Ezekiel’s time that even those men wouldn’t have saved a nation which otherwise, for a lower level of sin as it were, they could otherwise have saved. If we have any grain of love in us, we will likewise dedicate ourselves to fervent prayer for our brethren, seeing it does have effect and validity within certain boundaries.</h4><p>The new Testament references to intercession never suggest that the Lord Jesus Christ intercedes in the sense of offering our prayers to God. "Intercession" can be read as another way of describing prayer; this is how the term is invariably used (<a href='B:300 7:16'>Jer 7:16</a>; <a href='B:300 27:18'>Jer 27:18</a>; <a href='B:520 11:2'>Rom 11:2</a>; <a href='B:610 2:1'>1Ti 2:1</a>). Thus when Jeremiah is told not to intercede for Israel, this meant he was not to pray for them; it does not imply that he was acting as a priest to offer Israel’s prayers to God. Nowhere in the Bible is the idea floated that a man can offer another man’s prayers to God and thereby make them acceptable. The Greek for "intercession" essentially means to meet a person; prayer / intercession is a meeting with God. There is evidently nothing morally impossible about a man having direct contact with God in prayer without any priest or ’mediator’; the Old Testament abounds with such examples. The fact we are called upon to make intercession for others is surely conclusive proof that "intercession" means prayer, not relaying the words of another to God (<a href='B:610 2:1'>1Ti 2:1</a>). This meaning of intercession needs to be borne in mind when we consider its occurrences in Romans 8. There we are taught that we know not what to pray for as we ought; the Lord Jesus makes intercession for us- i:e. He prays for us- not with words, i:e. not transferring our human words into God’s language, not shuttling to and from between us and God as it were, but with His own groanings of the spirit. We don’t know how to pray, so Christ prays (intercedes, in the language of Romans 8) for us.</p><h4>And yet Jeremiah did pray for the people. We see here the degree to which he recognized that God was and is open to dialogue with man. Perhaps he recalled how God had asked Moses not to intercede with Him not to destroy Israel ("now therefore let Me alone::.", <a href='B:20 32:10'>Exo 32:10</a>); and yet Moses had continued interceding and God changed His plan. But now, that was not possible. An end had to come.</h4>


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<p>Don’t you see what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?- The implication could be that Jeremiah was too slow to perceive exactly how wicked the people were. The sins on the streets of Jerusalem were having idols on every street and naming every street after an idol, just as was done in Babylon.</p>


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<h4>The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead the dough, to make cakes to the queen of the sky, and to pour out drink offerings to other gods, that they may provoke Me to anger- Again we see that the whole of society, including women and children, were implicated in the idolatry. They would not have considered that they were intentionally doing this to provoke Yahweh to anger, but this is how He read it. For God as it were imputes to our actions their real implications, both positively and negatively.</h4><h4>"The queen of heaven" was a Babylonian fertility god, otherwise called Ishtar, shaped like the moon or the planet Venus. It was the god of female fertility, hence the note that the women and children were a large part of its worship. Each female devotee was expected to sleep with the male cult prostitutes of this cult. And then sacrifice one of their children to it. No wonder this so upset God, seeing that He was the source of Israel’s fertility, and their children were born to Him and not to the supposed queen of heaven. The women later protested that they were impenitent of this worship of the queen of heaven, and they did so with the full blessing of their husbands; this was significant, seeing that the cult involved sleeping with other men and offering their children to Ishtar (<a href='B:300 44:19'>Jer 44:19</a>). See on :22.</h4>


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<p>Do they provoke Me to anger? says Yahweh. Don’t they provoke themselves, to the confusion of their own faces?- So the theme is repeated- that sin is its own judgment, and they were sinning against their own souls as well as against God. This ’confusion of face’ is a term used by both Ezra and Daniel in their prayers, counting themselves amongst those who had suffered this judgment, even though they had not committed the sins of :18 (<a href='B:150 9:7'>Ezr 9:7</a>; <a href='B:340 9:7-8'>Dan 9:7-8</a>). This is a powerful example of how the righteous do not separate themselves from the wicked but consider themselves united in sharing the same judgment; just as the righteous Lord Jesus did for us in tasting death for every man.</p>


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<p>Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh: Behold, My anger and My wrath shall be poured out on this place, on man, and on animal, and on the trees of the field, and on the fruit of the ground; and it shall burn, and shall not be quenched- At the beginning of Jeremiah’s ministry, the implication was that the wrath could be quenched still(<a href='B:300 4:4'>Jer 4:4</a>); but the time would come when it could not be. By the time of <a href='B:300 7:20'>Jer 7:20</a>, God was saying that His wrath could no longer be quenched (as <a href='B:120 22:17'>2Ki 22:17</a>; <a href='B:140 34:25'>2Ch 34:25</a>). And yet even after this point, God still speaks as if it could be quenched by repentance (<a href='B:300 21:12'>Jer 21:12</a>). Even to the point of self-contradiction, God was so eager to have His wrath quenched. And this God is our God. His eagerness for human repentance should be reflected in our attitudes, both to others and to our own sins. Breaking relationship with people by casting them out of fellowship is not reflective of that.</p>


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<p>Thus says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel: Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat meat- As with Saul, God can send "an evil spirit from the Lord" to confirm men in their evil way, and also conversely the Holy Spirit to confirm those who wish to be spiritual in their way. This is why we are to pray "Lead us not into temptation", for God can encourage sinners in their way as He does here. And so Israel went backward and not forward, they were confirmed in their backward path (:24).</p>


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<p>For I didn’t speak to your fathers, nor command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices- God did command sacrifices; but He not so much commanded them as required Israel’s spirit of obedience and acceptance of Him. "Not A::. not B" is a construction found in Hebrew and other languages which means ’Not so much A, but actually more importantly B’. The sacrifices to the idols in :18 were therefore being performed in the name of Yahweh worship. This explains how shameless Israel were in their idolatry. They had convinced themselves that the false teachings from the false prophets were correct, and therefore they could worship Yahweh through idolatry. And this is an abiding temptation throughout all the generations of God’s people.</p>


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<h4>But this thing I commanded them, saying, Listen to My voice, and I will be Your God, and you shall be My people; and walk in all the way that I command you- As explained on :22, the requirement for burnt offerings was not God’s essential desire. He wished for obedience and relationship with Him far more than technical obedience; the laws about offerings were to elicit and strengthen that essentially personal relationship between God and individual people. It was quite possible to perform the religious side of Yahweh worship without any personal sense of obedience to His word and relationship with Him. And we all have within us the poles of religion on one side, and spirituality on the other. They were completely on the religious pole, and lacked any real spirituality.</h4><h4>That it may be well with you- "Amend" in :5 is the word here translated ’to do well to’. If they amended their ways, God would amend or change His plans of judgment. Here we behold the openness of God, His deep sensitivity to human repentance and change.</h4>


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<h4>But they didn’t listen nor turn their ear, but walked in their own counsels and in the stubbornness of their evil heart- And went backward, and not forward- The "counsel" or advice / teaching they were following was that of the false prophets (:22). But actually those "counsels" were from their own evil minds. The false teachers were teaching them what they knew the mass of the people subconsciously wanted to hear. It is a feature of human nature that we can even subconsciously perceive what the ’other’ or our audience wants us to say and teach- and to do and say what they want. Hence the weak Christians of the first century heaped to themselves teachers who taught them what they subconsciously wanted to hear, repeating to them what "their own lusts" wanted (<a href='B:620 4:3'>2Ti 4:3</a>).</h4><h4>And went backward, and not forward- As explained on :21, Israel went backward and not forward, in that they were confirmed in their backward path.</h4>


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<p>Since the day that your fathers came forth out of the land of Egypt to this day, I have sent to you all My servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them- See on <a href='B:300 23:18'>Jer 23:18</a>; <a href='B:300 23:22'>Jer 23:22</a>. God reminds Israel that “day after day”, ever since they left Egypt, He had consistently and persistently sent His prophets to them- there was never a day when a prophet wasn’t active (<a href='B:300 7:25'>Jer 7:25</a>; <a href='B:300 11:7'>Jer 11:7</a>; <a href='B:300 25:4'>Jer 25:4</a>; <a href='B:300 26:15'>Jer 26:15</a>; <a href='B:300 29:19'>Jer 29:19</a>; <a href='B:370 3:7'>Amo 3:7</a>; <a href='B:370 2:12'>Amo 2:12</a>). And yet obviously we only have the written record of a few of those prophets. It would seem from this that there were prophets apart from Moses who appealed to Israel in the wilderness to repent of their ways</p>


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<p>Yet they didn’t listen to Me, nor inclined their ear, but made their neck stiff: they did worse than their fathers- Inclining or humbling / bowing down the ear means that true response to God’s word ought to be a humbling experience. We cannot come away from engagement with God’s word without being humbled. And this very phrase is used of how God bows down / inclines His ear to human prayer (<a href='B:120 19:16'>2Ki 19:16</a>; <a href='B:230 17:6'>Psa 17:6</a>; <a href='B:230 31:2'>Psa 31:2</a>; <a href='B:230 71:2'>Psa 71:2</a> and often). We see here the mutuality possible between God and man, and the interplay between Bible reading and God’s response to our prayers. We speak to God in line with our understanding of His word, and He responds to our prayers. Bible reading and prayer therefore mesh together in the Christian life, as part of the upward spiral of spirituality. God is not silent to our prayers- He reveals Himself in response through His word.</p>


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<p>You shall speak all these words to them; but they will not listen to you: you shall also call to them; but they will not answer you- Jeremiah like Ezekiel (<a href='B:330 3:7'>Eze 3:7</a>) was told that Israel wouldn’t hear him, but still he pleaded with them to hear (<a href='B:300 9:20'>Jer 9:20</a>; <a href='B:300 10:1'>Jer 10:1</a>; <a href='B:300 11:6'>Jer 11:6</a>; <a href='B:300 16:12'>Jer 16:12</a>; <a href='B:300 17:24'>Jer 17:24</a>; <a href='B:300 38:15'>Jer 38:15</a>); just as he was told not to pray for them, but he kept praying. This reflected God’s hope was that perhaps they would hearken (<a href='B:300 26:3'>Jer 26:3</a>) although He had foretold they wouldn’t. Jeremiah was told not to pray for Israel (<a href='B:300 7:16'>Jer 7:16</a>; <a href='B:300 11:14'>Jer 11:14</a>; <a href='B:300 14:11'>Jer 14:11</a>) and yet he did (<a href='B:300 14:20'>Jer 14:20</a>; <a href='B:300 42:2'>Jer 42:2</a>; <a href='B:300 42:4'>Jer 42:4</a>). And in similar vein, knowing the destruction that would come on all except Noah, God waited in the hope that more would be saved. He as it were hoped against His own foreknowledge that more would saved (<a href='B:670 3:20'>1Pe 3:20</a>).</p>


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<h4>You shall tell them, This is the nation that has not listened to the voice of Yahweh their God, nor received instruction- The instruction given and refused was the previous incursions of Judah’s enemies and the drought God had brought upon them (<a href='B:300 2:30'>Jer 2:30</a>; <a href='B:430 3:7'>Zep 3:7</a>).</h4><h4>Truth is perished, and is cut off from their mouth- "Truth" is a term often used about covenant relationship. The greatest truth is not some intellectually correct analysis of Bible verses, but of real covenant relationship with God. But they had rejected this, and so God had rejected them (:29). "Truth" in the sense of intellectually correct understanding cannot "perish", nor has it done so over the generations in that some have always understood correctly. God doesn’t need His truth in that sense to be defended. But truth in the sense of covenant relationship can perish from those who once held it, and that is the paramount concern.</h4>


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<h4>Cut off your hair and throw it away, and take up a lamentation on the bare heights- The AV adds "Cut off your hair, O Jerusalem". They had thrown away their glory, their God, and so they were invited to throw away their natural glory (<a href='B:530 11:15'>1Co 11:15</a>). And for a woman to have a shaved head was a sign of her shame. They were being told to do this to themselves, because spiritually that was what they had done. The rejected are witnesses against themselves (<a href='B:290 44:9'>Isa 44:9</a>; <a href='B:470 23:31'>Mat 23:31</a>). Herein lies the crass folly and illogicality of sin. Jeremiah pleaded with Israel: "Wherefore commit ye this great evil against your souls [i:e. yourselves], to cut off from you man and woman::. that ye might cut yourselves off" (<a href='B:300 44:7-8'>Jer 44:7-8</a>, cp. how Jerusalem was to cut her own hair off here in <a href='B:300 7:29'>Jer 7:29</a>). Yahweh is the one who does the cutting off (<a href='B:300 44:11'>Jer 44:11</a>); but they had cut themselvesoff. Likewise as they had kindled fire on their roofs in offering sacrifices to Baal, so Yahweh through the Babylonians would set fire to those same houses (<a href='B:300 32:29'>Jer 32:29</a>). Thus Israel were the ones who had kindled the fire of Yahweh’s condemnation (<a href='B:300 17:4'>Jer 17:4</a>). Both Yahweh and Israel are described as kindling the fire of judgment; He responded to what they had done (<a href='B:300 11:16'>Jer 11:16</a>; <a href='B:300 15:14'>Jer 15:14</a>; <a href='B:310 4:11'>Lam 4:11</a> cp. <a href='B:300 17:4'>Jer 17:4</a>).</h4><h4>For Yahweh has rejected and forsaken the generation of His wrath- "Rejected" is the same word translated "rejected" in <a href='B:300 6:19'>Jer 6:19</a> where Israel rejected God’s word. Their response to that word was therefore their judgment, and the refining fire upon them. It is also translated "despised", and Judah had despised the covenant and word of God (<a href='B:30 26:15'>Lev 26:15</a>; <a href='B:30 26:43-44'>Lev 26:43-44</a> s:w:). But as those verses in Leviticus bring out, although Israel rejected / despised God, He would not "for all that" reject / despise them eternally. This is the great paradox of God’s grace to Israel, which serves as eternal encouragement to His sinful people of all ages. He does not actually operate a measure for measure &nbsp;policy, of treating His people as they treat Him; although this is not to say that He will not judge them. That generation were "rejected", but that is not to say that there was no hope for their future acceptance; the rejection by God was not eternal.</h4>


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<h4>For the children of Judah have done that which is evil in My sight, says Yahweh: they have set their abominations in the house which is called by My name-&nbsp; The only way their conscience allowed them to do this was because they absolutely convinced themselves that their idolatry was part of their worship of Yahweh. People can believe very strongly in what they want to believe in, and we see here a deep level of faith in their idea that they could serve Yahweh by serving idols. People believe in what they want to believe in. This is where Biblical faith is so different- we are asked to believe in God’s word, in His realities and perspectives, which are not what we intuitively would want to believe in of ourselves.</h4><h4>To defile it- The temple was to be defiled by the Babylonians, but as with all judgments, this was but an extension of what they themselves had done.</h4>


text:
<p>They have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I didn’t command, nor did it come into My mind- As noted on :30, they did these things because they had persuaded themselves that their idolatry was a form of Yahweh worship. Hence God insists that He had not commanded this, it was not in His mind that they should do this- whereas it seems the false prophets and the priests were teaching that actually this was commanded by God.</p>


text:
<p>Therefore behold, the days come, says Yahweh, that it shall no more be called Topheth, nor The valley of the son of Hinnom, but The valley of Slaughter: for they shall bury in Topheth, until there is no place to bury- Where they had offered their own children, they would also be slain. Again, their judgment was appropriate to their sins. A valley full of bodies is the basis for the dry bones in a valley prophecy of Ezekiel 37. Out of this awful apostasy and its judgment there could come revival. Such was and is the power of God’s Spirit. Remember that Ezekiel was contemporary with Jeremiah.</p>


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<p>The dead bodies of this people shall be food for the birds of the sky and for the animals of the earth; and none shall frighten them away- Lack of burial was the ultimate shame within their culture, and so their judgments were appropriate to their own self understandings. We recall how when God made His unilateral covenant with Abraham in Genesis 15, the birds of prey were frightened away. This may be implying therefore that the covenant relationship was now broken.</p>


text:
<p>Then will I cause to cease from the cities of Judah and from the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride; for the land shall become a waste- The streets of Jerusalem have previously been mentioned (:17) in the context of their being the scene of idolatry, with each street named after a god, just as in Babylon. The mirth and gladness was therefore in their idol rituals. It was this which led to the land becoming "waste", the phrase used about the result of breaking covenant relationship with Yahweh (<a href='B:30 26:31'>Lev 26:31</a>; <a href='B:30 26:33'>Lev 26:33</a>).</p>


text:
<h4>At that time, says Yahweh, they shall bring out the bones of the kings of Judah, and the bones of his princes, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, out of their graves- The valley of dry bones vision in Ezekiel 37 depicted Israel in captivity as bones waiting to come together and return to the land as a great army. We noted on <a href='B:300 7:32'>Jer 7:32</a> that this vision was as it were being set up by the picture of Israel’s bodies being left in a valley unburied. <a href='B:300 8:1'>Jer 8:1</a> and other passages in Ezekiel (<a href='B:330 6:5'>Eze 6:5</a>; Eze 244) had described both Judah and Israel as dry bones. The feeling of those bones was that "our bones are dried and our hope is lost" (<a href='B:330 37:11'>Eze 37:11</a>). Judah in captivity felt that they had no "hope", that God had cast them off, and that they were unable to have a full relationship with Him outside the land. However, it seems that this was a rather convenient piece of theology for them- they were doing well in Babylon, and despite the opportunity to return to the land, they largely chose to remain in Babylon.</h4><h4>But instead of allowing this revival to happen, instead the people would superstitiously use those dry bones in order to desperately appeal to their false gods to respond (:2). The revival of Ezekiel 37 was therefore precluded by Judah at the time; that is the point of the connection. But it will ultimately come true in the last days.</h4>


text:
<p>And they shall spread them before the sun, the moon and all the army of the sky which they have loved, and which they have served, and after which they have walked, and which they have sought, and which they have worshipped: they shall not be gathered, nor be buried, they shall be for dung on the surface of the earth- See on :1. They were so devoted to their idolatry that even when their leadership were slain, they would use the bones to implore their idols to still save them. They would not be reformed even by the experience of national condemnation. "Walked::. sought::. worshipped::. served" are all terms used of how they ought to have served Yahweh. "They shall not be gathered" stands in tension with the repeated prophecies that judged Judah would then be gathered. They could have been, there could have been a restored Kingdom of God in Judah, but they precluded its fulfilment at that time by refusing to be gathered.</p>


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<p>Death shall be chosen rather than life by all the residue that remain of this evil family, that remain in all the places where I have driven them, says Yahweh of Armies- I suggested on :1 that Ezekiel’s prophecy of the revived dry bones could have been fulfilled, but instead of allowing the Spirit of new life to enter them, Judah preferred death to life. They used the dead bones to desperately implore the help of their idols. And this would be done by the exiles, who were driven into exile in "all places". Ezekiel’s ministry was specifically to those exiles, and yet he was up against the fact that it was here prophesied that the exiles would preclude the fulfilment of the prophecies of life, and choose death instead.</p>


text:
<p>Moreover you shall tell them, Thus says Yahweh: Shall men fall, and not rise up again? Shall one turn the wrong way, and not return?- As explained on :1-3, they could have been revived fro those dead bones. Men who take a wrong turning do eventually retrace their steps. But these would not (:5). Jeremiah often makes a play upon the Hebrew word shub- it can mean to turn away (from God), and also to ’turn back’ or repent (e:g. <a href='B:300 3:1'>Jer 3:1</a>; <a href='B:300 3:7'>Jer 3:7</a>; <a href='B:300 3:10'>Jer 3:10</a>; <a href='B:300 3:12'>Jer 3:12</a>; <a href='B:300 3:14'>Jer 3:14</a>; <a href='B:300 3:19'>Jer 3:19</a>; <a href='B:300 3:22'>Jer 3:22</a>; <a href='B:300 4:1'>Jer 4:1</a>). If Israel turned in repentance, then God would return them to their land (<a href='B:300 15:19'>Jer 15:19</a>); if they turned away from Him, He would turn them out into the Gentile world. Our lives are a twisting and turning, either to or away from God; and God is waiting to confirm us in those twists and turns. <a href='B:300 8:4-6'>Jer 8:4-6</a> comment that if one turns from the right road, then they must turn back. We all know how when we miss the way in finding an unfamiliar address, there’s a tendency to keep on going along the wrong road- because turning back is so psychologically difficult. And this is the image that God uses here- to appeal to Israel, and ourselves, not to foolishly ’backslide’, keep on turning away, from Him- just because that’s the course we’re set upon.</p>


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<p>Why then is this people of Jerusalem sliding back by a perpetual backsliding? They hold fast deceit, they refuse to return- The Hebrew words for “sliding back” and “return” are identical. The image is of a man on a muddy slope; he slides back either into sin, or into the way of the Lord. We must ‘slide’ one way or the other; every micro decision which makes up the stream of daily life is confirmed by God one way or the other. The refusal to return after taking a wrong turning (:4) is readily imaginable by our generation. If we take a wrong turning, we must come to a point where we humble ourselves and turn back. If we refuse to do this, then we shall be forever lost. We continue going further and further along the wrong path only because we are proud. But they were on a perpetual sliding back from God’s intended path. They "refused to return", because they refused to be ashamed (<a href='B:300 3:3'>Jer 3:3</a> s:w:); and they "refused" God’s word through the prophets because it shamed them (<a href='B:450 7:11'>Zec 7:11</a>). It was pride which was at the core of their refusal, and their perpetual lostness.</p>


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<h4>I listened and heard, but they didn’t speak aright- The speaker here is God (:5). He was intently listening for the words of repentance He so wished to hear. We see here His eagerness for human repentance. As we go forth into this world to witness, the word we preach is being watched over by God, with His ear eager to hear any sounds of response. This word for intently listening is that used for God’s wish that people would intently listen to His word (<a href='B:300 6:17'>Jer 6:17</a>; <a href='B:300 6:19'>Jer 6:19</a> etc:). If we listen, then God will listen to us. Again we see related our attitude to God’s word, and His attitude to our words in prayer. Bible reading and response thereto is part and parcel of God’s response to our words in prayer.</h4><h4>No man repents him of his wickedness, saying, What have I done? Each one turns to his course, as a horse that rushes headlong in the battle- "What have I done?" is the question God asked Adam and Cain (s:w. <a href='B:10 3:13'>Gen 3:13</a>; <a href='B:10 4:10'>Gen 4:10</a>). Adam is everyman, and he specifically represents Israel in their sin. But they refused to listen, and were like a horse set on a course, blinkered to anything apart from rushing headlong forwards along a chosen course. Their question was "Why has Yahweh done this to us?" (<a href='B:300 5:19'>Jer 5:19</a>); when the question should have been rather elicited as to "What have I done?".</h4>


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<p>Yes, the stork in the sky knows her appointed times; and the turtle-dove and the swallow and the crane observe the time of their coming; but My people don’t know Yahweh’s law- The parallel is between knowing God’s law, and repenting (:6). To know God’s word is not therefore an academic issue; engagement with His word as intended will elicit repentance. The birds return from migration naturally, and there is the sense that repentance ought to have been somehow the natural response from Israel. A child will naturally repent of bad behaviour; but Israel didn’t do this because they were driven by an underlying narrative, that they were right, God was unjust, and they were too proud to accept they had sinned. This is the awful power of human pride. Israel therefore chose to be oblivious of what they well knew; there was no (awareness of) God’s judgment in their way of life (<a href='B:290 59:8'>Isa 59:8</a>; <a href='B:300 5:4'>Jer 5:4</a>) and therefore they lacked that innate sense of judgment to come which they ought to have had, as surely as the stork knows the coming time for her migration (<a href='B:300 8:7'>Jer 8:7</a>).</p>


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<p>How do you say, We are wise, and the law of Yahweh is with us? But, behold, the false pen of the scribes has worked falsely- As explained on :7, engagement with God’s law was and is designed to elicit repentance. But it didn’t in Israel’s case, because their scribes had misrepresented God’s law as meaning that their idolatry was in fact legitimate worship of Yahweh. As noted on <a href='B:300 7:8'>Jer 7:8</a>; <a href='B:300 7:10'>Jer 7:10</a> and often, the priests and prophets were teaching the illiterate people what they subconsciously wanted to hear. And so it was not simply that the false prophets mislead the ignorant masses; the masses wanted to believe that they had not sinned and were free to worship idols as part of their Yahweh worship. And so all society were judged. Those who said "The law of Yahweh is with us" were the prophets and priests, of whom Jeremiah was one. Here he is therefore deeply condemning his very own people. "False:::. falsely" is the same word used in <a href='B:140 18:22'>2Ch 18:22</a>, where God put a false or lying spirit in the mouth of prophets, to confirm His apostate people in the path they chose. And so at Jeremiah’s time, "the prophets prophesy falsely" (<a href='B:300 5:31'>Jer 5:31</a>; <a href='B:300 6:13'>Jer 6:13</a> s:w:), falsely saying that the temple would never fall (<a href='B:300 7:14'>Jer 7:14</a>), twisting Yahweh’s words to say that.</p>


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<p>The wise men are disappointed, they are dismayed and taken: behold, they have rejected the word of Yahweh; and what kind of wisdom is in them?- Misrepresenting Yahweh’s word (:8) was the same as rejecting it. This needs some meditation. Interpreting God’s word can so easily be done with our own unconscious agenda in mind; and this can effectively be a rejecting of His word. "Disappointed [ashamed]::. dismayed" is the phrase used of all the other nations overcome by the northern invader (<a href='B:290 37:27'>Isa 37:27</a>). As noted often so far in Jeremiah, the deliverance of Jerusalem at the last minute during the Assyrian invasion a few generations previously could have been repeated during the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem. But it wasn’t, because there was not enough repentance. And this is the tragedy ofthose who twist God’s word to what they wish it would say- they end their days in disappointment. Judah were not ashamed [s:w. "disappointed"] at their sins (:12), but they would be ultimately. So the disappointment and dismay spoken of here finally will be true only at judgment day. And then it will be too late to change the outcome.</p>


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<h4>Therefore will I give their wives to others, and their fields to those who shall possess them- Land and wife were the supreme possessions of a man, and God would give these to others.</h4><h4>For each one from the least even to the greatest is given to covetousness; from the prophet even to the priest each one deals falsely- The leadership reflected what the people wanted, and so all of the society was equally guilty. Although there was a special priesthood, it was clearly God’s intention that all Israel should be like priests; they were to be a "Kingdom of priests" (<a href='B:20 19:6'>Exo 19:6</a>). Israel were all “saints”, and yet saints and priests are paralleled in passages like <a href='B:230 132:16'>Psa 132:16</a>. Israel in the wilderness had clothes which didn’t wear out- just as the Priestly clothes didn’t, and were handed down from generation to generation (so <a href='B:20 29:29'>Exo 29:29</a> implies). Israel were to teach every man his neighbour and brother, saying, Know the Lord (<a href='B:650 8:11'>Heb 8:11</a>). God therefore saw all Israel as represented by the priests (<a href='B:350 4:9'>Hos 4:9</a>; <a href='B:290 24:2'>Isa 24:2</a>; <a href='B:300 5:31'>Jer 5:31</a>; <a href='B:300 8:10'>Jer 8:10</a>).</h4>


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<p>They have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace- There were false prophets both in Judah as the Babylonians approached, and also amongst those of them already in exile (<a href='B:300 6:14'>Jer 6:14</a>; <a href='B:300 8:11'>Jer 8:11</a>; <a href='B:330 13:16'>Eze 13:16</a>). They were assuring the sinful people that in fact they were at peace with God, and that contrary to the prophetic message of desolation at the hand of the Babylonians, they would instead have "peace". This is described in Jeremiah as "slightly" healing the great wound or illness of Judah. That wound is described ambiguously; it was a wound or breach in themselves caused by God’s smiting of them in the earlier Babylonian incursions (<a href='B:300 14:19'>Jer 14:19</a>), but also caused by them to God Almighty. "Lightly" carries with it the idea of not serious, light hearted, superficial, trifling. And we must likewise beware of this kind of religion that is pedalled in the name of Christianity; not facing our personal issues, and using a few Bible words from here and there to superficially cover over the most fundamental issues of our eternal destiny. And this was and is so attractive. But sin and its consequences are far deeper than any superficial, light hearted covering. It requires nothing less than the blood and word of the Lord Jesus.</p>


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<h4>Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? No, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush- "Ashamed" is s:w. "disappointed" in :9. They refused to be ashamed, yet they will be ashamed ultimately- in the shame of the rejected in the last day. We are either ashamed of our sins in repentance; or we will be made ashamed of them in the judgment (<a href='B:300 6:15'>Jer 6:15</a> RVmg:)- it’s shame either way. We either wail for our sins now, or we will wail for them at judgment day (<a href='B:300 9:19-20'>Jer 9:19-20</a>). Our shame should be before God for our sins against Him, and not before men. Hence the prophets often criticize Israel for not being ashamed of their sins before God. Our shame before men leads to anger; our shame before God is resolved in repentance and belief in His gracious forgiveness. Thus Jeremiah recalls how his repentance involved being ashamed, and yet then being "instructed" (<a href='B:300 31:19'>Jer 31:19</a>). It’s through knowing this kind of shame before God that we come to a position where we are unashamed.</h4><h4>Therefore shall they fall among those who fall; in the time of their visitation they shall be cast down, says Yahweh- The allusion is to falling down before idols. By doing so they were living out how they were to fall before the nations of those idols. They would be cast down by God, but they had cast themselves down. Sin is its own condemnation.</h4>


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<h4>I will utterly consume them, says Yahweh: no grapes shall be on the vine, nor figs on the fig tree, and the leaf shall fade- By grace, the people were not utterly consumed. They produced enough fruit even after the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem to bring produce to the temple site as an offering (<a href='B:300 41:5'>Jer 41:5</a>). <a href='B:300 2:21'>Jer 2:21</a> had stated that Judah brought forth bad grapes; but here, the Hebrew suggests there were no grapes brought forth. So bringing forth an appearance of spiritual fruit is going to be revealed as having no fruit.</h4><h4>And the things that I have given them shall pass away from them- The idea is "And I will give them to those who shall pass over them". This is the language of invading armies (<a href='B:290 8:7'>Isa 8:7</a>; <a href='B:340 11:10'>Dan 11:10</a>; <a href='B:340 11:40'>Dan 11:40</a>).</h4>


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<h4>Why do we sit still? Assemble yourselves, and let us enter into the fortified cities, and let us be silent there- This was an act of disobedience. There was to be destruction in the land, but there was potentially safety / salvation in Jerusalem for those who were obedient and repentant (<a href='B:300 4:5-7'>Jer 4:5-7</a>). This was a test to Judah, because they trusted in their defenced cities (<a href='B:300 5:17'>Jer 5:17</a>). But the prophecy of Jeremiah 4 (and <a href='B:400 5:11'>Mic 5:11</a>) asks them to believe that these cities would fall, and there would be salvation only in Jerusalem. And yet they were disobedient, and did go into those other defenced cities.</h4><h4>For Yahweh our God has put us to silence, and given us water of gall to drink, because we have sinned against Yahweh- The sufferings of Christ on the cross have connections with the punishments for Israel’s sins (e:g. being offered gall to drink = <a href='B:300 8:14'>Jer 8:14</a>; <a href='B:310 3:5'>Lam 3:5</a>). Israel were temporarily forsaken by God because of their sins (<a href='B:290 49:14'>Isa 49:14</a>; <a href='B:290 54:7'>Isa 54:7</a>), and therefore so was Christ. Christ was chastened with the rod of men "and with the stripes of the children of men", i:e. Israel (<a href='B:290 53:5'>Isa 53:5</a>; <a href='B:670 2:24'>1Pe 2:24</a>; <a href='B:400 5:1'>Mic 5:1</a>), in His death on the cross.</h4>


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<h4>We looked for peace, but no good came; and for a time of healing, and behold, dismay!- The false prophets predicted "peace", but it didn’t come. And now the people blame this dashed expectation on Yahweh. They liked to cling on to their belief that the false prophets were in fact prophesying from Yahweh, and therefore the failed fulfilments of their words were Yahweh’s fault. This was just perversity.</h4><h4>"Good" here refers to the promised Kingdom of God. The future Kingdom is called “good things” in <a href='B:290 52:7'>Isa 52:7</a> (quoted in <a href='B:520 10:15'>Rom 10:15</a>) and <a href='B:300 8:15'>Jer 8:15</a>. "All things work together for good" (<a href='B:520 8:28'>Rom 8:28</a>) doesn’t mean that somehow everything will work out OK for us in this life- for so often they don’t. We are asked to carry the Lord’s cross, to suffer now and be redeemed in glory later at His return, in the “good things” of the Kingdom.</h4>


text:
<p>The snorting of his horses is heard from Dan: at the sound of the neighing of his strong ones the whole land trembles; for they have come, and have devoured the land and all that is in it; the city and those who dwell therein- News of the Babylonian advance came from Dan in the north, which was in the territory of the ten tribes. This continues the theme that Judah were intended to have learnt from what happened to the ten tribes. The past tense is put for the future here, so certain was God’s word of fulfilment. The people trembled in fear because of the Babylonian advance, and yet endlessly assured themselves that the predictions of "peace" by the false prophets were true. This is a quite imaginable situation, and is yet another internal coherence to the Biblical record.</p>


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<p>For, behold, I will send serpents, adders, among you, which will not be charmed; and they shall bite you, says Yahweh- "Charmed" is also translated "orator" or "prayer" (<a href='B:290 3:3'>Isa 3:3</a>; <a href='B:290 26:16'>Isa 26:16</a>). No prayer, using even the most charming words, was now going to be heard; and for this reason Jeremiah had been told not to pray for the people. But he continued to do so, knowing that God is always open to dialogue. See on <a href='B:300 7:16'>Jer 7:16</a>. There may be an intentional allusion to the serpents in the wilderness (s:w. <a href='B:40 21:6'>Num 21:6</a>; <a href='B:40 21:8'>Num 21:8</a>) whose deadly bite could only be healed by looking in desperate repentance at the brazen serpent, which represented their lifted up future Messiah. For in all these words of judgment there are allusions which suggest the possibility of forgiveness and restoration even at the last moment.</p>


text:
<p>Oh that I could comfort myself against sorrow! My heart is faint within me- What begins as Jeremiah’s cry from the heart merges into God’s- for it is Yahweh who becomes the speaker in :19. Jeremiah’s conflicted emotions can beread as his having a too positive view of Israel, and his book of lamentations could therefore be read as a statement of protest at God’s judgments. But it could also be that Jeremiah was so in tune with God’s thinking that these struggles at the amount of suffering brought upon Judah were also God’s. The struggles within Jeremiah would therefore reflect God’s changes of mind and feeling about judging His people were endlessly "kindled together", just as they were reflected in Hosea’s oscillations of feeling concerning Gomer; see on <a href='B:350 11:8'>Hos 11:8</a>. Jeremiah’s heart was "faint within me" both before (<a href='B:300 8:18'>Jer 8:18</a>) and after (<a href='B:310 1:22'>Lam 1:22</a>), the destruction of Jerusalem. He was so sure that the prophetic word that he even felt as if it had come true before it did. It was the heart of Judah which was faint (<a href='B:290 1:5'>Isa 1:5</a>), and Jeremiah identified totally with their feelings in sorrow with them.</p>


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<p>Behold, the voice of the cry of the daughter of my people from a land that is very far off: Isn’t Yahweh in Zion? Isn’t her King in her? Why have they provoked Me to anger with their engraved images, and with foreign vanities?- Both God and Jeremiah foresee here the captivity in the "land that is very far off". Or we can read with AV "Because of them that dwell in a far country". Until the cherubim of glory departed from Zion, God’s shekinah glory was still there. Despite that very clear statement of His presence in Zion, they still worshipped the vain idols of their enemies. It all seemed so incomprehensible even to God. This impression that God found it incomprehensible reflects the degree to which He limits His omniscience in order to enter into legitimate relationship with His people in real time. Israel after all was the only nation to have the visible symbols of their God’s living&nbsp; presence amongst them, as seen in the shekinah glory between the cherubim. And still they preferred the vanities of foreign idols. The same apparently incomprehensible rejection of an evidently living God and Lord goes on today. See on :22.</p>


text:
<p>The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved- Jeremiah seems to now be thinking ahead, to after the destruction of Jerusalem. That harvest of judgment (<a href='B:300 51:33'>Jer 51:33</a>; <a href='B:730 14:15'>Rev 14:15</a>) would end, and so would the ’Summer harvest’, the harvest of tree fruits which followed the main harvest season, which was from April to June- and yet still he foresaw that Judah would not be saved. He speaks in the present tense of that which was yet future. "Saved" is the word which in Greek would form part of the word ’Jesus’, Yah saves. And this has been the abiding tragedy of Israelite history; that all the harvests of judgment did not bring them to accept Yah’s salvation, which is now in the person of His Son Jesus. Not being saved is paralleled effectively with there being no fruit harvest. Spiritual fruit was required for the intended salvation to come, and that meant repentance. Perhaps in a literal sense, the people looked for salvation from the Babylonian siege in the summer, but it didn’t come. Jerusalem fell in August 587 BC (<a href='B:140 36:18-19'>2Ch 36:18-19</a>), which would have been at the end of the ’summer [harvest]’.</p>


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<p>For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt: I mourn; dismay has taken hold on me- We noted on :18 how as the heart of Judah which was faint (<a href='B:290 1:5'>Isa 1:5</a>), so was Jeremiah’s. He identified totally with their feelings in sorrow with them. And yet "My people" surely speaks of Yahweh Himself as well. God likens Himself to a young man hopelessly in love with a woman (Israel) who was really no good, a man who took the blame when it was undoubtedly her fault (<a href='B:290 54:6-7'>Isa 54:6-7</a>), grieving that she wouldn’t return to Him (<a href='B:370 4:8'>Amo 4:8</a> etc:). "I am broken with their whorish heart::. I am crushed" (<a href='B:330 6:9'>Eze 6:9</a>; <a href='B:300 8:21'>Jer 8:21</a> NIV). God likens Himself to a broken man because of Israel’s fickleness. He went through the pain of the man who knows He has been forgotten by the woman he still desperately remembers (<a href='B:350 2:13'>Hos 2:13</a>). "Hurt" in Hebrew carries the idea of a breach, and we recall the breaching of the walls of Jerusalem by the Babylonians (<a href='B:300 39:2'>Jer 39:2</a>; <a href='B:300 52:7'>Jer 52:7</a>); indeed the word seems to have the sense of the rape of a virgin when we read that the virgin daughter of Zion had been breached (<a href='B:300 14:17'>Jer 14:17</a>). And both Jeremiah and even God, according to <a href='B:300 8:21'>Jer 8:21</a>, felt themselves breached in this breach of God’s people and city. This was how closely identified God was with His wicked people; and how much more does He feel with us in Christ, we who at least seek not to live as Judah did at that time::.</p>


text:
<p>Is there no balm in Gilead? is there no physician there? Why then isn’t the health of the daughter of my people recovered?- Gilead’s balm was well known (<a href='B:10 37:25'>Gen 37:25</a>; <a href='B:330 27:17'>Eze 27:17</a>). There was balm and a physician in Gilead which could heal the sick person- but they wouldn’t go to it. This continues the sense of incomprehension we explained on :19. The cure was readily available- but Judah refused to make use of it.</p>


text:
<h4>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.</h4><p>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” (<a href='B:300 14:17'>Jer 14:17</a>). 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.</p><p>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:</p><p>-&nbsp;&nbsp; “My eye pours out tears to God” [i:e. in repentance?] (<a href='B:220 16:20'>Job 16:20</a>)</p><p>-&nbsp;&nbsp; Isaiah drenches Moab with tears (<a href='B:290 16:9'>Isa 16:9</a>)</p><p>-&nbsp;&nbsp; Jeremiah is a fountain of tears for his people (<a href='B:300 9:1'>Jer 9:1</a>; <a href='B:310 2:8'>Lam 2:8</a>)</p><p>-&nbsp;&nbsp; David’s eyes shed streams of tears for his sins (<a href='B:230 119:136'>Psa 119:136</a>; <a href='B:230 6:6'>Psa 6:6</a>; <a href='B:230 42:3'>Psa 42:3</a>)</p><p>-&nbsp;&nbsp; Jesus wept over Jerusalem (<a href='B:470 23:37'>Mat 23:37</a>)</p><p>-&nbsp;&nbsp; Blessed are those who weep (<a href='B:490 6:21'>Luk 6:21</a>)</p><p>-&nbsp;&nbsp; Mary washed the Lord’s feet with her tears (<a href='B:490 7:36-50'>Luk 7:36-50</a>)</p><p>-&nbsp;&nbsp; Paul wept for the Ephesians daily (<a href='B:510 20:19'>Act 20:19</a>; <a href='B:510 20:31'>Act 20:31</a>).</p><p>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:&nbsp; 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.</p><h4>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 (<a href='B:310 1:12'>Lam 1:12</a>).</h4>


text:
<h4>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 <a href='B:300 14:8'>Jer 14:8</a>. 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 <a href='B:300 3:8'>Jer 3:8</a>; <a href='B:300 3:20'>Jer 3:20</a>; <a href='B:350 5:7'>Hos 5:7</a>. 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 (<a href='B:300 15:6'>Jer 15:6</a>). This of course is Almighty God adjusting Himself to mortal man, allowing Himself to feel through our limitations.</h4><h4>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 <a href='B:300 9:3'>Jer 9:3</a> 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. <a href='B:300 9:1-2'>Jer 9:1-2</a> = Jeremiah; v:3 = God; v. 10 = Jeremiah; v. 11 = God’s response).</h4>


text:
<p>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 <a href='B:300 7:21'>Jer 7:21</a>; <a href='B:300 7:24'>Jer 7:24</a>. Specifically, their gossiping was associated with ’proceeding from evil to evil’ (<a href='B:300 9:3'>Jer 9:3</a>); 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 (<a href='B:240 17:14'>Pro 17:14</a> NIV). Because gossip is such an epitome of the flesh, it is ranked along with sins like fornication, idolatry and murder in <a href='B:330 22:9'>Eze 22:9</a>. There are passages in Jeremiah which describe slander and gossiping as being the reason why God condemned Judah (<a href='B:300 6:28'>Jer 6:28</a>; <a href='B:300 9:3-8'>Jer 9:3-8</a>). 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 isseen 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 (<a href='B:240 6:19'>Pro 6:19</a>). "The words of a talebearer are as wounds, and they go down into the innermost parts of the belly" (<a href='B:240 26:22'>Pro 26:22</a>). 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.</p>


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<p>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.</p>


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<p>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- Jerusalem ’wearied herself’ with lies in that the "lies" were her dishonest covenants with the various surrounding nations, as well as with Yahweh (s:w. <a href='B:330 24:12'>Eze 24:12</a>). She even became ’weary’ of this way of life; but still she would not be purged. The Hebrew word carries the idea of loathing; they in a sense hated their sin (s:w. <a href='B:300 9:12'>Jer 9:12</a>), climaxing in Jerusalem loathing herself and wanting to pluck off her own breasts (<a href='B:330 23:34'>Eze 23:34</a>). The world is full of people weary with sin, who loathe their own addictions and sin, yet they will not surrender themselves to God’s demands and be purged. We note that as Judah were wearied in their life of sin, so God was wearied [s:w:] in His endless relenting regarding punishing them, and weary of the pain of being deceived and rejected by them (<a href='B:300 15:6'>Jer 15:6</a>). The picture is being built up of a relationship coming to an end, with both sides eliciting the same negative emotions in the other. The God of Israel is not far off and stone faced; He is passionately in relationship with His people, with all the feelings that go with being in relationship.</p>


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<p>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.</p>


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<h4>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.</h4><h4>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 (<a href='B:300 6:27'>Jer 6:27</a> 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 (<a href='B:720 1:23'>Jud 1:23</a>).</h4>


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<h4>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 <a href='B:300 5:16'>Jer 5:16</a> 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.</h4><h4>Ourworld’s devaluing and misunderstanding of sin has likely affected all of us. We see the rich abusing the poor, manipulation of all sorts going on, petty injustices, hypocrisy in the ecclesia, falsehood, cheating in business, white lies, unkindness to ones’ brethren… and we shrug and think that it’s just normal, part of life as it is. And yet for the prophets, these things were a catastrophe. Saying one thing to someone whilst feeling differently about them in the heart was the reason for God passionately wishing to take vengeance “on a nation such as this” (<a href='B:300 9:8-9'>Jer 9:8-9</a>)- note that the whole nation are counted as guilty, in that society just shrugged at hypocritical words. What to us are the daily minor sins and injustices of life were to them issues of cosmic proportion.</h4>


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<h4>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.</h4><h4>Shall not My soul be avenged on such a nation as this?- God had been Israel’s wife and was in love with her. His deep desire for avenging was therefore absolutely connected with His great love for her. There had to be response from Him. This rhetorical question, enquiring as to whether Yahweh should take vengeance on Israel, is thrice repeated in Jeremiah (<a href='B:300 5:9'>Jer 5:9</a>; <a href='B:300 5:29'>Jer 5:29</a>; <a href='B:300 9:9'>Jer 9:9</a>). The answer of course is "Yes, God would be justified in doing so". And that answer was perhaps the repentance which God sought in order to avert the coming of His judgment.</h4>


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<h4>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 speaks of the pain of his heart after having spoken of the pain that would reach unto the heart of Judah (<a href='B:300 4:18-19'>Jer 4:18-19</a>). The pain of their heart became the pain of his heart. And yet Jeremiah had the mind of God in this sense, as David was after God’s own heart. This is reflected by the way in which it is very difficult at times in Jeremiah to decide who is speaking- Jeremiah, or God. <a href='B:300 9:1-3'>Jer 9:1-3</a>; <a href='B:300 9:10-11'>Jer 9:10-11</a> is a good passage to work through from this perspective, asking ‘Who is speaking? Jeremiah, or God?’. Their minds were clearly so intertwined. Both of them are described, in consecutive verses, as rising up early to plead with Israel (<a href='B:300 25:3-4'>Jer 25:3-4</a>).</h4><h4>But the picture presented here is of the complete destruction of all life in the land, through fire. But this didn’t happen; soon after the destruction of Jerusalem, the people who remained [who were many] still brought food offerings to the site of the temple (<a href='B:300 41:5'>Jer 41:5</a>). This word will come finally true, for the ’heavens and earth’ of Israel are to be destroyed by fire in the last days just as the world of Noah’s time was destroyed by water (2 Peter 3). But in Jeremiah’s time, the full extent of the planned wrath didn’t come about. Perhaps there was a modicum of repentance or intercession which stopped it, or perhaps God delayed, reapplied or rescheduled His full intentions because He knew that Judah would not repent as intended.</h4>


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<p>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 <a href='B:300 9:10'>Jer 9:10</a>, 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 (<a href='B:300 51:37'>Jer 51:37</a>). 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.</p>


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<h4>Who is the wise man, that mayunderstand 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 (<a href='B:300 9:12'>Jer 9:12</a>). “Your participation in the [preaching of the] gospel” is paralleled with “your faith” (Php_1:5). If we really believe, we will be involved in the preaching of what we believe. The false prophets were the "wise men" of <a href='B:300 8:9'>Jer 8:9</a>. If they were truly wise they would declare the same truths which Jeremiah was stating. It would be true to say that attitudes to evangelism reflect the sincerity of an individual’s belief.</h4><h4>Why is the land perished and burned up like a wilderness, so that none passes through?- Already God had sent famine, so the land was perished, and for fear of the Babylonian incursions, Palestine was no longer a highway and the Jews were scared to travel. Perhaps "the land" in view is also specifically that of the ten tribe kingdom which had already been destroyed, and which Judah was intended to take warning from.</h4>


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<p>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.</p>


text:
<p>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". <a href='B:50 29:19'>Deu 29:19</a> 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" (<a href='B:300 6:14'>Jer 6:14</a>; <a href='B:300 8:11'>Jer 8:11</a>). 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.</p>


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<p>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 (<a href='B:50 29:18'>Deu 29:18</a>). 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.</p>


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<h4>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.</h4><h4>And I will send the sword after them, until I have consumed them- As explained on <a href='B:300 9:10'>Jer 9:10</a>, 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.</h4>


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<p>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 wasGod’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.</p>


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<h4>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- “The Lord of hosts” even calls the mourning women to come “and raise a lament over us” (<a href='B:300 9:17-18'>Jer 9:17-18</a>). The “us” is God and Israel. The tragedy is awful, beyond words. All commentary is bathos. His love is wondrous. The intimacy is such that some versions replace the "us" with "you". But this is an example of translation bias when the translator cannot accept the wonder of God’s true revelation.</h4>


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<h4>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).</h4><h4>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).</h4>


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<h4>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.</h4><h4>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 (<a href='B:300 9:20'>Jer 9:20</a> 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.</h4>


text:
<p>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 <a href='B:450 8:5'>Zec 8:5</a>, where in the reborn Zion, the youth and children would play happily in the streets when all possibility of such condemnation was taken away.</p>


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<h4>Speak, Thus says Yahweh- It is as if the funeral dirge was being taught to them in stanzas.</h4><h4>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.</h4>


text:
<p>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 <a href='B:300 8:9'>Jer 8:9</a>. 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</p>


text:
<h4>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.</h4><h4>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 (<a href='B:330 18:23'>Eze 18:23</a>; <a href='B:330 18:32'>Eze 18:32</a> 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 <a href='B:420 3:17-18'>Hab 3:17-18</a>, 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.</h4>


text:
<p>Behold, the days come, says Yahweh, that I will punish all those who are circumcised along with the uncircumcised- <a href='B:300 9:25'>Jer 9:25</a> 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. This verse ends the funeral dirge of repentance which God had wished the women to sing in :20-24; now He points out that physical circumcision is not going to make any difference. Perhaps the false prophets had taught that circumcision meant that the covenant was with Judah and they could not therefore be destroyed. The fact the ten tribes were destroyed, although circumcised, was wilfully overlooked. As circumcision was seen as something which was the duty of the women to perform, this point is perhaps made at this point because the women have just been specifically addressed. Covenant relationship involved understanding and knowing God in repentance (see on :24)- not in physical circumcision.</p>


text:
<p>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.</p>


text:
<p>Hear the word which Yahweh speaks to you, house of Israel!- This is no mere formal introduction, a standard rubric. It is a desperate appeal for repentance.</p>


text:
<h4>Thus says Yahweh, Don’t learn the way of the nations, and don’t be dismayed at the signs of the sky; for the nations are dismayed at them- There was still hope that there could be a miraculous last minute deliverance of Jerusalem, as had happened in the time of Hezekiah. The surrounding nations had all been"dismayed"and destroyed (<a href='B:120 19:26'>2Ki 19:26</a>). Judah were not to be like them; but they were following their astrology, and the results of that"dismayed"them. They were desperately ’learning’ the religion of those who were about to destroy them, rather than learning God’s way through repentance (<a href='B:300 9:23-24'>Jer 9:23-24</a>). They should instead have been dismayed at Jeremiah’s prophetic words; and to have seen the connection with the frequent exhortations not to be dismayed but to possess the Kingdom (<a href='B:50 1:21'>Deu 1:21</a>; <a href='B:60 1:9'>Jos 1:9</a> etc:). Jeremiah had been commanded not to be dismayed (<a href='B:300 1:9'>Jer 1:9</a> s:w:); he was to be their example, as is every preacher to be the word made flesh."Dismay"was a punishment from God upon them (<a href='B:300 17:18'>Jer 17:18</a>) but as with all Divine judgments, this was just an extension of what the people had done to themselves. For they had dismayed themselves.</h4><h4>Many Babylonian cuneiform tablets are in the British Museum in London. They claim that"the appearance of comets, eclipses of the sun and moon, earthquakes, and in fact every kind of change occasioned by the atmosphere, whether good or bad, both to nations and to kings and private individuals [were omens offuture events]". The British Museum collection of inscriptions lists"A collection of twenty-five tablets of the signs of heaven and earth, according to their good presage and their bad::. Tablets [regarding] the signs of the heaven, along with the star (comet) which has a corona in front and a tail behind; the appearance of the sky". Judah were desperately trying to learn the astrology of the Babylonians as the Babylonian army approached. But they are being told this was all nonsense.</h4>


text:
<p>For the customs of the peoples are vanity; for one cuts a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman with the axe- Judah were bidden look at things from a bird’s eye view, and to perceive how bizarre is idolatry. All idolatry is vanity because it is the work of human hands. The way of spirituality is to accept God’s work rather than the work of our own hands. They were ’learning’ the astrology of the Babylonians who were about to destroy them (:2); and now they were accepting the"statutes"or"customs"of those people, taking on the yoke of a new law and religious system in the name of Yahweh worship. And thereby ignoring His law.</p>


text:
<p>They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it not move- This alludes to very similar language in <a href='B:290 40:20'>Isa 40:20</a>; <a href='B:290 41:7'>Isa 41:7</a>. See on :5."Deck"is the word used of how the Jews tried to make themselves attractive to the other nations by as it were ’dressing themselves up’ (<a href='B:300 4:30'>Jer 4:30</a>). They did this through worshipping their idols. This confirms the impression that on the eve of destruction, they were turning to the idols of their attackers rather than to Yahweh.</p>


text:
<h4>They are like a palm tree, of turned work, and don’t speak-"Turned work"is a word only used about the beaten work of the tabernacle (<a href='B:20 25:18'>Exo 25:18</a>; <a href='B:20 25:31'>Exo 25:31</a>; <a href='B:20 25:36'>Exo 25:36</a> etc:). We will suggest on :9 that they were building a new kind of tabernacle for their idols.</h4><h4>They must be carried, because they can’t walk. Don’t be afraid of them; for they can’t do evil, neither is it in them to do good- This is quoting from <a href='B:290 46:7'>Isa 46:7</a>. There are many points of similarity between Jeremiah and Isaiah, because the miraculous deliverance of Jerusalem from the Assyrian siege in Isaiah’s time could still be replicated at Jeremiah’s time. But afterwards, Hezekiah dropped the baton, and so later Isaiah goes on to lament how the Babylonians would come and destroy Judah, and how the people would turn to idolatry and persecute the true prophets. This was now coming true in Jeremiah’s time. <a href='B:290 45:5-7'>Isa 45:5-7</a> in the same context puts all this another way in saying that Yahweh is the source of good and evil [in the sense of disaster], light and darkness- rather than the Babylonians gods of good and evil.</h4>


text:
<p>There is none like You, Yahweh; You are great, and Your name is great in might- The supreme, ultimate greatness of Yahweh meant that all claims of other gods were worth nothing. This continues the allusions to later Isaiah, this time to <a href='B:290 46:9'>Isa 46:9</a>. See on :5.</p>


text:
<p>Who should not fear You, King of the nations? For it is appropriate for You; because among all the wise men of the nations, and in all their royal estate, there is none like You- It was the prophetic potential that Israel and Judah would repent together, return from captivity, and re-establish the Kingdom of God in Israel under a Messianic ruler, with the surrounding nations also repentant and acceptant of Israel’s God."Who should not::."accept Yahweh out of the nations? We marvel how with Israel so deeply resistant to God’s purpose at this point, still the prophets allude to this massive potential. See on :11. This was not fulfilled at the time, but this passage is quoted in <a href='B:730 15:4'>Rev 15:4</a> as having ultimate fulfilment in the last days.</p>


text:
<p>But they are together primitive and foolish: the instruction of idols! It is but a stock- The idea that a piece of wood could teach God’s people is mocked; but this is in the context of how :1,2 have condemned Judah for earnestly seeking to"learn"the religious ways of Babylon. They stood in front of a piece of wood in order to be taught by it."Primitive"translates a word which effectively means ’kindling wood’ (s:w. <a href='B:20 35:3'>Exo 35:3</a>). They were wooden, and would be the kindling which brought about the final burning of Jerusalem. See on <a href='B:300 11:16'>Jer 11:16</a>.</p>


text:
<p>There is silver beaten into plates which is brought from Tarshish, and gold from Uphaz, the work of the artificer and of the hands of the goldsmith; blue and purple for their clothing; they are all the work of skilful men- Silver, plates, gold, blue, purple and the work of skilled craftsmen is all language reminiscent of the construction of the tabernacle and high priestly robes. The new religious system and laws which they were desperately learning (see on :1,2) was a quasi law of Moses. And yet it was done in the name of Yahweh worship; this explains the similarities, and also how the people also called to Yahweh at this time. See on :5,12,20.</p>


text:
<h4>But Yahweh is the true God; He is the living God and an everlasting King- A bald statement, urging the Jews on the eve of destruction to quit their idolatry and return wholeheartedly to Yahweh. He was alive, whereas the idols were just dead wood (:8). He would last for ever, whereas the idols of that age, as of every age, stand only for a short time.</h4><h4>At His wrath the earth trembles, and the nations are not able to withstand His indignation- The earth / land of Israel along with the nations was to be judged. Perhaps a literal earthquake was in view, as mentioned in many of the prophets. It was the prophetic intention that the judgment of Babylon and her coalition would follow soon after their judgment of Israel. This didn’t happen as intended, because the lack of repentance precluded the scenario happening then. But as the book of Revelation makes clear, this will all come true in the last days.</h4>


text:
<p>You shall say this to them: The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, these shall perish from the earth, and from under the heavens- This verse stands out from those around it in that it is written in Chaldee. Perhaps this was intended to be sent and spoken to the Babylonians. To curse a nation’s gods was the ultimate insult. And this is what Jeremiah was doing. And he says this when Judah were desperately learning the religion of the Babylonians (:1,2) in the hope that it would save them from Babylon. But the hope also was that Babylon and the surrounding nations would repent and come to Yahweh; see on :7. The Babylonians worshipped the heavenly bodies; but they were worshipping the created rather than the creator.</p>


text:
<p>He has made the earth by His power, He has established the world by His wisdom, and by His understanding has He stretched out the heavens- This contrast between the idols and Yahweh as the creator of all things is typical of the later part of Isaiah; see on :5. The language of setting up ("established", literally ’to make stand erect’) and stretching out suggests that the heavens and earth are a tent or tabernacle. This alludes to how the Jews were desperately constructing a tabernacle to idols; see on :9,20.</p>


text:
<p>When He utters his voice, there is a tumult of waters in the heavens, and He causes the vapours to ascend from the ends of the earth; He makes lightnings for the rain, and brings forth the wind out of His treasuries- This could refer to a literal thunderstorm that burst over Jerusalem as Jeremiah was speaking. The waters which arose from the ends of the land represented the nations arising from the boundaries of eretz Israel, who were to come in judgment upon Jerusalem.</p>


text:
<p>Every man has become primitive and without knowledge; every goldsmith is disappointed by his engraved image; for his molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them- This is the ultimate end of all idolatry, of all life lived without total devotion to God- disappointment. Life is only in Yahweh; both eternal life, and meaningful life now. The same word for"disappointed"is used of what would happen to the idols of Babylon (<a href='B:300 50:2'>Jer 50:2</a>). Just before the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem, the Jews within the city were making those very same idols, and would be disappointed in them just as Babylon was to be. It was the idols who were primitive and without knowledge (:8); and those who make and worship idols become like unto them, also"primitive::."(<a href='B:230 115:8'>Psa 115:8</a>). The desire to worship is built within the human condition. And we become like what we worship. It is therefore critically important to worship the right thing.</p>


text:
<h4>They are vanity, a work of delusion- It is emphasized in <a href='B:300 10:15-16'>Jer 10:15-16</a> that the God of Jacob is not an idol, nor is He created by an ’errorist’- using the same rare Hebrew word concerning Jacob being a ’deceiver’ in <a href='B:10 27:12'>Gen 27:12</a>. Jacob was a ’deceiver’, and for much of his life did not accept Yahweh as his God, preferring the idols of the land (<a href='B:10 28:20-21'>Gen 28:20-21</a>). Yet <a href='B:300 10:15-16'>Jer 10:15-16</a> says that idols are made by ’deceivers’, and the God Jacob believed in was not an idol like this. God is almost turning everything upside down to frame a weak, faltering Jacob as the very opposite. And He will do likewise with every one of the true Israel.</h4><h4>In the time of their visitation they shall perish- The same words are used of how ultimately Babylon itself would realize this about its own idols (<a href='B:300 51:18'>Jer 51:18</a>). All idols fail at their point of critical testing; the Babylonians should have learnt from the way their idols never saved Jerusalem from destruction. Here we see God’s wonderful hope, that even Babylon would repent. We give up on people far too easily compared to Him. The common prophetic idea of"the day/ time of visitation"is applied by Peter to the day of the Lord’s return and the final judgment (<a href='B:670 2:12'>1Pe 2:12</a>). All these prophetic possibilities never quite came about in their day; but they will do, in the last day:&nbsp;&nbsp;</h4>


text:
<h4>The portion of Jacob is not like these- See on :15. Jacob inherits God, having Him as his portion; and God inherits Israel / Jacob. We see here the mutuality intended between God and Israel. This is yet another reflection of God’s recognition that finally, Jacob fulfilled his promise to make Yahweh his God (<a href='B:10 28:20'>Gen 28:20</a>). The lessons of Jacob’s name change were finally learnt.</h4><h4>For He is the former of all things; and Israel is the tribe of His inheritance: Yahweh of Armies is His name- It was the prophetic hope that Judah and the ten tribe kingdom would unite as one in the restored kingdom of God in Israel."Israel"is therefore described here as a singular tribe.</h4>


text:
<p>Gather up your wares out of the land, you who live under siege-"Wares"is literally"bundle"; the idea is that the siege would end with the people going into captivity with just a bundle of belongings. This prophecy was given in the very last moments of opportunity, whilst the people were besieged.</p>


text:
<p>For thus says Yahweh, Behold, I will sling out the inhabitants of the land at this time, and will distress them, that they may feel it- But in wrath, God remembered mercy. For not all the inhabitants of the land were taken into captivity. Only the ruling classes were. The Babylonians, unlike the Assyrians, didn’t practice mass deportations. They removed the leadership of subjected peoples, and appointed locals as the leaders under their control. This is what they did to Judah, taking the royal family and priesthood into captivity, and establishing Gedaliah as puppet governor (<a href='B:300 40:7'>Jer 40:7</a>; <a href='B:120 25:2'>2Ki 25:2</a>) along with some local Jewish"elders"(<a href='B:310 5:12'>Lam 5:12</a>), with Mizpeh rather than Jerusalem as the capital:&nbsp; <a href='B:150 9:7'>Ezr 9:7</a> is clear that it was"our kings and our priests [who] have been delivered"into captivity. The Babylonians saw no economic purpose in bringing masses of unskilled peasant farmers into captivity in their cities. It’s been estimated that at least 90% of Judah were peasant farmers; and these, the impoverished masses, were left in the land and not deported (<a href='B:300 52:16'>Jer 52:16</a>; <a href='B:120 25:12'>2Ki 25:12</a>). See on <a href='B:330 11:15'>Eze 11:15</a>. The Babylonian policy regarding deportation and management of conquered lands is described in N:P. Lemche, Ancient Israel: A New History of Israelite Society (Sheffield: JSOT, 1988) and D:L. Smith, The Religion of the Landless: The Social Context of the Babylonian Exile (Bloomington, IN: Meyer Stone, 1989). God did not therefore scatter all the people quite as He intended. There is archaeological evidence for continued agricultural activity in the land after the deportations. And <a href='B:300 41:5'>Jer 41:5</a> seems to speak of men coming to the Jerusalem temple from Shechem and Shiloh, in the ten tribe area, in order to offer grain offerings at the site of the temple. Presumably the altar had been destroyed, hence no animal sacrifices are mentioned. It has been suggested that the book of Lamentations was written as part of a temple ritual or at least material to be recited at the site of the temple. See on <a href='B:300 12:4'>Jer 12:4</a>; <a href='B:300 13:19'>Jer 13:19</a>.</p>


text:
<p>Woe is me because of my hurt! my wound is grievous: but I said, Truly this is my grief, and I must bear it- This was Jeremiah’s pained interjection, but as often, we find his feelings are those of God. And so here in a context where the first person pronouns clearly refer to God and not Jeremiah, we read: “Woe is me for my hurt! My wound is grievous… truly this is a grief, and I must bear it. My tabernacle is spoiled… my children are gone forth… there is none to stretch forth my tent” (<a href='B:300 10:18-20'>Jer 10:18-20</a>). This is the almost unbelievable extent of God’s pain and hurt for His people. Truly did it hurt God more than His children knew to punish them."Hurt"is literally ’breaking’. God was broken by His people’s behaviour. It is the word often used of the breaking up of Jerusalem and Judah (<a href='B:300 4:6'>Jer 4:6</a>; <a href='B:300 4:20'>Jer 4:20</a> etc:); but this as it were broke the heart of God (see on <a href='B:300 8:21'>Jer 8:21</a>). The deadly,"grievous"wound suffered by Judah was felt by God as His"grief"(<a href='B:300 6:7'>Jer 6:7</a>). We have a window here onto how the Father felt the sufferings of His Son, when"God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself". To explain that as simply meaning"Jesus = God"is to miss so much that it is a tragic misinterpretation. The judgment sufferings for sin were thereby felt by the God who brought them. The very words for ’bearing grief’ are used inIsa 53:4 of how the Lord Jesus bore the griefs of condemned Israel, and indeed all the people of God. For all have sinned and merit condemnation. Jeremiah at this point knew those essential feelings of the Messianic saviour figure, which were also the feelings of God."I must bear it"would then be Jeremiah’s desire to try to bear their condemnation, as ultimately only the Lord Jesus could do for Israel. He sees himself as the lamb led to slaughter in <a href='B:300 11:19'>Jer 11:19</a>.</p>


text:
<p>My tent is destroyed, and all my cords are broken: my children are gone forth from me, and they are no more: there is none to spread my tent any more, and to set up my curtains- God speaks of the tabernacle rather than the temple because it seems from :9 that they were constructing another tabernacle, but to the gods of Babylon. We noted on :9,12 that God had set up His tabernacle / tent just as He had stretched out the skies at creation. But the Jews were building another tabernacle to other gods. They had taken down Yahweh’s tent thereby, and so God was as it were left homeless, able to identify with those left homeless. We deduce from the argument here how Almighty God is in a sense"in need of man", as Avraham Heschel put it. He had nobody to spread out His tent- He, the God who spread out the skies of the cosmos by His great power.</p>


text:
<p>For the shepherds are become primitive, and have not inquired of Yahweh: therefore they have not prospered, and all their flocks are scattered- Those who ought to have set up the tabernacle in :20 were the priests and Levites, and they had turned away from Yahweh. This was especially hard for Jeremiah to utter, seeing he was from a priestly family. The shepherds, the priests, became"primitive", the same word used of the idols themselves in :8,14. They became like that which they worshipped (<a href='B:230 115:8'>Psa 115:8</a>). Any shepherd / teacher should themselves be ever ’inquiring’ of Yahweh. But they instead were learning all they could about idol worship (:1,2). They did not ’prosper’, Heb. ’understand’; and so new pastors were needed, who would teach understanding (<a href='B:300 3:15'>Jer 3:15</a> s:w:).</p>


text:
<h4>The voice of proclamation, behold, it comes, and a great commotion out of the north country- The word for the"rushing"noise of the cherubim wheels in Ezekiel is used elsewhere about the noise of the chariots of Israel’s enemies and the Babylonian invasion (<a href='B:300 10:22'>Jer 10:22</a>; <a href='B:300 47:3'>Jer 47:3</a>; <a href='B:410 3:2'>Nah 3:2</a>). The Angelic armies of Heaven were therefore revealed on earth in the chariots of Babylon; it was both Babylon and the Angelic cherubim behind them who took Judah captive, and who could also return them to their land. Hence the stress in Ezekiel’s vision that the wheels of the cherubim were on the earth / land. Clearly enough, the things that go on in our lives, even those things which appear as brutal and tragic as the Babylonian chariots were to Judah, are not random machinations of men; they are, in some unfathomable way, under the direct control of a God of love, who only means to do us good at our latter end.</h4><h4>To make the cities of Judah a desolation, a dwelling place of jackals- As explained on <a href='B:300 9:10'>Jer 9:10</a>, this didn’t completely happen to the extent here prophetically envisaged. 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 (<a href='B:300 51:37'>Jer 51:37</a>). 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.</h4>


text:
<p>Yahweh, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man who walks to direct his steps- The passage from :23-25 could be a prayer of Jeremiah, who recognizes his own sinfulness on a personal level. In this case we see how he prayed despite being asked by God not to pray (<a href='B:300 7:16'>Jer 7:16</a>; <a href='B:300 11:14'>Jer 11:14</a>; <a href='B:300 14:7'>Jer 14:7</a>). But it could also be the wish or even fantasy of God for the repentance of the people; these are the words He imagines an individual repentant Israelite saying. The idea is perhaps that man cannot direct his path whilst he is walking; he must firstly direct his steps, and then walk accordingly. The way of Adam (Heb:) would allude to how Adam could not direct his own way back to the tree of life; the Angel cherubim would keep that way and direct man upon it (<a href='B:10 3:24'>Gen 3:24</a>). Jeremiah sees the exile of Judah to the east as the driving out of Adam eastward from Eden, the same eretz Israel. And he knew now that it would not be of man, of Israel as it was not of Adam, to get back; it required the Angel cherubim to bring them back. And that was just the message of Ezekiel at this same time and context. It is Yahweh alone who can direct the steps of man (same words in <a href='B:240 16:9'>Pro 16:9</a>).</p>


text:
<p>Yahweh, orrect me, but in measure: not in Your anger, lest you bring me to nothing- If this is a personal prayer of Jeremiah on behalf of the people, then perhaps God did hear; because He did indeed correct them"in measure"(s:w. <a href='B:300 30:11'>Jer 30:11</a>"I will correct you in measure, and not leave you altogether unpunished"), but the full extent of His prophesied anger [such as the destruction of all animal and human life in the land by fire] was not carried out. Judah were not literally ’brought to nothing’. This was in response to Jeremiah’s prayer here- to correct / punish [s:w:] Judah, but not bring them to nothing. The same phrase"bring to nothing"is found in <a href='B:300 30:19'>Jer 30:19</a>, where God promises that He will not bring Judah to nothing. This was in direct response to Jeremiah’s prayer here. Jeremiah here is praying as representative of all Israel, just as he personally says"Amen"to the offer of the new covenant in <a href='B:300 11:5'>Jer 11:5</a>.</p>


text:
<p>Pour out Your wrath on the nations that don’t know You, and on the families that don’t call on Your name: for they have devoured Jacob, yes, they have devoured him and consumed him, and have laid waste his habitation- This could mean that although those nations were used by God to execute judgment, they were willing and eager to abuse Israel, and so were to be punished. Or perhaps they went beyond their commission, and it was for this that they were punished (<a href='B:290 10:6-7'>Isa 10:6-7</a>; <a href='B:290 47:6'>Isa 47:6</a>; <a href='B:450 1:15'>Zec 1:15</a>). Yet we could read Jeremiah here as out of step with God’s hope that even Babylon would repent; and failing to realize the extent to which Judah deserved their punishments.</p>


text:
<p>The word that came to Jeremiah from Yahweh saying- Jeremiah is not a chronological book. This could refer to the time when the book of the covenant was discovered by Josiah; or it could be a reminder at a later point that the people ought to have been obedient to that covenant which had been discovered and proclaimed.</p>


text:
<p>Hear the words of this covenant, and speak to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem- See on :1. The allusion is indeed to the book of the covenant discovered by Josiah. But we should also consider that according to Jeremiah 31, Ezekiel 20 etc:, God offered a new covenant to the people at this time, seeing they had broken the old covenant in the form of the Mosaic law.</p>


text:
<p>And say to them, Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel: Cursed is the man who doesn’t hear the words of this covenant- The allusion is to how the old covenant was pronounced, and this same curse was made binding. Like us, Israel were reminded that His covenant with His people was not a mere historical incident. His word is living, and the covenant applied to them just as much as it did to those who first heard it; with the attendant blessings and cursings. We can likewise reflect how the promises to Abraham are similarly personally relevant to us, being the basis of the new covenant.</p>


text:
<p>Which I commanded your fathers in the day that I brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, out of the iron furnace saying, Obey My voice, and do them, according to all which I command you: so you shall be My people, and I will be your God- They had been saved from the furnace of Egypt, but they were now within the furnace of Jerusalem (<a href='B:330 22:18'>Eze 22:18</a>; <a href='B:330 22:20'>Eze 22:20</a>). Just as they had been saved from the Egyptian furnace, so now they also could be from that of Divine judgment. But the deliverance was to be conditional upon obedience. The commandments to be obeyed were not mere tests of obedience or loyalty;"so you shall be My people"means that they were designed in order to facilitate in practice the relationship between God and His people. The deliverance from the furnace of Egypt was in order that they become God’s people (<a href='B:50 4:20'>Deu 4:20</a>; <a href='B:110 8:51'>1Ki 8:51</a>). But if they didn’t want to become God’s people, then deliverance would be pointless. The furnace was to be a refining process (<a href='B:290 48:10'>Isa 48:10</a>), but if they didn’t want this, then they would be destroyed in that furnace.</p>


text:
<h4>That I may establish the oath which I swore to your fathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as at this day- We need to remember in our preaching that success is potentially possible; God is working through us to give those we intersect with the chance of a real salvation. Their rejection shouldn’t be so discouraging the more we perceive that we on God’s side in all this, He is working through us to try to appeal to them. And appreciating this will give a far greater intensity and urgency of appeal to our preaching. In <a href='B:300 11:4-5'>Jer 11:4-5</a> God speaks of how obedience is required in order for Him to fulfil the promises to us which He so wishes to fulfil:"Be my people::. and this will allow me to carry out the oath that I swore to your fathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as I have in fact done"["as at this day"]. We see here how Godallows Himself to be limited by us- we can ’allow Him’ to carry out His purposes, or not. And yet in this example we see His grace, in the words"As I have in fact done". For Israel weren’t obedient to the covenant- and yet He still gave them the promised land. His grace shines through, breaking even His own conditions.</h4><h4>Then answered I and said, Amen, Yahweh- This is reminiscent of Israel saying"Amen"to the covenant. Jeremiah acts on their behalf, just as his prayer at the end of Jeremiah 10 is in the first person, but is representative of all Israel.</h4>


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<p>Yahweh said to me, Proclaim all these words in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem saying, Hear the words of this covenant, and do them- In <a href='B:300 5:1'>Jer 5:1</a>, Jeremiah was asked to run to and fro in those streets, representing God in search of man. The medium of God’s searching for man is the word of offer of covenant relationship with Him. Obedience to this commandment would have taken Jeremiah some time."The cities of Judah"had not yet fallen to the Babylonians, so this prophecy must be relatively early in his ministry. Hearing and doing is the classic language of obedience to the covenant (e:g. <a href='B:50 4:1'>Deu 4:1</a>). James alludes to it in saying that those under the new covenant likewise are to both hear and do. We note that Jeremiah doesn’t repeat the covenant here; perhaps because he is referring to the book of the covenant found by Josiah (:1,2).</p>


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<p>For I earnestly protested to your fathers in the day that I brought them up out of the land of Egypt, even to this day, rising early and protesting saying, Obey My voice- Again we have the sense of God’s living word, speaking to every generation. What He said to their fathers was spoken to&nbsp; every subsequent generation"even to this day". This is the art of faithful Bible reading- perceiving God’s historical voice as coming to us personally."Protested"is the same word translated"testify"in the records of the giving of the covenant; and that testifying was"by heaven and earth"(<a href='B:50 30:19'>Deu 30:19</a>), whom Israel were now worshipping as Babylon worshipped them, rather than seeing in them evidence of Yahweh’s creation.</p>


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<h4>Yet they didn’t obey, nor turn their ear, but walked each one in the stubbornness of their evil heart- Inclining or humbling / bowing down the ear means that true response to God’s word ought to be a humbling experience. We cannot come away from engagement with God’s word without being humbled. And this very phrase is used of how God bows down / inclines His ear to human prayer (<a href='B:120 19:16'>2Ki 19:16</a>; <a href='B:230 17:6'>Psa 17:6</a>; <a href='B:230 31:2'>Psa 31:2</a>; <a href='B:230 71:2'>Psa 71:2</a> and often). We see here the mutuality possible between God and man, and the interplay between Bible reading and God’s response to our prayers. We speak to God in line with our understanding of His word, and He responds to our prayers. Bible reading and prayer therefore mesh together in the Christian life, as part of the upward spiral of spirituality. God is not silent to our prayers- He reveals Himself in response through His word.</h4><h4>Therefore I brought on them all the words of this covenant, which I commanded them to do, but they didn’t do them- Again we see God’s grace. Because not all the curses for covenant breaking were brought upon Israel. In wrath He remembered mercy, even when they were impenitent.</h4>


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<p>Yahweh said to me, A conspiracy is found among the men of Judah, and among the inhabitants of Jerusalem- The conspiracy against Jeremiah by his own local people and family (:19) was itself a reflection of how these men had as it were made a conspiracy against God. As Jeremiah’s positive view of his own people seems to have prevented him from perceiving it, so God reveals Himself as shocked that as it were ’in secret’, His people had conspired against Him. We see here the unity between God and His servant. The idea of a conspiracy suggests a wilful, conscious decision to rebel against God. It is the consciousness of their disobedience which is so stunning. They were led into this by their false prophets telling them that they could serve Yahweh in ways which were disobedient to His covenant. Hence the contemporary <a href='B:330 22:25'>Eze 22:25</a> says that the"conspiracy"(s:w:) was amongst the false prophets.</p>


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<p>They are turned back to the iniquities of their forefathers, who refused to hear My words; and they are gone after other gods to serve them: the house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken My covenant which I made with their fathers- Judah were continually being reminded by Jeremiah that they were not better than the ten tribe kingdom of Israel, and would meet a similar destruction and exile as they had. The breaking of covenant was a conscious act, indicatedby it being a"conspiracy"(:9). If they had"turned back"to God, then the exiles would have been"turned back"to Zion. But instead they had"turned back"to the sins of their fathers. This point is significant in that Ezekiel 18 reflects how they considered they were being unfairly punished for the sins of their fathers. But here they are reminded that they were committing the very same sins as their fathers.</p>


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<p>Therefore thus says Yahweh, Behold, I will bring evil on them, which they shall not be able to escape; and they shall cry to Me, but I will not listen to them- And yet the many prophetic messages at this time showed that they were"able to escape". But they chose not to. We noted on :9 and :5 how Jeremiah personally was representative of Judah. They were told here that prayer was going to be pointless for them; hence Jeremiah personally was commanded not to pray in their name (<a href='B:300 7:16'>Jer 7:16</a>; <a href='B:300 11:14'>Jer 11:14</a>; <a href='B:300 14:7'>Jer 14:7</a>). This is perhaps the nadir of all existence; for God’s people to be unable to pray to Him. This is the picture of condemnation; this will be the reason for gnashing of teeth.</p>


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<h4>Then shall the cities of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem go and cry to the gods to which they offer incense: but they will not save them at all in the time of their trouble- The time of Jacob’s trouble was to come at the Babylonian entry into Jerusalem. In that moment, Jacob should surely have cried to his God; but tragically, they cried to the gods of their invaders. As observed earlier, idols always fail at the point of critical testing; the Babylonians should have learnt from the way their idols never saved Jerusalem from destruction. Here we see God’s wonderful hope, that even Babylon would repent. We give up on people far too easily compared to Him. In <a href='B:300 2:27'>Jer 2:27</a> God had fantasized that His people in the"time of their trouble"(s:w:) would cry to Him. But now He as it were faces the reality that they would cry to their idols and not to Him. And yet whilst crying to the idols, they would also cry to Him (:14). We have the picture of them crying out to every god they had ever worshipped, as well as Yahweh. But that is not the singular faith in Him which He can respond to. He is not one of many options and loves of our lives. He is to be the passion of our faithful, loyal hearts.</h4>


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<h4>For according to the number of your cities are your gods, Judah; and according to the number of the streets of Jerusalem have you set up altars to the shameful thing, even altars to burn incense to Baal- &nbsp;Each street of Jerusalem was named after an idol, just as was the case in Babylon (Jer 11:13)- and thus Jerusalem shared Babylon’s judgment. If we don’t come out from Babylon, we will share her judgments (Rev 18:4). Zion lost her children and also her husband whilst still a young woman (Isa 49:21; Isa 54:6), just as Babylon would (Isa 47:9).</h4>


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<h4>Therefore don’t pray for this people, neither lift up cry nor prayer for them; for I will not hear them in the time that they cry to Me because of their trouble- See on :12. For the sake of our prayers, in some cases sins of others can be forgiven when otherwise they wouldn’t be. For the sake of our conversion of our erring brethren, they can be saved from eternal death and have their sins covered. The Lord’s prayer says as much- we ask God to forgive us our &nbsp;sins; not ‘me my sins’. Likewise only once Israel had passed a certain level of sinfulness was Jeremiah told to cease prayer for them (<a href='B:300 7:16'>Jer 7:16</a> cp. 11:14). Until that point, God seems to have been willing to read Jeremiah’s prayer for them as their prayer (his “cry” was seen as theirs). And <a href='B:330 14:14'>Eze 14:14</a>; <a href='B:330 14:18'>Eze 14:18</a> imply the same- Noah, Daniel and Job could have delivered Israel up to a certain point, but they were so hardened in sin at Ezekiel’s time that even those men wouldn’t have saved a nation which otherwise, for a lower level of sin as it were, they could otherwise have saved. If we have any grain of love in us, we will likewise dedicate ourselves to fervent prayer for our brethren, seeing it does have effect and validity within certain boundaries.</h4><p>Christ did not pray for the world (<a href='B:500 17:9'>Joh 17:9</a>), which in the context seems to refer to the unrepentant Jewish world (cp. <a href='B:300 11:14'>Jer 11:14</a>; <a href='B:690 5:8'>1Jn 5:8</a>) as well as the surrounding (Roman) world.</p><h4><a href='B:330 22:30'>Eze 22:30</a> says that if a person had been found at this time who would have powerfully interceded for Jerusalem ’stood in the gap’, God wouldn’t have destroyed Jerusalem -"that I should not destroy it"in <a href='B:330 22:30'>Eze 22:30</a> is an allusion to Abraham interceding for Sodom in <a href='B:10 18:28'>Gen 18:28</a>. But there was not such a person, because they were"all"dross (<a href='B:330 22:18-19'>Eze 22:18-19</a>). Jeremiah was in the land at the time and was surely righteous, but he had been told not to intercede for the people (<a href='B:300 11:14'>Jer 11:14</a>; <a href='B:300 14:11'>Jer 14:11</a>). It seems that if another like him had been found, in addition to Ezekiel in exile, then the judgments could have been averted. There were simply so many possible scenarios! And this is what we must expect if even time periods can be shortened or extended in response to human behaviour. And yet Jeremiah himself seems to have been too ’pro’ Israel. He was shocked at the depth of their weakness and even naive to it; and in Lamentations he seems to consider God had acted too harshly against His people. So perhaps in any case Jeremiah was not the appropriate interceder.</h4>


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<h4>What has My beloved to do in My house- Despite casting them out of His house, God still calls them His"beloved". This is really love amazing, and grace without compare.</h4><h4>Since she has worked lewdness with many, and the holy flesh is passed from you? When you do evil, then you rejoice- LXX:"Will prayers and holy offerings take away thy wickedness from thee, or shalt thou escape by these things?". GNB:"Do they think they can prevent disaster by making promises and by offering animal sacrifices? Will they then rejoice?". It’s clear from :12,14 that they cried out to their idols when in their final desperation, and yet <a href='B:300 2:27'>Jer 2:27</a> says that at that point they cried to Yahweh as well. Likewise it seems they were madly offering sacrifices to every god they knew, including Yahweh. And that was exactly why God didn’t respond to them.</h4>


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<h4>Yahweh called your name, A green olive tree, beautiful with goodly fruit- The Lord’s words as He carried the cross"If they do these things when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?"is packed with allusion to O:T. Scriptures (<a href='B:330 17:24'>Eze 17:24</a>; <a href='B:300 11:16'>Jer 11:16</a>; <a href='B:300 11:19'>Jer 11:19</a>; Psalms 1; <a href='B:300 17:5-8'>Jer 17:5-8</a>). His preceding words to the women were likewise; His quotation from <a href='B:350 10:8'>Hos 10:8</a> is set in a context so appropriate to the situation He was in. If they did these things to Him, the green and healthy shoot, what would be done to the dry dead wood of Israel…? His concern was always with the sufferings others would experience rather than being lost in His own introspection. Without getting too deeply involved in the actual exposition, a simple lesson emerges: He was not so overpowered by the terrible physicality of His human situation that He ceased to be spiritually aware. His mind was full of the word, not just out of place quotations flooding His subconscious, but real awareness of the spirit of the Father’s word and its’ intensely personal relevance to Himself. In this He sets a matchless example.</h4><h4>With the noise of a great tumult he has kindled fire on it, and its branches are broken- I explained on <a href='B:300 10:8'>Jer 10:8</a> that the wooden idols were likened to the kindling wood, as it were stacked around Jerusalem. God kindled the fire, although it sounded like ["with the noise of::."] the invaders had done so. He worked through them. Both Yahweh and Israel are described as kindling the fire of judgment; He responded to what they had done (<a href='B:300 11:16'>Jer 11:16</a>; <a href='B:300 15:14'>Jer 15:14</a>; <a href='B:310 4:11'>Lam 4:11</a> cp. <a href='B:300 17:4'>Jer 17:4</a>). God"broke"the tree of Israel (s:w. <a href='B:300 25:29'>Jer 25:29</a>), but so did the invaders. The rejected are witnesses against themselves (<a href='B:290 44:9'>Isa 44:9</a>; <a href='B:470 23:31'>Mat 23:31</a>). Herein lies the crass folly and illogicality of sin. Jeremiah pleaded with Israel:"Wherefore commit ye this great evil against your souls [i:e. yourselves], to cut off from you man and woman:::that ye might cut yourselves off"(<a href='B:300 44:7-8'>Jer 44:7-8</a>, cp. how Jerusalem cut her own hair off in <a href='B:300 7:29'>Jer 7:29</a>). In the same passage, Yahweh is the one who does the cutting off (<a href='B:300 44:11'>Jer 44:11</a>); but they had cut themselves off. Likewise as they had kindled fire on their roofs in offering sacrifices to Baal, so Yahweh through the Babylonians would set fire to those same houses (<a href='B:300 32:29'>Jer 32:29</a>). Thus Israel were the ones who had kindled the fire ofYahweh’s condemnation (<a href='B:300 17:4'>Jer 17:4</a>).</h4>


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<h4>For Yahweh of Armies, who planted you, has pronounced evil against you- They were planted by God when they left Egypt and entered covenant with God (<a href='B:20 15:17'>Exo 15:17</a>; <a href='B:40 24:6'>Num 24:6</a>), and also when they entered Canaan and God cleared the land of the Canaanite tribes (<a href='B:230 44:2'>Psa 44:2</a>; <a href='B:230 80:8'>Psa 80:8</a>). Having done everything possible through their planting that they might produce fruit (<a href='B:290 5:2'>Isa 5:2</a>), it was appropriate for God to also destroy them when they failed to respond. Likewise we have been"planted"in a manner and position optimal for our spiritual fruitfulness; we cannot therefore blame our lack of spiritual fruit on bad environment.</h4><h4>Because of the evil of the house of Israel and of the house of Judah, which they have worked for themselves in provoking Me to anger by offering incense to Baal- Judah were continually being reminded by Jeremiah that they were not better than the ten tribe kingdom of Israel, and would meet a similar destruction and exile as they had. They had both produced the judgment for themselves; sin is essentially a sin against ourselves as well as God.</h4>


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<p>Yahweh gave me knowledge of it, and I knew it: then You showed me their evil deeds- Jeremiah speaks here of how he came to see Israel for who they were; he realized their conspiracy against God, and also their conspiracy against himself. He was therefore underlined as really being God’s representative on earth, emotionally passing through similar experiences. Ezekiel was shown “what the house of Israel is doing in the dark” (<a href='B:330 8:12'>Eze 8:12</a>). To pass through human life with this level of sensitivity must’ve been so hard. Psychologically and nervously, the stress would’ve been awful. It seems to me that the prophets had to be somehow psychologically strengthened by God to endure living that sensitively in this crass and unfeeling world- hence God made Ezekiel and Jeremiah as a wall and “iron pillar” to Israel, hardened their faces, so that they wouldn’t be “dismayed at [the] looks” of those who watched them with anger and consternation (<a href='B:300 1:18'>Jer 1:18</a>; <a href='B:300 15:20'>Jer 15:20</a>; <a href='B:330 2:4-6'>Eze 2:4-6</a>; <a href='B:330 3:8-9'>Eze 3:8-9</a>; <a href='B:330 3:27'>Eze 3:27</a>). This psychological strengthening was not aimed at making them insensitive, but rather in strengthening them to live sensitively to sin in a sinful world without cracking up. And He will do the same for us, too.</p>


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<h4>But I was like a gentle lamb that is led to the slaughter- On <a href='B:300 10:19'>Jer 10:19</a> we noted that Jeremiah alludes to the great Messianic prophecy of Isaiah 53, feeling himself the bearer of Israel’s griefs. He continues that allusion here, this time to <a href='B:290 53:7'>Isa 53:7</a>"a lamb to the slaughter". Jeremiah had naively believed they had good intentions, hence GNB"like a trusting lamb". His overly positive view of his people reflected that of God. For the conspiracy against Jeremiah was reflective of that which they had as it were made against Yahweh (:9):&nbsp;&nbsp;</h4><p>And I didn’t know that they had devised devices against me saying, Let us destroy the tree with its fruit- LXX"Come and let us put wood into his bread", suggesting an attempt to poison him. But the destruction of a tree is the figure just used in :16 for the cutting down and burning of the tree of Israel. The idea may be that the tree of Israel was destroyed because of their plot to kill Jeremiah and thus nullify, as they thought, his words. The book of Jeremiah isn’t chronological. It may be that Jeremiah had earlier specifically been warned that his family were trying to kill him (<a href='B:300 12:6'>Jer 12:6</a>) but he ignored it. This would again be reflected in how Yahweh knew on one hand that His people were conspiring against Him (:9), and yet acted as if He didn’t know that, such was His love and hope for them.</p><h4>And let us cut him off from the land of the living, that his name may be no more remembered- This alludes to <a href='B:290 53:8'>Isa 53:8</a>, where the suffering servant is to be cut off out of the land of the living. See on :21. Jeremiah was attempting to be the sin bearer for Israel in the terms of Isaiah 53. Perhaps this is why many of the prophecies of judgment were ameliorated in their outworking. But their sin was such that his willingness was not enough to save them from condemnation. Or perhaps Jeremiah’s struggling spirit against God’s ways, which at times does appear in the record (e:g. <a href='B:300 12:1'>Jer 12:1</a>), meant that he was not righteous enough; hence the final fulfilment of Isaiah 53 in the Lord Jesus and not Jeremiah.</h4>


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<h4>But, Yahweh of Armies, who judges righteously, who tests the heart and the mind- The’testing’ of Judah was to be through melting them in the furnace of Jerusalem, caused by the fire of Babylonian judgment (<a href='B:300 9:7'>Jer 9:7</a>; <a href='B:450 13:9'>Zec 13:9</a>). We learn here that the essential purpose of that was to try / test / purify / reveal their heart and mind; for that was and is of utterly paramount importance to God.</h4><p>I shall see Your vengeance on them- But when he did see this, he bitterly laments over it, in Lamentations. We must be careful what we ask for, lest we receive it. There is more information about Jeremiah’s feelings about his persecutors at <a href='B:300 20:10-12'>Jer 20:10-12</a>. The book of Jeremiah isn’t arranged chronologically, and it seems <a href='B:300 11:20'>Jer 11:20</a> refers to the same time as <a href='B:300 20:10-12'>Jer 20:10-12</a>.</p><h4>For to You have I opened up my cause- The fact God sees and knows all means that we might as well open our lives up before Him in prayer and meditation. Jeremiah"revealed my cause"before the Lord because he knew that God"tests the heart and the mind". This may be why men like Jeremiah were somewhat ’rough’ with God; whatever they felt about God, they told Him. They so knew that God knew their thoughts::. there was and is no point in saying fine words to God in prayer, whilst feeling harder about Him in ones heart.</h4>


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<p>Therefore thus says Yahweh concerning the men of Anathoth, who seek your life saying, You shall not prophesy in the name of Yahweh, that you not die by our hand- The Lord may have alluded here in saying that a prophet always lacks honour amongst his own people (<a href='B:470 13:57'>Mat 13:57</a>). For as noted on :19, Jeremiah was clearly a type of the rejected Lord Jesus. If we enquire why they had such specific hatred for him, it was clearly because subconsciously they knew themselves to be indeed worthy of death as Jeremiah had been saying. And so they projected their sin onto the innocent, and wished to then punish him with the punishment they knew they themselves deserved. This is why those who secretly commit adultery are often eager to judge and punish others in the church who commit adultery. It’s not simply hypocrisy; it’s all the same story of psychological transference- of their own sin and desert of punishment onto another.</p>


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<p>Therefore thus says Yahweh of Armies, Behold, I will punish them: the young men shall die by the sword; their sons and their daughters shall die by famine- This specifically speaks of the people of Anathoth (:21). The children died not because they were punished for the parents’ sins, but because sin has collateral damage. That is part of what sin is; the results of it affect others who did not commit that sin.</p>


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<p>And there shall be no remnant to them: for I will bring evil on the men of Anathoth, even the year of their visitation- But by grace there was a remnant left to Judah. God here speaks in the fire of His wrath, but in wrath remembers mercy; although it could be that Anathoth being on the great north road, directly in the line of the Babylonian advance, was indeed totally liquidated and left with no remnant.</p>


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<p>You are righteous, Yahweh, when I contend with You; yet I would reason the cause with You: Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why are all they at ease who deal very treacherously?- This is a parade example of how we should approach issues relating to the justice of God; beginning with the simple recognition that Yahweh is righteous, even if we don’t understand. This prophecy appears to have been at the time of Josiah, when Judah were still relatively at ease and prospering, despite Josiah’s reforms not having been deeply responded to.</p>


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<h4>You have planted them, yes, they have taken root; they grow, yes, they bring forth fruit- This planting is that of <a href='B:300 11:17'>Jer 11:17</a>. They were planted by God when they left Egypt and entered covenant with God (<a href='B:20 15:17'>Exo 15:17</a>; <a href='B:40 24:6'>Num 24:6</a>), and also when they entered Canaan and God cleared the land of the Canaanite tribes (<a href='B:230 44:2'>Psa 44:2</a>; <a href='B:230 80:8'>Psa 80:8</a>). Having done everything possible through their planting that they might produce fruit (<a href='B:290 5:2'>Isa 5:2</a>), it was appropriate for God to also destroy them when they failed to respond. Likewise we have been"planted"in a manner and position optimal for our spiritual fruitfulness; we cannot therefore blame our lack of spiritual fruit on bad environment.</h4><h4>You are near in their mouth, and far from their heart- This can be translated as them saying"You are near"with their mouths, when in fact they were far from God in their heart. This statement"You are near"was based on the much loved <a href='B:50 4:7'>Deu 4:7</a>, which states that no God has Israel so"near"them (s:w:). Indeed Yahweh was near them- but they had to come near to Him in their hearts. He was"near"in that His word was to be near in their hearts and not far off from their hearts (<a href='B:50 30:11'>Deu 30:11</a>; <a href='B:50 30:14'>Deu 30:14</a> s:w:), but they were refusing His word through Jeremiah. The nearness of God is therefore potential, for man in response must also draw near unto Him (<a href='B:330 42:13'>Eze 42:13</a>; <a href='B:330 43:19'>Eze 43:19</a> s:w:). But the grace of God was such that He would save them even from"far off"(<a href='B:300 30:10'>Jer 30:10</a> s:w:). See on <a href='B:300 23:23'>Jer 23:23</a>. Even from that situation, God’s grace could work on their hearts. They were taken"far [off]"to captivity because they had Him far from their hearts.</h4>


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<p>But You, Yahweh, know me; You see me, and try my heart towards You: pull them out like sheep for the slaughter, and prepare them for the day of slaughter- This is just how Jeremiah describes himself, a lamb for the slaughter, in <a href='B:300 11:19'>Jer 11:19</a>. There he was alluding to the prophecy of the suffering servant in Isaiah 53. But the significance is that they were the condemned lamb for the slaughter, and the state of Jeremiah’s heart was different; he was not for the slaughter. But he willingly identified with Israel’s sin and condemnation whilst being personally sinless in this matter- a fine type of the Lord’s representative sufferings and sin bearing for us on the cross.</p>


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<h4>How long shall the land mourn, and the herbs of the whole country wither? for the wickedness of those who dwell therein, the animals are consumed, and the birds- And yet the wicked people of :1 apparently prospered. So we may be reading the present tense spoken of as the future. And yet actually all animals weren’t consumed from off the land. In wrath God remembered mercy, by His amazing grace. See on <a href='B:300 10:18'>Jer 10:18</a>.</h4><h4>Because they said, He shall not see our latter end- They said this in their hearts; they psychologically assumed that God did not"see"their behaviour nor foresee a final judgment for them.</h4>


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<p>If you have run with the footmen, and they have wearied you, then how can you contend with horses? and though in a land of peace you are secure, yet how will you do in the swelling of the Jordan?- The land was not in peace at the time of many of Jeremiah’s prophecies, and so this must be an earlier prophecy. The book of Jeremiah isn’t chronological. The prediction that his own family would seek to kill him (:6) was therefore made early in his ministry, but he apparently disbelieved this word (<a href='B:300 11:19'>Jer 11:19</a>). The idea was that the Jordan was going to swell up, rather than be under their control as it was when they first entered Canaan. The previous incursions of the Babylonians were as foot soldiers compared to the cavalry which were to pour into the land. This is God’s response to Jeremiah’s apparent complaint in :4 that the judgments were too severe. He is at this point personally out of step with God’s judgment program; and so God reminds him that his very own family were intending to kill him (:6). Jeremiah had an overly positive view of Israel, but he was also even in that reflecting God’s love and imputation of righteousness to His wayward people.</p>


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<p>For even your brothers, and the house of your father, even they have dealt treacherously with you; even they have cried aloud after you: don’t believe them, though they speak beautiful words to you- See on :5; <a href='B:300 11:19'>Jer 11:19</a>. Jeremiah was sharing God’s experiences with His people, who had dealt treacherously with Him too (s:w. <a href='B:290 48:8'>Isa 48:8</a>; <a href='B:300 3:8'>Jer 3:8</a>; <a href='B:300 3:11'>Jer 3:11</a>; <a href='B:300 5:11'>Jer 5:11</a>; <a href='B:300 9:2'>Jer 9:2</a>), as Jeremiah himself recognized (:1). To Jeremiah’s face they were nicely spoken, but behind his back they cried for his blood. Likewise with their God, they had Him on their lips but their hearts were far from Him (:2):&nbsp;</p>


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<p>I have forsaken My house, I have cast off My heritage; I have given the dearly beloved of My soul into the hand of her enemies- This and the following verses are God’s response as to how He would respond to the treachery of His own people. But this :7 may be Jeremiah’s response, which (as often in Jeremiah) merges into the feelings of God too and then God becomes the dominant thinker and speaker rather than Jeremiah. In this case, Jeremiah would be responding that he had dissociated himself from his family, and had resigned his dearly beloved, perhaps his wife, to destruction because she too refused to respond to his message. Yahweh ’cast off’ Judah (<a href='B:300 12:7'>Jer 12:7</a>; <a href='B:300 23:33'>Jer 23:33</a>) but only because they had cast Him off (<a href='B:300 15:6'>Jer 15:6</a> s:w:). And yet God did not cast off His people (<a href='B:300 33:26'>Jer 33:26</a>); Jeremiah personally was persuaded that God would not cast off His people for ever (<a href='B:310 3:31'>Lam 3:31</a>). He will show them mercy as if He had not cast them off (<a href='B:450 10:6'>Zec 10:6</a>); this reversal of their casting off was to be through the repentance of the exiled community (<a href='B:30 26:44'>Lev 26:44</a>). But even this didn’t happen, and yet God still did not cast them away (<a href='B:520 11:2'>Rom 11:2</a>). His love and grace was such that He holds on to them. This desperate holding on to His people is seen in the experience of every person who joins God’s people through baptism into Christ. They may indeed be cast off ultimately, but that is because they cast Him off, and wrestled against His insistent desire to keep hold of them eternally.</p>


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<h4>My heritage has become to Me as a lion in the forest: she has uttered her voice against Me- It was appropriate therefore that her invaders would be as lions, uttering their voice against her; for this was how they had treated God. Judgment is but an extension of how we ourselves have acted.</h4><h4>Therefore I have hated her- A love as strong as God’s is going to also elicit the emotion of hatred and anger when that love is rejected and abused. He"hated"(s:w:) Judah’s insincere worship and relationship with Him (<a href='B:290 1:14'>Isa 1:14</a>; <a href='B:290 61:8'>Isa 61:8</a>; <a href='B:300 44:4'>Jer 44:4</a>). But it is hard to separate the sin from the sinner. That distinction may be helpful for us in order to avoid judging others too personally, but God it seems doesn’t make that decision. He gave Israel into the hands of those who hated her (s:w. <a href='B:330 16:27'>Eze 16:27</a>; <a href='B:330 16:37'>Eze 16:37</a>) and in that sense He hated her. The feelings of hatred which Hosea had for Gomer due to her abuse of His love were those of God for Israel:"There I hated them"(<a href='B:350 9:15'>Hos 9:15</a>). God is not simply"love"in the abstract. He is love for real, with all the emotion and psychological complex which goes along with love; and this will include hatred if that love is abused.</h4>


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<h4>Is My heritage- To lose an inheritance was a major tragedy in the thought of those times. God was losing His inheritance in that He was allowing it to be consumed, ’polluting it’ (<a href='B:290 47:6'>Isa 47:6</a>). No man would ever spoil his own inheritance like this; but God did, such was His belief in the need to punish His people for their sins. And yet the metaphor of lost / spoilt inheritance reflects how painful this was for God, felt as a personal loss. The whole idea elicits sympathy for God in this tragic loss. See on :10.</h4><h4>To Me as a speckled bird of prey? Are the birds of prey against her all around? Go, assemble all the animals of the field, bring them to devour- The rhetorical question was because this situation need not be, if Judah repented. As it was, God’s people were like a different coloured bird which attracted the aggression of the other birds. It then is brought to the ground and the animals come to devour it. There was something perceived as different about Judah, the root of all anti-Jewish sentiment down the centuries. And this attracted others to attack that which was different. But the difference was not in their spirituality; it was perhaps in their manic desire to be like other nations. Israel was"speckled"or dyed with multiple different colours, like pagan idol worshipping clothes (s:w. <a href='B:70 5:30'>Jdg 5:30</a>). The anger of the nations with Judah was that she had made covenants of unique loyalty with each of them, on the agreement that Judah would worship their gods. And now they discovered she had made such agreements with them all, and the Jerusalem temple was full of the idols of the various nations. This was the basis for their combined anger with her. See on :12.</h4>


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<p>Many shepherds have destroyed My vineyard, they have trodden My portion under foot, they have made My pleasant portion a desolate wilderness- At this time, Judah was still prosperous (see on :1). The past tenses indicate that what God threatened He was now going to fulfil, and it was as good as done. The vineyard of Israel had been carefully planted and prepared by God (Isaiah 5). For God to allow His own vineyard to be destroyed was therefore a huge personal loss to Him. See on :9,11.</p>


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<p>They have made it a desolation; it mourns to Me, being desolate; the whole land is made desolate, because no man lays it to heart- The desolation of the land is not specifically predicated upon idolatry, but upon not laying things to heart; a light hearted, not serious attitude to the things of God. This was of paramount pain and significance to God, and it remains so to this day. That the land should be desolate was a personal tragedy to God (s:w. <a href='B:20 23:29'>Exo 23:29</a>); as noted on :9,10, God’s judgment of His people was at huge personal loss to Himself.</p>


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<p>Destroyers have come on all the bare heights in the wilderness; for the sword of Yahweh devours from the one end of the land even to the other end of the land: no flesh has peace- And yet at the time of the prophecy, perhaps still in Josiah’s time, the land was in peace (:5). The present tense is used for the future, so certain was it of fulfilment. The"destroyers"are the invaders, and yet it was the shepherds of Israel who are the destroyers in :10. Jeremiahwas from the priestly family, and perhaps their hatred for him (:6) was because of his criticism of them. The high places, where Judah thought they could secretly worship idols, were going to be destroyed; it was Judah’s promiscuous relationship with multiple nations and idols which provoked the anger of the invaders. See on :9.</p>


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<h4>They have sown wheat, and have reaped thorns- The Lord may have had His eye on this in constructing the parable of <a href='B:470 13:27'>Mat 13:27</a>. The wheat sown didn’t produce wheat because an enemy sowed thorns amongst the wheat which eclipsed the wheat. So the idea is that although they sowed wheat, they had also sown thorns, and these had eclipsed what apparent spirituality they had. Only a wholehearted devotion to God can succeed in spiritual life.</h4><h4>They have put themselves to pain, and profit nothing: and you shall be ashamed of your fruits, because of the fierce anger of Yahweh- Although they had been given materially all that they needed on entering the land (<a href='B:300 2:7'>Jer 2:7</a>), the attraction of the idols was"profit". The idols of Canaan were fertility cults, and they were worshipped in the hope of good harvests and material benefits or"profit". They worshipped them with the"pain"of offering their firstborn to them. But the same word is used of the grief or pain which the representative Saviour would experience for them (<a href='B:290 53:10'>Isa 53:10</a>), bearing every aspect of their condemnation. So Yahweh’s blessing of His people materially only elicited in them a craving for yet more materialism, and they turned to the idols- which in reality did not"profit", for all such blessing is only from Yahweh. In the day of condemnation, they would look at the few"fruits"they thought they had gained due to idol worship, and be ashamed that they sought them at the expense of eternity. And so it shall be for all materialists in that day.</h4>


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<h4>Thus says Yahweh against all My evil neighbours- Even in the midst of condemning His people, God closely identifies with them, speaking here of the surrounding nations as"My neighbours". This is typical of the prophetic revelations of condemnation.</h4><p>Who touch the inheritance which I have caused My people Israel to inherit- Whoever touches Israel touches the apple of God’s eye, such is His extreme sensitivity towards His people even when they are under condemnation (<a href='B:450 2:8'>Zec 2:8</a>).</p><h4>Behold, I will pluck them up from off their land, and will pluck up the house of Judah from among them- Potentially, there was huge Divine power available to those who repented in exile and wanted to return. The decree of Cyrus is evidence enough. But the majority preferred the soft life of Babylon. We too are commanded to come out from Babylon, and if we even nod a"yes"toward that, we will be hugely confirmed in it.</h4>


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<h4>It shall happen, after that I have plucked them up, I will return and have compassion on them; and I will bring them again, every man to his inheritance, and every man to his land- This implies that those taken captive would themselves return. The exact duration of the exile was always an open question. Ezekiel was asked to prophecy that Judah would suffer for their sins for 40 years (<a href='B:330 4:6'>Eze 4:6</a>). Perhaps something could’ve happened after 40 years::. And then, the starting point of the 70 or 40 years was somewhat flexible- for <a href='B:330 22:3-4'>Eze 22:3-4</a> records Ezekiel’s prophecy that the desolation of Jerusalem by the Babylonians [the starting point of the time periods] was actually being hastened, brought forward, by the terrible behaviour of the Jews living there after the initial Babylon invasion of the land. Closer study reveals the variableness of outworking of the time periods. <a href='B:300 25:11-12'>Jer 25:11-12</a> and <a href='B:300 29:10'>Jer 29:10</a> speak of a 70 year period of Babylonian rule over Judah, beginning with the invasion of BC597. But Babylon only ruled over Judah for 49 years, before Babylon fell to the Persians. This would connect with the way that <a href='B:450 4:3'>Zec 4:3</a> speaks of 7 menorah candlesticks each with 7 lamps, making 49 lamps. 49 is the cycle of 7 Sabbath years that culminated in the jubilee year, and the jubilee year, the proclamation of liberty to the land (<a href='B:30 25:8-12'>Lev 25:8-12</a>; <a href='B:30 27:7-24'>Lev 27:7-24</a>) is a figure used so often in Isaiah to describe the freedom of Judah once released from Babylon. <a href='B:30 26:34'>Lev 26:34</a>; <a href='B:30 26:43'>Lev 26:43</a> speak of the land enjoying her Sabbaths whilst Israel were in exile for their sins- i:e. for 49 years. So it seems that there could have been some restoration after 49 years- but it didn’t happen. But <a href='B:340 9:2'>Dan 9:2</a> and <a href='B:140 36:21'>2Ch 36:21</a> seem to reinterpret those 70 years of Jeremiah’s prophecies as speaking of a 70 year period during which Jerusalem and the temple would be desolate. See on <a href='B:330 6:8'>Eze 6:8</a>.</h4><h4>But the people in view (and this depends upon translation) could refer to the Gentile invaders. It was God’s intention that they should return to their own lands experiencing God’s compassion. But the Jews mixed with the people of the land, they didn’t teach themthe Name, and so the prophecy didn’t come true- they weren’t built up in the midst of Israel as intended (:16). Prophecies like <a href='B:290 19:18'>Isa 19:18</a>; <a href='B:290 19:24'>Isa 19:24</a> were thereby disabled from fulfilment at that time- “In that day there shall be five cities in the land of Egypt that… swear to the Lord… in that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria”. <a href='B:290 2:2-4'>Isa 2:2-4</a>, <a href='B:450 8:21-23'>Zec 8:21-23</a> etc. speak of how Gentile nations would desire to learn the ways of God and come up to a temple in Zion for this purpose. Could it not be that these passages are to be read in the context of <a href='B:300 12:14-17'>Jer 12:14-17</a> - that all this was only possible if at the time of the restoration the nations had learnt God’s ways from the Jews? In this case these passages are not to be taken as ‘proof’ that there has to be a future temple built in Zion:&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</h4>


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<p>It shall happen, if they will diligently learn the ways of My people, to swear by My name, As Yahweh lives; even as they taught My people to swear by Baal; then shall they be built up in the midst of My people- See on :15. The if…then construction in :15-17 is clearly conditional: the Gentiles could have come and dwelt in the land in a Kingdom-like situation, if Judah had taught them, and if they had responded."The ways of My people"were by implication the ways of Yahweh. If Judah been obedient, then they would have been a witness to the nations where they were carried captive, and they too would have repented, become Jews, and been"built up in the midst of My people",&nbsp; incorporated into God’s revived, refined Israel. The future building up of a replanted Israel in their land would have meant their building up too (s:w. <a href='B:300 24:6'>Jer 24:6</a>; <a href='B:300 31:28'>Jer 31:28</a>; <a href='B:300 33:7'>Jer 33:7</a>). But so much potential was wasted because of the lack of human repentance.</p>


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<p>But if they will not hear, then will I pluck up that nation, plucking up and destroying it, says Yahweh- This sounds like the total end of Israel as a nation. But that didn’t happen, even though they did not hear. They were not plucked up and destroyed. God did not cast away His people (<a href='B:520 11:2'>Rom 11:2</a>). The God whose love is so strong that He even doesn’t carry out the judgments He threatens::. is a God of love and grace to the ultimate term. If the impoverished remnant who remained in the land had been obedient, then they would not have been plucked up (<a href='B:300 42:10'>Jer 42:10</a>). They were not obedient, and yet still God preserved His people.</p>


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<p>Thus said Yahweh to me, Go, and buy yourself a linen belt, and put it on your waist, and don’t put it in water- The belt represented Israel (:11); being unwashed perhaps speaks of their lack of spiritual cleansing and uncleanness. He had to"buy"it as Yahweh had redeemed or bought Israel out of Egypt. Linen, not woollen, garments were appointed for priestly wear; the idea is that all Israel were to be a nation of priests, a light to the Gentiles. Or maybe the command not to wash it is just so that it would cleave to Jeremiah over time, representing the intimacy and close connection intended between God and Israel.</p>


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<p>So I bought a belt according to the word of Yahweh, and put it on my waist- There is an Arabic saying that a man’s people cling to him as a man’s belt. That seems to be the idea in view in this acted parable.</p>


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<p>The word of Yahweh came to me the second time saying- This was some time after Jeremiah had been wearing the belt every day; see on :2.</p>


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<p>Take the belt that you have bought, which is on your waist, and arise, go to the Euphrates, and hide it there in a cleft of the rock- The removal of the belt meant that God was severing His special relationship with His people, whom He considered intimately part of Him; see on :2. The hiding in the rock represented how Judah would be in captivity. It’s not clear whether Jeremiah literally made this journey. If he did, it would have been a major undertaking, and all would have known about it. However, if an actual visit to the Euphrates is meant, the part referred to “cannot be anywhere near Babylon, where there are no ‘rocks,’ or rather ‘crags’—but in the upper part of its course, above Carchemish, or even above Samosata, where it still flows between rocky sides”. Hiding in a cleft of the rock recalls Moses; he did so in order to see the glory of Yahweh. There is a similar idea in <a href='B:290 2:10'>Isa 2:10</a>. The implication was that through this experience, the bringing down ofall human pride, then the glory of Yahweh would be revealed at the restoration, as it was to Moses. And that is very much the language of Ezekiel’s cherubim visions which were given around this time.</p>


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<p>So I went and hid it by the Euphrates, as Yahweh commanded me- The Lord Jesus spoke a parable about a man who buried his talent (the Truth he had received at baptism) in the earth, and then when he was condemned at the judgment, this man thinks he’s being treated unfairly. This story was quarried from <a href='B:300 13:5-10'>Jer 13:5-10</a>, where God tells Jeremiah to take a belt and bury it. It becomes spoilt and useless. This buried belt, according to God’s own interpretation, represents those of His people"which refuse to hear my words, which walk in the imagination of their heart". It was this which destroyed them, making them spiritually rot and decay until they were of no use. The Lord Jesus seems to foresee in His parable those who would accept His Truth, but bury it in the ground, effectively forgetting the love of His word, and yet assuming that simply because they possess the Truth they ought therefore to be in the Kingdom.</p>


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<p>It happened after many days that Yahweh said to me, Arise, go to the Euphrates and take the belt from there, which I commanded you to hide there- The taking of the belt spoke of God’s taking of His people out of captivity once their pride had been destroyed (:9). If indeed Jeremiah made the literal journey to the Euphrates, then it would have appeared a huge effort in order to teach a simple lesson about God’s hatred of pride. But that was the point. All this was to prove that God hates pride and will go to any extreme length in order to remove it from His people. See on :9.</p>


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<p>Then I went to the Euphrates and dug, and took the belt from the place where I had hidden it; and behold, the belt was ruined, it was unfit for use- Ezekiel taught the same lesson in likening Judah to a vine branch which had been burnt at the hands of the Babylonians, and was therefore unfit for use (<a href='B:330 15:2-4'>Eze 15:2-4</a>). We assume that Jeremiah was to wear the useless belt on the long journey back to Judah. Losing our pride (:9) means recognizing we cannot do any work for the Lord, in the sense that all human achievement is nothing; and yet He still wears us, He uses us, He identifies with us. The Hebrew for"dig"also means to search out; God would search out His scattered, humbled people and return them to His land (s:w. <a href='B:50 1:22'>Deu 1:22</a>; <a href='B:60 2:2'>Jos 2:2</a>)."Ruined"is the word for ’destroyed’ in :14 and often. They would be destroyed in the sense that their pride would be destroyed (:9). This was the positive outcome of ’rotting away’ in exile (<a href='B:30 26:39'>Lev 26:39</a> NET).</p>


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<p>Then the word of Yahweh came to me saying- The whole point of Judah’s exile in Babylon was to make them"ruined, unfit for use"like the cloth which Jeremiah buried by Euphrates (<a href='B:300 13:7'>Jer 13:7</a>). And yet the second half of Isaiah is full of expressions of God’s desire to use Israel after their experience in Babylon as His witness to the nations. Israel’s preparation for their mission was through being made"unfit for use". And so God prepares His missionaries and ambassadors today likewise.</p>


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<p>Thus says Yahweh, In this way I will ruin the pride of Judah, and the great pride of Jerusalem- See on :6. It was pride in the heart which was the essential problem; all the idolatry and immorality flowed from that. And this is the abiding lesson for us. As noted on :7, God would ruin or destroy His people in the sense of destroying their pride. This was the intention of the captivity; and only then could God bring them back to Judah attached to Him, just as Jeremiah returned with the useless belt. It is not specifically stated that he returned with the belt because it was an open question as to whether the exiles would shed their pride. The reality is that they didn’t, yet by pure grace God still tried to bring them back; such was and is His desire to as it were fore through His saving purpose with people.</p>


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<h4>This evil people, who refuse to hear My words, who walk in the stubbornness of their heart, and are gone after other gods to serve them and to worship them- The choice was between walking after God’s word, 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". <a href='B:50 29:19'>Deu 29:19</a> 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"(<a href='B:300 6:14'>Jer 6:14</a>; <a href='B:300 8:11'>Jer 8:11</a>). 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.</h4><h4>Shall even be as this belt, which is profitable for nothing- Jeremiah’s parable of the girdle demonstrated that the Jews would not"prosper"(<a href='B:300 13:7'>Jer 13:7</a>; <a href='B:300 13:10'>Jer 13:10</a>) even when taken into captivity at the Euphrates (i:e. Babylon), using the same word as in the parable of the vine in <a href='B:330 17:9'>Eze 17:9</a>. Babylon, according to <a href='B:330 17:8'>Eze 17:8</a>, was potentially fruitful soil for their spiritual revival. But they would not"prosper", Jeremiah says, because of their deep seated love of idolatry and lack of true repentance.</h4>


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<p>For as the belt clings to the waist of a man, so have I caused to cling to Me the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah, says Yahweh; that they may be to Me for a people, and for a name, and for a praise, and for a glory: but they would not hear- There is an Arabic saying that a man’s people cling to him as a man’s belt. That seems to be the idea in view in this acted parable. God caused His people to cling to Him, perhaps referring to marriage (s:w. <a href='B:10 2:24'>Gen 2:24</a>); and yet their pride meant that they refused it. This speaks of the psychological work of God to cause His people to cling to Him, which is likewise ongoing today. We note that Israel and Judah are mentioned together; the idea was that the restoration would unite both nations through the common experience of being humbled and repenting. The two nations would return to the land and this become God’s singular people. This was God’s intention from the start, but it was their pride (:9) which caused them not to"hear".</p>


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<p>Therefore you shall speak to them this word: Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, Every bottle shall be filled with wine: and they shall tell you, Do we not certainly know that every bottle shall be filled with wine?- This continues the theme of the earlier parable of the belt, which had to be marred before it would be useless enough for God to use. This spoke of how Judah would lose their pride in Babylon (:9), or that was the intention."Bottle"here of course means not a glass bottle but a bag or wine skin; but the Hebrew word essentially means that which is deflated, alluding to how wine skins deflated. It is used of the"fading"of human pride in Judah (<a href='B:290 28:1'>Isa 28:1</a>; <a href='B:290 28:4'>Isa 28:4</a>; <a href='B:290 40:7-8'>Isa 40:7-8</a>; <a href='B:290 64:6'>Isa 64:6</a>). This is the continuation of theme with the fading pride of :9. Those humbled skins could have been filled with the wine of the new covenant; but they were to be filled with the wine of judgment (:13). To be given wine from Yahweh is a double symbol; either of condemnation, as happened later to Babylon as well (<a href='B:290 51:23'>Isa 51:23</a>; <a href='B:300 25:15'>Jer 25:15</a>); or of blessing (<a href='B:530 10:16'>1Co 10:16</a>). They of course chose to understand it as the symbol of blessing, saying that of course they knew the skins were to be filled with wine. But the wine was in fact to be a symbol of judgment (:13). This double symbol explains how the communion service can bring us up sharp before the two options in our destiny- to drink to our condemnation, or to our eternal blessing. This is why self examination is naturally elicited by it.</p>


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<p>Then you shall tell them, Thus says Yahweh, Behold, I will fill all the inhabitants of this land, even the kings who sit on David’s throne, and the priests, and the prophets, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, with drunkenness- The royal family and leadership are bracketed along with"all the inhabitants of the land". Leadership does what the masses want; leaders exercise the natural human tendency to quickly perceive what the other wishes to hear and to say and do it. This is what had happened in Judah. The"people love to have it so", and therefore the priests and prophets said what the people wanted to hear (<a href='B:300 5:31'>Jer 5:31</a>). This is why all society was to be punished. The wine of the covenant was to become the drunkenness of condemnation for them.</p>


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<p>I will dash them one against another, even the fathers and the sons together, says Yahweh: I will not pity, nor spare, nor have compassion, that I should not destroy them- See on :24. They would&nbsp; be a source of mutual destruction. we bite and devour each other, we may be consumed by each other (<a href='B:550 5:15'>Gal 5:15</a>)- this is the same idea of brethren killing brethren. Israel were condemned to destruction by brother being dashed against brother (<a href='B:300 13:14'>Jer 13:14</a>). Indeed, biting and devouring each other is a quotation from <a href='B:290 9:19-20'>Isa 9:19-20</a> LXX (although not apparent in the AV), where Israel in their judgment for unfaithfulness would bite and devour each others’ bodies in the siege. Paul is saying that if we bite and devour each other with our words (and we are all guilty of this at times), we are acting as the condemned. If we do this, we may well be consumed of each other- and this may have a terribly literal fulfilment, in that as the world destroys every man his neighbour in the confusion of the last day, so the rejected may do the same, living out the bigotry and passive anger they felt towards each other in their ecclesial life. This all needs some meditation. For there are very few of us not caught up in some division, personality clash, biting or devouring.</p>


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<p>Hear, and give ear; don’t be proud; for Yahweh has spoken- Jeremiah had just made a journey to Euphrates and back as part of an acted parable appealing for humility (:9). And so he now begs them not to beproud; but rather to be humble before God’s word. God has spoken, and that itself is the imperative to not be proud. We can hear the Bible explained and at that point understand intellectually. But this is something different to real understanding; for if we truly apprehend the message, we will receive it deep within us and keep that understanding ever present in our subsequent actions. We are to hear&nbsp;and give ear to God’s word. We can hear on a surface level, but not give the ear of our heart to God’s voice.</p>


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<p>Give glory to Yahweh your God, before He causes darkness, and before your feet stumble on the dark mountains, and, while you look for light, He turns it into the shadow of death, and makes it gross darkness- The land was to return to its state before creation, covered with gross darkness. But even in this language of judgment there is hope of new creation, through the movement of the Spirit. Giving glory to God to avoid this meant being humble (:9,15). This is the great paradox- that our humility and repentance exalts God.</p>


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<p>But if you will not hear it, my soul shall weep in secret for your pride; and my eye shall weep bitterly, and run down with tears, because Yahweh’s flock is taken captive- This continues Jeremiah’s desperate plea for humility (:16). He uses the present tense"is taken captive"although it was yet future, because so certain was the condemnation for pride. And yet they were to go into captivity even then as"Yahweh’s flock", they were still His. The fact others reject our message ought likewise to pain us at the very core and heart of our beings. Perhaps here we have a private soliloquy of Jeremiah. He would hide away and weep for them, and nobody would ever know. His grief was to be deeply personal (“my soul shall weep”) and unperceived by others (“in secret places”). And I challenge us, each one: have we ever done this, or even come near it, in our frustration with those who reject our message? Jeremiah wept. He didn’t “…not care a rush”. For all the issues which the prophets could have condemned people for, pride was high on their list. “I abhor the pride of Jacob”, Amos cried out in dismay (<a href='B:370 6:8'>Amo 6:8</a>). Jeremiah here weeps in secret, his eyes running with tears, “for your pride”. Isaiah gets passionate about the way that Assyria thought that “By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom” (<a href='B:290 10:13'>Isa 10:13</a>). Because Ephraim trusted in his wealth, the most awful words of judgment are pronounced upon him (<a href='B:350 12:8'>Hos 12:8</a>; <a href='B:350 10:13-14'>Hos 10:13-14</a>). We shrug when we see pride and trust in wealth. Rich or poor, we all tend to trust in money. Thinking that that’s life… under the sun. But the prophets went ballistic about this. We’ve developed established patterns of indifference to this kind of thing. But the prophet’s consciences were keenly sensitive to these patterns, and they openly challenged them. They weren’t just empty moralizers, bleating on about the state of the nation; their words are an assault of the mind and conscience.</p>


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<h4>Say to the king and to the queen mother- This could refer to &nbsp;Jehoiakim and the queen-mother Zebidah (<a href='B:120 23:36'>2Ki 23:36</a>). But more likely it refers to the three months’ reign of his successor, Jehoiachin, whose mother, Nehushta, is referred to in <a href='B:120 24:8'>2Ki 24:8</a>; <a href='B:120 24:12'>2Ki 24:12</a>; <a href='B:120 24:15'>2Ki 24:15</a>. The mother is mentioned because Jehoiachin was so young (cp. <a href='B:300 22:26'>Jer 22:26</a>).</h4><h4>Humble yourselves, sit down; for your headdresses have come down, even the crown of your glory- Come down is the idea of humbling. The pride of man will be humbled by Yahweh; if we refuse to humble ourselves, then God’s condemnation of us in the day of judgment will humble us. Therefore it is logical to humble ourselves now. LXX gives:"come down from your head is your beautiful crown". We noted on :1 that all Israel were intended to be a nation of priests and even God’s High Priest for the surrounding nations. But they were to now lose that possibility. Perhaps Jeremiah is even asking them to resign from the throne in recognition of their corruption, so that the line of David might be restored in the restored Kingdom which was then potentially possible.</h4>


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<p>The cities of the South are shut up, and there is none to open them: Judah is carried away captive, all of it; it is wholly carried away captive- LXX"Complete removal". But this didn’t happen to this extent; see on <a href='B:300 10:18'>Jer 10:18</a>. Perhaps at this point the Babylonian advance had already surrounded the southern cities, and the captivity of the people was as good as done, hence the use of the present tense about something yet future. Therewas none to open the besieged, shut up cities; because the power of Egypt upon whom they hoped had been broken; see on :19. This is why"the cities of the south"are mentioned, for being nearer to Egypt, they had particularly hoped upon Egyptian help.</p>


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<p>Lift up your eyes, and see those who come from the north: where is the flock that was given you, your beautiful flock?- The flock which disappeared may refer to how the army of Egypt, upon whom Judah (LXX mentions"Jerusalem"specifically here) had trusted for defence against Babylon"from the north", was destroyed at the battle of Carchemish (BC 605). This may have just happened when Jeremiah said this. This was why there was now nobody to open the cities which were closed up because of the siege; the Egyptians were not going to lift the siege (:19).</p>


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<h4>What will you say, when He shall punish you?-"Punish"translates two words, ’to be overseer over’. The allusion is to their bondage in Egypt, to which they were to effectively return in Babylonian captivity.</h4><p>You have provoked them to be captains and rulers over you- The"them"are the northern invaders seen in :20."Captains and rulers"sounds like Israel’s slavery in Egypt. They were to as it were return to Egypt (<a href='B:350 8:13'>Hos 8:13</a>; <a href='B:350 9:3'>Hos 9:3</a>). This is why the language of the restoration prophecies, especially in later Isaiah, allude to the exodus from Egypt. Judah had done what their fathers had done- returned in their hearts to Egypt. They therefore as it were appointed the invaders as their captains and rulers over them.</p><h4>Shall not sorrows take hold of you, as of a woman in travail?- Although this a metaphor for judgment, it includes the hope that new birth was to come out of all these sufferings. Always God had in view His hope for the rebirth of His people.</h4>


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<h4>If you say in your heart, Why are these things come on me?- Ezekiel addresses this same complaint in Ezekiel 18, that the judgments are unjust. God’s response is simply to remind them of how terribly they are to be judged- and that ought to elicit within their own consciences an awareness of what they had done to deserve this. The level of shameless self-justification is extreme; so extreme that we reflect it could only have arisen from allowing themselves to be utterly convinced that they were serving Yahweh through serving the idols, and that the words of the false prophets were those of God. But this utter conviction was not simply a case of intellectual failure or being mislead by their teachers. It had a strong moral basis to it; in that they were believing what they wanted t believe, in order to justify their lusts.</h4><h4>For the greatness of your iniquity are your skirts lifted up, and your private parts suffer violence- Her lovers, those she had depended upon, would become her enemies and destroyers (<a href='B:330 23:22'>Eze 23:22</a>). The metaphors used to describe the anger of God with Israel are pretty awful. Her children to be slain with thirst, she was to be stripped naked by her husband (Hosea 2), gang raped by her lovers, having her nose cut off and left a battered, bleeding mess in the scrubland (Ezekiel 16, 23), to have her skirt pulled up over her head and her nakedness revealed (<a href='B:300 13:20-27'>Jer 13:20-27</a>), wishing to pluck off her own breasts for shame (<a href='B:330 23:34'>Eze 23:34</a>). Jerusalem is to be raped, violated and humiliated, according to Ezekiel. Indeed, Ezekiel’s images verge at times on what some would consider pornographic. He speaks of the woman Israel’s pubic hair, breasts, menstrual cycle (<a href='B:330 16:7'>Eze 16:7</a>; <a href='B:330 16:10'>Eze 16:10</a>); the gang rape by her enemies which God would bring about, leaving her mutilated and humiliated (<a href='B:330 16:37'>Eze 16:37</a>; <a href='B:330 23:22-49'>Eze 23:22-49</a>); about the size of her lovers’ sexual organs and coital emissions, and how she let them fondle her breasts (<a href='B:330 23:8'>Eze 23:8</a>; <a href='B:330 23:20'>Eze 23:20</a>). This is shocking language, which perhaps we skip over in our Bible reading from sheer embarrassment- and we are modern readers brutalized by exposure to this kind of stuff in the media. For early Israel, it would all have been even more shocking. It all seemed out of proportion to having ‘merely’ made a few political alliances with Egypt and Assyria. Was that really like a wife letting other men fondle her breasts and have sex with her, admiring their bodies as she did so? Did it all have to end in such brutality and vulgarity? Today, sex and violence are what attract attention. From lyrics of songs to advertising and movies, that’s clear enough. And the prophets are using the same tactics to arrest Israel’s attention, all the more so because nudity and sex were things simply not up for public discussion. There’s an anxiety which any talk about sex seems to arouse in us, and it was the prophets’ intention to make us likewise get on the edge of our seats, anxious, rapt, sensitive for the next word… realizing that really and truly, this is what human sin does to God. The outrageous sex talk was to bring out how outrageous and obscene are our sins and unfaithfulness to the covenant we cut with God in baptism.</h4>


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<p>Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Then may you also do good, who are accustomed to do evil- This is in response to their question in :22, as to why they were being punished. No specific sin is listed, but rather the complaint is that they had become psychologically dominated by their ways and habitual ("accustomed") paths of thought. Once habit solidifies, it becomeseffectively part of our nature and almost impossible to change, at least in human strength. The Hebrew translated “accustomed” carries the idea of repeated habit. The Hebrew idea of ‘teaching’ is connected to the words for ‘habit’ or ‘custom’; because teaching was by repetition. The Lord Jesus “morning by morning” heard God’s word “as the learned” (<a href='B:290 50:4'>Isa 50:4</a>); but the Hebrew words for “accustomed” in <a href='B:300 13:23'>Jer 13:23</a> and “learned” in <a href='B:290 50:4'>Isa 50:4</a> are the same. God teaches by repetition- which may be out of vogue in the experience / problem based learning philosophy of current education, but it’s God’s way.</p>


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<h4>Therefore will I scatter them, as the stubble that passes away, by the wind of the wilderness- The"stubble"doesn’t refer to what is left in the ground after harvest. Here it refers to the broken straw which had to be separated from the wheat after the corn had been trampled out by the oxen. Sometimes it was burnt as useless; at other times left to be blown away by the wind coming from the desert. The idea is that whatever was left after the trampling of the Babylonians, even that would be blown away by the wind out of the land and into captivity. But by grace this didn’t happen, because the poor of the land, the majority, were left there. See on <a href='B:300 10:18'>Jer 10:18</a>.</h4><h4><a href='B:340 2:44'>Dan 2:44</a> describes how the kingdoms of this world will be broken and scattered as the chaff before the wind. Yet this is exactly the language of <a href='B:300 13:24'>Jer 13:24</a> concerning Israel’s latter destruction. They will be"dashed"(<a href='B:300 13:14'>Jer 13:14</a>) as the nations of the world will be (<a href='B:230 2:9'>Psa 2:9</a>). The same verse says they will be destroyed by brother being dashed against brother- again, the picture of the world’s final destruction (<a href='B:450 14:13'>Zec 14:13</a>). <a href='B:730 2:27'>Rev 2:27</a> speaks of the unfaithful in the ecclesia likewise being dashed to pieces. The Lord’s coming will be a stone that grinds them to powder (<a href='B:470 21:44'>Mat 21:44</a>).</h4>


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<p>This is your lot, the portion measured to you from Me, says Yahweh; because you have forgotten Me, and trusted in falsehood- The portion of the wine of judgment was justly measured and it lead to the drunkenness of condemnation. But as noted on :24, even that just measure was ameliorated by the grace of a God whose justice incorporates grace. But the judgment measured,"this::. your lot", could refer to the mind-set of :24. God confirmed them in their path of rebellious thinking. <a href='B:520 1:28'>Rom 1:28</a> states this clearly- God gives a"reprobate mind"to those who wish to think in that way. He confirms us by His Spirit, working directly on our hearts, in the way we choose to go and be.</p>


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<h4>Therefore will I also lift your skirts up above your face- The shocking sexual language and imagery of the prophets was in order to help Israel see that this was how far they had outraged God; see on :22. It was and is a rhetoric that cannot be forgotten, shrugged off, re-interpreted. The rhetoric pushes relentlessly for a response in our consciences (See Phyllis Trible, God And The Rhetoric Of Sexuality (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1978) pp. 31-71). Just as for a woman to have her skirt ripped above her head and her nakedness displayed was ultimately humiliating for her, so Israel had humiliated God by their sin (<a href='B:300 13:25-27'>Jer 13:25-27</a>); their actions were just as shocking and obscene.</h4><h4>And your shame shall appear- Time and again, Israel were told that through the judgments of punishment they would receive, they would come to know God in truth (e:g. <a href='B:330 25:7'>Eze 25:7</a>. Their own shame was made to appear before their own face by the judgment process (<a href='B:300 13:26'>Jer 13:26</a> RV). But it is possible for us to come to that knowledge now through a correct response to the word. If only in our self examination now we would"judge (i:e. condemn) ourselves, we would not be judged (condemned)"at the judgment seat (<a href='B:530 11:34'>1Co 11:34</a>). The mental effort and organization of time which this requires must surely be worthwhile in the light of this promise.</h4>


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<h4>I have seen your abominations, even your adulteries, and your neighing, the lewdness of your prostitution, on the hills in the field. Woe to you, Jerusalem!- The sexual violence to be done to her was appropriate to the nature of her sins, which are presented as sexual- in that every act of trust in the surrounding nations, every covenant with them, was adultery against God. The terms of those covenants was that they had to worship the gods of those nations, which they did"on the hills and in the field"; and this therefore was where they had committed their persecution. Their endless"neighing"for the attentions and favours of the Gentiles was to be reflected in the neighing of the horses of their invaders (only s:w. <a href='B:300 8:16'>Jer 8:16</a>).</h4><h4>You will not be made clean; how long shall it yet be?- LXX"for thou hast not been purified so as to follow me; how long yet shall it be?". This suggests the longing of God for their repentance.</h4>


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<p>The word of Yahweh that came to Jeremiah concerning the drought- See on <a href='B:300 17:8'>Jer 17:8</a>. Drought was the specific punishment for serving other gods, and would lead to the destruction of the people (<a href='B:50 11:16-17'>Deu 11:16-17</a>).</p>


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<p>Judah mourns, and its gates languish, they sit in black on the ground; and the cry of Jerusalem is gone up- This could mean that God heard their situation as if it were a prayer, even if unarticulated. The intensity of the drought and famine was to try to get the people to repent, as it was in Elijah’s time; so that the even worse blackening of the gates of Jerusalem with fire need not happen at the hands of the Babylonians.</p>


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<p>Their nobles send their little ones to the waters: they come to the cisterns, and find no water; they return with their vessels empty; they are disappointed and confounded, and cover their heads- This again recalls the recorded search for water during the drought of Elijah’s time. It was to elicit repentance. The covering of heads in shame and confusion is all language of the exile; they were intended to experience those things through the famine and repent, so that the shame of the exile need not have happened. This is typical of how God works, to this day. To focus solely upon His final execution of judgment and to cry foul is to fail to appreciate all the effort made to not have to judge like that.</p>


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<p>Because of the ground which is cracked, because no rain has been in the land, the ploughmen are disappointed, they cover their heads- See on :3."Cracked"is the word usually translated"dismayed"; and there are multiple exhortations not to be dismayed (<a href='B:300 23:4'>Jer 23:4</a>; <a href='B:300 30:10'>Jer 30:10</a>). Judah were dismayed with the dismay of the Gentiles (<a href='B:300 10:2'>Jer 10:2</a> s:w:). And the state of the land reflected their internal mental condition.</p>


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<p>Yes, the hind also in the field calves and forsakes her young, because there is no grass- Perhaps we are intended to recall that it is the voice of the Lord which makes the hinds to calve (<a href='B:230 29:9'>Psa 29:9</a>); but the lack of grass was a result of a drought which Israel had brought upon themselves. God’s word had set up a potential which they refused to allow to come to realization.</p>


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<p>The wild donkeys stand on the bare heights, they pant for air like jackals; their eyes fail, because there is no greenery to eat- The impression is of them scanning the countryside from the high places for food. Those high places were where idols had been worshipped as part of fertility cults; and clearly they had failed to deliver on their promises, as all idols do.</p>


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<p>Though our iniquities testify against us, work for Your name’s sake, Yahweh; for our backslidings are many; we have sinned against You- God had said He would destroy Israel and make of Moses a new nation. But He relented of that, and in <a href='B:330 20:22'>Eze 20:22</a> we see the picture of His internal struggle, working for His Name’s sake, for the sake of the principles incorporated within His Name. So it is an intrinsic part of His Name and essential personality that He changes His judgments from pity. When the Psalmist of <a href='B:230 109:21'>Psa 109:21</a> asks for God’s grace, He asks God to"do"or"work"for the sake of His Name, and not bring about a threatened judgment. Jeremiah likewise understood this and asks God to still be gracious to Israel despite their lack of repentance- through working for His Name’s sake (<a href='B:300 14:7'>Jer 14:7</a>). To save by grace was therefore working or doing according to His Name’s sake, rather than according to human merit (<a href='B:330 36:22'>Eze 36:22</a>). Thus by working for His Name’s sake, the repentant exiles would come to ’know Yahweh’ (<a href='B:330 20:44'>Eze 20:44</a>), they would come to see who He essentially is. And He is revealed as the very opposite of a stone faced, unchanging, insensitive God, which was then the standard conception of a deity.</p>


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<h4>You hope of Israel, its Saviour in the time of trouble, why should You be as a foreigner in the land, and as a wayfaring man who turns aside to stay for a night?- This could be saying that God seems as disinterested in the land as a traveller passing through a foreign country who only spends a night there in transit. But the idea may be that God was toIsrael as a wayfaring man who wanted to lodge with them, but they only let Him stay one night. It must be so awful to have such a wonderful spirit of lavishing grace and love, consciously giving out life and patient forgiveness to so many; and yet not be appreciated for it, to have puny humans shaking their fist at God because they die a brief moment of time sooner than they think they should, to have tiny people arrogantly questioning His love. Seeing that God is Almighty, and God could have made [and could re-make] His creation to ‘understand’ and respond in a robot-like way::. and seeing God has real and deep emotional feelings::. it all makes God almost a tragic figure.</h4><h4>A slightly different slant of interpretation opens when we perceive that the word for"stay"is that used in the phrase"lodging place"in <a href='B:300 9:2'>Jer 9:2</a>, where God says that He wished to leave His people and find a"lodging place in the wilderness for wayfaring men"and spend the night there, away from His adulterous people. Jeremiah here recalls those statements of God in <a href='B:300 9:2'>Jer 9:2</a>, and sees 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 (<a href='B:300 9:2'>Jer 9:2</a>). 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 (<a href='B:300 15:6'>Jer 15:6</a>). This of course is Almighty God adjusting Himself to mortal man, allowing Himself to feel through our limitations.</h4>


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<p>Why should You be like a scared man, as a mighty man who can’t save? Yet You, Yahweh, are in the midst of us, and we are called by Your name; don’t leave us- The idea of God limiting His omnipotence and also His omniscience explains why God is described as if He suddenly becomes aware of something, makes haste to intervene, or is hurt by sudden apostasy. These ideas are hard to understand if in fact God has total knowledge, i:e. awareness, from the beginning. They either express God to us in human terms; or God limits His omniscience, as He limits His omnipotence, and therefore disallows Himself from foreseeing all our possible futures:&nbsp; The fact is, God ‘the Saviour of Israel’ can become “as a mighty man that cannot save” by our refusal to accept His salvation (<a href='B:300 14:8-9'>Jer 14:8-9</a>). God left Himself as a mighty man that cannot save, as a wayfaring man wandering through His own deserted land- so much does He respect our freewill decisions concerning Him, no matter how much they hurt Him.</p>


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<p>Thus says Yahweh to this people, Even so have they loved to wander; they have not refrained their feet: therefore Yahweh does not accept them; now He will remember their iniquity, and visit their sins- God’s response seems to suggest that Jeremiah’s desperate plea for God to remain with them (:9) is out of step with how things really are. The reality is that they had wandered away from Him. They had no applied any self control in going away from Him. See on :12.</p>


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<p>Yahweh said to me, Don’t pray for this people for their good- <a href='B:330 22:30'>Eze 22:30</a> says that if a person had been found at this time who would have powerfully interceded for Jerusalem, ’stood in the gap’, God wouldn’t have destroyed Jerusalem -"that I should not destroy it"in <a href='B:330 22:30'>Eze 22:30</a> is an allusion to Abraham interceding for Sodom in <a href='B:10 18:28'>Gen 18:28</a>. But there was not such a person, because they were"all"dross (<a href='B:330 22:18-19'>Eze 22:18-19</a>). Jeremiah was in the land at the time and was surely righteous, but he had been told not to intercede for the people (<a href='B:300 11:14'>Jer 11:14</a>; <a href='B:300 14:11'>Jer 14:11</a>). It seems that if another like him had been found, in addition to Ezekiel in exile, then the judgments could have been averted. There were simply so many possible scenarios! And this is what we must expect if even time periods can be shortened or extended in response to human behaviour. And yet Jeremiah himself seems to have been too ’pro’ Israel. He was shocked at the depth of their weakness and even naive to it; and in Lamentations he seems to consider God had acted too harshly against His people. So perhaps in any case Jeremiah was not the appropriate interceder.</p>


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<h4>When they fast, I will not hear their cry- The command had been for Jeremiah not to pray for the people (:11). But the reason is given that God would not hear their prayer. So we see reflected here the way in which in some circumstances God is prepared to hear the prayer of a third party as the prayer of the person being prayed for. See on <a href='B:480 2:5'>Mar 2:5</a>. But Judah had moved so far from God that this was now not possible.</h4><p>And when they offer burnt offering and meal offering, I will not accept them- Although in real spiritual terms, Judah had gone far away from God to their idols (see on :10), they still made offerings to Yahweh. But these were unacceptable because they were worshipping other gods and offering to them too at the same time</p><h4>But I will consume them by the sword, by the famine and by the plague- Judah were in fact not consumed by these things; in wrath God remembered mercy, by grace. See on <a href='B:300 10:18'>Jer 10:18</a>.</h4>


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<p>Then I said, Ah, Lord Yahweh! Behold, the prophets tell them, You shall not see the sword, neither shall you have famine; but I will give you assured peace in this place- Again we sense the overly positive view of Israel held by Jeremiah. It ought to have been intuitively obvious to him that these were not Yahweh’s words. And yet Jeremiah apparently enquires of God what is going on. It likewise ought to have been obvious to Judah, with the severe drought upon them, that they already had famine. They were asking a lot of faith from people to believe that their prophecies of"peace in this place"would come true. And yet that promise was also given by the true prophets, word for word the same in <a href='B:440 2:9'>Hag 2:9</a>, requiring faith in it as well. But it was the perversity of human nature to put their faith in a false prophecy.</p>


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<p>Then Yahweh said to me, The prophets prophesy lies in My name; I didn’t send them, neither have I commanded them, neither spoke I to them: they prophesy to you a lying vision and divination, a thing of nothing and the deceit of their own heart-"A thing of nothing"is the language of idols. This is how the Hebrew word is usually translated. Their false prophecies were therefore connected with idolatry. They claimed that the idols of Babylon and the nations were inspiring them with messages of peace. That Babylon should come and destroy them, the very opposite of peace, was an appropriate judgment. Yet they made these prophecies in Yahweh’s Name. We see here how they claimed that their idolatry was all sanctioned by Yahweh and was a form of worshipping Him.</p>


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<p>Therefore thus says Yahweh concerning the prophets who prophesy in My name and I didn’t send them, yet they say, Sword and famine shall not be in this land: By sword and famine shall those prophets be consumed- Whilst the deaths of the false prophets is not recorded, we can assume that this judgment was not ameliorated as that upon the entire society was (see on :12). The anger of Judah’s"lovers"was because she had promised total loyalty to them and their gods; but then they discovered Judah had made such agreements with many nations, and the Jerusalem temple was full of idols of various nations. We can understand therefore that the priests and prophets would have been particularly targeted by the invaders, and indeed would have been slain by the sword.</p>


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<h4>The people to whom they prophesy shall be cast out in the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and the sword; and they shall have none to bury them- them, their wives, nor their sons, nor their daughters: for I will pour their wickedness on them- Sin is its own judgment; the judgment / punishment is likened here to their own sin. The judgment of the teachers / prophets is paralleled with that of their hearers. It wasn’t simply that the masses were genuinely misled. The teachers taught what they perceived their audience wanted to hear, and this explains why teacher and listener alike were condemned. And yet when the people were cast out in the streets of Jerusalem, Jeremiah, the true prophet, laments as if this judgment is somehow unreasonable (e:g. <a href='B:310 2:21'>Lam 2:21</a>). I feel that whilst the human tragedy was enough to make anybody cry"Too much!", Jeremiah is here out of step with the God who had inspired him to make just this prophecy in places like <a href='B:300 14:16'>Jer 14:16</a>.</h4><h4>I have noted several times that the prophesied judgments in Jeremiah differ from each other; he has also predicted that there would be such mass destruction that there would be nobody to bury the dead, for all would be slain (<a href='B:300 14:16'>Jer 14:16</a>). But <a href='B:300 19:11'>Jer 19:11</a> speaks of burying bodies in Topheth. These different scenarios didn’t all come true. There were various prophetic options, according to the exact measure of Israel’s repentance and Jeremiah’s intercession; or perhaps, simply according to the pity which Yahweh would finally show this sinful people.</h4>


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<h4>You shall say this word to them, Let my eyes run down with tears night and day, and let them not cease- This could be read as an invitation to repent in tears, in the desperate hope God may yet change His intended judgment; hence LXX"Let your eyes shed tears day and night, and let them not cease: for the daughter of my people has been sorely bruised, and her plague is very grievous". But there is an ambiguity in the text, whereby apparently God is the one who is mourning night and day. Perhaps this is purposeful; they were to mourn as He did, seeing the coming judgments from His perspective, rather than from the human perspective of considering them as just a tragic misfortune. Jeremiah himself entered into this, for he wept night and day for Zion. This passage is alluded to in <a href='B:310 2:18'>Lam 2:18</a>, where Jeremiah appears to ask the remaining Jews in Jerusalem to pray night and day; and yet there too, the grammar is ambiguous. For he may be saying there that they had already done this. The truth was they had not, Jeremiah had done so, but contrary to what he hoped, God was not prepared to accept his tears of repentance and mourning as theirs (see on <a href='B:300 14:11'>Jer 14:11</a>).</h4><p>For the virgin daughter of my people is broken with a great breach, with a very grievous wound- This is the language of the rape of a virgin. And yet as Jeremiah and Ezekiel have made very clear, Judah had long since given up her virginity to the nations. So this loss of virginity had been of her own eager choice. The"breach"recalls the breaching of the walls of Jerusalem by the Babylonians (<a href='B:300 39:2'>Jer 39:2</a>; <a href='B:300 52:7'>Jer 52:7</a>); indeed the word seems to have the sense of the rape of a virgin here when we read that the virgin daughter of Zion had been breached (<a href='B:300 14:17'>Jer 14:17</a>). And both Jeremiah and even God, according to <a href='B:300 8:21'>Jer 8:21</a>, felt themselves breached in this breach ofGod’s people and city. This was how closely identified God was with His wicked people; and how much more does He feel with us in Christ, we who at least seek not to live as Judah did at that time::.</p><p>Like us, Jeremiah didn’t consistently have 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: “Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!” (<a href='B:300 9:1'>Jer 9:1</a>). 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” (<a href='B:300 14:17'>Jer 14:17</a>). 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.</p><h4>In <a href='B:300 6:7'>Jer 6:7</a>, God laments that the continual bubbling forth of their wickedness, as from a perpetual fountain, was matched in His continual woundedness. That God can be wounded by our behaviour::. is a stunning concept. This reveals the extent to which God has sensitized Himself toward man, when we are but ants before Him, the King of the cosmos. Yet the same word is used here of the deep wounding of God’s people by the invaders (<a href='B:300 14:17'>Jer 14:17</a>; <a href='B:300 30:14'>Jer 30:14</a>); but God felt that Himself even before they did.</h4>


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<p>If I go forth into the field, then, behold, the slain with the sword! If I enter into the city, then, behold, those who are sick with famine! For both the prophet and the priest go about in the land, and have no knowledge- This is Jeremiah looking ahead in faith to the fulfillment of God’s words."Go about::."is the language of trading. Jeremiah blames his own people- the priests and prophets- for the situation. And it was their love of material benefit and gain which led them to their false teachings, and which in turn led the people to accept it so eagerly. They had"no knowledge"in the Hebraic sense of relationship with God. Again we see that the acceptance of false doctrine / understanding is often based on subconscious immoral desires or is predicated upon moral rather than purely intellectual issues.</p>


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<h4>Have You utterly rejected Judah? Has Your soul loathed Zion? Why have You struck us, and there is no healing for us? We looked for peace, but no good came; and for a time of healing, and behold, dismay!- Again we sense Jeremiah somewhat out of step with God, accusing Him of not giving peace and healing- despite the reasons for that having been specifically stated by God. However he may be quoting the words of the people, which :22 then comments upon. The lack of quotation marks and expected rubric for quotations often makes interpretation of Jeremiah difficult. They"looked for peace"because the false prophets told them that; or perhaps they referred to Isaiah’s prophecies of peace in the restored Kingdom of God. The terms of God’s covenant had been clear, using the same phrase for ’the soul loathing’; if Israel’s soul loathed God’s judgments, then His soul would loathe them (<a href='B:30 26:11'>Lev 26:11</a>; <a href='B:30 26:15'>Lev 26:15</a>; <a href='B:30 26:30'>Lev 26:30</a>; <a href='B:30 26:43'>Lev 26:43</a>). They had loathed or literally ’cast away’ God their husband (s:w. <a href='B:330 16:45'>Eze 16:45</a>), and so the distance between God and themselves was of their making and initiative.</h4><h4>The level of shameless self-justification is extreme; so extreme that we reflect it could only have arisen from allowing themselves to be utterly convinced that they were serving Yahweh through serving the idols, and that the words of the false prophets were those of God. But this utter conviction was not simply a case of intellectual failure or being mislead by their teachers. It had a strong moral basis to it; in that they were believing what they wanted t believe, in order to justify their lusts.</h4>


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<h4>We acknowledge, Yahweh, our wickedness, and the iniquity of our fathers; for we have sinned against You- As noted on :21, the lack of quotation marks and expected rubric for quotations often makes interpretation of Jeremiah difficult. This seems to be God’s fantasy about their response of repentance; or these could be Jeremiah’s words, hoping that his feelings would be counted as those of the people. But as discussed on :12, he had been specifically told that God was not going to accept this. In which case he was absolutely out of step with God in this matter; for God had said that he should not pray nor reason in this way (see on :11).</h4><h4>Jeremiah earlier has repeated God’s request that they"acknowledge iniquity"(<a href='B:300 3:13'>Jer 3:13</a>). But they did not. But here he says that"we"have done so. He either considered that he was representative of the people, or he failed to accept that their acknowledging of iniquity was only on a surface level. Although on one hand Jeremiah is in step with God’s feeling and thinking, he comes over so often (especially in Lamentations) as implying that God is unjust. He had an over positive view of his people. They did not"acknowledge iniquity"as required, but he considers they had done.</h4>


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<h4>Do not abhor us, for Your name’s sake; do not disgrace the throne of Your glory- Here we find something wonderful: “Do not abhor us… do not disgrace the throne of Your glory”. We, weak humans, are paralleled with the throne of God’s glory. Although Jerusalem is in mind, Jeremiah seems to understand that God’s throne is essentially His repentant people.</h4><h4>Remember, don’t break Your covenant with us- Jeremiah appears again out of step with God. For he has repeatedly lamented how Israel have broken the covenant. Israel’s breaking of the covenant meant that God had therefore broken the covenant (<a href='B:30 26:15'>Lev 26:15</a>; <a href='B:30 26:44'>Lev 26:44</a> s:w:). Idolatry was therefore to"break My covenant"(<a href='B:50 31:20'>Deu 31:20</a>; <a href='B:330 44:7'>Eze 44:7</a>). God’s covenant was broken by them. So the issue of God breaking His covenant was not relevant; He had broken His covenant insofar as they had broken it. What was required was their repentance and desperate seeking of a new covenant with God to replace the one they had broken.</h4>


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<p>Are there any among the vanities of the nations that can cause rain? or can the sky give showers? Aren’t You He, Yahweh our God? Therefore we will wait for You; for You have made all these things- As explained on :20, Jeremiah is apparently assuming that his feelings will be accepted as the peoples’. He indeed waited for Yahweh, but the people did not. As Jeremiah elsewhere has to point out and prophecy, the people continued in their mad devotion to the idols right up to the fall of the city. And those idols were supposed to have been the creators of the various planets. Here Jeremiah appears to deny those idolatrous beliefs by saying that Yahweh alone is their creator and therefore in total control of the rainfall. But in reality the people were still worshipping the various rain gods and planets, in the hope they would give rain. And so Jeremiah was wrong to speak for the people in this way; and he has been specifically told not to do so, as explained on :11,12.</p>


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<h4>Then Yahweh said to me, Though Moses and Samuel stood before Me, yet My mind would not be towards this people: cast them out of My sight, and let them go forth- As discussed on <a href='B:300 14:11-12'>Jer 14:11-12</a>, things had gone so far with Israel that Jeremiah’s words were not to be counted as Israel’s, and so in that sense He was not to pray for them. However as noted on <a href='B:300 14:20-22'>Jer 14:20-22</a>, he attempts to do so. And here we have God’s response. He was not going to accept third party intercession and repentance as theirs. Hence the force&nbsp; here of"then Yahweh said::.". ‘Standing before the Lord’ refers to prayer- <a href='B:230 106:23'>Psa 106:23</a>; <a href='B:150 9:15'>Ezr 9:15</a>; <a href='B:300 15:1'>Jer 15:1</a>; <a href='B:300 18:20'>Jer 18:20</a>. To live a life standing before the Lord is to live a life of prayer. Hence David and Paul say that prayer can be continual- in that life becomes a lived out prayer, with the practice of living in the presence of God. And straight away we ask ourselves, in lives just as busy as those of David and Paul, whetherour self-talk, our minute by minute inner consciousness, is “before the Lord”::. or merely the sheer and utter vapidity of the modern mind.</h4><h4>God’s"soul"(LXX) could not face the people, they were to be cast out of His presence; and therefore no intercessor could stand in His presence representing them. There has to come a moment when the pull of the flow toward the waterfall of condemnation is now too strong, and the plunge is inevitable. It is that moment which perhaps we need to fear more than anything else in human experience. It happened to Israel- their hearts too were hard, and in the end, after a period, God have them over to their hard hearts (<a href='B:230 81:11-12'>Psa 81:11-12</a>)- the implication being that even whilst He hardened their hearts, He kept them by grace from the full consequences::. but in the end, the final inevitable drag towards the waterfall set in. This is why there were times when even repentance, as a change of mind, could not save Jerusalem from destruction (<a href='B:300 4:28'>Jer 4:28</a>; <a href='B:300 15:1-9'>Jer 15:1-9</a>; <a href='B:300 16:12'>Jer 16:12</a>; <a href='B:330 7:1-9'>Eze 7:1-9</a>). This was the moment after the inevitable tug towards the waterfall beings, but before the actual plunge. It’s Saul cowering before the witch of Endor, lying face down in the dirt that fateful night::. and this is the human condition we should most dread.</h4>


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<p>It shall happen, when they tell you, Where shall we go forth? Then you shall tell them, Thus says Yahweh: Such as are for death, to death; and such as are for the sword, to the sword; and such as are for the famine, to the famine; and such as are for captivity, to captivity- The idea may be that they would desire to"go forth", but none would come out of the siege alive apart from a fourth part who would go into captivity. The rest would only come out of the siege of Jerusalem, as it were, to death. But that isn’t how it worked out. The various statements of judgment express the various possible scenarios which could have emerged. For they didn’t all come true; see on <a href='B:300 10:18'>Jer 10:18</a>.</p>


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<p>I will appoint over them four kinds, says Yahweh: the sword to kill, the dogs to tear, the birds of the sky and the animals of the land, to devour and to destroy- LXX"Four kinds of death". But there is no evidence that wild animals killed anyone in Judah. It may have happened, but the idea seems to be that a quarter of the population would be killed by the invaders, and the rest by birds and wild animals. If the animals of the land refer to the local nations killing the Jews, then we would have thought that was included in the category"the sword to kill". So we seem here to have&nbsp; a prediction that three quarters of the population would die at the hand of wild animals- perhaps aggressively searching for food due to the awful drought of Jeremiah 14, and the abandoning of the countryside. But this didn’t happen. As noted on <a href='B:300 10:18'>Jer 10:18</a>, God in wrath remembered mercy, or perhaps allowed a different path of events and potentials to take place. Indeed the very next verse speaks of them being wanderers amongst the nations; which means they were not all to be slain as here threatened. We are meant to understand that there were&nbsp; various potential scenarios which could work out- depending upon the extent of their repentance.</p>


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<p>I will cause them to be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the land because of Manasseh, the son of Hezekiah, king of Judah, for that which he did in Jerusalem- This removing of Judah from their land uses the same word as in <a href='B:50 28:25'>Deu 28:25</a>; in response to their breaking of the covenant, they would be"removed (s:w:) into all the kingdoms of the eretz, throughout the land promised to Abraham. But this curse could have been turned into a blessing; for the restoration prophets envisaged the nations of the eretz repenting and converting to Yahweh. This could have been achieved by the exiles witnessing to the various peoples and languages within the Babylonian / Persian empire. But this didn’t happen as was potentially possible. The exiles didn’t repent, and so their repentance and experience of the grace of forgiveness was not the powerful pattern of conversion to their neighbours which it could have been. The kingdoms of the eretz would then be the wild animals of the land of :3. Ezekiel at this time had been careful to explain that the children don’t die for the sins of their fathers. They would be punished because they continued in the sins of Manasseh.</p>


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<p>For who will have pity on you, Jerusalem? Or who will bemoan you? Or who will turn aside to ask of your welfare?- LXX "Who will spare you?". This is a rhetorical series of questions, each of which is answered in one word: Yahweh. He was the One who would "have pity" upon the exiles although nobody else would (s:w. <a href='B:330 36:21'>Eze 36:21</a>; <a href='B:360 2:18'>Joe 2:18</a>; <a href='B:460 3:17'>Mal 3:17</a>). LXX "who will turn back to ask for thy welfare?" suggests therefore that Yahweh did "turn back" or relent. See on :3. The "welfare", Heb. shalom, the peace of Jerusalem::. is indeed Yahweh’s special interest. "Ask" is literally ’to pray’, and the same two words are found in <a href='B:230 122:6'>Psa 122:6</a>: "Pray [ask] for the peace [welfare] of Jerusalem".</p>


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<h4>You have rejected Me, says Yahweh, you have gone backward- As explained on <a href='B:300 7:21'>Jer 7:21</a>; <a href='B:300 7:24'>Jer 7:24</a>, they were confirmed in their backward path by God Himself. "Rejected" is ’cast off’. Yahweh ’cast off’ Judah (<a href='B:300 12:7'>Jer 12:7</a>; <a href='B:300 23:33'>Jer 23:33</a>) but only because they had cast Him off (<a href='B:300 15:6'>Jer 15:6</a> s:w:). And yet God did not cast off His people (<a href='B:300 33:26'>Jer 33:26</a>); Jeremiah personally was persuaded that God would not cast off His people for ever (<a href='B:310 3:31'>Lam 3:31</a>). He will show them mercy as if He had not cast them off (<a href='B:450 10:6'>Zec 10:6</a>); this reversal of their casting off was to be through the repentance of the exiled community (<a href='B:30 26:44'>Lev 26:44</a>). But even this didn’t happen, and yet God still did not cast them away (<a href='B:520 11:2'>Rom 11:2</a>). His love and grace was such that He holds on to them. This desperate holding on to His people is seen in the experience of every person who joins God’s people through baptism into Christ. They may indeed be cast off ultimately, but that is because they cast Him off, and wrestled against His insistent desire to keep hold of them eternally.</h4><p>Therefore have I stretched out My hand against you and destroyed you- The hand of God is an Angelic term, and here we see it responsible for the frequent repenting (changing of mind) of God concerning Israel. Frequent repentance is fundamentally not a characteristic of God Himself- "God is not a man, that He should repent" (<a href='B:40 23:19'>Num 23:19</a>; <a href='B:90 15:29'>1Sa 15:29</a>).</p><p>I am weary- This weariness of God is reflected in how in <a href='B:300 9:2'>Jer 9:2</a>, God says that He wished to leave His people and find a "lodging place in the wilderness for wayfaring men" and spend the night there, away from His adulterous people. In <a href='B:300 14:8'>Jer 14:8</a>, Jeremiah here recalls those statements of God, and sees 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 (<a href='B:300 9:2'>Jer 9:2</a>). 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. The emotional drain of the relationship wearied Him. This of course is Almighty God adjusting Himself to mortal man, allowing Himself to feel through our limitations.</p><h4>With relenting- God was prepared to relent (<a href='B:300 18:8'>Jer 18:8</a>; <a href='B:300 26:3'>Jer 26:3</a>; <a href='B:300 26:13'>Jer 26:13</a>; <a href='B:300 26:19'>Jer 26:19</a>; <a href='B:300 42:10'>Jer 42:10</a>), and yet He says in <a href='B:300 4:28'>Jer 4:28</a> that He will not. This is not self-contradiction, but rather a reflection of the depth of how God’s compassion is finally greater than His judgment of sin. The whole mental and emotional trauma made God weary of all the relenting, so deeply did He feel it (<a href='B:300 15:6'>Jer 15:6</a>). This is likewise the theme of Hosea’s emotionally draining relationship with Gomer, which reflected that of Yahweh with Israel (<a href='B:350 11:8'>Hos 11:8</a>).</h4>


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<h4>I have winnowed them with a fan in the gates of the land; I have bereaved them of children, I have destroyed My people; they didn’t return from their ways- And yet they had bereaved themselves of their children by offering them to the idols. The ’destruction’ of the people was not literal death; for after it, they still didn’t "return from their ways". There is a play upon the word for "return". Israel’s return to God would be matched by their return to the land. The exiles didn’t repent, and yet by grace God still returned them, so eager was and is He to as it were force through His purpose of grace. The destruction is parallel with the winnowing; the intention was that the judgment would lead to the true corn falling to the ground and the chaff being blown away. But this didn’t happen, and so it was reapplied and rescheduled to the last days.</h4>


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<h4>Their widows are increased to Me above the sand of the seas; I have brought on them against the mother of the young men a destroyer at noonday- Attacks were typically made at dawn and not in the heat and visibility of noon. But the destroyers would be that confident and zealous as to attack and destroy the women at noon. These words are very similar to those ofPsa 137:8-9, where the daughter of Babylon is to be "destroyed" (s:w. "destroyer") and also loose her children. What was done to Zion was to be done to Babylon; which is the theme of Revelation, that the judgments upon Israel are then to be brought upon those who deliver them. All throughout, it is Yahweh who is the "destroyer" through the hand of the surrounding peoples (s:w. Jer 25:36). This was in radical tension with the idea that a local god is always supportive of his people and always saves them. The God of Israel reveals a sensitivity to sin as fundamental to His character; and therefore He will judge and even destroy His own people rather than save them from their invaders.</h4><h4>I have caused anguish and terrors to fall on her suddenly- The sudden nature of Jerusalem’s fall is emphasized (<a href='B:300 4:20'>Jer 4:20</a>; <a href='B:300 6:26'>Jer 6:26</a>; <a href='B:300 15:8'>Jer 15:8</a>; <a href='B:300 18:22'>Jer 18:22</a>); she was to fall as Babylon would "suddenly" fall (<a href='B:300 51:8'>Jer 51:8</a>). Jerusalem fell predictably after a siege, there were no great surprises that she fell. See on <a href='B:300 16:9'>Jer 16:9</a>. It was not a sudden fall that came out of left field, unexpectedly. And yet that is the implication of the prophecies. Babylon was reveling in prosperity when the Medes unexpectedly took the city; but the fall of Jerusalem to Babylon was totally expected and inevitable. Yet the fall is spoken of as "sudden". It could be that a potential "sudden" invasion and destruction of Jerusalem was projected by God, but the intercession of the few faithful, or the repentance of a tiny remnant, changed this possible outcome of their sin. So many different possibilities of judgment are given, ranging from a quarter destruction to total destruction of people and even all animal life. This reflects the open nature of God’s working with His people, setting up various potentials in order to be fully responsive to human freewill decisions.</h4>


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<p>She who has borne seven languishes; she has given up the spirit; her sun is gone down while it was yet day; she has been disappointed and confounded: and their residue will I deliver to the sword before their enemies, says Yahweh- Instead of being respected and glorified for having had seven children, the woman was ashamed because those children were dead. There is a strong sense of disappointment here, her sun going down before its time. This may refer to how the false prophets were shown to be so shamefully wrong.</p>


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<h4>Woe is me, my mother, that you have borne me a man of strife and a man of contention to the whole land!- Having spoken of the shame of a mother who loses her seven children, Jeremiah now thinks of his own mother, and feels her shame for having given birth to such a "man of strife" as himself. This logical progression of thought concerning the shame of mothers has the ring of psychological credibility to it. This is indeed how Jeremiah would have felt, and again, the Biblical record has every credibility and internal evidence that it is true. "To the whole land" / eretz suggests that his messages were taken to the Gentile nations in the land promised to Abraham. God’s intention was that they too along with Judah and Israel should repent, and participate in the restored Kingdom of God in Israel which He wished to establish.</h4><h4>I have not lent, neither have men lent to me; yet everyone of them curses me- The people cursed Jeremiah as people curse one in whose debt they are. By preaching the Truth to people, they become in our debt. Paul used this figure to persuade Philemon, who as his convert was as it were in his eternal debt. Our preaching of the Gospel is not therefore without impact upon the consciences of our hearers. Their apparent disinterest is an act. Every bullet, as it were, hits its target; but people consciously choose not to respond.</h4>


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<h4>Yahweh said, Most certainly I will strengthen you for good; most certainly I will cause the enemy to make supplication to you in the time of evil and in the time of affliction- The promise of strengthening is a repeat of that made at the start of Jeremiah’s ministry. The strengthening was psychological strengthening against their hate and rejection of him. The Hebrew word for ’intercede’ means also ’to meet’; every prayer is a meeting with God (<a href='B:220 21:15'>Job 21:15</a>; <a href='B:290 47:3'>Isa 47:3</a>; <a href='B:290 64:5'>Isa 64:5</a>; <a href='B:300 7:16'>Jer 7:16</a>; <a href='B:300 15:11'>Jer 15:11</a>). Those who had so hated Jeremiah would come to him begging for his help in mediating with God.</h4><h4>The Hebrew here is difficult. The LXX offers: "Be it so, Lord, in their prosperity; surely I stood before thee in the time of their calamities, and in the time of their affliction, for their good against the enemy". GNB: "LORD, may all their curses come true if I have not served you well, if I have not pleaded with you on behalf of my enemies when they were in trouble and distress". The LXX would suggest that Jeremiah succeeded in interceding before God, and achieved "good" for them, in that his intercession ameliorated the judgments pronounced at the hand of their enemies. This would explain why there are so many different scenarios of judgment given through Jeremiah; but some were ameliorated by his intercession.</h4>


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<p>Can one break iron, even iron from the north, and brass?- GNB "No one can break iron, especially the iron from the north that is mixed with bronze". In those days, "iron" was not made as today and was relatively weak. But the Babylonians mixed iron and brass, and this was the hardest metal of its time. We see here how God’s word speaks in terms of contemporary understandings and situations, just as the language of demon possession is used in the New Testament.</p>


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<p>Your substanceand your treasures will I give for a spoil without price, and that for all your sins, even in all your borders- GNB "The LORD said to me,"I will send enemies to carry away the wealth and treasures of my people, in order to punish them for the sins they have committed throughout the land". But their sins may have been particularly in their borders, for it was from these that they went to the nations surrounding them, seeking relationship and covenants which are portrayed in the prophets as similar to prostitution. The mention of"treasures"could refer to the temple treasures. But it could be that until the drought, Judah had become prosperous under the reforms of Josiah. Yet their wealth is presented as parallel with their sins, which were to be punished by the loss of wealth.</p>


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<h4>I will make them to pass with your enemies into a land which you don’t know; for a fire is kindled in My anger, which shall burn on you- GNB"it will burn forever". But it didn’t. God felt like that, at that time, but the pole of His mercy is stronger, in the end, than that of His rightful anger and judgment.</h4><h4>Both Yahweh and Israel are described as kindling the fire of judgment; He responded to what they had done (<a href='B:300 11:16'>Jer 11:16</a>; <a href='B:300 15:14'>Jer 15:14</a>; <a href='B:310 4:11'>Lam 4:11</a> cp. <a href='B:300 17:4'>Jer 17:4</a>). Thus Israel were the ones who had kindled the fire of Yahweh’s condemnation (<a href='B:300 17:4'>Jer 17:4</a>). The rejected are witnesses against themselves (<a href='B:290 44:9'>Isa 44:9</a>; <a href='B:470 23:31'>Mat 23:31</a>). Herein lies the crass folly and illogicality of sin. Jeremiah pleaded with Israel:"Wherefore commit ye this great evil against your souls [i:e. yourselves], to cut off from you man and woman:::that ye might cut yourselves off"(<a href='B:300 44:7-8'>Jer 44:7-8</a>, cp. how Jerusalem cut her own hair off in <a href='B:300 7:29'>Jer 7:29</a>). In the same passage, Yahweh is the one who does the cutting off (<a href='B:300 44:11'>Jer 44:11</a>); but they had cut themselves off. Likewise as they had kindled fire on their roofs in offering sacrifices to Baal, so Yahweh through the Babylonians would set fire to those same houses (<a href='B:300 32:29'>Jer 32:29</a>).</h4>


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<h4>Yahweh, you know; remember me, and visit me, and avenge me of my persecutors; don’t take me away in Your long suffering: know that for Your sake I have suffered reproach- God had promised Jeremiah protection and strength at the start of his ministry, but he clearly doubted this. He felt that he was likely to be killed, and he asks God to save him from this. That salvation was to be according to God’s patient long suffering; which may suggest that Jeremiah felt he was worthy of death as a sinner, and it was only of grace and Divine patience that he be spared death.</h4><h4>It seems that Jeremiah was one of several later characters who found inspiration in Samson, and alluded to him in their prayers to God, seeing the similarities between his spirit and theirs:"O Yahweh [Samson only used the Yahweh Name at the end of his life], thou knowest: remember me [as Samson asked to be remembered for good, <a href='B:70 16:28'>Jdg 16:28</a>], and visit me, and revenge me of my persecutors ["that I may at once be avenged of the Philistines", <a href='B:70 16:28'>Jdg 16:28</a>]::. know that for thy sake I have suffered rebuke [the Philistines doubtless mocked Yahweh as well as Samson]. Thy words were found, and I did eat them [cp. Samson loving the word and eating the honey which he "found" in the lion]: and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart::. I sat not in the assembly of the mockers::. I sat alone because of thy hand [Samson’s separation from an apostate Israel]::. why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable?"[the finality of his blindness] (<a href='B:300 15:15-17'>Jer 15:15-17</a>). If these connections are valid, Samson’s love of the word was a very big part of his life.</h4>


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<h4>Your words were found, and I ate them- Josiah’s zealous reforms started with reading"the book of the covenant"(<a href='B:120 23:2'>2Ki 23:2</a>), probably the list of curses which were to come for disobedience (<a href='B:120 22:19'>2Ki 22:19</a> =&nbsp; <a href='B:30 26:31-32'>Lev 26:31-32</a>). And this book was in some way a joy and rejoicing to Jeremiah (<a href='B:300 15:16'>Jer 15:16</a>). In this sense Paul used the terror of possible condemnation to persuade men (<a href='B:540 5:11'>2Co 5:11</a>), and David in the Psalms takes comfort and joy in judgment to come.</h4><p>Despite this unity of spirit between God and the prophets, the prophets weren’t always forced to say the words. Jeremiah didn’t want to say them at times, the weariness of it all got on top of him; and yet he felt unable to walk away, just as God felt with Israel. But there were times when he outright rebelled. <a href='B:300 20:7'>Jer 20:7</a> is made a mess of in most translations, because the obvious translation is simply too shocking. Jeremiah complains: “O Lord, thou hast seduced me [s:w. <a href='B:20 22:16'>Exo 22:16</a> of a man seducing a woman], and I am seduced; thou hast raped me [s:w. <a href='B:50 22:15'>Deu 22:15</a>] and I am overcome” (Abraham Heschel’s translation). Here is Jeremiah saying that he was attracted by God, he was seduced by Him, but then the whole thing became too much- he felt his soul had been raped. And yet in <a href='B:300 15:16'>Jer 15:16</a> he says that he had found God’s word and eaten it, and as a result, “I am called by thy name, O Lord”- the language of a woman marrying and taking her husband’s name (<a href='B:290 4:1'>Isa 4:1</a>). The word of God was his “joy [and] delight”- two words used four times elsewhere in Jeremiah, and always in the context of the joy of a wedding (<a href='B:300 7:34'>Jer 7:34</a>; <a href='B:300 16:9'>Jer 16:9</a>; <a href='B:300 25:10'>Jer 25:10</a>; <a href='B:300 33:11'>Jer 33:11</a>). Jeremiah saw his prophetic task as actually a marriage to God, an inbreathing of His word and being, to the point that he could say that he personally was “full of the wrath / passion of God” (<a href='B:300 6:11'>Jer 6:11</a>). A prophet could only be incensed if God was incensed (<a href='B:40 23:8'>Num 23:8</a>)- such was the bond between them. No wonder these men felt alone amongst men. They had a relationship with God which others couldn’t enter into, which totally affected their lives and beings. The preacher / testifier of Jesus knows something of this spirit of prophecy. But in <a href='B:300 20:7'>Jer 20:7</a>, Jeremiah felt he had been raped and not married. He resented the complete takeover of his heart.</p><p>And Your words were to me the joy and the delight of my heart: for I am called by Your name, Yahweh, God of Armies- Jeremiah’s lament that the people had no joy or delight in God’s word (<a href='B:300 6:10'>Jer 6:10</a>) is the basis for this comment that when he found God’s words, they were his joy. We might therefore detect there a sense of spiritual superiority over the Jews for whom God’s word was not their joy. <a href='B:300 6:10'>Jer 6:10</a> had spoken of how God’s word was a"reproach"to Israel, and here in :15 he laments how he had become a reproach because of his identity with God’s word.</p><h4>LXX is slightly different:"Consume them; and thy word shall be to me for the joy and gladness of my heart: for thy name has been called upon me, O Lord Almighty". The idea would therefore be that if God consumes Jeremiah’s enemies, which included his own family, then he would find joy and gladness in God’s word. But without that, he implies that he saw little personal delight in it. This would have been great weakness; and would fit the impression that in :16-18 Jeremiah sins in what he says, and is challenged to repent of his attitude in :19.</h4>


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<h4>I didn’t sit in the assembly of those who make merry, nor rejoiced; I sat alone because of Your hand; for You have filled me with indignation- This was all true in a sense, and alludes to Psalms 1. But Jeremiah is rebuked for his attitude of resenting that he"sat alone"and had kept away from the"assembly"of the rejoicers (<a href='B:300 15:17'>Jer 15:17</a>; <a href='B:300 15:19'>Jer 15:19</a>); and so we are to assume that he said these things in resentment that he had had to stand alone amongst men. He resented how he"sat alone"(<a href='B:310 3:28'>Lam 3:28</a>); yet this is the very term used of how Jerusalem was to"sit alone [solitary]"(<a href='B:310 1:1'>Lam 1:1</a>). He was her representative, and yet he seems to have resented that. He was after all being representative of those who had hated him and tried to kill him. As Jeremiah wrongly lamented his own ’sitting alone’, so he ought to have perceived that he should not have lamented Jerusalem’s likewise.</h4><h4>As we lay awake at night looking up at the lamp fitting, or stare out from the balcony at the city lights, there must have been within each reader a deep sense of this clawing, intrusive loneliness. That search for ourselves, that inner despair, that fear of standing so totally and essentially alone in this world… And I have reason to believe that these kinds of struggles are more common amongst Christians than amongst many others. For we have been separated from this world unto the things of the future Kingdom; there is a deep and natural sense of our‘separation’, yet frankly we often don’t know how to handle it. But we can end up like Jeremiah here, almost resenting that separation: “I never sat in the company of revelers, never made merry with them; I sat alone because your hand was on me::." . Our essential loneliness, and recognizing it, is what leads us to faith in and relationship with our true Father. The Lord Jesus will not leave us alone as orphans- He will come to us (<a href='B:500 14:18'>Joh 14:18</a>). He does this through “The Comforter”, the Spirit of Christ.</h4>


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<h4>Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable, which refuses to be healed? Will You indeed be to me as a deceitful brook, as waters that fail?- LXX "Why do they that grieve me prevail against me? my wound is severe; whence shall I be healed?". Jeremiah saw no way out from his psychological pain which had arisen from him accepting the perspective of God about Israel. He also saw that his separation from his family (:17) was going to be permanent; as they were so against God, so they would be against him, He was no cure for his broken heart. And this of course represented the feelings of God about Israel. But Jeremiah appears to feel that God has promised him a better experience than this. He felt God was deceitful, a mirage of water in a thirsty land which in reality wasn’t there. It was this which was so upsetting to God. For He does not deceive His people. As representative of both God and Judah, the fault was not with God but with Judah; their impenitence was the cause for Jeremiah’s perpetually broken heart. This was how God felt. But Jeremiah was tired of feeling that hurt and isolated; he wanted to be a normal person rather than the manifestation of Yahweh. This giving up, being tired of acting for God, of intimate identity with Him, warranted the strict and condemnatory response of God in :19.</h4><h4>The "waters that fail" may be an allusion to <a href='B:290 58:11'>Isa 58:11</a>, where God had promised the faithful that even in drought (which was ongoing at this time, <a href='B:300 14:1'>Jer 14:1</a>), He would be as waters that don’t fail to His faithful people. "Fail" is s:w. "deceitful". Yet Jeremiah apparently feels that God hasn’t come through on this promise; perhaps he resented having to suffer the results of the drought along with the rest of Israel.</h4>


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<h4>Therefore thus says Yahweh, If you return, then I will restore you, and you shall stand before Me- Jeremiah often makes a play upon the Hebrew word shub- it can mean to turn away (from God), and also to ’turn back’ or repent (e:g. <a href='B:300 3:1'>Jer 3:1</a>; <a href='B:300 3:7'>Jer 3:7</a>; <a href='B:300 3:10'>Jer 3:10</a>; <a href='B:300 3:12'>Jer 3:12</a>; <a href='B:300 3:14'>Jer 3:14</a>; <a href='B:300 3:19'>Jer 3:19</a>; <a href='B:300 3:22'>Jer 3:22</a>; <a href='B:300 4:1'>Jer 4:1</a>). Jeremiah had sinned in his words of :16-18. If he returned / repented, then he would be restored. And yet even through this failure, God uses Jeremiah to be representative of Israel. If Israel turned in repentance, then God would return them to their land and restore the kingdom of God in Israel; if they turned away from Him, He would turn them out into the Gentile world. Our lives are a twisting and turning, either to or away from God; and God is waiting to confirm us in those twists and turns. <a href='B:300 8:4-6'>Jer 8:4-6</a> comment that if one turns from the right road, then they must turn back. We all know how when we miss the way in finding an unfamiliar address, there’s a tendency to keep on going along the wrong road- because turning back is so psychologically difficult. And this is the image that God uses here- to appeal to Israel, and ourselves, not to foolishly ’backslide’, keep on turning away, from Him- just because that’s the course we’re set upon.</h4><p>If you utter what is precious, and not what is base, you shall be as My mouth: they shall return to you, but you shall not return to them- His words of :16-18 are therefore called "base". The word is used for riot, drunkenness and gluttony; this was how God viewed his lack of self control with his words. Although the record of them is in the inspired Bible, those words were not right. We see here the difference between inspiration [of the historical record] and revelation [of Divine truths through His word, which in these particular words of Jeremiah we don’t have. But several versions follow the LXX "If thou wilt bring forth the precious from the worthless, thou shalt be as my mouth: and they shall return to thee; but thou shalt not return to them". "The precious" would refer to "the precious sons of Zion" (s:w:), which Jeremiah later laments were slain, and therefore he had not saved (<a href='B:310 4:2'>Lam 4:2</a>). He had not separated the good metal from the dross in his ministry.</p><h4>In <a href='B:300 15:15'>Jer 15:15</a>, Jeremiah asks for vengeance on his persecutors, and inJer 15:18 accuses God of deceiving him. God’s response is to ask him to repent of this, so that he can resume his prophetic work: “If you [Jeremiah] return, I will restore you, and you shall stand before me [prophetic language]. If you utter what is precious, and not what is base, you shall be as my mouth” (<a href='B:300 15:19'>Jer 15:19</a>). Perhaps Jeremiah had this incident in mind when he commented: “The Lord is in the right, for I have rebelled against his word” (<a href='B:310 1:18'>Lam 1:18</a>). This indicates that at least in Jeremiah’s case, he was not irresistibly carried along by the Spirit in some kind of ecstasy, having no option but to speak God’s word. His speaking of God’s word required that he shared the essentially loving and gracious spirit / disposition of his God.</h4>


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<p>I will make you to this people a fortified bronze wall; and they shall fight against you, but they shall not prevail against you; for I am with you to save you and to deliver you, says Yahweh- This continues the reassurance to Jeremiah given in :15, in response to his collapse of faith that God would preserve him from the Jewish opposition. God had promised Jeremiah protection and strength at the start of his ministry, but he clearly doubted this. He felt that he was likely to be killed, and he asks God to save him from this. But again we see how Jeremiah is representative of Judah, at least potentially. For had they repented as Jeremiah did (:19), then they would also have found that they were fought against (by the Babylonians) but not prevailed against. And God’s promise of deliverance would have been true for them as well as Jeremiah. But there is clearly a double meaning in these words; for they could have come true in that Jeremiah personally was their bronze wall, and then those who fought against "you" (Judah) would not prevail, for the sake of Jeremiah’s intercession, acting as a wall between them and their enemies.</p>


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<p>I will deliver you out of the hand of the wicked, and I will redeem you out of the hand of the terrible- As noted on :20, the passage could refer to Jeremiah being delivered out of the hand of the "wicked::. terrible" Jews (s:w. <a href='B:300 14:16'>Jer 14:16</a>; <a href='B:300 33:5'>Jer 33:5</a>); or to their deliverance from the "wicked::. terrible" Babylonians as a result of his intercession for them (the words are used of them in <a href='B:330 28:7'>Eze 28:7</a>; <a href='B:330 31:12'>Eze 31:12</a> etc:). Even in his weakness and failure, Jeremiah was still representative of his people.</p>


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<p>The word of Yahweh came also to me saying- This appears to continue from the previous chapter, where Jeremiah has been rebuked and is told that he must repent and continue his mediation. This perhaps is why he is asked here to make himself representative of condemned Judah in a very personally demanding way.</p>


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<p>You shall not take a wife, neither shall you have sons or daughters in this place- This is not to say Jeremiah had never had a wife; she may have died in one of the earlier Babylonian invasions. The reason given is that she and their children were likely to be killed. Whether that was of itself a reason not to marry isn’t quite the point; Jeremiah was to live out an acted parable in order to demonstrate the reality of judgment to come. He was demonstrating his connection with God’s people, both Judah and the ten tribes. For the allusion is to <a href='B:350 9:9'>Hos 9:9</a>: "Ephraim is bringing forth his children to the murderer". To not have children was a form of death for people of that age. <a href='B:530 7:26'>1Co 7:26</a> appears to allude here, where Paul advises that in the tribulation of the last days of AD70, it would be better not to have wife and children.</p>


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<p>For thus says Yahweh concerning the sons and concerning the daughters who are born in this place, and concerning their mothers who bore them, and concerning their fathers who became their father in this land- This would imply that Jeremiah should not have a family, because if he did then he too would die, as only the single, unmarried would escape. But that doesn’t quite ring true to the situation. Jeremiah is being asked to act out a kind of parable in which he is representative of the people; see on :1.</p>


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<p>They shall die grievous deaths: they shall not be lamented, neither shall they be buried; they shall be as dung on the surface of the ground; and they shall be consumed by the sword and by famine; and their dead bodies shall be food for the birds of the sky, and for the animals of the earth- Jeremiah was told not to have a family, lest this happen to him. That would imply that all families would be destroyed. But this scale of devastation simply didn’t happen. Within Jeremiah’s prophecies, there are many different variations on the amount of judgment. The reality was that in wrath, God remembered mercy. See on <a href='B:300 10:18'>Jer 10:18</a>.</p>


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<p>For thus says Yahweh, Don’t enter into the house of mourning, neither go to lament, neither bemoan them; for I have taken away My peace from this people, says Yahweh, even loving kindness and tender mercies- Jeremiah was commanded not to make lamentation for the punishment of his people. But he did, and God inspired the record of them in Lamentations, and because they are inspired words, He spoke through those words to all subsequent generations. The reason for this was that God’s covenant, referred to as "kindness and mercy", was broken; they were not at peace withHim. And so they should not be pitied in their death. And yet although the covenant was broken by Israel, and God broke His side of it in response to that::. He in fact still treated them as His covenant people. This is not to say that God is not serious about His statements. He is; but His love, grace and pity is displayed as the more extraordinary, in that it leads Him to break the words and threats spoken in justifiable and understandable wrath. For the same Hebrew phrase "loving kindness and tender mercies" is used again by Jeremiah in <a href='B:310 3:22'>Lam 3:22</a>, where he reflects that these have not been withdrawn from God’s people, even though Zion is now in ruins.</p>


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<p>Both great and small shall die in this land; they shall not be buried, neither shall men lament for them, nor cut themselves, nor make themselves bald for them- When we read that those who were to die in the land due to the Babylonian invasion would not be buried “neither shall men lament for them”, this sounds like a prediction. But actually it’s a command- for Jeremiah was told “Neither go to lament nor bemoan them” (<a href='B:300 16:5'>Jer 16:5</a>). But he did lament them- and God didn’t ignore that, but rather inspired the record of the book of Jeremiah’s Lamentations! Likewise God told Jeremiah not to pray for the people, but when Jeremiah insisted on doing so, God did in fact hear him. So we must be careful to discern what is prediction and what is command or intention. And even then we have to recognize that God’s purpose is to some extent open-ended- if men and women wish to walk with Him but don’t strictly follow His preferred intentions, He may still walk and work with them in the extension of His purpose.</p>


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<h4>neither shall men break bread for them in mourning, to comfort them for the dead; neither shall men give them the cup of consolation to drink for their father or for their mother- The reason for this lack of mourning and burial may simply be because the idea was that all the people would perish. There would be none left to bury or lament; all were to die. But in reality that didn’t happen (see on <a href='B:300 10:18'>Jer 10:18</a>), and there are various degrees of destruction spoken about in the various prophecies.</h4><h4>’Breaking bread’ or ’eating bread’ is simply an idiom for sharing in a meal (<a href='B:290 58:7'>Isa 58:7</a>; <a href='B:300 16:7'>Jer 16:7</a>; <a href='B:310 4:4'>Lam 4:4</a>; <a href='B:330 17:7'>Eze 17:7</a>; <a href='B:330 24:17'>Eze 24:17</a>; <a href='B:350 9:4'>Hos 9:4</a>; <a href='B:50 26:14'>Deu 26:14</a>; <a href='B:220 42:11'>Job 42:11</a>). ’Bread’ is used for any food, just as ’salt’ is used in the same way in Arabic. The way the Lord broke His bread with sinners, with anyone, is therefore evidence enough that the ’breaking of bread’ is inclusive and not exclusive. LXX "and there shall be no bread broken in mourning for them for consolation over the dead: they shall not give one to drink a cup for consolation over his father or his mother". This refers to how at the funeral, food and gifts were given to a child who lost parents. But there would be none to do so. The "breaking of bread" meeting is therefore set up as a kind of funeral celebration, but also a "cup of consolation".</h4>


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<p>You shall not go into the house of feasting to sit with them, to eat and to drink- Because the day was to come when they would all be dead, because of their sins, Jeremiah was not to feast with them before judgment came. The marriages and family events which they were celebrating were to come to a tragic end in the mass destruction of family life by the invaders which has just been predicted. Jeremiah, like us, was to live life now in light of how things were going to ultimately be.</p>


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<p>For thus says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel: Behold, I will cause to cease out of this place, before your eyes and in your days, the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride- This specifically states that it would happen in their days and before their eyes. The image is of a wedding being interrupted by the invaders. This suggests a sudden, unexpected invasion, rather than what happened- a lengthy siege, famine, desperate poverty, all leading towards an inevitable end when Zedekiah fled the city and the Babylonians entered Jerusalem. The sudden nature of Jerusalem’s fall is emphasized (<a href='B:300 4:20'>Jer 4:20</a>; <a href='B:300 6:26'>Jer 6:26</a>; <a href='B:300 15:8'>Jer 15:8</a>; <a href='B:300 18:22'>Jer 18:22</a>); she was to fall as Babylon would "suddenly" fall (<a href='B:300 51:8'>Jer 51:8</a>). Jerusalem fell predictably after a siege, there were no great surprises that she fell. It was not a sudden fall that came out of left field, unexpectedly. And yet that is the implication of the prophecies. Babylon was reveling in prosperity when the Medes unexpectedly took the city; but the fall of Jerusalem to Babylon was totally expected and inevitable. Yet the fall is spoken of as "sudden". It could be that a potential "sudden" invasion and destruction of Jerusalem was projected by God, but the intercession of the few faithful, or the repentance of a tiny remnant, changed this possible outcome of their sin. So many different possibilities of judgment are given, ranging from a quarter destruction to total destruction of people and even all animal life. This reflects the open nature of God’s working with His people, setting up various potentials in order to be fully responsive to human freewill decisions.</p>


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<p>It shall happen, when you shall show this people all these words and they shall tell you, Why has Yahweh pronounced all this great evil against us? Or what is our iniquity? Or what is our sin that we have committed against Yahweh our God?- The "great evil" had been done by them (<a href='B:300 44:7'>Jer 44:7</a> s:w:), and s the "great evil" of judgment was only an extension of their own sins. And that ought to have been obvious. Repeatedly we encounter this shameless refusal to accept they had done anything wrong, and apparently genuine shock and surprise that God should speak of judging them so severely. This indicates the degree to which they were psychologically hardened in their belief that they could serve the idols as part of serving Yahweh. This is why the reason for their judgments was not simply ’Because you worship idols’, but because of their state of heart (:11,12).</p>


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<p>Then you shall tell them, Because your fathers have forsaken Me, says Yahweh, and have walked after other gods, and have served them, and have worshipped them, and have forsaken Me, and have not kept My law- This is not to say that they were going to be punished because of the sins of their fathers. I noted on :10 how shameless they were in their idolatry, and how they were genuinely unaware of wrongdoing. But this was because they had become so hardened in sin, as people are today, that they consider that their wrongdoing is in fact righteousness. The reason why that generation was punished was because of this hardened, evil state of heart (:12); not simply because they worshipped idols. Their fathers had done that and had not received the judgment for it which they were going to.</p>


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<p>And you have done evil more than your fathers; for behold, you walk each one after the stubbornness of his evil heart, so that you don’t listen to Me- Se on :10,11. The choice was between walking after God’s word (:11), 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". <a href='B:50 29:19'>Deu 29:19</a> 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" (<a href='B:300 6:14'>Jer 6:14</a>; <a href='B:300 8:11'>Jer 8:11</a>). 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.</p>


text:
<h4>Therefore will I cast you forth out of this land into the land that you have not known, neither you nor your fathers, where I will not show you favour; and there you shall serve other gods day and night- LXX "and ye shall serve their other gods, who shall have no mercy upon you". Yahweh alone has grace / mercy; this is what distinguishes Him from all forms of idolatry.</h4><h4>The passion and love of God leads Him time and again to apparently contradict Himself. He says that He will cast Judah out of their land, they would go to Babylon and serve other gods there, “where I will not show you favour” (<a href='B:300 16:13'>Jer 16:13</a>). But actually Esther and her people were shown favour there [s:w. <a href='B:190 4:8'>Est 4:8</a>; <a href='B:190 8:5'>Est 8:5</a>]. God was gracious [s:w. ‘show favour’] to those in exile (<a href='B:290 30:18'>Isa 30:18</a>; <a href='B:290 30:9'>Isa 30:9</a>; <a href='B:370 5:15'>Amo 5:15</a>; <a href='B:460 1:9'>Mal 1:9</a>). But Jeremiah 16 goes on to state that God would not ever hide His eyes / face from the iniquity they had committed, i:e. the reason why they were in captivity (<a href='B:300 16:17'>Jer 16:17</a>). But actually He did do just that- He hid His eyes from the sin of Judah and the sin of the exiles (<a href='B:290 65:16'>Isa 65:16</a>); the hiding of His face from them was in fact not permanent but for a brief moment (Isa 548). God then outlines a plan- He will recompense their sin double, and this would lead them back to Him (<a href='B:300 16:18'>Jer 16:18</a>). But this was to be an unrepeatable, once-for-all program that would “cause them to know mine hand… and they shall now that my name is The Lord” (<a href='B:300 16:21'>Jer 16:21</a>). This double recompensing of Judah’s sin happened in the exile in Babylon (<a href='B:290 40:2'>Isa 40:2</a>), and therefore the joyful news was proclaimed to Zion in Isaiah 40 that now the Messianic Kingdom could begin. But there wasn’t much interest nor response to the call to return to Judah in order to share in it. The exile didn’t cause God’s people to repent nor to know His Name. It wasn’t the once-for-all program which He intended. Now none of this makes God out to be somehow not serious or unreliable. Rather is it all an indication of His passion and how deeply He wishes His plans of redemption for us to work out. He’s not ashamed to as it were humiliate Himself, lay Himself open to petty critics, in His passion for us. Thus God was so [apparently] sure that the exile would bring about Judah’s repentance and return to Him: “Thy lovers shall go into captivity: surely then shalt thou be ashamed and confounded for all thy wickedness” (<a href='B:300 22:22'>Jer 22:22</a>). But actually the very opposite happened. It’s rather like “They will reverence my son” (<a href='B:470 21:37'>Mat 21:37</a>)- when actually they crucified Him.</h4>


text:
<p>Therefore behold, the days come, says Yahweh, that it shall no more be said, As Yahweh lives, who brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt- The form of swearing in covenant relationship was to be changed. The same verses occur in <a href='B:300 23:7-8'>Jer 23:7-8</a> in the context of Judah being offered a new covenant, seeing they had broken the old covenant. That new covenant was to be made when the exiles left Babylon and the various nations within her empire where they had been scattered. But this didn’t work out; because Judah refused it.</p>


text:
<p>But, As Yahweh lives, who brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the countries where He had driven them. I will bring them again into their land that I gave to their fathers- See on :14. The new covenant was to be made once they left Babylon and the subject nations, just as the old covenant was made once they had left Egypt. There was intended to be some even more dramatic and powerful source of exodus in leaving Babylon than there had been in leaving Egypt. But in reality. nothing like the parting of the Red Sea or the plagues upon Egypt happened. The decree of Cyrus was clearly overruled by God, but other prophecies make it clear that the exodus of the exile was to be associated with the fall of Babylon. Indeed they were to flee Babylon so that they didn’t share in her fall. And it was this dramatic action which was to convert the remnants of the Babylonian empire to Israel’s God. But this didn’t happen; instead this prophetic theme has been reapplied and rescheduled to the events of the last days.</p>


text:
<h4>Behold, I will send for many fishermen, says Yahweh, and they shall fish them up; and afterwards I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain and from every hill and out of the clefts of the rocks- This suggests a total regathering of all who were in captivity. This didn’t happen because the exiles preferred the soft life in Persia. The effort made wasn’t responded to. Indeed Jeremiah later laments that the people were "hunted" after Jerusalem fell (s:w. <a href='B:310 3:52'>Lam 3:52</a>; <a href='B:310 4:18'>Lam 4:18</a>). He ought to have realized that the exiles were to be hunted back to the restored kingdom- if they responded. But in his depression, he focused only upon the negative, the glass half empty rather than half full.</h4><h4>And perhaps the prophecy therefore was rescheduled and reapplied to the fishing of individuals to comprise a new Israel. It was whilst Simon and Andrew were in the very act of casting their net into the sea, snap shotted in a freeze-frame of still life, silhouetted against the sea and hills of Galilee, that the Lord calls them to go preaching (<a href='B:480 1:17'>Mar 1:17</a>). The Lord surely intended them to [at least later] figure out His allusion to <a href='B:300 16:14-16'>Jer 16:14-16</a>, which prophesied that fishermen would be sent out to catch Israel and bring them home to the Father. And He called them to do that, right in the very midst of everyday life. His preachers were like harvesters working in the very last hour to bring in the harvest- in fact, the harvest was spoiling because it’s not being fully gathered. No delay for anything was possible in the light of the knife-edge urgency of sharing Christ with others.</h4>


text:
<p>For My eyes are on all their ways; they are not hidden from My face, neither is their iniquity concealed from My eyes- Their sin and breaking of the covenant meant that God would hide His face from them (<a href='B:50 31:17'>Deu 31:17</a>; <a href='B:50 32:20'>Deu 32:20</a>; <a href='B:400 3:4'>Mic 3:4</a>):&nbsp; But the paradox is that God did not hide His face from their sins, His eyes were upon their ways. He didn’t turn off His sensitivity to behaviour which so sorely hurt Him at His heart; because He desperately wishes to retain relationship for as long as possible, no matter how painful. The iniquity of Israel was not concealed from God’s eyes because He Himself chose not to conceal His face from it.</p>


text:
<p>First I will recompense their iniquity and their sin double, because they have polluted My land with the carcasses of their detestable things, and have filled My inheritance with their abominations- The land was literally filled with idols; the sacrifices to them are described as carcasses, which God saw as polluting the land. And so God desired to punish them "double", and so did Jeremiah, because he had the mind and feelings of God (<a href='B:300 16:18'>Jer 16:18</a>; <a href='B:300 17:18'>Jer 17:18</a>). But <a href='B:150 9:13'>Ezr 9:13</a> states that God punished them less than their iniquities deserved- and not double punishment. So again we have God, through Jeremiah, speaking in the fire of His anger; but this didn’t actually work out like this. The pole of His pity and grace is finally far stronger than that of His anger and judgment.</p>


text:
<p>Yahweh, my strength, my stronghold and my refuge in the day of affliction, to You shall the nations come from the ends of the land and shall say, Our fathers have inherited nothing but lies, vanity and things in which there is no profit- This is Jeremiah’s interjection. He is confident that he shall be preserved in the siege which was ahead. God would be his refuge; although his confident faith at this point was sorely tested when he was thrown into the dungeon to die. Jeremiah caught God’s vision, of the repentant nations crossing the borders of Palestine confessing that the idols were lies and vanity. This was the Divine intention- that when Israel and Judah returned from captivity, they would come back to the land along with the repentant peoples of the nations to whom they had been scattered. But instead, they learnt the ways of the nations and worshipped their gods, as Ezekiel often laments.</p>


text:
<p>Shall a man make to himself gods, which yet are no gods?- This is apparently part of the fantasy of Jeremiah and Yahweh concerning the repentance of the surrounding nations and their turning to Yahweh having thrown away their idols. The hope was that they would confess that what a man makes with his own hands cannot therefore be God. For God by His hands has created man. It is the worship of works, of what we have devised by our own device::. which is our modern idolatry. Hence GNB "Can people make their own gods? No, if they did, those would not really be gods".</p>


text:
<p>Therefore behold, I will cause them to know, this once will I cause them to know My hand and My might; and they shall know that My name is Yahweh- LXX "I will at this time manifest my hand to them, and will make known to them my power; and they shall know that my name is the Lord". "This once" could suggest that God would do this once and for all, as if the intention was to begin the restored Kingdom there and then. The refusal of the exiles to repent precluded so much potential happening. And likewise the Gentiles continued in their idolatry. If they had repented as envisioned in :19,20, "therefore::. I will cause them to know::. My name". Their repentance would have been followed by a special revelation of Yahweh to them. Having quit what was wrong, His Spirit would have revealed to them what was right. The Name of God is not so much Yahweh or Jehovah, but effectively refers to God’s "hand and might", His actions and characteristics in history.</p>


text:
<p>The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond: it is engraved on the tablet of their heart, and on the horns of your altars- The sin of Judah was written- both on their hearts and in God’s record (<a href='B:300 17:1'>Jer 17:1</a>); their iniquity was "marked before me" (<a href='B:300 2:22'>Jer 2:22</a>). Note how their sin was written both before God and on their hearts. The state of our hearts is actually God’s record of us; "the spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord" through which He searches us (<a href='B:240 20:27'>Pro 20:27</a>).</p>


text:
<p>While their children remember their altars and their Asherim by the green trees on the high hills- The idea is as GNB "Your people worship at the altars and the symbols that have been set up for the goddess Asherah by every green tree and on the hilltops". The number of worship places for the idols was amazingly high; whereas Yahweh worship had only one altar, in the Jerusalem temple. This marked absence of religious paraphernalia in Yahweh worship was to inculcate faith. There was visual symbolism in the tabernacle ritual and temple; but this was to be meditated upon in everyday life, rather than actually physically encountered. God wanted the hearts and minds of His people, far more than acts of external obedience.</p>


text:
<p>My mountain in the field, I will give your substance and all your treasures for a spoil, and your high places, because of sin, throughout all your borders- Their idols may have been particularly in their borders, for it was from these that they went to the nations surrounding them, seeking relationship and covenants which are portrayed in the prophets as similar to prostitution. The mention of "treasures" could refer to the temple treasures, "my mountain". But it could be that until the drought, Judah had become prosperous under the reforms of Josiah. Yet their wealth is presented as parallel with their sins, which were to be punished by the loss of wealth.</p>


text:
<p>You, even of yourself, shall discontinue from your inheritance that I gave you; and I will cause you to serve your enemies in the land which you don’t know: for you have kindled a fire in My anger which shall burn forever- It could be argued that death and remaining dead is in a sense suffering a punishment which has eternal consequences; it is the anger of God forever. But that seems rather forced. I would compare the statement that God’s anger here burns for ever with the statements to the effect that God does not keep His anger for ever (<a href='B:230 103:9'>Psa 103:9</a>; <a href='B:300 3:12'>Jer 3:12</a>; <a href='B:400 7:18'>Mic 7:18</a>). Surely this is how God felt at this time; that He would never get over what they had done, and His anger would continue for ever. This is the emotional God with whom we have to do. Likewise the threat to be discontinued from the inheritance was revised; in that Judah will finally eternally inherit the land. "Discontinue" is however the word used for the land having "rest" in the Sabbath year (<a href='B:330 23:11'>Eze 23:11</a>), and the exile was so that the land might "rest" for all the Sabbath years she had not been rested for (<a href='B:30 26:34'>Lev 26:34</a>; <a href='B:30 26:43'>Lev 26:43</a>).</p>


text:
<p>Thus says Yahweh: Cursed is the man who trusts in man, and makes flesh his arm, and whose heart departs from Yahweh- It could be that the "man" in view is Egypt, upon whom Judah was trusting for deliverance from Babylon- rather than Yahweh. The same words are used in <a href='B:300 5:23'>Jer 5:23</a> of how the people’s heart had departed from Yahweh. Always in the Old Testament it is the state of the heart which is so significant to God; and this continues in the New Testament with the huge focus upon the spirit. The chapter goes on to suddenly condemn the man who seeks to get wealth wrongfully (:11); this would be the man who made flesh- his own flesh- his strength, and filled his mind with ways of doing so.</p>


text:
<p>For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good comes, but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, a salt land and not inhabited- The people who trust the flesh or the world for "good" rather than Yahweh will "not see when good comes". The true good that comes only from Yahweh will not be perceived if we are focused all the time upon the "good" we think we can get from trusting in the flesh. We will not perceive the beauty of a sunrise because we are so caught up in hoping that news of a lottery win is about to come through. Such people stay in the land of condemnation ["a salt land"] by their own choice. And so many of the exiles remain in Babylon, failing to perceive the "good" which was being brought about by the "good hand of God" at the restoration (s:w. <a href='B:150 7:9'>Ezr 7:9</a>; <a href='B:150 8:18'>Ezr 8:18</a> etc:). The very phrase "good comes" is used of the good things God would do at the restoration from Babylon (<a href='B:300 32:42'>Jer 32:42</a>).</p>


text:
<p>Blessed is the man who trusts in Yahweh, and whose trust Yahweh is- So often Yahweh is portrayed as the only "confidence" or trust of His people. Judah’s confidence in nations like Egypt was therefore a betrayal of their relationship with Yahweh. This rejection of trust / hope in foreign alliances is behind this comment that the man who hoped / had confidence in Yahweh alone would be blessed. The immediate context referred to having Egypt and other nations as their hope / confidence (<a href='B:330 29:16'>Eze 29:16</a> s:w:).</p>


text:
<p>For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, who spreads out its roots by the river, and shall not fear when heat comes, but its leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit- "Drought" is s:w. only in <a href='B:300 14:1'>Jer 14:1</a>. The drought was brought as judgment upon Judah to bring about their repentance; but those who truly trusted in Yahweh (:7) would be unaffected by it in real terms. The "heat" of judgment would not ultimately affect the righteous.</p>


text:
<p>The heart is deceitful above all things, and it is exceedingly corrupt: who can know it?- This has commonly been read as a generic statement about the heart of every man by nature. However, we must remember that whatever we posit about human nature, we posit about the Lord Jesus; who despite having our nature, achieved a state of being holy, perfect and undefiled, and in whose spirit or heart was no guile. But the context is of Jeremiah continually emphasizing Judah’s state of heart as being critically important. See on :5. It was Judah’s heart which was so corrupt; :10 suggests that God could search their hearts and potentially find good things there, but in this case He found only corruption. "Exceedingly corrupt" is the wound used about the "incurable wound" of Judah (<a href='B:300 15:18'>Jer 15:18</a>), which by grace would be healed. It describes a state of mind gotten into, and not how things are by nature within every human being [including the Lord Jesus]. The LXX gives: "The heart is deep beyond all things, and it is the man, and who can know him?". This would explain the parallel in :10 between the man, the mind, the heart and the doings. A man is his mind.</p>


text:
<h4>I, Yahweh, search the mind, I try the heart, even to give every man according to his works, according to the fruit of his doings- The ’testing’ of Judah was to be through melting them in the furnace of Jerusalem, caused by the fire of Babylonian judgment (<a href='B:300 9:7'>Jer 9:7</a>; <a href='B:450 13:9'>Zec 13:9</a>). We learn here that the essential purpose of that was to try / test / purify / reveal their heart and mind; for that was and is of utterly paramount importance to God.</h4><h4>In likely allusion to the descriptions of God searching and trying our hearts in the Psalms, Jeremiah says that we should "search and try our hearts" (<a href='B:310 3:40'>Lam 3:40</a>)- we should seek to know ourselves as God does. David’s invitations to God to search and try him (<a href='B:230 17:3'>Psa 17:3</a>; <a href='B:230 26:2'>Psa 26:2</a>; Psalms 139; Psalms 23) imply he has done so himself (cp. <a href='B:230 77:6'>Psa 77:6</a>). God now searches and tries the hearts, and will [at judgment day] give every man as his work shall be (er 17:10 cp. <a href='B:730 22:12'>Rev 22:12</a>). The spirit of man is [i:e. is intended to be] the candle which God also uses for His examination of men (<a href='B:240 20:27'>Pro 20:27</a>); there is thus a link intended between our self-examination and the way God looks at us. His judgment must be ours. As sin is condemned by Him, so we should examine ourselves to the point of self-condemnation.</h4>


text:
<p>As the partridge that sits on eggs which she has not laid, so is he who gets riches, and not by right; in the midst of his days they shall leave him, and at his end he shall be a fool- This warning against materialism and dishonesty in order to gain more wealth continue the warning begun in :5 about not trusting in flesh, even our own flesh. All the idolatry and poor behaviour in Judah was in fact rooted in this desire for quick blessing and wealth. The materialist "at his end [rejection at the judgment] shall be a fool" (<a href='B:300 17:11'>Jer 17:11</a>). The utter folly &nbsp;of the rejected is a major theme (<a href='B:240 14:8'>Pro 14:8</a>; <a href='B:240 14:18'>Pro 14:18</a>; <a href='B:230 5:5'>Psa 5:5</a>; <a href='B:230 49:13'>Psa 49:13</a>; <a href='B:470 7:26'>Mat 7:26</a>; <a href='B:470 25:8'>Mat 25:8</a>). Their folly will be manifest to all- not least themselves (<a href='B:620 3:9'>2Ti 3:9</a>). Parables like that of the rich fool, the foolish virgins::. they will all be crystal clear to them. Then the Kingdom of Heaven will be likened to wise and foolish virgins (<a href='B:470 25:1'>Mat 25:1</a>), after the judgment experience.</p>


text:
<p>A glorious throne, set on high from the beginning, is the place of our sanctuary- GNB "Our Temple is like a glorious throne, standing on a high mountain from the beginning". This interjection from Jeremiah is out of step with Yahweh’s position about the temple. He has made clear in Jeremiah 7 that it will be destroyed and His sanctuary and glory is in Heaven, not in the temple. Hence Jeremiah’s bitter disappointment in Lamentations when the temple is destroyed. But at least we can say that Jeremiah’s though about God’s glory and throne was in order to lift himself far above the terrible lowness of his immediate theme- men who trust in their own strength to get a little bit more glory and wealth than the man next to them.</p>


text:
<h4>Yahweh, the hope of Israel, all who forsake You shall be disappointed. Those who depart from Me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken Yahweh, the spring of living waters- The next verse and the first half of this verse are clearly Jeremiah talking. But the second half of :13 is Yahweh’s response; and it is repeating what Jeremiah has just said in different words and with more detail. We marvel at the dialogue and intimacy possible between God and man. The people Jeremiah had in mind may be his persecutors, for he uses the same word "disappointed" ["ashamed"] about them in :18. Being "written in the earth" may contrast with being written in heaven (<a href='B:650 12:23'>Heb 12:23</a>). But the idea may be that because they forsook the living waters by rejecting Jeremiah’s prophetic word, they would remain written in the dust. The Lord would then be alluding to this when He wrote in the dust when rescuing the woman taken in adultery (John 9). Perhaps He wrote the names of the accusers in the dust, or their names and their own sins. Jeremiah still speaks of Yahweh as "the hope of Israel", as it there were still (in his opinion)&nbsp; true Israel who hoped in their God.</h4>


text:
<h4>Heal me, O Yahweh, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved: for You are my praise- Jeremiah was perhaps physically ill; but he expresses his affliction in terms of Israel’s being smitten with judgment and then their salvation. Repeatedly, the wound of Judah is described as incurable (Jer 15:18; Jer 30:12; Jer 30:15; Mic 1:9). Only by God’s amazing and paradoxical grace could this be cured. And he had the faith and vision to believe it was possible. He saw himself as representative of the people, even though God had told him that he could not "stand before Me" for Israel in the way other intercessors had. For Israel were just too evil and rebellious against Him. "You are my praise" could mean that Jeremiah solely praised Yahweh, unlike the other Jews who praised various gods along with Yahweh.</h4>


text:
<p>Behold, they tell me, Where is the word of Yahweh? let it come now- As noted on :13, the "they" here refers to Jeremiah’s persecutors who had departed from Yahweh and would be ashamed. Despite the deteriorating situation with regards to Babylon’s strengthening, Egypt’s weakening and the terrible drought, they mocked Jeremiah’s words of judgment. Even though there was every evidence that they were about to come true</p>


text:
<h4>As for me, I have not hurried from being a shepherd after you- LXX "But I have not been weary of following thee"; the continual background noise had not made him give up. And that is a thought to inspire us for all time. Or the idea may be that he had continued to try to shepherd and pastor those who so mocked him and God’s word which was in his mouth.</h4><h4>Neither have I desired the woeful day; you know: that which came out of my lips was before Your face- GNB: "LORD, I never urged you to bring disaster on them; I did not wish a time of trouble for them". But the reality was that Jeremiah had done so; indeed he calls for such disaster upon them in :18 "Bring disgrace on those who persecute me, but spare me, LORD. Fill them with terror, but do not terrify me. Bring disaster on them and break them to pieces". He seems to have never quite put this matter straight in his own mind, for in Lamentations, Jeremiah likewise laments the Lord’s actions in judging- when it was Jeremiah who had stated that these things should happen.</h4>


text:
<p>Don’t be a terror to me: You are my refuge in the day of evil- <a href='B:290 28:15'>Isa 28:15</a>; <a href='B:290 28:17'>Isa 28:17</a> had used this word "refuge" to describe the refuge of lies in which the believers in false prophets and idols trusted. Jeremiah could sense the large scale of destruction to come, but often expresses his faith that somehow he will be saved.</p>


text:
<h4>Let them be disappointed who persecute me, but let not me be disappointed; let them be dismayed, but don’t let me be dismayed- Jeremiah remembered the command not to be dismayed in <a href='B:300 1:17'>Jer 1:17</a> and quotes it back to himself in <a href='B:300 17:18'>Jer 17:18</a>. This is how we should act- quoting scripture to ourselves as encouragement. "Dismay" was a punishment from God upon them but as with all Divine judgments, this was just an extension of what the people had done to themselves. For they had dismayed themselves (<a href='B:300 10:2'>Jer 10:2</a>).</h4><h4>Bring on them the day of evil, and destroy them with double destruction- God desired to punish them "double", and so did Jeremiah, because he had the mind and feelings of God (<a href='B:300 16:18'>Jer 16:18</a>; <a href='B:300 17:18'>Jer 17:18</a>). But <a href='B:150 9:13'>Ezr 9:13</a> states that God punished them less than their iniquities deserved- and not double punishment. So again we have God, through Jeremiah, speaking in the fire of His anger; but this didn’t actually work out like this. The pole of His pity and grace is finally far stronger than that of His anger and judgment.</h4>


text:
<p>Thus said Yahweh to me: Go, and stand in the gate of the children of the people through which the kings of Judah come in and by which they go out, and in all the gates of Jerusalem- He was to firstly announce in "the People’s gate", what is now the Jaffa Gate, and then subsequently at every gate of Jerusalem. Any attempt to directly engage the leadership of a nation at war by implicitly criticizing them::. is doomed to many problematic reactions. And so it was for Jeremiah.</p>


text:
<p>And tell them, Hear the word of Yahweh, you kings of Judah, and all Judah, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, that enter in by these gates- The leadership ["kings" plural] and common people are paralleled. A leadership do what the masses want, or what they perceive they want. And the masses pressurize the leadership, however subconsciously. This is why the entire society was addressed and was culpable to judgment.</p>


text:
<h4>Thus says Yahweh, Take heed to yourselves, and bear no burden on the Sabbath day, nor bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem- The emphasis upon the Sabbath is appropriate because the land is depicted as having missed out on 70 Sabbaths of rest during the period of 490 years from the time of Saul to the captivity. Therefore the land had to rest for 70 years. The Sabbath was the sign of covenant between God and Israel. To not keep it meant to despise the covenant.</h4>


text:
<h4>Neither carry forth a burden out of your houses on the Sabbath day, neither do any work: but make the Sabbath day holy, as I commanded your fathers- Carrying burdens out of their private homes is paralleled with carrying them out of the gates or doors of Jerusalem (:21). Their private behaviour in their own homes was to be repeated on the scale of the whole city.</h4>


text:
<h4>But they didn’t listen neither turn their ear- Inclining or humbling / bowing down the ear means that true response to God’s word ought to be a humbling experience. We cannot come away from engagement with God’s word without being humbled. And this very phrase is used of how God bows down / inclines His ear to human prayer (<a href='B:120 19:16'>2Ki 19:16</a>; <a href='B:230 17:6'>Psa 17:6</a>; <a href='B:230 31:2'>Psa 31:2</a>; <a href='B:230 71:2'>Psa 71:2</a> and often). We see here the mutuality possible between God and man, and the interplay between Bible reading andGod’s response to our prayers. We speak to God in line with our understanding of His word, and He responds to our prayers. Bible reading and prayer therefore mesh together in the Christian life, as part of the upward spiral of spirituality. God is not silent to our prayers- He reveals Himself in response through His word.</h4><h4>But made their neck stiff that they might not hear and might not receive instruction- The instruction given and refused was the previous incursions of Judah’s enemies and the drought God had brought upon them (<a href='B:300 2:30'>Jer 2:30</a>; <a href='B:430 3:7'>Zep 3:7</a>).</h4>


text:
<p>It shall happen, if you diligently listen to Me, says Yahweh, to bring in no burden through the gates of this city on the Sabbath day, but to make the Sabbath day holy, to do no work therein- I noted on :22 the difference between carrying burdens out of the city, and out of their own homes. It seems that if on the level of the city it was obeyed, even if some individuals refused, then God would have restored the Kingdom.</p>


text:
<p>Then shall there enter in by the gates of this city kings and princes sitting on the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, they, and their princes, the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and this city shall remain forever- If they had kept the Sabbath etc. as required, then the temple would have been a joyous center of worship. The language is clearly to be connected with other descriptions of the Messianic Kingdom. And this indicates that Ezekiel 40-48 is likewise a conditional prophecy. If they didn’t carry anything out of the gates, then into the gates would come the Messianic rulers. Not carrying things out meant not trusting in their own works. If they accepted God’s work rather than their own, and were obedient to the Sabbath as the sign of the covenant::. then it seems that a form of the Messianic, restored Kingdom could have then begun permanently. To be obedient to the Sabbath regulations was not a big issue; and so much, even "forever", could have been achieved. They were that close, but their refusal to respond to such simple requirements indicated so much about them.</p>


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<p>They shall come from the cities of Judah, and from the places around Jerusalem, and from the land of Benjamin, and from the lowland, and from the hill country, and from the South, bringing burnt offerings, sacrifices, meal offerings and frankincense, and bringing sacrifices of thanksgiving to the house of Yahweh- This is the scene of Ezekiel 40-48. If Judah had been obedient, then they would have built and sacrificed in the temple there described. But they didn’t.</p>


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<h4>But if you will not listen to Me to make the Sabbath day holy, and not to bear a burden and enter in at the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day- The offer of an eternally established city was predicated upon simply obeying this painless law about the Sabbath (:25). Their refusal to do it would therefore speak volumes- it would be tantamount to saying that they didn’t want the things of God’s Kingdom. Hence the severe judgment.</h4><p>Then will I kindle a fire in its gates, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched- The prophetic word in Jeremiah’s mouth was like fire, and it was the people who were to be "devoured" by it (<a href='B:330 15:5'>Eze 15:5</a>; s:w. <a href='B:300 5:14'>Jer 5:14</a>; <a href='B:300 17:27'>Jer 17:27</a>; <a href='B:300 21:14'>Jer 21:14</a>). The amazing grace explained in Ezekiel 15 was in the fact that the ’devoured by fire’ vine twig would be refined in Babylon and still used by God to reestablish His Kingdom.</p><h4>The Bible is written from a Jewish perspective; the Gentile reader is ‘expected’ to understand that Gehenna and the concept of “eternal fire” are Jewish idioms for total destruction (<a href='B:300 17:27'>Jer 17:27</a>; <a href='B:720 1:7'>Jud 1:7</a>). Although see on :4. Again, the point has to be made that much misunderstanding has arisen in ‘Christian’ circles on the issue of hell through failing to appreciate that God is writing in Jewish terms. The New Testament is literally packed with phrases and other language which depend on an appreciation of Old Testament theology to make sense of (e:g. Christ calling himself “the bread of life”). Nowhere, however, are we explicitly told that we must understand the New Testament’s language by reference to the Old. We need to keep all these points in mind when considering the language of demons.</h4>


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<p>The word which came to Jeremiah from Yahweh saying- It has been truly commented about this chapter: “Whenever a piece of pottery turned out&nbsp; imperfect the potter would take the clay and make it into something else. God says that this is the principle behind His actions. If He says He is going to build up a nation but the nation disobeys Him the prophecy will not be fulfilled. Equally, if He says He is going to destroy a nation and thenation repents, He will not carry out His intention”. Hence if Israel turned from their way, "I may repent me of the evil, which I purpose to do unto them" (<a href='B:300 26:3'>Jer 26:3</a>). Earlier Israel had known God’s breach of promise, the altering of His purpose, in that those who were to enter Canaan actually didn’t (<a href='B:40 14:34'>Num 14:34</a>).</p>


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<p>Arise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will cause you to hear My words- The revelation of God’s truth often requires an initial act of obedience, in this case, going to the potter’s house. "Potter" is the same word first used in <a href='B:10 2:7'>Gen 2:7</a> about God forming Adam from the dust. Clearly God is the potter or former, both of individuals and nations. The word is repeatedly used in later Isaiah of how God formed Israel, and would form them again as a new creation upon their return from exile in Babylon (<a href='B:290 44:24'>Isa 44:24</a>; <a href='B:290 45:9'>Isa 45:9</a>; <a href='B:290 64:8'>Isa 64:8</a> etc:). Jeremiah had been reminded at the start of his ministry that he personally had been formed by God (<a href='B:300 1:5'>Jer 1:5</a>). It is also used of how God "frames" or literally ’potters’ evil or good in the life of His collective people (:11). The ’going down’ could suggest there was a potter who worked in the valley near the temple; <a href='B:450 11:13'>Zec 11:13</a> suggests there was a potter who worked there or even within the temple. And the potter’s field was effectively purchased with the blood of Christ, for Judas spent that blood money on buying the potter’s field, this one which Jeremiah visited. See on <a href='B:300 19:2'>Jer 19:2</a>.</p>


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<h4>Then I went down to the potter’s house, and behold, he was making a work on the wheels- To ’make a work’ is literally ’to work a work’ and is the language of creation (<a href='B:10 2:2-3'>Gen 2:2-3</a>). On :2 I noted the word for "potter" is that used in the Genesis creation (<a href='B:10 2:7'>Gen 2:7</a> etc:). So there was the hint here at a new creation. The only other time we find the Hebrew word translated "wheels" is in <a href='B:330 1:16'>Eze 1:16</a> of the birthing stools upon which women gave birth- another hint at new creation.</h4><h4>’Working the work’ is a phrase very often used about the restoration of Jerusalem (<a href='B:160 4:16-17'>Neh 4:16-17</a>; <a href='B:160 4:21'>Neh 4:21</a>; <a href='B:160 6:3'>Neh 6:3</a>; <a href='B:160 6:9'>Neh 6:9</a>; <a href='B:160 6:16'>Neh 6:16</a>; <a href='B:160 11:12'>Neh 11:12</a>; <a href='B:160 13:10'>Neh 13:10</a>; <a href='B:440 1:14'>Hag 1:14</a> etc:). The Kingdom could have been restored and a new creation come about from the exiles. But this too was not to happen. The clay misbehaved in the hands of the Divine potter. In the immediate context here, the term has just been used of how Judah ’worked work’ on the Sabbath (<a href='B:300 17:22'>Jer 17:22</a>; <a href='B:300 17:24'>Jer 17:24</a>), instead of allowing God to work. Not working their own work, keeping the Sabbath, was a sign of covenant relationship with God. God wanted to use people who could not ’work work’ (<a href='B:330 15:3'>Eze 15:3</a>; <a href='B:330 15:5'>Eze 15:5</a>). To trust in their own works and not allow His working was therefore effectively a breaking of covenant relationship.</h4>


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<p>When the vessel that he made of the clay was marred in the hand of the potter, he made of it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it- "Marred" has a moral dimension to it, translated "corrupt" in <a href='B:10 6:11-13'>Gen 6:11-13</a>, where the corrupt eretz had to be destroyed. The Jews were "corrupted" (<a href='B:300 6:28'>Jer 6:28</a> s:w. "marred"). It is the word used about how the linen girdle of Jeremiah was "marred" in figurative captivity in Babylon (<a href='B:300 13:7'>Jer 13:7</a>; <a href='B:300 13:9'>Jer 13:9</a>), and yet that marred girdle was still going to be used. And we have that same message here; Judah was to be destroyed / marred because they had marred themselves, but then a new nation was to be created. What "seemed good to the potter" is again a creation allusion; for God saw what He had made and it seemed very good to Him.</p>


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<p>Then the word of Yahweh came to me saying- This interpretation may have come immediately as Jeremiah watched the potter, or somewhat later after he had had time to work it out for himself; in which case this subsequent revelation was only confirming him in his own conclusions.</p>


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<p>House of Israel, can’t I do with you as this potter? Behold, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, house of Israel- God has prepared us exactly to respond to His hand. We were born at a certain point in time, formed / pottered by Him with our prehistory, gene pool history etc:, so that we can respond. Any lack of response to His hand is therefore highly culpable. God could work a new vessel from the clay of Judah, as He wanted to do in the time of Moses. By grace He didn’t totally destroy them, didn’t grab a new piece of clay, but rather tried to rework the existing clay. Even though in <a href='B:300 15:6'>Jer 15:6</a> God had said that His hand would now destroy Israel. But in fact He attempted to rework them.</p>


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<h4>At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation or kingdom- God had earlier "in an instant" (s:w:) stated that He would immediately destroy Israel (<a href='B:20 33:5'>Exo 33:5</a>; <a href='B:40 16:21'>Num 16:21</a>; <a href='B:40 16:45'>Num 16:45</a>), but this didn’t happen because of Moses’ intercession. Ezra perceived the connection, using this word to speak of how "for a little moment" (s:w:) the exiles had a chance to change the verdict. God speaks, but there is a gap between the statement and the fulfillment. We all live within that gap, as Judah were- and there is therefore an intensity to the need for repentance to change the otherwise certain outcome.</h4><h4>To pluck up and to break down and to destroy it- The ’plucking up’ is the word used of how Judah would be plucked up out of their land for their disobedience to the prophetic word (<a href='B:50 29:28'>Deu 29:28</a>; <a href='B:140 7:20'>2Ch 7:20</a>). And as the Gentiles plucked up / out Israel from their land, so those nations would be plucked up (<a href='B:300 12:14-15'>Jer 12:14-15</a>; <a href='B:300 12:17'>Jer 12:17</a>). Likewise the building and planting specifically refers to the restoration of Israel after their plucking up (<a href='B:300 24:6'>Jer 24:6</a>; <a href='B:300 31:28'>Jer 31:28</a>; <a href='B:300 31:40'>Jer 31:40</a>; <a href='B:300 42:10'>Jer 42:10</a>). It was God through His word who would do these things; but that possibility worked through the preacher and proclaimer of that word. Therefore in <a href='B:300 1:10'>Jer 1:10</a>, Jeremiah is presented as the one who would do these things. This is the enormous power delegated to all to this day who preach His word; we really can save people, plant them in the Kingdom by sowing the seed of the Kingdom; and those who refuse will be plucked up.</h4>


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<h4>If that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do to them- Jeremiah’s message as the Babylonian armies approached Jerusalem had stressed that if the Jews repented, then God would repent of the evil He was planning to bring upon them (<a href='B:300 18:8'>Jer 18:8</a>; <a href='B:300 18:10'>Jer 18:10</a>; <a href='B:300 26:3'>Jer 26:3</a>; <a href='B:300 26:13'>Jer 26:13</a>). The Jews did not repent, and so Jerusalem was taken and Zedekiah deported. Even at this thirteenth hour, God said to the Jewish forces that remained at arge outside Jerusalem and who were about to flee to Egypt: "If ye will still abide in this land, then will I build you, and not pull you down. . . for I repent Me of the evil that I have done unto you""(<a href='B:300 42:10'>Jer 42:10</a>). What a God we have! Although Israel had not repented, the Angel repented to the extent of changing His pre-requisite for repenting of bringing more evil on them. And so God changed this from returning wholeheartedly to the Law, to merely remaining in the land of Israel rather than fleeing to Egypt. What of us? <a href='B:300 31:18-19'>Jer 31:18-19</a> tops all for such encouragement:"Turn thou Me (said Ephraim), and I shall be turned. . . I (God in the Angel)&nbsp; was turned, I repented"- and therefore God repented too! God was prepared to relent (<a href='B:300 18:8'>Jer 18:8</a>; <a href='B:300 26:3'>Jer 26:3</a>; <a href='B:300 26:13'>Jer 26:13</a>; <a href='B:300 26:19'>Jer 26:19</a>; <a href='B:300 42:10'>Jer 42:10</a>), and yet He says in <a href='B:300 4:28'>Jer 4:28</a> that He will not. This is not self-contradiction, but rather a reflection of the depth of how God’s compassion is finally greater than His judgment of sin. The whole mental and emotional trauma made God weary of all the relenting, so deeply did He feel it (<a href='B:300 15:6'>Jer 15:6</a>).</h4><h4>Due to Moses’ prayer, “the Lord repented of the evil which he had said he would do unto his people” (<a href='B:20 32:14'>Exo 32:14</a> RV). Yet these are the very words of <a href='B:300 18:8'>Jer 18:8</a> - if a nation repents, then God will repent. But in this case, God accepted the singular prayer of Moses.</h4>


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<p>At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation or kingdom, to build and to plant it- This was the case with the people of Judah. God had promised to build and plant them in a restored, Messianic kingdom in Israel (<a href='B:300 31:28'>Jer 31:28</a>; <a href='B:300 42:10'>Jer 42:10</a>; <a href='B:330 36:36'>Eze 36:36</a>). But this was all conditional upon them continuing to obey His voice, otherwise He would change His plans (<a href='B:300 18:9-10'>Jer 18:9-10</a>). Jeremiah had been given the power to speak the words of both destruction and building and planting (<a href='B:300 1:10'>Jer 1:10</a>).</p>


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<p>If they do that which is evil in My sight, that they not obey My voice, then I will repent of the good, with which I said I would benefit them- This is exactly what happened in <a href='B:300 42:10'>Jer 42:10</a>. The remnant left in the land could have been built and planted, into a new restored Kingdom of God in Israel. But they fled into Egypt.</p>


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<p>Now therefore, speak to the men of Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem saying, Thus says Yahweh: Behold, I frame evil against you, and devise a device against you: return you now each one from his evil way, and amend your ways and your doings-"Frame"is the word translated"potter"in :2. The call to repentance was intensely individual, to"each one"."Devise a device"is the very phrase used of how Judah’s response to this was to"devise a device", to make a plot, to kill Jeremiah and stop his words, as they thought, from coming true (:18). This was perversity in the extreme. They thought they could match God’s plot with their own. No wonder they could not be further worked with.</p>


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<p>But they say, It is in vain; for we will walk after our own devices, and we will do everyone after the stubbornness of his evil heart- They preferred their thoughts or devices to God’s (:11). Whether or not they said these words, this was how God read their hearts, as saying these words. The choice was between walking after God’s word, 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". <a href='B:50 29:19'>Deu 29:19</a> 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"(<a href='B:300 6:14'>Jer 6:14</a>; <a href='B:300 8:11'>Jer 8:11</a>). 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.</p>


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<p>Therefore thus says Yahweh: Ask now among the nations, who has heard such things; the virgin of Israel has done a very horrible thing- No god of the nations made such huge effort with their people. It was all supposedly a simplistic matter of yes / no obedience, and receiving blessings or cursings. Yahweh was far more complex in His workings, andalways seeking to save and bless His people despite their disobedience. But they refused even that."The virgin of Israel"leads us to expect that the"very horrible thing"she did was an act of immorality, sexual unfaithfulness to their God. And that is indeed how the term is always used elsewhere (<a href='B:300 5:30-31'>Jer 5:30-31</a>; <a href='B:300 18:13'>Jer 18:13</a>; <a href='B:300 23:14'>Jer 23:14</a>; <a href='B:350 6:10'>Hos 6:10</a>). By forming alliances with other nations and serving their gods, they had been unfaithful to the God who wanted to marry them; for that is the implication of a virgin being unfaithful.</p>


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<p>Shall the snow of Lebanon fail from the rock of the field? Shall the cold waters that flow down from afar be dried up?- It ought to have been natural for Israel to respond to such amazing grace and love; but their refusal of it was as unnatural as gushing melt water on a slope suddenly drying up. Likewise any refusal of God’s love is a conscious fighting against Him, clay resisting His forming hand.</p>


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<h4>For My people have forgotten Me, they have burned incense to false gods- The allusion is to <a href='B:50 32:18'>Deu 32:18</a>, where Israel"forgot God who formed you", and we have shown on :2 that a"potter"is literally a ’former’. But Israel claimed to worship Yahweh; yet they forgot or were oblivious to the real implications of Him. We too can go through a semblance of worship whilst having effectively forgotten our God.</h4><h4>And they have been made to stumble in their ways, in the ancient paths, to walk in byways, in a way not built up- At the restoration, these rocky paths were to be made smooth. <a href='B:290 57:14'>Isa 57:14</a> teaches that a level way must be made amongst the Jewish people, i:e. the stumbling blocks and ‘valleys’ must be removed from their path. “Cast ye up, prepare the way, take up the stumbling block out of the way of my people” is therefore a command to God’s people to undo the generations of false shepherding which Israel have experienced: “They have caused them to stumble in their ways from the ancient paths, to walk in paths, in a way not cast up” (<a href='B:300 18:15'>Jer 18:15</a> s:w. “cast…up” in <a href='B:290 57:14'>Isa 57:14</a>). Once we have prepared the way in this sense, then the highway is in place over which the Lord Jesus will return. This is how vital our work is for the Jewish people.</h4>


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<p>To make their land an astonishment and a perpetual hissing; everyone who passes thereby shall be astonished and shake his head- But the land was not perpetually mocked. As explained on <a href='B:300 10:18'>Jer 10:18</a>, many remained in the land and it was not left totally desolate. In wrath God remembered mercy, and there is also the factor of intercession and repentance of a minority to be taken into account.</p>


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<h4>I will scatter them as with an east wind before the enemy; I will show them the back and not the face in the day of their calamity- This is what was done to the Egyptians at the Red Sea, driven back by an east wind. God showed them His back, so that they were in darkness and could not reach the Israelites. But out of that destruction there was to arise a new people, redeemed from Babylon after the pattern of Israel’s deliverance from Egypt. That was the Divine hope and program, although it never really came true at that time as it could have done.</h4><h4>At the time when Moses doubts whether he really has found grace, the God who speaks to Moses face to face then turns and shows Moses only His back parts (<a href='B:20 33:11'>Exo 33:11</a>; <a href='B:20 33:20'>Exo 33:20</a>; <a href='B:20 33:22'>Exo 33:22</a>). This is alluded to in <a href='B:300 18:17'>Jer 18:17</a> and there interpreted as being a sign of God’s anger- to turn away His face and show His back parts. God was so angry with Moses’ disbelief in His grace. And that was the problem with Judah at this time.</h4>


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<p>Then they said, Come, and let us devise devices against Jeremiah; for the law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Come, and let us strike him with the tongue, and let us not give heed to any of his words-"Devise a device"is the very phrase used in :11 of God’s device to destroy Israel. But Judah’s response to this was to"devise a device", to make a plot, to kill Jeremiah and stop his words, as they thought, from coming true. They satisfied themselves that Jeremiah was a false prophet, and the false prophets were the true prophets. They considered Jeremiah a renegade priest; the priests’ duty was to teach God’s word, and the rest of the priests taught the ords of the false prophets in the name of Yahweh. <a href='B:330 7:26'>Eze 7:26</a> alludes to these words, saying that the law would perish from these priests.</p>


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<h4>Give heed to me, Yahweh, and listen to the voice of those who contend with me- Jeremiah was aware of what they were saying, perhaps because God revealed it to him in :18. He asks for his words to be heard, and also the words of his enemies. This is an example of where our situation is heard by God as a prayer. The words of our enemies are heard as if they are words addressed to God, requiring Him to respond to them. We therefore shouldn’t be so steamed up about them.</h4>


