Truth and Consequences: A study in the prophecy of Jeremiah
To watch a song by Steve Israel that describes the essence of this chapter on video, click here: https://youtu.be/XkBHzAZu_jU
INTRODUCTION
I don’t know what you think, or have thought, when you have been reading through this prophecy of Jeremiah. It’s not a happy book; it’s not a Hollywood musical ending with the family restored, the boy-meets-girl ending in a happy wedding. Actually on a broader level, I don’t know how you deal with any failure, either your own, or your national sin. That will be impacted by studying this book also.
Most of us on this call know that two days ago, Wednesday was Australia Day, 26 January, and it’s locked-in date as a public holiday is less than 30 years old.
Captain Cook arrived in what we now call Australia in January 1788, and although it was not known as Australia Day until over a century later, records of celebrations on 26 January date back to 1808, with the first official celebration of the formation of our colony, now a state, New South Wales, held in 1818. On New Year's Day 1901, the British colonies of Australia formed a federation, marking the birth of modern political Australia. A national day of unity and celebration was looked for. It was not until 1935 that all Australian states and territories adopted use of the term "Australia Day" to mark the date, and not until 1994 that the date was consistently marked by a public holiday on that day by all states and territories.
That said, tens of thousands of ordinary Australians marched this week, on the 50th anniversary of the Tent Embassy, against the substance and the celebrations which they sometimes title Invasion Day. Whatever your opinion of celebrations this week, it’s clear that our national history includes much wrong, downright evil, against the First Nations peoples and the Stolen Generations. Then, let me ask, what do you do to handle problems like national sin?
What about modern day Israel and the way the nation there handles COVID or the problems of Hamas and Hezbolah? What do you feel about territories that have been historically settled by Arabs from various countries and tribes, and which now are being confiscated, reclaimed and resettled by mostly expat Jews from around the globe?
The answers are not simple. And they probably were not simple in Jeremiah’s day in the 6th century BCE.
Remember, he’s the weeping prophet. He’s so sad when he ponders the sins and the reluctance to listen to the Almighty by the Jewish people. Jeremiah was exasperated; he’s frustrated; he’s sick in his gut; his grief is thick as thieves and his prophecy continues in chapter 9 with commensurate pains.
Let’s dig into this chapter and hear, really hear, what God is saying to our people.
Craigie calls this opening section “The Sorrow of God.” That strikes a chord with me. It’s believably sad. Painfully sad. He says this of verse one,
“As the lament by Jeremiah concluded with a contrary-to-fact wish, so this divine lament begins with a contrary-to-fact wish. The almost unthinkable idea that God would wish to leave his people and retire to the wilderness is shocking and emphasizes the gravity of the situation.”
The object of sadness is the “slain of my people” but the Hebrew is the
חַֽלְלֵ֥י בַת־עַמִּֽי
That sounds like the defiled of the daughter of my people. The imagery is clear. We as the tender daughter, not the rough son, not the expected power broker, not the manager of the estate, but the daughter, the apple of the father’s eye, the love of the parents is lost to defilement. It’s a gender specific way of saying Judah is off the deep end.
Today’s chapter breaks down as follows:
1. Societal breakdown (verses 2-8)
This is the crux of the argument. The family, the congregation, the leadership—all are broken. All are gone from the plans and the Rule of God.
Verse 2: For all of them are adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men.” How does that work? All of them? This is when the perverse has permeated the populace and everyone is unchecked in doing evil. The word ‘treacherous’ as we saw previously is from the Hebrew BAGAD meaning clothing and relates to those who change their outward appearance to lure others into their evil practice.
This is when the world sees evil and dwells in it. They abide evil; they practice evil. They delight in evil.
My cousin and I were speaking this morning about scams. What is it that makes us so sad when we hear about elderly people who are scammed out of their life savings? Our fathers were lured into thinking that the Publishers Clearing House magazine sales was sending them a check for 250,000 dollars which in those days was like millions in today’s world. The African emails with promises of millions of dollars if you will just send me your bank details, and the husband-to-be who need just a little bit of funds to get them across the line while their other money is tied up, are examples of this type of stealing and cheating which Jeremiah highlights in verse 4.
Remember in the Noah story that the whole world was continuously performing evil and God had had enough of that, and judged the world. There is an end to the patience of God.
Verse 5: The academies of lying are more than the art schools and scholastic centres. Look at movies and the news, Novak Djokovich and Andrew O’Keefe, Prince Andrew and any number of famous and others… the world is full of liars. And yes, they ‘weary themselves committing iniquity.” What a sad state of affairs.
Verse 6: The end is deceit, and thus they “refuse to know me.” There is the ticket out of this mess. It’s not religion. It’s not rules and devotion. It’s not promises, promises. It’s knowing God who was and is and is to come. But we refused. So what choice does God have?
2. God breaks down in response (7-11)
The next section of our chapter starts with L’Chen, that is, therefore. Given all the enormity of the sin and corruption of the people of God, what choice does God have but to judge us? Look at verse 7: “What else can I do?”
Listen, friends, there are times in the prophecy of this book when we cannot determine which speaker is speaking. But there is no ambiguity here. God’s passion is for the people, but he has no choice but to “make Jerusalem a heap of ruins… make the cities of Judah a desolation.” (verse 11)
It aches the heart of God to do this.
3. God’s reasoning in judgment (12-16)
God explains himself in the next section. It’s iconic; it’s honest; it’s forthright. And it’s simple enough both for the people of Jeremiah’s day and dare I say, for our day as well. Look at verse 12. Why? Verse 13. Forsaking Torah and not listening to it. That’s labelled apostasy in theological terms. Verse 14: following other gods. Idolatry; the root cause of all our problem. Choosing wrong and other gods rather than the One True God. What will be the result? Exile and death (verse 15-16). Moses had warned us of the same problems around 800 years earlier in Deut. 29.22-28. Read that later and weep with Jeremiah and Moses…and the Lord!
4. Utter sadness (17-22)
Professional mourners are unknown to us in modern society in the West, but I remember being in Morocco and seeing this played out years ago. A parade of people walked up the footpath, actually the street where we were in Tangiers, weeping and wailing and then we saw a box held up by a few folks and we realized the box was a coffin. The procession lasted only a few minutes but everyone in that area stopped what they were doing, went to their doorways and stood at attention as the parade continued. They honoured the dead.
In this reading, from verse 17, the dead were mourned by professionals, but wait, it was not only for that moment, but for others, down the road, look at verse 20. Women, pro mourners, teach your daughters to do the same. That means this is going to be longer than this generation; it will be ongoing. Judah, you are in deep trouble. It is utterly sad.
5. The hope of choice (23-26)
I’m amazed at these two verses 23 and 24. What people value whether strength in the Olympics, the tennis of the Australian Open, NFL playoffs and other sports we observe so devotedly. But what about the sabre rattling of Putin and Russia vs Ukraine just now. Strength can be naked power and violence. Or Wisdom which can lead to intellectual dignity which is fine, but then it moves so rapidly to intellectual superiority and pride. Even riches when disbursed to us are wonderful, as a job and the worth given due to its presence is great, but when riches make themselves wings (Proverbs) and fly away, we desperately long for them and they become the idol of greed and self-centeredness. All three: wisdom, strength and riches can be useful to a person and to a society, but without God at the centre, they are idols in the making and destined the person to failure.
No wonder Jeremiah warns us not to boast in those.
BUT we can boast. We can have a relationship with the One who is above all.
Radak, the 12th century French rabbi supreme, said this “to know God is to imitate his ways by dealing with others with kindness, justice and righteousness for such ‘is my desire.’ (Radak). But that bothers me. Knowing my wife is not imitating her. Knowing a sports hero like Patrick Mahomes or Steve Smith might lead me to imitation, but that’s not knowing a person. Getting up close and personal, knowing what they eat for breakfast or what surprised them last month, knowing what makes them happy or sad… that’s knowing a person.
Hosea said, “let us press on to know the Lord…his goings forth are certain as the dawn…” Knowing is not knowing about; it’s personal. Radak got that wrong, unless he was taking an HSC or SAT exam. It’s not information; it’s relationship.
That’s what Jeremiah is saying.
Boast that you ‘understand and know me!’
Then practice justice, kindness, righteousness on earth.
Those who know what is coming next, in the next chapter know that kindness is not the word you would usually choose to describe the actions of justice coming down the pike. But chesed, kindness here, is just that.
If God doesn’t judge sin and those who are committed to making sin happen, he is not kind.
Christopher Wright says this, “in the long story of God’s mission the nations will have reason to praise God for the history of Israel, even including the conquest, for it will become an integral part of the whole story of salvation that led to Calvary and opened the gate of eternal life to all nations. Similarly, the remnant of Israel will come to see the name and character of YHWH vindicated both in the exile as an act of his righteous judgment and in the restoration as an act of his loving grace.” (page 133)
The chapter ends by comparing circumcised Judah to the nations around them. You may not know that many nations in that area practice circumcision, but externals are never enough.
Craigie said this:
“Neither Jeremiah nor Deuteronomy advocate physical circumcision but instead speak of circumcision of the heart (or similarly circumcision of the ears in Jer 6:10). Clearly, only the symbolic meaning of circumcision is considered important. Circumcision was meant to show special status or perhaps to protect from God’s anger (Exod 5:24–26?). Calling the people uncircumcised (of heart) declared they had no special status or protection. Judgment would fall upon all.
As with the previous oracle, this oracle or the thought behind it is echoed in the writings of Paul; see especially Rom 2:25–29.”
CONCLUSION
God is calling each of us to know him and to walk with him, today and throughout our days. Have you received Yeshua as your messiah and Lord? Have you renounced your sin, your idolatry, your forsaking God and given him First Place in your life? If not, please, do so now, just now, as we pray together. Use your own words, if you want, but yield, surrender, to the Lord of life.
PRAYER
Then please write us (admin@jewsforjesus.org.au) to tell us what you have just done, and we will send you literature and encourage you. You are part of our family; we love and appreciate you. And we want you to enjoy the presence of the Lord who calls, who knows, who blesses and builds us up.
We hope to see you again next week as we study chapter 10. Until then, Shabbat shalom!
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Barnes, Albert, Albert Barnes’ Commentary on the Old Testament,
Craigie, Peter; Kelley, Page; Drinkard, Joel. Word Biblical Commentary. Book of Jeremiah. 1991.
Henry, Matthew, Commentary.
Weirsbe, Warren. Be Decisive. David Cook Publishers, Colorado Springs 1991.
Wright, Christopher, The Message of Jeremiah, The Bible Speaks Today, Intervarsity Press, Downers Grove, Illinois, 2014.
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ACTUAL TEXT
9 Oh, that my head were waters and my eyes a fountain of tears,
That I might weep day and night for those slain of the daughter of my people!
2 Oh that I had in the desert a travelers’ lodging place; so that I might leave my people and go away from them! For all of them are adulterers,
An assembly of treacherous people.
3 “They bend their tongues like their bows;
Lies and not truth prevail in the land; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they do not know Me,” declares the LORD.
4 “Let everyone be on guard against his neighbor,
And do not trust any brother;
Because every brother utterly [c]betrays,
And every neighbor goes about as a slanderer.
5 Everyone deceives his neighbor
And does not speak the truth.
They have taught their tongue to speak lies;
They weary themselves committing wrongdoing.
6 Your dwelling is in the midst of deceit;
Through deceit they refuse to know Me,” declares the LORD.
7 Therefore this is what the LORD of armies says:
“Behold, I will refine them and put them to the test;
For what else can I do, because of the daughter of My people?
8 Their tongue is a deadly arrow;
It speaks deceit;
With his mouth one speaks peace to his neighbor,
But inwardly he sets an ambush for him.
9 Shall I not punish them for these things?” declares the LORD.
“Shall I not avenge Myself
On a nation such as this?
10 “I will take up a weeping and wailing for the mountains,
And for the pastures of the wilderness a song of mourning,
Because they are laid waste so that no one passes through,
And the sound of the livestock is not heard;
Both the birds of the sky and the animals have fled; they are gone.
11 I will make Jerusalem a heap of ruins,
A haunt of jackals;
And I will make the cities of Judah a desolation without inhabitant.”
12 Who is the wise person who may understand this? And who is he to whom the mouth of the LORD has spoken, that he may declare it? Why is the land destroyed, laid waste like the desert, so that no one passes through? 13 The LORD said, “Because they have abandoned My Law which I put before them, and have not obeyed My voice nor walked according to it, 14 but have followed the stubbornness of their heart and the Baals, [d]as their fathers taught them,” 15 therefore this is what the LORD of armies, the God of Israel says: “Behold, I will feed this people wormwood; and I will give them poisoned water to drink. 16 I will also scatter them among the nations, whom neither they nor their fathers have known; and I will send the sword after them until I have put an end to them.”
17 This is what the LORD of armies says:
“Consider and call for the mourning women, that they may come;
And send for the [e]skillful women, that they may come!
18 Have them hurry and take up a wailing for us,
So that our eyes may shed tears,
And our eyelids flow with water.
19 For a voice of wailing is heard from Zion:
‘How devastated we are!
We are put to great shame,
For we have abandoned the land
Because they have torn down our homes.’”
20 Now hear the word of the LORD, you women,
And let your ears receive the word of His mouth;
Teach your daughters wailing,
And have every woman teach her neighbor a song of mourning.
21 For death has come up through our windows;
It has entered our palaces
To eliminate the children from the streets,
The young men from the public squares.
22 Speak, “This is what the LORD says:
‘The corpses of people will fall like dung on the open field,
And like the sheaf after the reaper,
But no one will gather them.’”
23 This is what the LORD says: “Let no wise man boast of his wisdom, nor let the mighty man boast of his might, nor a rich man boast of his riches; 24 but let the one who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD who exercises mercy, justice, and righteousness on the earth; for I delight in these things,” declares the LORD.
25 “Behold, the days are coming,” declares the LORD, “that I will punish all who are circumcised and yet uncircumcised— 26 Egypt, Judah, Edom, the sons of Ammon, Moab, and all those inhabiting the desert who trim the hair on their temples; for all the nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised of heart.”
