The Book of Jeremiah

Hebrew Study

Explanation

God sends Jeremiah to rehearse "the words of this covenant." The covenant's terms are stated with stark clarity: "Cursed be the man that obeyeth not the words of this covenant." At its heart is the simplest of demands, "Obey my voice, and do them," and the sweetest of promises, "so shall ye be my people, and I will be your God." This is the covenant formula, God binding Himself to a people and they to Him. It was all grace: He had brought them "out of the land of Egypt, from the iron furnace," and sworn to give them "a land flowing with milk and honey." Jeremiah responds with wholehearted agreement, "So be it, O LORD." But the history is tragic. From the Exodus onward God had pleaded, "rising early and protesting, saying, Obey my voice," and yet "they obeyed not... but walked every one in the imagination of their evil heart." Because they would not keep the covenant's terms, they must now receive its consequences: "therefore I will bring upon them all the words of this covenant." They chose the curse by refusing the obedience.

Gospel Focus

The covenant formula, "so shall ye be my people, and I will be your God", is the golden thread that runs through the whole Bible, and it climaxes in the gospel. The old covenant made the promise conditional on an obedience Israel could never render, "Cursed be the man that obeyeth not." That is exactly why a new covenant was needed, and Jeremiah himself will announce it: "I will make a new covenant... and will be their God, and they shall be my people" (Jeremiah 31:31-33). Where the old covenant said "obey, and I will be your God," the new covenant says God "will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts", He gives the very obedience He requires. And Christ Himself bore the covenant curse: "Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree... Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us" (Galatians 3:13). The One who alone perfectly "obeyed the voice" took the "cursed be the man" in our place. Now the ancient promise is fully ours, "I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people" (Hebrews 8:10). The covenant we could not keep, Christ kept and sealed in His blood.

Hebrew Study

Explanation

God names the sin bluntly: "A conspiracy is found among the men of Judah." Their idolatry was a coordinated revolt, a turning "back to the iniquities of their forefathers." Both kingdoms "have broken my covenant." So judgment is now inescapable: "I will bring evil upon them, which they shall not be able to escape." And, most sobering, prayer will fail them, "though they shall cry unto me, I will not hearken." Then God delivers the crushing irony of idolatry. When trouble comes, they will run to their idols, "cry unto the gods unto whom they offer incense", and those gods "shall not save them at all in the time of their trouble." They had multiplied gods extravagantly, "according to the number of thy cities were thy gods," a god on every corner, an altar on every street, all to "that shameful thing," Baal. Yet the more gods they made, the more helpless they became. And once again the tragic command comes to Jeremiah: "pray not thou for this people." The point of no return has been passed; intercession itself will not turn back the sentence.

Gospel Focus

The bitter lesson of this passage is that idols "shall not save... in the time of their trouble." We rarely see the emptiness of our false gods on a good day; it is trouble that exposes them. When crisis, sickness, or death arrives, money, status, pleasure, and human power all fall silent, exactly like Baal. Judah's folly was to multiply gods, "according to the number of thy cities", believing that more idols meant more security, when in truth it meant more bondage and more helplessness. The gospel offers the opposite: not many gods who cannot save, but "one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (1 Timothy 2:5), who saves completely, "wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him" (Hebrews 7:25). The God of the Bible is a God who actually answers "in the time of trouble", "call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee" (Psalm 50:15). Do not wait for the day of trouble to discover your idols are mute. Turn now to the one true God, revealed in Jesus, who alone saves when everything else fails.

Hebrew Study

Explanation

God speaks now as a grieved lover. "What hath my beloved to do in mine house, seeing she hath wrought lewdness with many?" What business does an unfaithful wife have parading into His temple? Their worship had become empty, even offensive, "the holy flesh" (the sacrifices) could not cleanse them, and shockingly, "when thou doest evil, then thou rejoicest", they delighted in their sin. Then God recalls what He had made them: "The LORD called thy name, A green olive tree, fair, and of goodly fruit." An olive tree was a picture of enduring blessing and usefulness, and God had planted Judah as such. But now "with the noise of a great tumult he hath kindled fire upon it, and the branches of it are broken." The invasion will be like fire in the branches of a once-flourishing tree. And God makes clear the cause: "the LORD of hosts, that planted thee, hath pronounced evil against thee," because of the evil "they have done against themselves to provoke me to anger in offering incense unto Baal." The Gardener who planted the tree must now judge it, and the tree did this "against themselves."

Gospel Focus

The image of the olive tree runs from Jeremiah straight into the New Testament. Paul takes it up in Romans 11, picturing Israel as an olive tree whose natural "branches were broken off... because of unbelief," while believing Gentiles are "grafted in" (Romans 11:17-20). The broken branches of Jeremiah 11:16 are the same warning. And Paul adds the sober counsel that fits this chapter exactly: "Be not highminded, but fear... if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee" (Romans 11:20-21). A fruitful place in God's tree is a gift of grace, never a possession to presume upon. Notice too that God still calls the guilty "my beloved." His love does not sanction sin, "when thou doest evil, then thou rejoicest" is met with grief, not indulgence, but neither does judgment mean He has stopped loving. This is the heart of a Father who "loveth" and therefore "chasteneth" (Hebrews 12:6). Do not presume on your place in the tree; abide in Christ, the true Vine, apart from whom the branch withers, "for without me ye can do nothing" (John 15:5). Bear fruit, remain in Him, and do not be a branch broken off.

Hebrew Study

Explanation

The chapter turns intensely personal. God reveals to Jeremiah a plot against his life, "the LORD hath given me knowledge of it." The prophet had been utterly unaware, "I was like a lamb or an ox that is brought to the slaughter; and I knew not that they had devised devices against me." His enemies' aim was total erasure: "Let us destroy the tree with the fruit thereof, and let us cut him off from the land of the living, that his name may be no more remembered." Most painfully of all, these plotters were "the men of Anathoth", Jeremiah's own hometown, his neighbors and kinsmen (Anathoth was a priestly town, and Jeremiah was a priest's son). They demanded he stop preaching, "Prophesy not in the name of the LORD, that thou die not by our hand." Jeremiah's response is to commit his cause to God, "O LORD of hosts, that judgest righteously, that triest the reins and the heart... unto thee have I revealed my cause." He does not take vengeance himself; he entrusts it to the righteous Judge. And God answers with a specific judgment on Anathoth, whose people would face sword and famine "in the year of their visitation."

Gospel Focus

Jeremiah here becomes one of the clearest Old Testament pictures of Christ. "I was like a lamb or an ox that is brought to the slaughter" is the very language of Isaiah's Servant, "he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter" (Isaiah 53:7), read of Jesus by the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:32). Like Jeremiah, Jesus was plotted against by His own townspeople, at Nazareth they "rose up, and thrust him out of the city... that they might cast him down headlong" (Luke 4:29). Like Jeremiah, His enemies schemed to "cut him off from the land of the living," the exact phrase Isaiah uses of the Servant's death (Isaiah 53:8). And like Jeremiah, Jesus "committed himself to him that judgeth righteously" (1 Peter 2:23), entrusting His cause to the Father rather than retaliating. But here the type and the fulfillment diverge gloriously: Jeremiah asked to "see thy vengeance," but Jesus, the greater Prophet, prayed, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34). And where Jeremiah's enemies wanted his "name... no more remembered," God has made the name of Jesus "above every name" (Philippians 2:9). The suffering prophet points to the suffering Saviour, who was led as a lamb to the slaughter for us, and whose name endures forever. Commit your cause, as they did, to the God who judges righteously.