Written by Richard S. Thompson Monday, 01 October :00 - Last Updated Saturday, 17 November :11

Transcription

1 Lesson 5 Jeremiah 14:1-17:27 About 590 BC, in middle of Zedekiah s reign In lesson four; we studied the two prophetic scrolls contained in Jeremiah 11:1-12:17 and Jeremiah 13:1-27. They contained the LORD s instructions to Jeremiah to warn them of the just judgment that was almost upon them. They also contained the LORD s warning to Jeremiah not to expect anything but persecution and rejection. I believe that Jeremiah 14:1 17:27 is probably the next complete separate revelation and scroll from Jeremiah and that will be the subject of this study; Jeremiah 14:1 This is the word of the LORD to Jeremiah concerning the drought: This marks the beginning of a new subject and scroll. Like the previous scroll there is little here to help us date this scroll. The drought was not mentioned in 2 Kings or 2 Chronicles, however this drought was evidently not only a warning from the LORD to Judah, but a preparation for keeping the land desolate for the years of their exile, so I lean toward putting the date at somewhere during the middle to late reign of Zedekiah. The land had evidently already gone through a number of years of drought before the exile began. Jeremiah 14:2 Judah mourns, her cities languish; they wail for the land, and a cry goes up from Jerusalem. This was the result of the drought. Jeremiah 14:3-6 The nobles send their servants for water; they go to the cisterns but find no water. They return with their jars unfilled; dismayed and despairing, they cover their heads. The ground is cracked because there is no rain in the land; the farmers are dismayed and cover their heads. Even the doe in the field deserts her newborn fawn because there is no grass. Wild donkeys stand on the barren heights and pant like 1 / 18

2 jackals; their eyesight fails for lack of pasture. This was the LORD describing the result of the judgment of drought that He had sent upon Judah. This was clearly before the exile. Even the wildlife, which could usually sustain itself in the desert, was dying out. Jeremiah 14:7 Although our sins testify against us, O LORD, do something for the sake of your name. For our backsliding is great; we have sinned against you. This was Jeremiah speaking back to the LORD. He was trying to confess the sins of Judah for the entire nation. Jeremiah 14:8-9 O Hope of Israel, its Savior in times of distress, why are you like a stranger in the land, like a traveler who stays only a night? Why are you like a man taken by surprise, like a warrior powerless to save? You are among us, O LORD, and we bear your name; do not forsake us! Jeremiah continued. He appealed to the LORD on behalf of the destiny the LORD had promised them, which was conveyed by the name He had given them: Israel which means Prince of God. Jeremiah 14:10 This is what the LORD says about this people: They greatly love to wander; they do not restrain their feet. So the LORD does not accept them; he will now remember their wickedness and punish them for their sins. This was the LORD s response to Jeremiah. This generation of Israel could not carry on the heritage the LORD had given them. Like the Exodus generation in the wilderness, they needed the cleansing of conquest, exile and forty years before the LORD could find them fit to start again. 2 / 18

3 Jeremiah14:11 Then the LORD said to me, Do not pray for the well-being of this people. This only repeated the instruction the LORD had given to Jeremiah twice before, in Jeremiah 7:14 and 11:16. The LORD told him not to waste his time. For one thing, the only thing that could possibly reach this people for the truth was not well-being, but breaking. Jeremiah 14:12 Although they fast, I will not listen to their cry; though they offer burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Instead, I will destroy them with the sword, famine and plague. The LORD knew their heart. They would not be crying out for the LORD. They would only be crying out for relief. Jeremiah 14:13 But I said, Ah, Sovereign LORD, the prophets keep telling them, You will not see the sword or suffer famine. Indeed, I will give you lasting peace in this place. Jeremiah answered the LORD back, pointing out that there were prophets in Israel who were preaching peace and prosperity. Jeremiah 14:14 Then the LORD said to me, The prophets are prophesying lies in my name. I have not sent them or appointed them or spoken to them. They are prophesying to you false visions, divinations, idolatries and the delusions of their own minds. The LORD would not take responsibility for those who of their own free preached lies. Why not? Although it is not taught here, a basic principal of Biblical truth is that God ensures that anyone who wants to know the truth will find it. That is the design behind all of creation and history. Acts 17:26-27 From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should 3 / 18

4 live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. Those Jews, who listened to these false teachers, only listened to them because they did not want to hear the truth. If they did, they would have listened to Jeremiah. Jeremiah 14:15 Therefore, this is what the LORD says about the prophets who are prophesying in my name: I did not send them, yet they are saying, No sword or famine will touch this land. Those same prophets will perish by sword and famine. However, the LORD continued, that none of those false teachers would even survive to be exiled. They would be held especially accountable for their sin of false teaching. Jeremiah 14:16 And the people they are prophesying to will be thrown out into the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and sword. There will be no one to bury them or their wives, their sons or their daughters. I will pour out on them the calamity they deserve. However, the people who eagerly swallowed their lies would also be punished. Jeremiah 14:17-18 Speak this word to them: Let my eyes overflow with tears night and day without ceasing; for my virgin daughter--my people-- has suffered a grievous wound, a crushing blow. If I go into the country, I see those slain by the sword; if I go into the city, I see the ravages of famine. Both prophet and priest have gone to a land they know not. However, the LORD did not do this lightly. It grieved Him greatly that this generation had brought themselves to this. Jeremiah 14:19 Have you rejected Judah completely? Do you despise Zion? Why have you afflicted us so that we cannot be healed? We hoped for peace but no good has come, for a time of healing but there is only terror. 4 / 18

5 This was Jeremiah s response to the LORD. He still hadn t gotten the message. He was continuing to pray for his generation. Jeremiah 14:20-21 O LORD, we acknowledge our wickedness and the guilt of our fathers; we have indeed sinned against you. For the sake of your name do not despise us; do not dishonor your glorious throne. Remember your covenant with us and do not break it. He continued to base his prayer on the LORD s promise of Israel s great destiny. Jeremiah 14:22 Do any of the worthless idols of the nations bring rain? Do the skies themselves send down showers? No, it is you, O LORD our God. Therefore our hope is in you, for you are the one who does all this. He again acknowledged that this was all within the LORD s power. Jeremiah 15:1a Then the LORD said to me: Even if Moses and Samuel were to stand before me, my heart would not go out to this people. The LORD seemed to understand that Jeremiah was saying to himself that his prayer was not being answered because of some fault in himself. The LORD gave him assurance that even the two Israelites of history that He considered among the greatest were to stand before Him; it would not change his answer. There is a similar statement made by the LORD to Ezekiel, at about this same time. Ezekiel was among the Jews already in exile. Ezekiel 14:12-14 The word of the LORD came to me: Son of man, if a country sins against me by being unfaithful and I stretch out my hand against it to cut off its food supply and send famine upon it and kill its men and their animals, even if these three men--noah, Daniel and Job--were in it, they could save only themselves by their righteousness, declares the Sovereign LORD. 5 / 18

6 Jeremiah 15:1b Send them away from my presence! Let them go! His presence here was speaking of the LORD s promised presence over the mercy seat of the Ark in the Holy of Holies. 2 King 23:27 So the LORD said, I will remove Judah also from my presence as I removed Israel, and I will reject Jerusalem, the city I chose, and this temple, about which I said, There shall my Name be. Jeremiah 15:2 And if they ask you, Where shall we go? tell them, This is what the LORD says: those destined for death, to death; those for the sword, to the sword; those for starvation, to starvation; those for captivity, to captivity. [a] Once that had happened there were only these four destinations left. Jeremiah 15:3-4 I will send four kinds of destroyers against them, declares the LORD, the sword to kill and the dogs to drag away and the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth to devour and destroy. I will make them abhorrent to all the kingdoms of the earth because of what Manasseh son of Hezekiah king of Judah did in Jerusalem. [b] This was ultimately the result of the great desecration that had happened sixty years earlier during the reign of King Manasseh when he had removed the Ark of the Covenant and turned the Holy of Holies into a shrine for an Asherah pole and the whole temple into a place for sexual prostitution. Jeremiah 15:5-6 Who will have pity on you, O Jerusalem? Who will mourn for you? Who will stop to ask how you are? You have rejected me, declares the LORD. You keep on backsliding turning your back 6 / 18

7 . [c] So I will lay hands on you and destroy you; I can no longer show compassion. The LORD had given them all those years to repent, and had even sent them Josiah, the most righteous king in their long history. However, they had never truly repented of their ways, and as soon as Josiah was gone they returned to their evil ways. Jeremiah 15:7 I will winnow them with a winnowing fork at the city gates of the land. I will bring bereavement and destruction on my people, for they have not changed their ways. As a result, this destruction was inevitable. The death and exile He brought was to winnow out for the next generation, a people that He could use again. Jeremiah 15:8-9 I will make their widows more numerous than the sand of the sea. At midday I will bring a destroyer against the mothers of their young men; suddenly I will bring down on them anguish and terror. The mother of seven will grow faint and breathe her last. Her sun will set while it is still day; she will be disgraced and humiliated. I will put the survivors to the sword before their enemies, declares the LORD. Finally, the LORD disclosed to Jeremiah the worst that would happen. That was the suffering of the women. Jeremiah 15:10 Alas, my mother, that you gave me birth, a man with whom the whole land strives and contends! I have neither lent nor borrowed, yet everyone curses me. At this, Jeremiah replied to the LORD by invoking the memory of his mother and lamenting his birth for this destiny. He had even been forbidden to pray for these people to whom he had been sent and who hated him without a cause. 7 / 18

8 Jeremiah 15:11 The LORD said, Surely I will deliver you for a good purpose; surely I will make your enemies plead with you in times of disaster and times of distress. The LORD assured Jeremiah that he was still serving the LORD s greater purpose. Jeremiah 15:12 Can a man break iron-- iron from the north [d] --or bronze? Jeremiah was not to despair because the LORD had sent him to a people who were already hardened by rejection. Isaiah 48:4 For I knew how stubborn you (Israel) were; the sinews of your neck were iron, your forehead was bronze. Ezekiel 3:7 But the house of Israel is not willing to listen to you (in this case Jeremiah s contemporary Ezekiel) because they are not willing to listen to me, for the whole house of Israel is hardened and obstinate. Jeremiah 15:13-14 Your (Judah s) wealth and your treasures I will give as plunder, without charge, because of all your (Judah s) sins throughout your country. I will enslave you (Judah) to your enemies in a land you do not know, for my anger will kindle a fire that will burn against you. Clearly here, the you in these verses returns to the use made in verse 6 when it spoke of Judah rather than Jeremiah as in verse 11. This is the sense given in the Amplified and New Living Translation. Furthermore, almost the same declaration is made in Jeremiah 17:3-4, 8 / 18

9 where it is clearly speaking of Judah. Jeremiah 15:15 You understand, O LORD; remember me and care for me. Avenge me on my persecutors. You are long-suffering--do not take me away; think of how I suffer reproach for your sake. Jeremiah repented of his earlier words of self-pity. Jeremiah 15:16-17 When your words came, I ate them; they were my joy and my heart s delight, for I bear your name, O LORD God Almighty. I never sat in the company of revelers, never made merry with them; I sat alone because your hand was on me and you had filled me with indignation. Jeremiah recounted to the LORD how His word had been his delight and had driven him to be separate from so many of his generation. Jeremiah 15:18 Why is my pain unending and my wound grievous and incurable? Will you be to me like a deceptive brook, like a spring that fails? Jeremiah had remembered the joy of understanding the LORD s word, and he wanted that joy again. However, he was finding happiness hard to discover in the midst of the mission the LORD had given him. He was finding the unending hatred of his people oppressive. Jeremiah 15:19 Therefore this is what the LORD says: If you repent, I will restore you that you may serve me; if you utter worthy, not worthless, words, you will be my spokesman. Let this people turn to you, but you must not turn to them. The LORD promised to honor Jeremiah s repentance, but warned him that he must never compromise his message to win friends. However the LORD did give him one faithful human friend in Baruch who we will see later in Jeremiah. 9 / 18

10 Jeremiah 15:20-21 I will make you a wall to this people, a fortified wall of bronze; they will fight against you but will not overcome you, for I am with you to rescue and save you, declares the LORD. I will save you from the hands of the wicked and redeem you from the grasp of the cruel. Otherwise, the most the LORD could promise was deliverance from those who wanted him dead. Jeremiah 16:1-2 Then the word of the LORD came to me: You must not marry and have sons or daughters in this place. Poor Jeremiah was even warned that he shouldn t even try to enjoy the comforts of a wife and family, which was usually mandated on a priest. Jeremiah 16:3-4 For this is what the LORD says about the sons and daughters born in this land and about the women who are their mothers and the men who are their fathers: They will die of deadly diseases. They will not be mourned or buried but will be like refuse lying on the ground. They will perish by sword and famine, and their dead bodies will become food for the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth. A wife and family wouldn t comfort Jeremiah. Instead, they would become another source of sadness to him as he would be worried about their fate in the coming judgment. Jeremiah 16:5 For this is what the LORD says: Do not enter a house where there is a funeral meal; do not go to mourn or show sympathy, because I have withdrawn my blessing, my love and my pity from this people, declares the LORD. Furthermore, to emphasize Jeremiah s message of condemnation, he was forbidden to show the customary acts of mourning for the dead. This would not increase his popularity, but it would amplify his message. 10 / 18

11 Jeremiah 16:6-7 Both high and low will die in this land. They will not be buried or mourned, and no one will cut himself or shave his head for them. [e] No one will offer food to comfort those who mourn for the dead--not even for a father or a mother--nor will anyone give them a drink to console them. This was also to apply to any of those few who listened to Jeremiah s preaching. Jeremiah 16:8-9 And do not enter a house where there is feasting and sit down to eat and drink. For this is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Before your eyes and in your days I will bring an end to the sounds of joy and gladness and to the voices of bride and bridegroom in this place. Furthermore they were not only not to mourn for the dead, but also not join in any feasting or celebration. Jeremiah 16:10 When you tell these people all this and they ask you, Why has the LORD decreed such a great disaster against us? What wrong have we done? What sin have we committed against the LORD our God? These things would give Jeremiah an opportunity to preach his message with force. Jeremiah 16:11-12 then say to them, It is because your fathers forsook me, declares the LORD, and followed other gods and served and worshiped them. They forsook me and did not keep my law. But you have behaved more wickedly than your fathers. See how each of you is following the stubbornness of his evil heart instead of obeying me. The original cause had been the evil generation that lived under Manasseh, but now, instead of repenting, they had become even more wicked. 11 / 18

12 Jeremiah 16:13 So I will throw you out of this land into a land neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you will serve other gods day and night, for I will show you no favor. So they would be exiled to a land where they would be free to worship other gods, but they would lose the favor of the LORD. Jeremiah 16:14-15 However, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when men will no longer say, As surely as the LORD lives, who brought the Israelites up out of Egypt, but they will say, As surely as the LORD lives, who brought the Israelites up out of the land of the north and out of all the countries where he had banished them. For I will restore them to the land I gave their forefathers. However, for the next generation the LORD would perform a miracle like he did for the Israelites in Egypt. Unlike any other nation carried off into exile by the Assyrians or Babylonians, the LORD would restore Judah to the land from which they had been exiled. Of course this was made possible because the LORD had made the land desolate and uninhabitable for 40 years. Jeremiah 16:16 But now I will send for many fishermen, declares the LORD, and they will catch them. After that I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them down on every mountain and hill and from the crevices of the rocks. But for this generation there would be no such reprieve. Jeremiah 16:17-18 My eyes are on all their ways; they are not hidden from me, nor is their sin concealed from my eyes. I will repay them double for their wickedness and their sin, because they have defiled my land with the lifeless forms of their vile images and have filled my inheritance with their detestable idols. The expression I will repay them double meant that a debt was paid in full. There could be no question of interest or additional penalty. This did not mean that the LORD was exacting punishment that they had not earned. 12 / 18

13 Jeremiah 16:19 O LORD, my strength and my fortress, my refuge in time of distress, to you the nations will come from the ends of the earth and say, Our fathers possessed nothing but false gods, worthless idols that did them no good. This was Jeremiah s interjection. To an extent, this was reflecting his praise to the LORD at His assurance in verses that the LORD would not forget the covenant to Israel, and its destiny. Jeremiah 16:20-21 Do men make their own gods? Yes, but they are not gods! Therefore I will teach them-- this time I will teach them my power and might. Then they will know that my name is the LORD. This was the LORD speaking again. As Israel s miraculous deliverance from Egypt, and forty years living in an uninhabitable desert taught the nations, so this exile and deliverance back to the land would make the nations sit up and take notice of the LORD of Judah and Israel. Jeremiah 17:1 Judah s sin is engraved with an iron tool, inscribed with a flint point, on the tablets of their hearts and on the horns of their altars. The sin of this generation of Israel was so indelibly engraved in their hearts and their worship that they could never be turned back to the LORD. Jeremiah 17:2 Even their children remember their altars and Asherah poles beside the spreading trees and on the high hills. It extended even to the younger generation of those living in the land. Jeremiah 17:3 My mountain in the land and your wealth and all your treasures I will give 13 / 18

14 away as plunder, together with your high places, because of sin throughout your country. My mountain in the land could arguably refer to Mt. Moriah where the Temple, which would be destroyed, was located. However, a deeper meaning could be that it referred to Mt. Zion, the key location of all scripture, where the promised Messiah would die on the cross. Jeremiah 17:4 Through your own fault you will lose the inheritance I gave you. I will enslave you to your enemies in a land you do not know, for you have kindled my anger, and it will burn forever. This was the well-deserved fate of that generation, who had ignored years of grace. Jeremiah 17:5-6 This is what the LORD says: Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the LORD. He will be like a bush in the wastelands; he will not see prosperity when it comes. He will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives. After the prophecy which dealt specifically with the generation that Jeremiah was preaching to, the LORD gave us an application for all generations of all people of all times. This is the negative side of this great promise. Jeremiah 17:7-8 But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in him. He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit. This is the positive side. Each of us needs to ask ourselves whether we are trusting in man, or in the LORD. 14 / 18

15 it? Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand Here is a great statement of the sinful nature of mankind, which seems to impel us to self-destructive behavior which is irrational. Jeremiah 17:10 I the LORD search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve. The LORD has just told us the deeds that the LORD rewards. It is not works of the flesh, but trusting the LORD, which is a work of faith. Jeremiah 17:11 Like a partridge that hatches eggs it did not lay is the man who gains riches by unjust means. When his life is half gone, they will desert him, and in the end he will prove to be a fool. The illustration was of a partridge that squandered much labor hatching the eggs of another species of bird, only to see the hatchlings fly off to join their own kind. The comparison was made to a man who tried to gain true blessing by ways other than through the LORD. That wealth was an illusion. Jeremiah 17:12-13 A glorious throne, exalted from the beginning, is the place of our sanctuary. O LORD, the hope of Israel, all who forsake you will be put to shame. Those who turn away from you will be written in the dust because they have forsaken the LORD, the spring of living water. This was Jeremiah s response and affirmation of all the LORD had just told him. Jeremiah 17:14 Heal me, O LORD, and I will be healed; save me and I will be saved, for you are the one I praise. 15 / 18

16 Jeremiah here pledged to depend on the LORD completely and focus on Him. Jeremiah 17:15-16 They keep saying to me, Where is the word of the LORD? Let it now be fulfilled! I have not run away from being your shepherd; you know I have not desired the day of despair. What passes my lips is open before you. Jeremiah related to the LORD what the LORD already knew. The great jibe of Jeremiah s detractors was exactly what every other prophet has faced from those who reject the Word of the LORD- Why hasn t it happened yet? Jeremiah reminded the LORD that although he never desired this ministry of despair, he hadn t run away from it. Jeremiah 17:17-18 Do not be a terror to me; you are my refuge in the day of disaster. Let my persecutors be put to shame, but keep me from shame; let them be terrified, but keep me from terror. Bring on them the day of disaster; destroy them with double destruction. Jeremiah asked the LORD to give him courage in the trials that were coming both to him and the nation. Jeremiah 17:19-20 This is what the LORD said to me: Go and stand at the gate of the people, through which the kings of Judah go in and out; stand also at all the other gates of Jerusalem. Say to them, Hear the word of the LORD, O kings of Judah and all people of Judah and everyone living in Jerusalem who come through these gates. The LORD gave Jeremiah his next message. Here instead of standing at the gate of the LORD s house as in Jeremiah 7:2, he was to preach this to all the people, both high and low, religious and irreligious, by standing at the all the gates of the city. Jeremiah 17:21-27 This is what the LORD says: Be careful not to carry a load on the Sabbath day or bring it through the gates of Jerusalem. Do not bring a load out of your houses or do any work on the Sabbath, but keep the Sabbath day holy, as I commanded your 16 / 18

17 forefathers. Yet they did not listen or pay attention; they were stiff-necked and would not listen or respond to discipline. But if you are careful to obey me, declares the LORD, and bring no load through the gates of this city on the Sabbath, but keep the Sabbath day holy by not doing any work on it, then kings who sit on David s throne will come through the gates of this city with their officials. They and their officials will come riding in chariots and on horses, accompanied by the men of Judah and those living in Jerusalem, and this city will be inhabited forever. People will come from the towns of Judah and the villages around Jerusalem, from the territory of Benjamin and the western foothills, from the hill country and the Negev, bringing burnt offerings and sacrifices, grain offerings, incense and thank offerings to the house of the LORD. But if you do not obey me to keep the Sabbath day holy by not carrying any load as you come through the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day, then I will kindle an unquenchable fire in the gates of Jerusalem that will consume her fortresses. Here the LORD just gave them one simple command to keep if they wanted to avoid the coming destruction and exile. Of course He already knew they wouldn t, but this final disobedience proved that they were beyond cure. Judgment and exile were the LORD s only recourse. [a] Very similar to Revelation 13:10 and Jeremiah 43:11. [b] See 2 Kings 21:2-9 and 2 Chronicles 33:2-9. [c] Six of the other seven translations had it this way. The New Living Translation had it have turned your back on me which I think is the idea implied. [d] The iron from the north was the earliest appearance of steel. [e] A practice already expressly forbidden by the Mosaic Law but which obviously had become widespread: Leviticus 19:27-28 Do not cut the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges of your beard. Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves. I am the LORD. 17 / 18

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