Judah’s false religion
7
The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying, 2 📚“Stand in the gate of the LORD’s house, and proclaim there this word and say: ‘Hear the word of the LORD, all you of Judah who enter in at these gates to worship the LORD. 7:2 Observe that the people still came to “worship” the Lord, though they would not obey Him and lived in wickedness. See Jer 6:20.⚜
3 📚Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and your deeds, and I will cause you to dwell in this place. 4 📚Do not trust in lying words, and say, “This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD!”
7:4 The deceptive words were spoken by false prophets and backslidden priests (Jer 5:31). They told the people that as long as they continued their forms of worship all would be well, that God was not angry, that He would not punish them.⚜
5 📚For if you thoroughly amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly make justice prevail between a man and his neighbour, 6 📚if you do not oppress the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and do not walk after other gods to your harm 📖,
7:5-6 Jer 5:28. How important these matters are to God!⚜
7 📚then I will cause you to live in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, forever and ever.
8 📚‘“See, you trust in lying words that cannot profit.
7:3-8 Another appeal to the people to repent. See how reluctant God is to punish.⚜
7:8 This is true of the great bulk of mankind in every age and every place. Men in general prefer deceptive words that will let them do as they please. See John 3:19-20; 2 Thess 2:10-12.⚜
9 📚Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Baal 📖, and walk after other gods whom you do not know, 10 📚and come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, “We are delivered” to do all these abominations? 11 📚Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? See, I have been watching, says the LORD.
7:11 See Matt 21:13. To them God’s temple was like a hiding cave for thieves. Did they think that God was blind?! (Jer 16:17; 23:24; 29:23; Ps 33:13-15; Prov 5:21; Heb 4:13).⚜
12 📚“‘But now go to my place which was in Shiloh, where I set my name at first, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of my people Israel. 13 📚And now, because you have done all these deeds, says the LORD, and because I spoke to you, rising up early and speaking, but you would not listen; and I called you, but you would not answer; 14 📚therefore I will do to this 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.
7:14 Notice here that the people were not trusting in God but in the temple.⚜
15 📚And I will hurl you out of my sight, as I have hurled out all your brethren, all the offspring of Ephraim.’
7:12-15 Shiloh was the place where the tabernacle was set up in the land of Canaan (Josh 18:1). It was the place where people went to worship (1 Sam 1:3). It was about 30 kilometers north of Jerusalem in the area of Ephraim. From there the ark of God’s covenant was taken by the Philistines. Never again was it placed there (1 Sam 4:17; Ps 78:59-61). Shiloh fell into ruins, and Ephraim and the whole northern kingdom went into captivity (2 Kings 17:1-6). God here says that Judah and Jerusalem should learn their lesson from Shiloh.⚜
16 📚“Therefore do not pray for this people, or lift up a cry or prayer for them, or make intercession to me; for I will not hear you.
7:16 God speaks to Jeremiah. People can go so far in sin and rebellion that God will no longer even hear prayer for them (Jer 15:1; 1 John 5:16).⚜
17 📚Do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? 18 📚The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough to make cakes for the ‘queen of heaven 📖,’ and to pour out drink offerings to other gods, provoking me to anger. 19 📚Do they provoke me to anger? says the LORD. Do they not provoke themselves to the shame of their own faces?
20 📚“Therefore thus says the Lord God: See, my anger and my fury will be poured out on this place, on man and on beast and on the trees of the field, and on the fruit of the ground. And it will burn, and will not be quenched”.
21 📚Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: “Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat meat.
7:21 Burnt offerings were not to be eaten (Lev 1:9). Here God is saying the ones the people were offering were not acceptable to Him so the people should eat them.⚜
22 📚For in the day that I brought your fathers out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to them or give commands to them concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices, 23 📚but this is what I commanded them, saying, ‘Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you will be my people; and walk in all the ways that I have commanded you, so that it may be well with you.’
24 📚But they did not listen or turn their ear to me, but walked in the counsels and in the imagination of their evil heart 📖, and went backward, and not forward.
7:24 Since they did not obey God their sacrifices were worthless.⚜
25 📚From the day that your fathers came up 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. 26 📚Yet they did not listen to me, or turn their ear to me, but hardened their neck. They did worse than their fathers.
7:25-26 Some people followed their evil hearts because they knew no better way. Israel and Judah did know the true way, so their sin was worse than that of any other people. Sin without the truth is bad; sin against truth is far worse.⚜
27 📚“Therefore 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.
7:27 God knew there had been no change in the people.⚜
28 📚But you shall say to them, ‘This is a nation that does not obey the voice of the LORD their God, or receive correction. Truth has perished and has been cut off from their mouth. 29 📚Cut off your hair, O Jerusalem, and throw it away, and take up a lamentation on the barren heights, for the LORD has rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath.’
7:28-29 Cutting off the hair in the Bible was a sign of grief and mourning (Job 1:20; Micah 1:16). See Lev 21:5.⚜
30 📚“For the children of Judah have done evil in my sight, says the LORD. They have set their abominations 📖 in the house which is called by my name, defiling it.
31 📚And they have built the high places of Tophet 📖, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire. I did not command this, and it did not come into my heart.
Punishment for false religion
32 📚Therefore, see, the days are coming, says the LORD, that it will no longer be called Tophet, or the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter; for they will bury in Tophet until there is no room left. 33 📚And the dead bodies of this people will be food for the birds of the sky and for the beasts of the earth; and no one will frighten them away. 34 📚Then I will put a stop to the sound of joy and the sound of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride from the cities of Judah and from the streets of Jerusalem; for the land will be desolate.
7:32-34 Jer 19:6. Speaks of the slaughter of the people when the Babylonians invade the country.⚜