CHAPTER 7

(600 B.C.)

JEREMIAH CALLS FOR REPENTANCE

¹The Word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying (the date of the original utterance of this Prophecy seems to have been either the early years or at the midpoint of the reign of Jehoiakim. If that, in fact, is the case, this Prophecy was probably about 5 to 7 years before the first excursion by Nebuchadnezzar),

²Stand in the gate of the LORDs 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. (Who enter in at these gates to worship the LORD, bespoke the idea that people were constantly coming and going regarding their worship of God, but, in reality, it was worship that God would not accept.)

³Thus says the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place. (Once again, the Holy Spirit gives an Altar Call. And I will cause you to dwell in this place, referred to Jerusalem, and the inheritance that he had originally given them. Once again, the choice is placed before them! Once again, they refused to heed!)

⁴Trust you not in lying words, saying, The Temple of the LORD, The Temple of the LORD, The Temple of the LORD, are these. (The Temple was of Divine Ordination. The men of Judah and Jerusalem had an idolatrous pride in it. They believed that its presence in their city secured their national independence and safety, and that its worship could be made to harmonize with the idolatry and injustice of Verses 6, 9, and 30.

The lying words of Verses 4 and 8 were: that the Temple, being the Temple of Jehovah, no calamity would come upon them.)

⁵For if you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings; if you thoroughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbour (here the word thoroughly is introduced before the word amend, lending more credence to the statement, and also saying that a partial repentance would not be accepted);

⁶If you oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your hurt (the Holy Spirit once again portrays the love and concern of the Lord for the helpless):

⁷Then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, forever and ever. (The words, I will cause you to dwell in this place, as in Verse 3, have the addition in this Verse forever and ever.)

SINS OF JUDAH

⁸Behold, you trust in lying words, that cannot profit. (As stated, the lying words spoke of the claims of the religious leaders of Jerusalem, who asserted that by maintaining Temple worship, they would be protected from all evil. In the broader sense, lying words refer to anything and everything apart from the Bible. The Holy Spirit emphatically states that such cannot profit!)

⁹Will you steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom you know not (the Passage may be thus read: Is this your way of life course of theft, murder, lying, and adultery?);

¹⁰And come and stand before Me in this House, which is called by My Name, and say, We are delivered to do all these abominations? (This House refers to the Temple. The words, Stand before Me, refer to God knowing not only the actions of these false worshippers, but also the thoughts and intent of their hearts.

The words, And say, We are delivered to do all these abominations, refer to their erroneous thinking that their actions cleansed them from all past sins, and they were, therefore, free to continue in their present lifestyles.)

¹¹Is this House, which is called by My Name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, even I have seen it, says the LORD. (A den of robbers, is that which the Lord calls the people of Jerusalem. They were treating His House as a group of thieves would treat a gathering place where they congregated in order to drink, carouse, and even plan robberies.)

¹²But go you now unto My Place which was in Shiloh, where I set My Name at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of My People Israel. (Shiloh was to Israel during the time of the Judges what Jerusalem was to them during the kings. The Lord destroyed it, because of Israels sin.)

JUDGMENT ON SIN

¹³And now, because you have done all these works, says the LORD, and I spoke unto you, rising up early and speaking, but you heard not; and I called you, but you answered not (the phrase, Rising up early and speaking, refers to speaking zealously and continually, but yet without favorable response);

¹⁴Therefore will I do unto this House, which is called by My Name, wherein you trust, and unto the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh. (The Prophet pointed to the ruin of Shiloh as illustrating the Wrath of God, which, when corruption enters, falls upon that which He Himself sets up; and He predicted a sure destruction for the Temple.)

¹⁵And I will cast you out of My Sight, as I have cast out all your brethren, even the whole seed of Ephraim. (The expulsion of Ten Tribes over 100 years earlier should have warned Jerusalem; but it did not.)

JUDAHS IDOLATRY

¹⁶Therefore pray not you for this people, neither lift up cry nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to Me: for I will not hear you. (To substitute the idols of mans religious will in place of Christ is the sin unto death of I Jn. 5:16. In this Verse, the Lord does not say that He would not forgive them, if they, in fact, came to Him with a broken heart in contrite Repentance! What He does say is that neither Jeremiahs intercession nor the intercession of anyone else would cause Him to change His Mind about their destruction, barring their Repentance.)

¹⁷Do you not see what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? (Their sin had become open and without shame! Man becomes what he worships.)

¹⁸The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke Me to anger. (All ages, as represented by the children, fathers, and women, were involved in these idolatrous acts, thus justifying the sweeping character of the Judgment, as described in 6:11. The word queen in queen of heaven is probably the Phoenician title of Astarte. The Jews concluded that inasmuch as Jehovah created the heavens, the worship of that which He created was the same as worshipping Him [Rom. 1:25].)

¹⁹Do they provoke Me to anger? says the LORD: do they not provoke themselves to the confusion of their own faces? (Do they not provoke themselves to the confusion of their own faces?, refers to their confusing the Creator with the created; hence, they changed the Truth of God into a lie.)

PUNISHMENT FOR JUDAHS REBELLION

²⁰Therefore thus says the Lord GOD; Behold, My Anger and My Fury shall be poured out upon this place, upon man, and upon beast, and upon the trees of the field, and upon the fruit of the ground; and it shall burn, and shall not be quenched. (Mans rebellion against God brings suffering upon the animal creation and blight upon the vegetable kingdom, hence, the plight of this present world.)

²¹Thus says the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel; Put your burnt offerings unto your sacrifices, and eat flesh. (The flesh of the Burnt Offering was forbidden to be eaten by the worshipper [Lev., Chpt. 1], but that of some of the other Offerings permitted [Lev., Chpt. 4]. This Verse means that, so far as God was concerned, the Sacrifices had become hypocrisies, and they might eat them all, if they like; God accepted none of them.)

²²For I spoke not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices (the Jews were attempting to make the Sacrifices into a rite of Salvation within themselves. They had lost all understanding as to what these Sacrifices represented, namely, the Coming Redeemer [Heb. 10:4]):

²³But this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey My Voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be My People: and walk you in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well unto you. (The condition for acceptance is obedience.)

²⁴But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, but walked in the counsels and in the imagination of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward. (Whenever man follows his own counsel, he always goes backward and not forward. However, in the imagination of his evil heart, he surely thinks he is improving upon God!)

²⁵Since the day that your fathers came forth out of the land of Egypt unto this day I have even sent unto you all My Servants the Prophets, daily rising up early and sending them (Daily rising up early and sending them, refers to the most opportune time, in order that the greatest number of people would hear and be given every opportunity):

²⁶Yet they hearkened not unto Me, nor inclined their ear, but hardened their neck: they did worse than their fathers. (They hearkened not is their indictment!)

²⁷Therefore you shall speak all these words unto them; but they will not hearken to you: you shall also call unto them; but they will not answer you. (Through foreknowledge, God knew that they would not hearken to Jeremiah. He knew what the outcome would be, and yet He continued to call and plead, knowing it was useless, but doing so anyway!)

²⁸But you shall say unto them, This is a nation that obeys not the Voice of the LORD their God, nor receives correction: Truth is perished; and is cut off from their mouth. (As they trusted in lying words [Vs. 8], they then lost the Truth.)

²⁹Cut off your hair, O Jerusalem, and cast it away, and take up a lamentation on high places; for the LORD has rejected and forsaken the generation of His Wrath. (The cutting off of the hair was a practice of the women of that day when they were rejected and forsaken. And take up a lamentation on high places, refers to the fact that they worshipped idols there, so they should add the cut hair to their devotional offerings. The Lord is, of course, using sarcasm.

The generation of His Wrath refers to the generation on which His Wrath is to be poured out.)

³⁰For 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, to pollute it. (The abominations spoken of here included, no doubt, the heathen altars set up by Ahaz in place of the Brazen Altar [II Ki. 16:10-18], plus the altars which Manasseh built [for all the hosts of Heaven in the two courts of the House of Jehovah], and especially the image of the Canaanitish goddess Asherah, which he set up in the Temple itself [II Ki. 21:5-7].)

³¹And 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; which I commanded them not, neither came it into My Heart. (At these high places, child sacrifices were offered by fire to the deity Molech. This hideous practice is beyond comprehension!)

³²Therefore, behold, the days come, says the LORD, that it shall no more be called Tophet, not the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of slaughter: for they shall bury in Tophet, till there be no place. (In essence, the Holy Spirit is saying that if they desire to sacrifice humans here, then humans would be sacrificed here, and to a degree and in a manner that would stagger the imagination, i.e., the Babylonians would do such!)

³³And the carcases of this people shall be meat for the fowls of the heaven, and for the beasts of the Earth; and none shall fray them away. (The word fray means frighten. And the carcasses of this people, refers to a scene so desolate that it beggars description!)

³⁴Then 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 be desolate. (For the land shall be desolate, rather means shall become a waste.)