CHAPTER 11

(608 B.C.)

JUDAH HAS BROKEN THE COVENANT

¹The Word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying (some have said this is Jeremiahs fourth Commission. The Word begins this First Verse, which came from the Lord, and which could have been the Salvation of the nation, but they would not hear),

²Hear you the words of this Covenant, and speak unto the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem (this Covenant refers to the Book of the Law that had been found in the Temple some years previously during the reign of King Josiah, and which originated the revival proposed by that good monarch. Immediately following his death, the nation restored idolatry [Vss. 9-10]);

³And say you unto them, Thus says the LORD God of Israel; Cursed be the man who obeys not the words of this Covenant (the word cursed, describing the Law, means condemned to death; this is the function of Law, it cannot give life to dead men, it condemns lawbreakers; the Law was given to make man conscious of his moral condition as a sinner and of his need for a Saviour; the Tabernacle, and its Sacrifices which accompanied the Law, revealed that Saviour in Symbol),

⁴Which I commanded your fathers in the day that I brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, from the iron furnace, saying, Obey My Voice, and do them, according to all which I command you: so shall you be My People, and I will be your God (God does not ask men to obey Him as a selfish and tyrannical master orders a slave in order to gratify his own cruel temper, but He commands mans obedience in order to secure mans happiness. Egypt was likened to an iron furnace from which the people were delivered, but yet, they seemed determined to go back into this iron furnace!):

⁵That I may perform the oath which I have sworn unto your fathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as it is this day. Then answered I, and said, So be it, O LORD. (A land flowing with milk and honey is found fifteen times in the Pentateuch, and some five times elsewhere. The Lord kept His Promise, as He always keeps His Promises, and gave them the land; however, His Children did not keep their promises to Him. In truth, man fails in every test to which he is exposed; therefore, it was imperative that God become man, which He did in the Person of Christ, and did for man what man could not do for himself.)

⁶Then the LORD said unto me, Proclaim all these words in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, saying, Hear you the words of this Covenant, and do them. (In effect, the Lord was telling Jeremiah to be a street Preacher, both in Jerusalem and in the cities of Judah. He carried in his hand the Bible, and caused the people to hear its words, and urged his followers to believe and obey them. The urgency of this action by the Holy Spirit portrays the near catastrophe!)

⁷For I earnestly protested unto your fathers in the day that I brought them up out of the land of Egypt, even unto this day, rising early and protesting, saying, Obey My Voice. (The sense of the Passage is that the protesting did not begin with Jeremiah, but, in fact, has been needful from the time they were delivered from Egypt. The cup is now full not only full, but running over! All He asked was, Obey My Voice, and this is all He asks today!)

⁸Yet they obeyed not, nor inclined their ear, but walked every one in the imagination of their evil heart: therefore I will bring upon them all the words of this Covenant, which I commanded them to do; but they did them not. (Jeremiah contrasted the teachings of the Bible with those of the human imagination, and declared the latter to be evil, and that the wrath predicted in the Bible would certainly strike those who accepted this religion of the imagination.)

⁹And the LORD said unto me, A conspiracy is found among the men of Judah, and among the inhabitants of Jerusalem. (It is clear from Verses 9 and 10 that King Josiahs subjects secretly decided to return to idolatry, and to set aside the Bible at the first favorable opportunity. This is the conspiracy.)

¹⁰They are turned back to the iniquities of their forefathers, which refused to hear My Words; and they went after other gods to serve them: the House of Israel and the House of Judah have broken My Covenant which I made with their fathers. (Their forefathers, refers back to the sins of the Israelites in the wilderness and in Canaan under the Judges. The righteous Prophets were constantly pointing their hearers back to those early times, either for warning [as here] or for encouragement.

And they went after other gods to serve them, refers not to the past, but to the present. They broke the Covenant which the Lord had made with them.)

¹¹Therefore thus says the LORD, Behold, I will bring evil upon them, which they shall not be able to escape; and though they shall cry unto Me, I will not hearken unto them. (The words, I will, once again emphasize the fact that the Lord controls all. They shall not be able to escape, refers to the idea in the minds of the people of Judah that if the Prophecies of Jeremiah perchance are right, they will find a way of escape, namely Egypt. When the terrible time came, they found no way of escape.)

¹²Then shall the cities of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem go, and cry unto the gods unto whom they offer incense: but they shall not save them at all in the time of their trouble. (The impotency of idols to protect idolaters is declared in Verses 11 through 14. History attests this fact, for the people of Judah were overthrown by the Chaldeans and carried captive into Babylon.)

¹³For according to the number of your cities were your gods, O Judah; and according to the number of the streets of Jerusalem have you set up altars to that shameful thing, even altars to burn incense unto Baal. (Not only does idolatry bring shame upon idolaters, but the most popular idol of that time was so shameful that a description of it is impossible.)

¹⁴Therefore pray not you for this people, neither lift up a cry or prayer for them: for I will not hear them in the time that they cry unto Me for their trouble. (The die has already been cast! There is no hope for their deliverance. It does not mean that if they truly repented, the Lord would not hear! Actually, He definitely would hear in such a case. But it does mean that there is no chance of them doing such! So there is no point in interceding for them. The implication is that they will cry unto Me when the Babylonians come, but then it will be too late!)

¹⁵What has My beloved to do in My House, seeing she has wrought lewdness with many, and the holy flesh is passed from you? when you do evil, then you rejoice. (The Jews, it would seem, came to the Temple to pray, but their prayer is not accepted because it is associated with unholy practices. Actually, they were not truly praying, but only going through the form.

When you do evil, then you rejoice, refers to two things: 1. They rejoiced in their idol worship, foolishly thinking that such would deliver them; and, 2. They rejoiced in the thought that by their Temple ritual they had paid their debt to Jehovah, and could, therefore, continue in their evil.)

¹⁶The LORD called your name, A green olive tree, fair, and of goodly fruit: with the noise of a great tumult He has kindled fire upon it, and the branches of it are broken. (The green olive tree was Israel; the tumult was the Chaldean invasion, symbolized here by a thunderstorm with lightning. The storm destroys the tree, and the lightning sets it on fire.)

¹⁷For the LORD of Hosts, Who planted you, has pronounced evil against you, for the evil of the House of Israel and of the House of Judah, which they have done against themselves to provoke Me to anger in offering incense unto Baal. (For the LORD of Hosts, Who planted you, refers to Israel being a peculiar people under the Lord, as no other people or nation. He was their Sponsor in the sense that He has never been the sponsor of any other people.

Against themselves, refers to men sinning to their own hurt. The idea is that God is not the cause of this, but they themselves.)

THE PLOT AGAINST JEREMIAH

¹⁸And the LORD has given me knowledge of it, and I know it: then You showed me their doings. (And the LORD has given me knowledge of it, refers to a plot against Jeremiahs life, and by his own brethren, at that! How the Lord showed him this is not known.

Their doings referred to murderous intent against the Prophet, because they could not stand the strength and power of his preaching. Scripturally, they could not refute the Message; therefore, they sought to destroy the Messenger.)

¹⁹But 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, saying, 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. (Jeremiah came unto his own and his own received him not. They resolved to kill him though he was to them as a gentle lamb, and his only crime was that he prophesied to them in the Name of the Lord. Anathoth was his native village. It belonged to the Priests and they, together with the members of the Prophets family, joined in the plot to destroy him.

So was it with the Messiah, of Whom Jeremiah is here a Type.)

²⁰But, O LORD of Hosts, Who judges righteously, Who tries the reins and the heart, let me see Your Vengeance on them: for unto You have I revealed my cause. (The prayer of this Verse concerns the conflict between Truth and Righteousness versus falsehood and evil. It corresponds to similar language on the lips of David and of the Apostle Paul [Gal. 1:8; I Cor. 16:22].

Jeremiah would not take vengeance into his own hands, but gave place unto wrath, i.e., stepped aside so as to give room for the Wrath of God to act [Rom. 12:19].)

²¹Therefore thus says the LORD of the men of Anathoth, who seek your life, saying, Prophesy not in the Name of the LORD, that you die not by our hand (now that the plot is revealed, the demand is that he stop prophesying. Their anger was because of his Message):

²²Therefore thus says the LORD of Hosts, Behold, I will punish them: the young men shall die by the sword; their sons and their daughters shall die by famine (Verses 22 and 23 record the answer to Jeremiahs prayer. The Lord said, Behold, I will punish them. However, this punishment would consist of the destruction that was coming by the hand of the Babylonians, and did not necessarily include any extra punishment, unless it contained a guarantee that the perpetrators would be included in the sword and the famine.

The question in many hearts is, If these had sincerely repented before Jeremiah and before the Lord, would their Repentance have been accepted?

Most definitely it would have! But sadly, no Repentance was forthcoming):

²³And there shall be no remnant of them: for I will bring evil upon the men of Anathoth, even the year of their visitation. (To touch Gods is to touch God! As Anathoth was where many Priests resided, this was a special Judgment on the Priesthood, who had been so instrumental in steering Judah and Jerusalem into paths of unrighteousness. Therefore, Gods Anger against them was twofold: 1. Because of leading Judah and Jerusalem astray; and 2. Because of the plot against Jeremiah.)