Jer 11—God offers a renewal of His covenant under the Law of Moses
The Lord tells Jeremiah to go to the men (people) of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem and offer/proclaim/remind them of His covenant to obey Him/His commandments—which if they did, they would be His people, He would be their God, and they would be given a land flowing with milk and honey: symbolizing a prosperous land, producing abundant agriculture (animals & crops, the basis of any nation’s prosperity). Otherwise, they will be cursed. It is a reiteration of the Exodus covenant, which included a blessing and a cursing—the natural consequences of obeying the Law of God given through Moses, or the disobedience/rejection of God’s laws. For what reason does God give commandments? Because in His wisdom/intelligence and compassion, He knows and tells us what will bring us happiness, peace, and prosperity, and what will bring our downfall/destruction/misery.
A couple notes: Jeremiah is to speak to the men, because they had charge/responsibility of/for the nation and its people (including their families, wives and children). In our culture we are more likely to speak of consequences rather than of curses, it’s a difference in our way of understanding life, the world, and even of God.
The people not only didn’t obey, didn’t listen, went after their own disparate goals, they conspired/agreed to do so. They were the ones who broke the covenant/sacred contract, so God is not obligated to fulfill His promises to them. He will allow bad/”evil” things to come, which they will not be able to escape (in olden times people considered anything bad as “evil”). Where is God’s mercy? God has worked with His people, been merciful to them, for hundreds of years—enough is enough. It is not Merciful not to be Just. A parent who is endlessly giving “2nd chances” (and 3rd, 4th, etc) is essentially an enabler, and isn’t doing his/her child any favors. A good parent must set boundaries and stick by them. Of course, mistakes can be made and repented of, if it is true repentance. But to pretend to repent merely to get a reprieve isn’t really repentance. Repentance means a change of heart, a change of behavior. Of course, we are imperfect beings, and God has offered means to make atonement for those imperfections, as much then as now.
When God doesn’t help the people of Judah they will go to their false gods, who can’t help them. Every city has had its favorite god, and Jerusalem has had altars to different gods in every street, and worse yet, to the particularly evil Baal (Jezebel’s god).
Again, God tells Jeremiah not to pray for the people. He’s not going to listen to their false pleas. He likens them to an adulterous wife with many lovers, who rejoices in them. He likens the nation to an olive tree that will be broken down and burned. He was the one that planted the tree, and He will be the one who will take it out, because of their worship of Baal.
Jeremiah speaks of his personal experience, in that God showed Him all this, and because he has spoken God’s word, they conspire to “sacrifice” him to their own devices (leading him like a lamb or bull to the slaughter). They intend to cut him down like a tree, so that he will not be remembered (perhaps that he will have no descendants). Jeremiah prays that God, who judges righteously, and tests every person’s heart (intentions, character, what one values and desires, as well as faithfulness to Him), will hear his cause, which he has laid out, and punish his adversaries for their wickedness—who tell him not to prophesy in the name of the Lord, or they will kill him. God answers Jeremiah that He will indeed punish them, in particular the men of Anathoth. Their young men will be killed in war, and their children will die from famine. The men of Anathoth (Jeremiah’s hometown) will have no descendants.
https://bibleatlas.org/anathoth.htm about Anathoth
Jer 12—God will punish Jeremiah’s kin for betraying him
Jeremiah acknowledges God’s righteousness, and yet, he wonders why wicked people prosper, and treacherous ones are happy. Perhaps we have all wondered, or felt that frustration. Jeremiah says, You know me, you know my heart . . . “How long shall the land mourn, and the herbs of every field wither, for the wickedness of them that dwell therein? the beasts are consumed, and the birds; because they said, [God isn’t going to punish us, in the end].” It sounds like they were suffering a dearth/drought, and God was not revoking it.
Jeremiah uses figurative words that perhaps would have been proverbial in his time, that if someone is weary from running along with footmen carrying a VIP’s litter how can they keep up with a horse-drawn carriage? Likewise, if one trusts in the peace of the river (Jordan), what will one do during the season of flooding? This seems to have some reference to the betrayal of Jeremiah by his kin, “though they speak fair words” they harbor ill for him.
Jeremiah, and/or God, has turned his back on his people/kin. They are like a lion roaring after him with threats of devouring him, so he renounces his inheritance (see the end of the previous chapter). He likens his inheritance to a speckled bird, referring either to a small songbird (or possibly an imperfect specimen not suitable for a sacrifice unto the Lord, but the next sentence seems to make it about the former). Other, presumably larger, birds fly about her menacingly. Wild beasts come to devour her.
Many pastors (who should be tending the flock or fields) have destroyed them, or have oppressed the people (pastors and flocks used as a metaphor, like today, for the religious leaders and their congregations). These leaders don’t take it to heart when they despoil the people. In consequence, the whole land from one end to the other will be spoiled/destroyed by conquest. In another figure the Lord speaks of the leaders of the people sowing wheat (as they suppose to get rich thereby), but will reap thorns. All their efforts will go for nought (nothing), and their revenues will be embarrassing. This because the Lord is angry at them. God will pluck His people out of their land, but He will again have compassion on them, and return them to their heritage/inheritance. He is speaking, in particular, of the leaders/pastors of the people, who instead of teaching the people of God, have taught them of Baal. If those leaders would turn to God, and turn the people to God, they will be prospered among the people. If not, God will destroy the entire nation (God will allow the conquest of the nation, but it’s actually the people and their leaders who have destroyed the nation morally, which causes the material destruction of the nation.)
Jer 13—Can a leopard change its spots?
Prophets anciently often used theatrics to make their message powerful in the minds of the people. The Lord instructs Jeremiah to dramatize the relationship between Himself and Israel by taking a piece of intimate clothing and burying it in the bank of the Euphrates River, later digging it up again, and showing how it has become worthless. Likewise, Israel was close to the Lord: “This evil people, which refuse to hear my words, which walk in the imagination of their heart, and walk after other gods, to serve them, and to worship them, shall even be as this girdle, which is good for nothing.” 'Girdle' is a term that could mean something like a loincloth.
Using wine as a metaphor, Jeremiah speaks of Jerusalem as being so drunken that even fathers & sons will be slammed together in destruction. Next is the warning that Israel should turn to God, rather than stumble around in the darkness looking for light, but finding the shadow of death. “But if ye will not hear it, my soul shall weep in secret places for your pride; and mine eye shall weep sore, and run down with tears, because the Lord’s flock is carried away captive.” [God weeps for our suffering, even (or moreso) when it is the consequence of our own bad behavior/choices. He pleads with the king & queen to humble themselves before they are forcefully humbled, when armies from the north come and carry away their people captive like stolen flocks. They’ll be hurting like a woman giving birth. When you ask, Why? You can know that the greatness of your iniquities has uncovered you to shame.
Famous saying: Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? If so, then even you that are accustomed to behaving badly can become good. Jeremiah uses the metaphor of the stubble of a harvested field blown away in the wind to the wilderness, and the visualization of a person caught with their skirts up in an adulterous act. Remember that in those days even men wore robes/skirts.
Jer 14—Jeremiah pleads to God vs a serious drought
A description of famine due to drought:
--the people mourn
--the wealthy send their young ones out of town into the countryside for water, but they find none
--the ground is parched for lack of rain
--farmers are embarrassed/ashamed by the failure of their crops
--domesticated animals leave their newborns to die in the field because there is no grass/feed for the females to produce milk to nourish their young
--donkeys sniff for water/grass from upon the hills, but there is none
Jeremiah prays/pleads for mercy, though Israel has sinned. “O the hope of Israel, the saviour thereof in time of trouble . . .”, don’t just be a visitor or a sojourner that only stays for a night! We are called by Your name, don’t leave us! The Lord answers that the people have loved to stray from Him, and He will recompense them for their sins. He tells Jeremiah once again not to pray for them. He will not listen to their cries, nor take notice of their fasts and offerings. They’ll be devastated by war, famine, and disease.
Jeremiah replies that the prophets are promising the people peace and no famine. The Lord disavows those prophets who speak lies in His name. He denies that He has sent them; they are deceivers. The Lord says that those who say there will be no war and famine will be consumed by war and famine. Those that listen to them (eg rulers/leaders) will be tossed (dead) into the streets, and no one will bury them, not even their families. The Lord enjoins Jeremiah to tell them, “Let mine eyes run down with tears night and day, and let them not cease: for the virgin daughter of my people is broken with a great breach [as in the wall of a city breached/broken through in a siege], with a very grievous blow.” If he goes into the country, he sees those killed in fighting, if he comes back into the city he sees people dying of famine. The prophets and priests are to be carried away to a foreign land. [A nation weakened by drought/famine would be easy prey for a marauding army, if they have their own supply line secure.]
Jeremiah again pleads with the Lord: Have You utterly rejected Judah? Do you loathe Zion/Jerusalem? Why have You hit us so hard that we can’t be healed? We looked/hoped for peace, and there’s nothing good in sight. We looked for healing and see only trouble. “We acknowledge, O Lord, our wickedness, and the iniquity of our fathers: for we have sinned against thee. Do not abhor [hate] us, for thy name’s sake, do not disgrace the throne of thy glory: remember, break not thy covenant with us.” Jeremiah is pleading with the Lord that for His own reputation He shouldn’t abandon His people. Jeremiah continues, None of the foolish/false gods of the Gentiles can cause rain [remember the showdown between Elijah and wicked queen Jezebel’s priests]. Even nature is subject to the will of God in giving rain. Jeremiah affirms “therefore we will wait upon thee . . .” for God is the Creator of all. Jeremiah's we doesn't mean everyone.
Jer 15—the Lord to Jeremiah respecting the evils of King Manasseh and Jeremiah’s own cause
The Lord says, Even if Moses or Samuel (the epitome of righteous leaders who had pull with God) pled for the nation, His mind wouldn’t change for the sake of the people. If the people ask, Where shall we go? Tell them those slated for death to death; those for the sword (death in battle) to the sword, those for famine to famine, those for captivity to captivity. People will come to 4 ends: death in battle (by the sword), or predators/scavengers—dogs, birds, or beasts (either from war or famine). And they will be scattered to all the kingdoms of the earth, because of what king Manasseh did. Jeremiah’s calling came during the reign of good King Josiah, who was after wicked King Manasseh. But after Josiah the people returned to the wickedness of King Manasseh, led by their pastors/rulers.
Who will have pity on Jerusalem, or bemoan her, or ask after her welfare? The nation has forsaken the Lord, and He is weary of their pretenses to repentance. God will destroy them and take away their posterity because they haven’t really changed their ways. He will fan them in the gates of the land, perhaps a reference to the fan of a metallurgist getting the fire superheated to melting temperatures. There will be more widows than the sand of the sea, and even women with as many as 7 sons will lose them all to the sword (warfare).
Jeremiah speaks of his anguish in being born as a controversial person. Though he has neither lent nor borrowed, it seems like everyone curses him. (Perhaps one reason God forbad Israelites to lend with interest to their fellow Israelites was because of the bad feelings that tend to ensue between borrowers and lenders—each cursing the other as being dishonest/robbers). But the Lord promises good things for Jeremiah’s posterity, and that even his enemies will come to him in time of affliction.
Then the Lord returns to bad news for the nation of Judah, that it will be conquered, and its riches be despoiled, because of sin. The people will be taken captive to a land they haven’t heard of. He returns to the analogy of fire, as a symbol of His anger.
Jeremiah pleads again for himself. In that the Lord knows him, would He remember him, avenge him of his persecutors? He pleads for the Lord’s longsuffering/mercy, that he be not carried away captive, because he has suffered reproaches for God’s sake. Jeremiah internalized God’s word, “and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart: for I am called by thy name, O Lord God of hosts.” Jeremiah reminds the Lord that he did not join those who mocked Him or His ways/commandments, and was alone because of it. He was indignant with those mockers. He cries out, Why must I be wounded and in perpetual pain, without healing? God, wilt Thou be a liar and like a dried up spring?
The Lord responds, If you’ll come back to me, I will bring you back again [perhaps out of their clutches] to stand before me. If you separate the good from the bad, you will be able to speak for me. They can come to you, but don’t you go to them [perhaps God is speaking of the king’s court]. I will make you like a brass fence/wall, and though they fight against you, they will not prevail, “for I am with thee to save thee and to deliver thee, saith the Lord…I will deliver thee out of the hand of the wicked, and I will redeem thee out of the hand of the terrible.”
Possibly Jeremiah, in his efforts to persuade the powerful of his day, got caught up in their life. Perhaps God was telling him to bring those who would listen into his circle, and not to return to those who would not listen. They might come to him, but he was not to return to their company. Eventually, when the end did come, Jeremiah was indeed saved from captivity, because he was known for his opposition to those in positions of power in the nation of Judah (Jer 39:11-18).
Jer 16—the Lord tells Jeremiah not to have a family in the wicked land, that is to be destroyed
The Lord tells Jeremiah not to marry and have a family where he was, for they would die terrible deaths, unlamented and unburied. They would be like excrement, killed by sword and famine, their bodies food for birds and beasts (scavengers). The Lord tells Jeremiah not to mourn for the dead: “for I have taken away my peace from this people, saith the Lord, even lovingkindness and mercies.” The Lord lists the cultural ways of mourning at the time, indicating there would be none left to do so. The Lord tells Jeremiah not to go to feasts, including weddings, “For thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will cause to cease out of this place in your eyes, and in your days, the voice of mirth [merriment], and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride.”
The Lord lets Jeremiah know ahead of time what people will say when he passes on what He tells him: Why is the Lord pronouncing all this terrible stuff on us? What have we done that’s so bad? Jeremiah is to say, Because your forebearers have forsaken me for other gods, and not kept my law, and you have done worse than them. Therefore, I [God] will throw you out of this land [the Land of Promise], to a land neither you nor your ancestors knew, and there you will have to serve their gods, and I won’t do you any favors.
One day, instead of saying, The God who brought the Children of Israel out of Egypt still lives, they’ll say “The Lord liveth, that brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the lands whither he had driven them: and I will bring them again into their land that I gave unto their fathers. Behold, I will send for many fishers, saith the Lord, and they shall fish them; and after will I send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks.”
The Lord sees all the people’s wicked ways, and He promises to requite them double for their sins, because they have defiled the Promised Land, and filled it with “the carcases of their detestable and abominable things.” No doubt the evidence of idol worship, including child sacrifice.
Jeremiah replies, “O Lord, my strength, and my fortress, and my refuge in the day of affliction,” the Gentiles from the ends of the earth will say it’s because they inherited lies and foolishness [a false faith/religion]. But God counters rhetorically, Should a person make his own false gods? They will know my power and what I do, and that I am [the True God].
Jer 17—Jeremiah’s teaching and prayer, particularly a re-emphasis on the Sabbath
This chapter continues regarding the sins of the kingdom of Judah, and its consequences, as well as Jeremiah’s prayer for God’s help and grace, and God’s call for Jeremiah to stand at the gates of the city and reteach them about keeping the Sabbath holy. But here are some other gems/highlights:
5 ¶ Thus saith the Lord; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord.
7 Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is.
8 For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit. [deep roots provide water to the tree even through drought]
10 I the Lord search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings. [The Lord tests our mettle, not that He needs to know what we are made of, but that we need to know.]
11 As the partridge sitteth on eggs, and hatcheth them not; so he that getteth riches, and not by right, shall leave them in the midst of his days, and at his end shall be a fool. [presumably a partridge caught for food]
13 O Lord, the hope of Israel, all that forsake thee shall be ashamed, and they that depart from me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living waters.
14 Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved: for thou art my praise.
Jer 18—God is like a potter, totally in charge, but He will change His intentions according to behavior
The Lord sends Jeremiah to a potter’s shop, and likens Himself to the potter, in that He has total power over the pot. And yet, even after He has pronounced bad things for a wicked nation, if they repent, He will change how He treats them. Likewise, if He has promised good things to a nation, but that nation go bad, He will refuse to bless them.
The Lord appeals to Judah & Jerusalem (and to every person) to return from their wicked ways. They say, Our lot is hopeless, so we’re going to rely on our own devices. Rhetorically the Lord asks whether it would make sense for a person to forsake a fresh spring in the mountain, implying that God’s people have forsaken the living waters that spring from Him. Because they have turned from Him, causing people to whistle and shake their heads at His inheritance, the Lord will blow them away. [As in previous instances, the Lord intends to wipe out the old inhabitants and start rebuilding afresh. Examples: the Flood, Abraham, Sodom & Gomorrah, the Canaanites, the Children of Israel wandering for 40 years in the desert until all the older generation had passed away . . . ]
Jeremiah recounts the opposition he has been facing, then prays to the Lord to witness what his enemies say and to remember that he prayed for them, that the Lord would turn away His anger from them [compare Matt 5:11 & 44]. Now he prays that as God has foretold, His will be done, in recompense for the way they have treated His prophet [not merely as a man, but as the mouthpiece of God].
Jer 19—with a pot as a teaching device/visual aid, Jeremiah is sent to prophesy destruction
Jeremiah is to get a pot from the potter, take it and the elders of the people and priests, and go to the valley of the son of Hinnom. There he is to prophesy desolation because of “the blood of innocents; They have built also the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings unto Baal … Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that this place shall no more be called Tophet, nor The valley of the son of Hinnom, but The valley of slaughter.” The famine in the siege to come will be so bad that people will eat their own children and friends. Then to punctuate the point, Jeremiah is to break the earthenware bottle in front of his audience. Refer back to Jeremiah 7.
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