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In Jeremiah 7 God states repeatedly that the people have not listened to him nor obeyed him. In contrast, Jeremiah 8 focuses on what they have been listening to instead—the lies and deceit of their false prophets, priests, and other le…
The Baker Bible Handbook by , Baker Publishing Group, 2016
1 This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: 2 "Stand at the gate of the Lord 's house and there proclaim this message: " 'Hear the word of the Lord , all you people of Judah who come through these gates to worship the Lord. 3 This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Reform your ways and your actions, and I will let you live in this place. 4 Do not trust in deceptive words and say, "This is the temple of the Lord , the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord !" 5 If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, 6 if you do not oppress the alien, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm, 7 then I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your forefathers for ever and ever. 8 But look, you are trusting in deceptive words that are worthless.
9 " 'Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal and follow other gods you have not known, 10 and then come and stand before me in this house, which bears my Name, and say, "We are safe"-safe to do all these detestable things? 11 Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of robbers to you? But I have been watching! declares the Lord .
12 " 'Go now to the place in Shiloh where I first made a dwelling for my Name, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of my people Israel. 13 While you were doing all these things, declares the Lord , I spoke to you again and again, but you did not listen; I called you, but you did not answer. 14 Therefore, what I did to Shiloh I will now do to the house that bears my Name, the temple you trust in, the place I gave to you and your fathers. 15 I will thrust you from my presence, just as I did all your brothers, the people of Ephraim.'
16 "So do not pray for this people nor offer any plea or petition for them; do not plead with me, for I will not listen to you. 17 Do you not see what they are doing in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? 18 The children gather wood, the fathers light the fire, and the women knead the dough and make cakes of bread for the Queen of Heaven. They pour out drink offerings to other gods to provoke me to anger. 19 But am I the one they are provoking? declares the Lord . Are they not rather harming themselves, to their own shame?
20 " 'Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says: My anger and my wrath will be poured out on this place, on man and beast, on the trees of the field and on the fruit of the ground, and it will burn and not be quenched.
21 " 'This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Go ahead, add your burnt offerings to your other sacrifices and eat the meat yourselves! 22 For when I brought your forefathers out of Egypt and spoke to them, I did not just give them commands about burnt offerings and sacrifices, 23 but I gave them this command: Obey me, and I will be your God and you will be my people. Walk in all the ways I command you, that it may go well with you. 24 But they did not listen or pay attention; instead, they followed the stubborn inclinations of their evil hearts. They went backward and not forward. 25 From the time your forefathers left Egypt until now, day after day, again and again I sent you my servants the prophets. 26 But they did not listen to me or pay attention. They were stiff-necked and did more evil than their forefathers.'
27 "When you tell them all this, they will not listen to you; when you call to them, they will not answer. 28 Therefore say to them, 'This is the nation that has not obeyed the Lord its God or responded to correction. Truth has perished; it has vanished from their lips. 29 Cut off your hair and throw it away; take up a lament on the barren heights, for the Lord has rejected and abandoned this generation that is under his wrath.
The basic mode of poetry in 2:1–10:25 is interrupted by a prose sermon. The sermon, a sharp attack on moral deviations and misguided doctrinal views about the temple, stirs up a vehement response, as we learn from a parallel account in Jeremiah 26:1–15. Attack on venerated tradition is risky business (cf. Acts 7). The sermon, on worship, leads to some instructions designed to correct misguided worship (7:16–26) and to halt bizarre worship (7:27–8:3). It is a prelude to further talk about siege (8–10). Similarly, the sermon of chapters 2–3 precedes the announcement of the northern invader (4:5–6:30).
The famous temple sermon (7:1–15) at once identifies the points at issue: a call to behavioral reform and a challenge to belief about the temple. The first point is amplified in verses 5–7, the second in verses 8–12. A biting announcement concludes the sermon, which was preached early in the reign of Jehoiakim. The temple gate, perhaps the so-called New Gate (Jer. 26:10), from which Jeremiah spoke, belonged to the three-hundred-year-old Solomonic temple. The call to reform is given without preamble but with specifics. Practicing justice—that is, the observance of honorable relations—is a primary requirement. Specifically, “doing justice” (as contrasted to the Western notion of “getting justice”) means coming to the aid of those who are helpless and otherwise the victims of mistreatment, often widows, orphans, and strangers. To shed innocent blood is to take life by violence or for unjust cause. The gift of land was outright; the enjoyment of that gift was conditional. The theme of land loss and land repossession is frequent in Jeremiah (16:13; 24:6; 32:41; 45:4).
A second consideration is a popular chant that had become a cliché: “the temple of the Lord.” Its popularity arose from the teaching that God chose Zion, and by implication, the temple (Ps. 132:13–14). A century earlier, with the Assyrian threat, God had shielded and spared the city (2 Kings 19). Any threat to the city’s safety was apparently shrugged off with the argument that God would protect his dwelling place under any circumstance. A theology once valid had become stale, even false.
Jeremiah points to violations of the Ten Commandments (7:9; Exod. 20:1–17). It is incongruous that people who steal and go after Baal, this Canaanite nature deity of weather and fertility, should claim immunity on the basis of the temple. Brashly these worshipers contend that standing in the temple, performing their worship, gives them the freedom to break the law. The temple, like a charm, has become a shelter for evildoers. Theirs is (eternal) security, so they think. Yet God sees not only their “holy” worship, but their unholy behavior.
The clincher in Jeremiah’s sermon comes from an illustration in their history more than four hundred years earlier (7:12–14). Shiloh, located in Ephraimite territory some twenty miles north of Jerusalem, was the worship center when Israel entered the land (Josh. 18:1). Eli was its last priest. It was destroyed, likely by the Philistines, in 1050, according to Danish archaeologists. Samaria, the capital of Israel, was taken by the Assyrians in 722. God threatens to do to Jerusalem what he did to Shiloh and Samaria. The people’s worship is misguided in two ways (7:16–26): they offer to the Queen of Heaven (7:16–20), and they offer to God but without moral obedience (7:21–26).
The Queen of Heaven (7:18) was Ishtar, a Babylonian fertility goddess. Worship of Mesopotamian deities became popular with Manasseh (2 Kings 21:1–18; 23:4–14). Such apostate worship was anything but secret since it involved entire families. Cakes, round and flat like the moon or possibly star-shaped or even shaped like a nude woman, were offered as food to this deity. But any worship of gods other than the Lord Yahweh is a violation of the first commandment. Violations bring dire consequences.
The tone of 7:21 is sarcastic: “Very well, heap up offerings—as many as you want—and gorge yourselves” (author’s translation). Some offerings required participants to eat meat; others, such as burnt offerings, were to be offered in their entirety. God did, of course, give commandments in the wilderness about sacrifices (Leviticus 1–7). External worship practices are empty without a devoted heart. Three factors should encourage obedience: (1) the promise of covenant, a part of God’s initial design (7:23a; Exod. 6:7; the formula occurs twenty times in the Bible); (2) total well-being (7:23b); and (3) prophets to encourage it (7:25).
Again the people are charged with failure to receive correction (7:27–8:3). The result is the disappearance of truth and integrity and a turning to a bizarre religion. God’s punishment will be as outlandish as their practice is bizarre. Anticipating that awful death, Jeremiah is commanded to cut his hair and to cry on the bare hilltop, as was customary to mark a calamity.
Vandalism in worship exists. Representations of other deities were brought into the temple reserved for the Lord Yahweh. The Valley of Hinnom, also known as Topheth, is immediately south of old Jerusalem. Topheth (“fire pit”) was a worship area (high place) in this valley. Child sacrifice was introduced by Ahaz and Manasseh (2 Kings 16:3; 21:6), abolished by Josiah (2 Kings 23:4–7), but renewed by Jehoiakim.
The judgment speech of 7:32–8:3 predicts that the deaths either through plague or military slaughter will be so overwhelming that the valley’s new name will be Valley of Killing. The sacrifice area will become the cemetery. None will be left to chase off vultures who feed on corpses. Bones of past kings will be exhumed by the enemy as an insult. The astral deities, so ardently served and worshiped, will look coldly and helplessly on.
The Baker Illustrated Bible Commentary by Gary M. Burge, Baker Publishing Group, 2016
Jeremiah’s Temple Sermon (7:1-15): Jeremiah’s temple sermon is one of his most famous speeches. The core of its message attacks those who appear religious by participating in religious ceremonies, while not backing up their apparent beliefs with ethical lives. In other words, this sermon is an attack on the hypocrites of his day. We do not know the exact time before the destruction of the temple when this sermon was delivered. However, its strong conditional tone holds out hope that God’s judgment might be diverted or at least mollified, and this may be a sign that it is relatively early in Jeremiah’s ministry, before the people’s categorical rejection led to an unconditional message of doom. See the commentary on Jeremiah 26 for a similar but not identical message delivered at the temple precincts.
7:1–2a These opening verses are a superscription to the temple sermon. In the first place, it affirms that Jeremiah came to the temple precinct with a divine oracle. And then there is the divine command to Jeremiah to stand at the gate of the temple and proclaim the following message. The temple, of course, was the primary symbol of God’s presence with his people. The gate would have been a busy place, giving Jeremiah opportunity to address many people. Of course, this location would have also attracted the attention of his fellow priests, who would be none too pleased with the tone of what follows.
7:2b–3a Jeremiah now addresses the crowds that pass in and out of the temple area. He first of all demands that they listen to the word of the LORD.
7:3b–8 The prophet gets right to the point. He calls on them to change their behavior, and, if they do, then God will allow them to live in this place. In other words, they will be able to avoid exile. The type of behavioral change required is specified in verse 6 in terms of social justice. It implies that they have been taking advantage of those (aliens, fatherless, and widows) who have no social network to fall back on. God had a special place in his heart for the powerless, and the prophet’s charge indicates that the people are neglecting them. Indeed, the accusation that the people shed innocent blood may imply an accusation that more than neglecting the powerless was at hand in the community. Even more, they committed idolatry by worshiping other gods (v. 6).
However, it appears that the people are not responding to the word of the Lord and heeding the threat of judgment that looms over their head. Indeed, from what we know about the Babylonian threat at the end of the seventh and beginning of the sixth centuries B.C., we know that the takeover of Judah was not sudden. The people had plenty of warning and reason to worry. However, instead of listening to the divine oracle, they paid attention to deceptive words, most likely the words of false prophets. In particular, this leads them to chant “The temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD.” It appears that they were taking solace in the superficial trappings of religion. They knew that the temple represented God’s presence on earth. They then wrongly reasoned that God would let nothing happen to his earthly residence. So they took solace in the presence of the temple. As events unfold, we see that this presumption is based on a misunderstanding of God’s connection with the temple. 1 Kings 8, the dedication sermon of Solomon, makes it clear that orthodox Israelite faith did not believe that God lived in this structure.
7:9–11 This passage expands on the moral and religious offenses of the people. The list of sins includes stealing, murder, perjury, adultery, and worshiping other gods. These are direct offenses toward the heart of God’s covenant law as expressed in the Ten Commandments. Nonetheless, these people still come to the temple (the house that bears my Name) and claim it as a refuge against outside attack. Strikingly, God accuses the people of turning his temple into a den of robbers. The Judean country-side was filled with caves that occasionally served as a hideout for thieves. Since the people and priests congregating at the temple were such offensive sinners, that building was analogous to a hide-out or hangout for criminals. These words are memorable to a Christian audience, largely because Jesus employs them in his charge against the temple economy of his own day (Mark 11:17; Luke 19:46). The people may think that God is not aware of their activities, but he challenges them by saying, I have been watching! (v. 11).
7:12–15 Those presuming they are safe because their city, Jerusalem, houses the temple should have learned their lesson from what happened at Shiloh. Before the temple, God’s home was represented by the tabernacle, a tent-like structure that conformed to the fact that the people of God were not yet firmly established in the land. During the judgeship of Eli, while Samuel was a youth, God punished Israel by allowing the Philistines to defeat its armies at the battle of Ebenezer and capture the ark. Presumably, at this time the city of Shiloh was also destroyed (Ps. 78:60). The ark was eventually returned, but its capture and Shiloh’s fate should have been an object lesson to the residents of Jerusalem at the time of Jeremiah. The presence of God’s dwelling was no guarantee that a people will escape judgment if it is deserved.
Additional Notes
7:12 Shiloh is twenty miles north of Jerusalem at a site now called Khirbet Seilun. Archaeologists explored this site in the 1920s and 1930s (Danish) and in the 1980s (Israeli). Evidence of an eleventh-century destruction may well point to the defeat of the city by the Philistines (see Lundbom, Jeremiah 1–20, p. 468).
Do Not Pray (7:16-20):
7:16 One of the essential functions of the prophet was to pray for the people. Abraham was the first person titled a prophet and he was called such in the context of praying for Ahimelech’s life (Gen. 20:7). Pharaoh called on Moses the prophet to intercede with the Lord on behalf of Egypt (Exod. 8:8–15, 25–32; 9:27–35; 10:16–20), and Moses pleaded for Israel after they sinned by worshiping the golden calf (32:30–34). At the transition point of his ministry, when he went from being a judge to assuming a prophetic role, Samuel told the people “far be it from me that I should sin against the LORD by failing to pray for you” (1 Sam. 12:23). It is because the prophets had access to the divine council chambers that they were charged with interceding for the people. Jeremiah prays for the people (18:18–20), but God tells him not to do it (see also 11:14; 14:11–12). We will see that Jeremiah’s intercession for grace transforms into a prayer for their punishment.
7:17–20 The reason why God has commanded Jeremiah to stop his prayers for the people is because of their stubborn sin, particularly the sin of idolatry. They all (children, fathers, women) join in the worship of the Queen of Heaven (see Additional Notes) and other deities. This angers God. Verse 19 is an example of an interesting rhetorical device. The answer to the first question (am I the one they are provoking?) is yes, but by adding the second question (Are they not rather harming themselves, to their own shame?) God is saying: “You think I am angry, and indeed I am, but even more are they harming and shaming themselves.” With that, God again announces his intense, certain, and extensive judgment on the land of Judah.
Additional Notes
7:18 The Queen of Heaven is a reference to a female astral deity in the pantheon of the surrounding nations. The fact that the Hebrew word cakes (kawwanim) is an Akkadian loan word (kamanu), and its mention in the Gilgamesh Epic (vi, 59) as offerings to Ishtar, the goddess of love, war, and sex associated with the planet Venus, suggest that there is an association between this deity and the Queen of Heaven. However, it is possible that the direct reference is to her Canaanite reflection, probably Ashtart or Asherah (see Z. Zevit, The Religions of Ancient Israel, pp. 541–42). See also Jer. 44:17, 18, 19, 25 where the postexilic Jewish community in Egypt continues to offer worship to this deity. The fact that such worship takes place in Egypt may indicate that there is an Egyptian equivalent.
Obedience, Not Sacrifice (7:21-29):
7:21 The oracle begins with an interesting admonition that requires a knowledge of the sacrificial system to understand. Of the three main sacrifices, burnt offering, grain offering, and peace offering, only the burnt offerings were totally dedicated to God and beyond any human consumption. It was an atonement sacrifice (see Lev.1) and, though the skin was removed, the entire animal was burned on the altar. In this verse, God says that God’s people may just as well eat the burnt offering, since it is doing them no good, thanks to their sin and lack of repentance.
7:22–23 This passage is difficult to understand, though the NIV has made things easier by helpfully adding just to 7:22. The Hebrew states baldly “I did not give them commands about burnt offerings and sacrifices.” The NIV adds “just” because God had given Israel such commands as they came out of Egypt (so Lev. 1–7)! This rhetorical device emphasizes just how angry God is with the people. The sacrifices were not the only, or even the most important, requirement, and useless unless they are an expression of heartfelt worship of Yahweh.
7:24–29 We observed this pattern before. The people did not obey, and God sent prophets, but the people did not listen to the prophets. Now judgment will come. The sin of the people of the generation that came out of Egypt, has only grown worse in the present generation. God forewarns Jeremiah that when the people hear his message at the temple, they will reject it. Once again, God promises to cut off his people because of their rejection of him. Truth has perished. They have rejected Yahweh, the truth, and pursued a lie, false gods, particularly Baal. God tells them to cut off their hair (a sign of mourning and worse, see Additional Notes) and to lament on the barren heights where they sinned (Jer. 3:2, 21).
Additional Notes
7:29 The word for hair in this verse is not the generic term. It actually means a diadem or a sign of consecration. It is related to the verb nazar (“to dedicate oneself”) and the concept of the Nazirite vow (Num. 6:1–21). The Nazirite vow was a way for a non-Levite to be specially consecrated in service to the Lord. By telling the Israelites to cut their “consecrated hair,” Jeremiah is using a metaphor to say that Israel’s special relationship with God is over.
Understanding the Bible Commentary Series by Tremper Longman III, Baker Publishing Group, 2016
Direct Matches
One of the sins forbidden in the Ten Commandments (Exod. 20:14; Deut. 5:18). Narrowly interpreted, the prohibition forbids extramarital relations with a married woman (Lev. 20:10), but it is applied more broadly in Lev. 20 and Deut. 22 24 to cover a variety of sexual offenses.
A West Semitic weather and warrior deity. There is evidence that “Baal,” meaning “lord,” was a proper name for a deity as early as the third millennium BC and may have been identified with the god Hadad.
Second millennium texts from the ancient city of Ugarit depict Baal as a god of weather and storm whose provision of precipitation ensures the seasonal cycles of crops. The Baal Cycle from Ugarit also depicts him defeating Yamm, the god of the sea, and Mot, the god of death. Some of these associations shed light on polemics against Baal in the OT. Yahweh’s withholding rain at Elijah’s request (1 Kings 17:1), for example, undermines Baal’s claim to control the weather. Further, descriptions of Yahweh as a storm god, such as Ps. 29, may be understood as polemical statements that Yahweh, not Baal, is the one who really controls the storm.
The worship of Baal alongside Yahweh received official sponsorship in Israel under Ahab (1 Kings 16:31 33) and in Judah under Manasseh (2 Kings 10:18–27). The worship of this deity was grounds for the exile of Israel (2 Kings 17:16).
A barren woman is one who is infertile and without children. The biblical world placed great value on the blessing of having children. Being without children brought despair. This can be seen in Rachel’s despondent plea (Gen. 30:1) and in the fact that wives would offer a servant in their place to bear a child (16:3; 30:3, 9).
In most of the stories about women and infertility, God reversed their circumstances: Sarah (Gen. 11:30), Rebekah (25:21), Rachel (30:22), Samson’s mother (Judg. 13:2 3), Hannah (1 Sam. 1:2), the Shunammite (2 Kings 4:16), Elizabeth (Luke 1:7). For Michal, barrenness appears as a punishment (2 Sam. 6:23).
Caring for the barren is part of God’s praiseworthy caring for the needy (Ps. 113:5–9).
The word for “blood” in the Bible is used both literally and metaphorically. “Blood” is a significant biblical term for understanding purity boundaries and theological concepts. Blood is a dominant ritual symbol in biblical literature. Blood was used in sacrifices and purification rites, and it was inherently connected to menstruation, animal slaughter, and legal culpability. Among the physical properties of blood are the ability to coagulate, the liquid state of the substance (Rev. 16:3 4), and the ability to stain (Rev. 19:13). Blood can symbolize moral order in terms of cult, law, and power.
The usage of blood in the OT is predominantly negative. The first direct mention of blood in the biblical text involves a homicide (Gen. 4:10). Henceforward, the shedding of human blood is a main concern (Gen. 9:6). Other concerns pertaining to blood include dietary prohibitions of blood (Lev. 17:10–12), purity issues such as the flow of blood as in menstrual blood (Lev. 15:19–24), and blood as a part of religious rites such as circumcision (Gen. 17:10–11; Exod. 4:24–26).
Leviticus 17:11 contains a central statement in the OT concerning the significant role of blood in the sacrificial system: “The life of a creature is in the blood.” Blood was collected from all animal sacrifices, and blood was poured onto the altar (Lev. 1:5).
The covenant with Abraham was sealed with a covenantal ritual (Gen. 15:10–21). Moses sealed the covenant between the Israelites and God with a blood ritual during which young Israelite men offered y