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Jeremiah Proclaims God’s Judgment on the Nation

The word that came to Jeremiah from the L ord: ²Stand in the gate of the L ord’s house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the L ord, all you people of Judah, you that enter these gates to worship the L ord. ³Thus says the L ord of hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and your doings, and let me dwell with you in this place. ⁴Do not trust in these deceptive words: “This is the temple of the L ord, the temple of the L ord, the temple of the L ord.”

⁵ For if you truly amend your ways and your doings, if you truly act justly one with another, ⁶if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own hurt, ⁷then I will dwell with you in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your ancestors forever and ever.

⁸ Here you are, trusting in deceptive words to no avail. ⁹Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, ¹⁰and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, “We are safe!”—only to go on doing all these abominations? ¹¹Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your sight? You know, I too am watching, says the L ord. ¹²Go now to my place that was in Shiloh, where I made my name dwell at first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel. ¹³And now, because you have done all these things, says the L ord, and when I spoke to you persistently, you did not listen, and when I called you, you did not answer, ¹⁴therefore I will do to the house that is called by my name, in which you trust, and to the place that I gave to you and to your ancestors, just what I did to Shiloh. ¹⁵And I will cast you out of my sight, just as I cast out all your kinsfolk, all the offspring of Ephraim.

The People’s Disobedience

¹⁶ As for you, do not pray for this people, do not raise a cry or prayer on their behalf, and do not intercede with me, for I will not hear you. ¹⁷Do you not see what they are doing in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? ¹⁸The children gather wood, the fathers kindle fire, and the women knead dough, to make cakes for the queen of heaven; and they pour out drink offerings to other gods, to provoke me to anger. ¹⁹Is it I whom they provoke? says the L ord. Is it not themselves, to their own hurt? ²⁰Therefore thus says the Lord G od: My anger and my wrath shall be poured out on this place, on human beings and animals, on the trees of the field and the fruit of the ground; it will burn and not be quenched.

²¹ Thus says the L ord of hosts, the God of Israel: Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat the flesh. ²²For in the day that I brought your ancestors out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to them or command them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices. ²³But this command I gave them, “Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people; and walk only in the way that I command you, so that it may be well with you.” ²⁴Yet they did not obey or incline their ear, but, in the stubbornness of their evil will, they walked in their own counsels, and looked backward rather than forward. ²⁵From the day that your ancestors came out of the land of Egypt until this day, I have persistently sent all my servants the prophets to them, day after day; ²⁶yet they did not listen to me, or pay attention, but they stiffened their necks. They did worse than their ancestors did.

²⁷ So you shall speak all these words to them, but they will not listen to you. You shall call to them, but they will not answer you. ²⁸You shall say to them: This is the nation that did not obey the voice of the L ord their God, and did not accept discipline; truth has perished; it is cut off from their lips.

Cut off your hair and throw it away;

raise a lamentation on the bare heights,

for the L ord has rejected and forsaken

the generation that provoked his wrath.

³⁰ For the people of Judah have done evil in my sight, says the L ord; they have set their abominations in the house that is called by my name, defiling it. ³¹And they go on building the high place of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire—which I did not command, nor did it come into my mind. ³²Therefore, the days are surely coming, says the L ord, when it will no more be called Topheth, or the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of Slaughter: for they will bury in Topheth until there is no more room. ³³The corpses of this people will be food for the birds of the air, and for the animals of the earth; and no one will frighten them away. ³⁴And I will bring to an end the sound of mirth and gladness, the voice of the bride and bridegroom in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem; for the land shall become a waste.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Jeremiah threatens them with something more grievous than death itself, — that God would impress the marks of his wrath even on their dead bodies. It is indeed true what a heathen poet says,

“That the loss of a grave is not great,” (Virgil, aeneid;)

but we must on the other hand remember that burying has been held as a sacred custom in all ages; for it was a symbol of the last resurrection. Barbarous then were the words, “Give me a stick, if you fear that birds will eat my dead body;” as the cynic, who had ordered his body to be cast into the field, derided what was said in answer to him, “The wild beasts and birds will devour thee:” “Oh,” said he, “let me have a stick, and I will drive them away;” intimating by such a saying, that he would then be without any feeling; but he shewed that he entertained no hope of immortality. But it was God’s will that the custom of burying should prevail among all nations, that in death itself there might be some evidence or intimation of the last resurrection. When therefore the Prophet declares here and in other places that the Jews would be without a burial, he doubtless enhances the vengeance of God.

We indeed know that some of the most holy men had not been buried; for the prophets were sometimes exposed to wild beasts and birds: and the whole Church complains in Psalm 79:2, that the dead bodies of the saints were exposed and became food for birds and wild beasts. This has sometimes happened; for God often mixes the good with the evil in temporal punishments, as he makes his sun to rise on the good and the evil: but yet of itself and for the most part, it is an evidence of a curse, when a man’s body is cast away without any burial.

It is this then that the Prophet means when he says, The carcase of this people shall be meat for the birds of the air and for the beasts of the earth, and there will be none to terrify them; ²¹⁴²¹⁴     The poetical singular is used throughout the verse, —
   And the carcase of this people shall be for meat
To the bird of heaven and to the beast of the earth,
And there will be no terrifier.
    — Ed. that is, there will be no one to perform the humane office of driving the beasts away, the very thing which nature itself would lead one to do. If any one now objects and says, that in this case the faithful could not be distinguished from the reprobate, the answer is plainly this, — that when the honor of a burial is denied to the faithful, God will become the avenger. But this does not prove that God does not in this way inflict a visible punishment on the reprobate, and thus expose them to reproach by whom he has been despised. He afterwards adds —

²¹⁴ The poetical singular is used throughout the verse, — And the carcase of this people shall be for meat To the bird of heaven and to the beast of the earth, And there will be no terrifier. — Ed.