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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.

Here God shews first why he ought to be implacable towards the people: for the command to the Prophet not to pray for them seems at the first hearing to be very severe; and it might have been objected and said, “What if they repent? Is there no hope of pardon?” God shews that they were past remedy — How so? He says, Dost thou not see? Here he refers the examination of the cause to his servant Jeremiah; as though he had said, “There is no reason for thee to contend with me; open thine own eyes, and consider how they have fallen; for children gather wood, and fathers kindle the fire, and women knead dough.” Some render the last words, “Women are busy with the paste;” but literally, “they set the dough, “la paste God intimates here shortly, that the whole people were become corrupt, as though they had wickedly conspired together, so that men, women, and children, were all led away into idolatry as by a mad impulse; for he speaks here only of their superstitions. He had before charged them with adulteries, murders, and plunders; but he now condemns them for having wholly profaned God’s worship, and at the same time shews the fruit of their impiety — that they all strove to outdo one another by an insane rivalship.

The children, he says, gather wood He ascribes the collecting of wood to the young; for it was a more laborious work. As then that age excels in strength, they collected wood; and the fathers kindled the fire: the women, what did they do? They were busy with the meal. Thus no part was neglected. “What then is to be done? and what else can I do, but wholly to cut off a people so wicked?” Then he says, that they may make כונים, cunim, which is translated “cakes, “and this is the most common rendering. Some think that kindling is meant, deriving the word from כוה, cue, which means to kindle. But I prefer the opinion of those who derive the word from כון, cun, which is to prepare, as cakes are things prepared. I do not then doubt, but that cakes are meant here, as it appears also from other places. The second interpretation I regard as too refined. ²⁰¹²⁰¹ The ancient versions (the Arabic excepted) and the Targum render the word, cakes — placentas It is only found elsewhere in Jeremiah 44:19. — Ed.

With regard to the word למלכת, lamelcath, many consider the letter א left out, and think that “works” are intended. In this case מ would be a servile: but others consider it a radical, and render the word, “Queen;” which appears to me probable; though I do not wholly reject what some hold that the workmanship of the heavens is here meant. Some understand the stars, others the sun, and others the moon: let every one enjoy his own opinion. However, I think, that if the workmanship of the heavens be meant, the whole celestial host is to be included, as the Scripture thus calls all the stars. But if “the Queen of the heavens” be adopted, then I am inclined to think that the moon is intended: and we know how much superstition has ever prevailed among most people as to the worship of the moon. Hence I approve of this meaning. Yet I readily admit that all the stars, not one only, may be here designated, and called the work or the workmanship of the heavens. And the Jews, we know, were very much given to this madness: for as the sun was considered by the Orientals as the supreme God, when the Jews became enamoured with this error, they also thought that some high and adorable divinity belonged to the sun: they turned also afterwards to the stars; and this absurdity is often referred to in the Law and also in the Prophets. ²⁰²²⁰² The Septuagint render the words here, “the host of heaven,“ and in Jeremiah 44:17 and 19, “the queen of heaven.” The Vulgate in the three places, renders them “the queen of heaven,“— the Targum, “the star of heaven,“ — and the Syriac, “the army of heaven,“ in the two first places, but in the last, “the queen of heaven.” There are several MSS., in the three places, which insert the א, so as to make the word “work,“ or workmanship: but this change has evidently arisen from the Septuagint. But this word is never used to designate the work of the visible heavens: the word used in that case is מעשה. See Psalm 8:3; Psalm 19:1; Psalm 102:25; Psalm 143:5. Our version and the Vulgate are no doubt right. But what is intended by the queen of heaven is not the moon; for the word commonly used for the moon is always masculine, and the word generally used for the sun is commonly feminine. This may appear strange; but so it is. In South Wales the word for sun is always feminine, but in North Wales, masculine.
In Deuteronomy 4:19, the sun, the moon, and the stars, as constituting the host of heaven, are mentioned together: these the first, as including all the rest, seems to be intended. Instead of “queen,“ we should say in our language, “the king of the heavens.” We do not read that the Jews worshipped the moon; but the worship of the sun among them is specifically referred to and mentioned. See 2 Kings 23:11; Ezekiel 8:16. The Israelites adored the sun under the name of Baal, which was the Chemosh of the Moabites, and the Moloch of the Ammonites. — Ed.

It is then added, That they may pour forth libations to foreign gods, to provoke me to wrath When God complains of being provoked, it is the same as though he had said, that the Jews now openly carried on war with him, — “They sin not through ignorance, nor is it unknown to them how much they offend me by these profanations; but it is as it were their object and design to provoke me and to carry on war with me by these acts of impiety.”

He then subjoins, Do they provoke me, and not rather to the shame of their own faces? God here intimates, that however reproachfully the Jews acted towards him, they yet brought no loss to him, for he stood in no need of their worship. Why then does he so severely threaten them? Because he had their sins in view: but yet he shews that he cared not for them nor their sacrifices, for he could without any loss be without them. Hence he says, that they sought their own ruin, and whatever they devised would fall on their own heads. They seek to provoke me; they shall know with whom they have to do.” It is like what is said by the Prophet Zechariah, “They shall know whom they have pierced: I indeed continue uninjured; and though they provoke me as much as they can, I yet despise all their wickedness, for they cannot reach me; they can neither hurt me nor take anything from me.” But he says, they provoke themselves, that is, their fury shall return on their own heads; and hence it shall be, that their faces shall be ashamed. ²⁰³²⁰³     The verb rendered “provoke,“ means to disturb, to disquiet, to cause an annoyance, to irritate, —
   Is it I they are annoying, saith Jehovah? Is it not themselves, to the confusion of their own faces?
   They were not disturbing, as it were, the repose of God, but their own. They could do no hurt or annoyance to God, but they were annoying and injuring themselves; and this would turn out to their own shame and confusion. — Ed.

²⁰¹ The ancient versions (the Arabic excepted) and the Targum render the word, cakes — placentas It is only found elsewhere in Jeremiah 44:19. — Ed.

²⁰² The Septuagint render the words here, “the host of heaven,“ and in Jeremiah 44:17 and 19, “the queen of heaven.” The Vulgate in the three places, renders them “the queen of heaven,“— the Targum, “the star of heaven,“ — and the Syriac, “the army of heaven,“ in the two first places, but in the last, “the queen of heaven.” There are several MSS., in the three places, which insert the א, so as to make the word “work,“ or workmanship: but this change has evidently arisen from the Septuagint. But this word is never used to designate the work of the visible heavens: the word used in that case is מעשה. See Psalm 8:3; Psalm 19:1; Psalm 102:25; Psalm 143:5. Our version and the Vulgate are no doubt right. But what is intended by the queen of heaven is not the moon; for the word commonly used for the moon is always masculine, and the word generally used for the sun is commonly feminine. This may appear strange; but so it is. In South Wales the word for sun is always feminine, but in North Wales, masculine. In Deuteronomy 4:19, the sun, the moon, and the stars, as constituting the host of heaven, are mentioned together: these the first, as including all the rest, seems to be intended. Instead of “queen,“ we should say in our language, “the king of the heavens.” We do not read that the Jews worshipped the moon; but the worship of the sun among them is specifically referred to and mentioned. See 2 Kings 23:11; Ezekiel 8:16. The Israelites adored the sun under the name of Baal, which was the Chemosh of the Moabites, and the Moloch of the Ammonites. — Ed.

²⁰³ The verb rendered “provoke,“ means to disturb, to disquiet, to cause an annoyance, to irritate, — Is it I they are annoying, saith Jehovah? Is it not themselves, to the confusion of their own faces? They were not disturbing, as it were, the repose of God, but their own. They could do no hurt or annoyance to God, but they were annoying and injuring themselves; and this would turn out to their own shame and confusion. — Ed.