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Matthew Henry’s Complete Commentary
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Matthew Henry |
J E R E M I A H.
CHAP. VII.
The prophet having in God’s name reproved the people for their sins,
and given them warning of the judgments of God that were coming upon
them, in this chapter prosecutes the same intention for their
humiliation and awakening.
I. He shows them the invalidity of the plea they so much relied on,
that they had the temple of God among them and constantly attended the
service of it, and endeavours to take them off from their confidence in
their external privileges and performances,
II. He reminds them of the desolations of Shiloh, and foretels that
such should be the desolations of Jerusalem,
III. He represents to the prophet their abominable idolatries, for
which he was thus incensed against them,
IV. He sets before the people that fundamental maxim of religion that
“to obey is better than sacrifice”
and that God would not accept the sacrifices of those that obstinately
persisted in disobedience,
V. He threatens to lay the land utterly waste for their idolatry and
impiety, and to multiply their slain as they had multiplied their sin,
| A Call of Repentance. | B. C. 606. |
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1 The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,
2 Stand in the gate of the LORD‘s house, and proclaim there
this word, and say, Hear the word of the LORD, all ye of Judah,
that enter in at these gates to worship the LORD.
3 Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, Amend your
ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this
place.
4 Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The temple of the LORD,
The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, are these.
5 For if ye throughly amend your ways and your doings; if ye
throughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbour;
6 If ye oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the
widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place, neither walk
after other gods to your hurt:
7 Then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land
that I gave to your fathers, for ever and ever.
8 Behold, ye trust in lying words, that cannot profit.
9 Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear
falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods
whom ye know not;
10 And come and stand before me in this house, which is called
by my name, and say, We are delivered to do all these
abominations?
11 Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of
robbers in your eyes? Behold, even I have seen it, saith the
LORD.
12 But go ye now unto my place which was in Shiloh, where I
set my name at the first, and see what I did to it for the
wickedness of my people Israel.
13 And now, because ye have done all these works, saith the
LORD, and I spake unto you, rising up early and speaking, but ye
heard not; and I called you, but ye answered not;
14 Therefore will I do unto this house, which is called by my
name, wherein ye trust, and unto the place which I gave to you
and to your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh.
15 And I will cast you out of my sight, as I have cast out all
your brethren, even the whole seed of Ephraim.
These verses begin another sermon, which is continued in this and the
two following chapters, much to the same effect with those before, to
reason them to repentance. Observe,
I. The orders given to the prophet to preach this sermon; for he had
not only a general commission, but particular directions and
instructions for every message he delivered. This was a word
that came to him from the Lord,
v. 1.
We are not told when this sermon was to be preached; but are told,
1. Where it must be preached–in the gate of the Lord’s house,
through which they entered into the outer court, or the court of the
people. It would affront the priests, and expose the prophet to
their rage, to have such a message as this delivered within their
precincts; but the prophet must not fear the face of man, he cannot be
faithful to his God if he do.
2. To whom it must be preached–to the men of Judah, that enter in
at these gates to worship the Lord; probably it was at one of three
feasts, when all the males from all parts of the country were to appear
before the Lord in the courts of his house, and not to appear
empty: then he had many together to preach to, and that was the
most seasonable time to admonish them not to trust to their privileges.
Note,
(1.) Even those that profess religion have need to be preached to as
well as those that are without.
(2.) It is desirable to have opportunity of preaching to many together.
Wisdom chooses to cry in the chief place of concourse, and, as
Jeremiah here, in the opening of the gates, the temple-gates.
(3.) When we are going to worship God we have need to be admonished to
worship him in the spirit, and to have no confidence in the
flesh,
Phil. iii. 3.
II. The contents and scope of the sermon itself. It is delivered in the
name of the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, who commands the
world, but covenants with his people. As creatures we are bound to
regard the Lord of hosts, as Christians the God of
Israel; what he said to them he says to us, and it is much the same
with that which John Baptist said to those whom he baptized
Bring forth fruits meet for repentance; and think not to say within
yourselves, We have Abraham to our father. The prophet here tells
them,
1. What were the true words of God, which they might trust to. In
short, they might depend upon it that if they would repent and reform
their lives, and return to God in a way of duty, he would restore and
confirm their peace, would redress their grievances, and return to them
in a way of mercy
(v. 3):
Amend your ways and your doings. This implies that there had
been much amiss in their ways and doings, many faults and errors. But
it is a great instance of the favour of God to them that he gives them
liberty to amend, shows them where and how they must amend, and
promises to accept them upon their amendment: “I will cause you to
dwell quietly and peaceably in this place, and a stop shall
be put to that which threatens your expulsion.” Reformation is the only
way, and a sure way to ruin. He explains himself
(v. 5-7),
and tells them particularly,
(1.) What the amendment was which he expected from them. They must
thoroughly amend; in making good, they must make good
their ways and doings; they must reform with resolution, and it
must be a universal, constant, preserving reformation–not partial, but
entire–not hypocritical, but sincere–not wavering, but constant. They
must make the tree good, and so make the fruit good, must amend their
hearts and thoughts, and so amend their ways and doings. In particular,
[1.] They must be honest and just in all their dealings. Those that had
power in their hands must thoroughly execute judgment between a man
and his neighbour, without partiality, and according as the merits
of the cause appeared. They must not either in judgment or in contract
oppress the stranger, the fatherless, or the widow, nor
countenance or protect those that did oppress, nor refuse to do them
justice when they sought for it. They must not shed innocent
blood, and with it defile this place and the land wherein
they dwelt.
[2.] They must keep closely to the worship of the true God only:
“Neither walk after other gods; do not hanker after them, nor
hearken to those that would draw you into communion with idolaters; for
it is, and will be, to your own hurt. Be not only so just to
your God, but so wise for yourselves, as not to throw away your
adorations upon those who are not able to help you, and thereby provoke
him who is able to destroy you.” Well, this is all that God insists
upon.
(2.) He tells them what the establishment is which, upon this
amendment, they may expect from him
(v. 7):
“Set about such a work of reformation as this with all speed, go
through with it, and abide by it; and I will cause you to dwell in
this place, this temple; it shall continue your place of resort and
refuge, the place of your comfortable meeting with God and one another;
and you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers for ever
and ever, and it shall never be turned out either from God’s house
or from your own.” It is promised that they shall still enjoy their
civil and sacred privileges, that they shall have a comfortable
enjoyment of them: I will cause you to dwell here; and those
dwell at ease to whom God gives a settlement. They shall enjoy it by
covenant, by virtue of the grant made of it to their fathers, not by
providence, but by promise. They shall continue in the enjoyment of it
without eviction or molestation; they shall not be disturbed, much less
dispossessed, for ever and ever; nothing but sin could throw
them out. An everlasting inheritance in the heavenly Canaan is hereby
secured to all that live in godliness and honesty. And the vulgar Latin
reads a further privilege here,
Habitabo vobiscum–I will dwell with you in this place; and we
should find Canaan itself but an uncomfortable place to dwell in if God
did not dwell with us there.
2. What were the lying words of their own hearts, which they must not
trust to. He cautions them against this self-deceit
(v. 4):
“Trust no in lying words. You are told in what way, and upon
what terms, you may be easy safe, and happy; now do not flatter
yourselves with an opinion that you may be so on any other terms, or in
any other way.” Yet he charges them with this self-deceit arising from
vanity
(v. 8):
“Behold, it is plain that you do trust in lying
words, notwithstanding what is said to you; you trust in words
that cannot profit; you rely upon a plea that will stand you in no
stead.” Those that slight the words of truth, which would profit them,
take shelter in words of falsehood, which cannot profit them. Now
these lying words were, “The temple of the Lord, the temple of the
Lord, the temple of the Lord are these. These buildings, the
courts, the holy place, and the holy of holies, are the temple of
the Lord, built by his appointment, to his glory; here he resides,
here he is worshipped, here we meet three times a year to pay our
homage to him as our King in his palace.” This they thought was
security enough to them to keep God and his favours from leaving them,
God and his judgments from breaking in upon them. When the prophets
told them how sinful they were, and how miserable they were likely to
be, still they appealed to the temple: “How can we be either so or so,
as long as we have that holy happy place among us?” The prophet repeats
it because they repeated it upon all occasions. It was the cant of the
times; it was in their mouths upon all occasions. If they heard an
awakening sermon, if any startling piece of news was brought to them,
they lulled themselves asleep again with this, “We cannot but do well,
for we have the temple of the Lord among us.” Note, The
privileges of a form of godliness are often the pride and
confidence of those that are strangers and enemies to the power of it.
It is common for those that are furthest from God to boast themselves
most of their being near to the church. They are haughty because of
the holy mountain
as if God’s mercy were so tied to them that they might defy his
justice. Now to convince them what a frivolous plea this was, and what
little stead it would stand them in,
(1.) He shows them the gross absurdity of it in itself. If they knew
any thing either of the temple of the Lord or of the Lord of
the temple, they must think that to plead that, either in excuse of
their sin against God or in arrest of God’s judgment against them, was
the most ridiculous unreasonable thing that could be.
[1.] God is a holy God; but this plea made him the patron of sin, of
the worst of sins, which even the light of nature condemns,
“What,” says he, “will you steal, murder, and commit adultery,
be guilty of the vilest immoralities, and which the common interest, as
well as the common sense, of mankind witness against? Will you swear
falsely, a crime which all nations (who with the belief of a God
have had a veneration for an oath) have always had a horror of? Will
you burn incense to Baal, a dunghill-deity, that sets up as a
rival with the great Jehovah, and, not content with that, will you
walk after other gods too, whom you know not, and by all
these crimes put a daring affront upon God, both as the Lord of
hosts and as the God of Israel? Will you exchange a God of
whose power and goodness you have had such a long experience for gods
of whose ability and willingness to help you you know nothing? And,
when you have thus done the worst you can against God, will you brazen
your faces so far as to come and stand before him in this house
which is called by his name and in which his name is called
upon–stand before him as servants waiting his commands, as supplicants
expecting his favour? Will you act in open rebellion against him, and
yet herd among his subjects, among the best of them? By this, it should
seem, you think that either he does not discover or does not dislike
your wicked practices, to imagine either of which is to put the highest
indignity possible upon him. It is as if you should say, We are
delivered to do all these abominations.” If they had not the front
to say this, totidem verbis–in so many words, yet their actions
spoke it aloud. They could not but own that God, even their own God,
had many a time delivered them, and been a present help to them, when
otherwise they must have perished. He, in delivering them, designed to
reduce them to himself, and by his goodness to lead them to repentance;
but they resolved to persist in their abominations notwithstanding. As
soon as they were delivered (as of old in the days of the Judges) they
did evil again in the sight of the Lord, which was in effect to
say, in direct contradiction to the true intent and meaning of the
providences which had affected them, that God had delivered them in
order to put them again into a capacity of rebelling against him, by
sacrificing the more profusely to their idols. Note, Those who continue
in sin because grace has abounded, or that grace may abound, do in
effect their idols. Note, Those who continue in sin because grace has
abounded, or that grace may abound, do in effect make Christ the
minister of sin. Some take it thus: “You present yourselves before God
with your sacrifices and sin-offerings, and then say, We are
delivered, we are discharged from our guilt, now it shall do us no
hurt; when all this is but to blind the world, and stop the mouth of
conscience, that you may, the more easily to yourselves and the more
plausibly before others, do all these abominations.”
[2.] His temple was a holy place; but this plea made it a protection to
the most unholy persons: “Has this house, which is called by my
name and is a standing sign of God’s kingdom of sin and
Satan–has this become a den of robbers in your eyes? Do you
think it was built to be not only a rendezvous of, but a refuge and
shelter to, the vilest of malefactors?” No; though the horns of the
altar were a sanctuary to him that slew a man unawares, yet they were
not so to a wilful murderer, nor to one that did aught presumptuously,
Exod. xxi. 14; 1 Kings ii. 29.
Those that think to excuse themselves in unchristian practices with the
Christian name, and sin the more boldly and securely because there is a
sin-offering provided, do, in effect, make God’s house of prayer a den
of thieves, as the priests in Christ’s time,
But could they thus impose upon God? No: Behold, I have seen it,
saith the Lord, have seen the real iniquity through the counterfeit
and dissembled piety. Note, Though men may deceive one another with the
appearances of devotion, yet they cannot deceive God.
(2.) He shows them the insufficiency of this plea adjudged long since
in the case of Shiloh.
[1.] It is certain that Shiloh was ruined, though it had God’s
sanctuary in it, when by its wickedness it profaned that sanctuary
(v. 12):
Go you now to my place which was in Shiloh. It is probable that
the ruins of that once flourishing city were yet remaining; they might,
at least, read the history of it, which ought to affect them as if they
saw the place. There God set his name at the first, there the
tabernacle was set up when Israel first took possession of Canaan
and thither the tribes went up; but those that attended the service of
the tabernacle there corrupted both themselves and others, and from
them arose the wickedness of his people Israel; that fountain
was poisoned, and sent forth malignant streams; and what came of it?
No; God forsook it
sent his ark into captivity, cut off the house of Eli that presided
there; and it is very probable that the city was quite destroyed, for
we never read any more of it but as a monument of divine vengeance upon
holy places when they harbour wicked people. Note, God’s judgments
upon others, who have really revolted from God while they have kept up
a profession of nearness to him, should be a warning to us not to
trust in lying words. It is good to consult precedents, and make
use of them. Remember Lot’s wife; remember Shiloh and the seven
churches of Asia; and know that the ark and candlestick are moveable
things,
[2.] It is as certain that Shiloh’s fate will be Jerusalem’s doom if a
speedy and sincere repentance prevent it not. First, Jerusalem
was now as sinful as ever Shiloh was; that is proved by the unerring
testimony of God himself against them
(v. 13):
“You have done all these works, you cannot deny it:” and they
continued obstinate in their sin; that is proved by the testimony of
God’s return and repent, rising up early and speaking, as one in
care, as one in earnest, as one who would lose no time in dealing with
them, nay, who would take the fittest opportunity for speaking to them
early in the morning, when, if ever, they were sober, and had
their thoughts free and clear; but it was all in vain. God spoke, but
they heard not, they heeded not, they never minded; he called
them, but they answered not; they would not come at his
call. Note, What God has spoken to us greatly aggravates what we have
done against him. Secondly, Jerusalem shall shortly be as
miserable as ever Shiloh was: Therefore I will do unto this house as
I did to Shiloh, ruin it, and lay it waste,
Those that tread in the steps of the wickedness of those that went
before them must expect to fall by the like judgments, for all these
things happened to them for ensamples. The temple at Jerusalem,
though ever so strongly built, if wickedness was found in it, would be
as unable to keep its ground and as easily conquered as even the
tabernacle in Shiloh was, when God’s day of vengeance had come. “This
house” (says God) “is called by my name, and therefore you may
think that I should protect it; it is the house in which you
trust, and you think that it will protect you; this land is the
place, this city the place, which I gave to you and your
fathers, and therefore you are secure of the continuance of it, and
think that nothing can turn you out of it; but the men of Shiloh thus
flattered themselves and did but deceive themselves.” He quotes another
precedent
(v. 15),
the ruin of the kingdom of the ten tribes, who were the seed of
Abraham, and had the covenant of circumcision, and possessed the land
which God gave to them and their fathers, and yet the idolatries threw
them out and extirpated them: “And can you think but that the same evil
courses will be as fatal to you?” Doubtless they will be so; for God is
uniform and of a piece with himself in his judicial proceedings. It is
a rule of justice, ut parium par sit ratio–that in similar cases
the same judgment should proceed. “You have corrupted yourselves
as your brethren the seed of Ephraim did, and have become
their brethren in iniquity, and therefore I will cast you out of my
sight, as I have cast them.” The interpretation here given of the
judgment makes it a terrible one indeed; the casting of them out of
their land signified God’s casting them out of his sight, as if he
would never look upon them, never look after them, more. Whenever we
are cast, it is well enough, if we be kept in the love of God; but, if
we are thrown out of his favour, our case is miserable though we dwell
in our own land. This threatening, that God would make this house like
Shiloh, we shall meet with again, and find Jeremiah indicted for it,
| Punishment Predicted. | B. C. 606. |
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16 Therefore pray not thou for this people, neither lift up cry
nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to me: for I will
not hear thee.
17 Seest thou not what they do in the cities of Judah and in
the streets of Jerusalem?
18 The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire,
and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of
heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that
they may provoke me to anger.
19 Do they provoke me to anger? saith the LORD: do they not
provoke themselves to the confusion of their own faces?
20 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, mine anger and my
fury shall be poured out upon this place, upon man, and upon
beast, and upon the trees of the field, and upon the fruit of the
ground; and it shall burn, and shall not be quenched.
God had shown them, in the foregoing verses, that the temple and the
service of it, of which they boasted and in which they trusted, should
not avail to prevent the judgment threatened. But there was another
thing which might stand them in some stead, and which yet they had no
value for, and that was the prophet’s intercession for them; his
prayers would do them more good than their own pleas: now here that
support is taken from them; and their case is said indeed who have lost
their interest in the prayers of God’s ministers and people.
I. God here forbids the prophet to pray for them
(v. 16):
“The decree has gone forth, their ruin is resolved on, therefore
pray not thou for this people, that is, pray not for the
preventing of this judgment threatened; they have sinned unto
death, and therefore pray not for their life, but for the life of
their souls,”
See here,
1. That God’s prophets are praying men; Jeremiah foretold the
destruction of Judah and Jerusalem, and yet prayed for their
preservation, not knowing that the decree was absolute; and it is the
will of God that we pray for the peace of Jerusalem. Even when
we threaten sinners with damnation we must pray for their salvation,
that they may turn and live. Jeremiah was hated, and persecuted,
and reproached, by the children of his people, and yet he prayed for
them; for it becomes us to render good for evil.
2. That God’s praying prophets have a great interest in heaven, how
little soever they have on earth. When God has determined to destroy
this people, he bespeaks the prophet not to pray for them, because he
would not have his prayers to lie (as prophets’ prayers seldom did)
unanswered. God said to Moses, Let me alone,
Exod. xxii. 10.
3. It is an ill omen to a people when God restrains the spirits of his
ministers and people from praying for them, and gives them to see their
case so desperate that they have no heart to speak a good word for
them.
4. Those that will not regard good ministers’ preaching cannot expect
any benefit by their praying. If you will not hear us when we speak
from God to you, God will not hear us when we speak to him for you.
II. He gives him a reason for this prohibition. Praying breath is too
precious a thing to be lost and thrown away upon a people hardened in
sin and marked for ruin.
1. They are resolved to persist in their rebellion against God, and
will not be turned back by the prophet’s preaching. For this he appeals
to the prophet himself, and his own inspection and observation
(v. 17):
Seest thou not what they do openly and publicly, without either
shame or fear, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of
Jerusalem? This intimates both that the sin was evident and could
not be denied and that the sinners were impudent and would not be
reclaimed; they committed their wickedness even in the prophet’s
presence and under his eye; he saw what they did, and yet they did it,
which was an affront to his office, and to him whose officer he was,
and bade defiance to both. Now observe,
(1.) What the sin is with which they are here charged–it is idolatry,
Their idolatrous respects are paid to the queen of heaven, the
moon, either in an image or in the original, or both. They worshipped
it probably under the name of Ashtaroth, or some other of their
goddesses, being in love with the brightness in which they saw the moon
walk, and thinking themselves indebted to her for her benign influences
or fearing her malignant ones,
The worshipping of the moon was much in use among the heathen nations,
Some read it the frame or workmanship of heaven. The
whole celestial globe with all its ornaments and powers was the object
of their adoration. They worshipped the host of heaven,
Acts vii. 42.
The homage they should have paid to their Prince they paid to the
statues that beautified the frontispiece of his palace; they worshipped
the creatures instead of him that made them, the servants instead of
him that commands them, and the gifts instead of him that gave them.
With the queen of heaven they worshipped other gods,
images of things not only in heaven above, but in earth beneath, and
in the waters under the earth; for those that forsake the true God
wander endlessly after false ones. To these deities of their own making
they offer cakes for meat-offerings, and pour out
drink-offerings, as if they had their meat and drink from them and
were obliged to make to them their acknowledgments: and see how busy
they are, and how every hand is employed in the service of these idols,
according as they used to be employed in their domestic services.
The children were sent to gather wood; the fathers kindled
the fire to heat the oven, being of the poorer sort that could not
afford to keep servants to do it, yet they would rather do it
themselves than it should be undone; the women kneaded the dough
with their own hands, for perhaps, though they had servants to do it,
they took a pride in showing their zeal for their idols by doing it
themselves. Let us be instructed, even by this bad example, in the
service of our God.
[1.] Let us honour him with our substance, as those that have
our subsistence from him, and eat and drink to the glory of him from
whom we have our meat and drink.
[2.] Let us not decline the hardest services, nor disdain to stoop to
the meanest, by which God may be honoured; for none shall kindle a
fire on God’s altar for nought. Let us think it an honour to be
employed in any work for God.
[3.] Let us bring up our children in the acts of devotion; let them, as
they are capable, be employed in doing something towards the keeping up
of religious exercises.
(2.) What is the direct tendency of this sin: “It is that they may
provoke me to anger; they cannot design any thing else in it. But
(v. 19)
do they provoke me to anger? Is it because I am hard to be
pleased, or easily provoked? Or am I to bear the blame of the
resentment? No; it is their own doing; they may thank themselves, and
they alone shall bear it.” Is it against God that they provoke him
to wrath? Is he the worse for it? Does it do him any real damage?
No; is it not against themselves, to the confusion of their
own faces? It is malice against God, but it is impotent malice; it
cannot hurt him: nay, it is foolish malice; it will hurt themselves.
They show their spite against God, but they do the spite to themselves.
Canst thou think any other than that a people, thus desperately set
upon their own ruin, should be abandoned?
2. God is resolved to proceed in his judgments against them, and will
not be turned back by the prophet’s prayers
(v. 20):
Thus saith the Lord God, and what he saith he will not unsay,
nor can all the world gainsay it; hear it therefore, and tremble.
“Behold, my anger and my fury shall be poured out upon this
place, as the flood of waters was upon the old world or the shower
of fire and brimstone upon Sodom; since they will anger me, let them
see what will come of it.” They shall soon find,
(1.) That there is no escaping this deluge of fire, either by flying
from it or fencing against it; it shall be poured out on this
place, though it be a holy place, the Lord’s house. It shall reach
both man and beast, like the plagues of Egypt, and, like some of
them, shall destroy the trees of the field and the fruit of the
ground, which they had designed and prepared for Baal, and
of which they had made cakes to the queen of heaven.
(2.) There is no extinguishing it: It shall burn and shall not be
quenched; prayers and tears shall then avail nothing. When his
wrath is kindled but a little, much more when it is kindled to such
a degree, there shall be no quenching it. God’s wrath is that fire
unquenchable which eternity itself will not see the period of.
Depart, you cursed, into everlasting fire.
| Obedience Better than Sacrifice. | B. C. 606. |
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21 Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Put your
burnt offerings unto your sacrifices, and eat flesh.
22 For I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the
day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning
burnt offerings or sacrifices:
23 But this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice, and
I will be your God, and ye shall be my people: and walk ye in all
the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well unto you.
24 But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, but walked
in the counsels and in the imagination of their evil heart, and
went backward, and not forward.
25 Since the day that your fathers came forth out of the land
of Egypt unto this day I have even sent unto you all my servants
the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them:
26 Yet they hearkened not unto me, nor inclined their ear, but
hardened their neck: they did worse than their fathers.
27 Therefore thou shalt speak all these words unto them; but
they will not hearken to thee: thou shalt also call unto them;
but they will not answer thee.
28 But thou shalt say unto them, This is a nation that
obeyeth not the voice of the LORD their God, nor receiveth
correction: truth is perished, and is cut off from their mouth.
God, having shown the people that the temple would not protect them
while they polluted it with their wickedness, here shows them that
their sacrifices would not atone for them, nor be accepted, while they
went on in disobedience. See with what contempt he here speaks of their
ceremonial service
(v. 21).
“Put your burnt-offerings to your sacrifices; go on in them as
long as you please; add one sort of sacrifice to another; turn your
burnt-offerings (which were to be wholly burnt to the honour of
God) into peace-offerings” (which the offerer himself had a
considerable share of), “that you may eat flesh, for that is all
the good you are likely to have from your sacrifices, a good meal’s
meat or two; but expect not any other benefit by them while you live at
this loose rate. Keep your sacrifices to yourselves” (so some
understand it); “let them be served up at your own table, for they are
no way acceptable at God’s altars.” For the opening of this,
I. He shows them that obedience was the only thing he required of them,
He appeals to the original contract, by which they were first formed
into a people, when they were brought out of Egypt. God made them a
kingdom of priests to himself, not that he might be regaled with
their sacrifices, as the devils, whom the heathen worshipped, which are
represented as eating with pleasure the fat of their sacrifices and
drinking the wine of their drink-offerings,
No: Will God eat the flesh of bulls?
Ps. l. 13.
I spoke not to your fathers concerning burnt-offerings or
sacrifices, not of them at first. The precepts of the moral
law were given before the ceremonial institutions; and those came
afterwards, as trials of their obedience and assistances to their
repentance and faith. The Levitical law begins thus: If any man of
you will bring an offering, he must do so and so
as if it were intended rather to regulate sacrifice than to require it.
But that which God commanded, which he bound them to by his supreme
authority and which he insisted upon as the condition of the covenant,
was, Obey my voice; see
where this was the statute and the ordinance by which God proved them:
Hearken diligently to the voice of the Lord thy God. The
condition of their being God’s peculiar people was this
(Exod. xix. 5),
If you will obey my voice indeed. “Make conscience of the duties
of natural religion, observe positive institutions from a principle of
obedience, and then I will be your God and you shall be my
people,” which is the greatest honour, happiness, and satisfaction,
that any of the children of men are capable of. “Let your conversation
be regular, and in every thing study to comply with the will and word
of God; walk within the bounds that I have set you, and in
all the ways that I have commanded you, and then you may assure
yourselves that it shall be well with you.” The demand here is
very reasonable, that we should be directed by Infinite Wisdom to that
which is fit, that he that made us should command us, and that he
should give us law who gives us our being and all the supports of it;
and the promise is very encouraging: Let God’s will be your rule and
his favour shall be your felicity.
II. He shows them that disobedience was the only thing for which he had
a quarrel with them. He would not reprove them for their
sacrifices, for the omission of them; they had been continually
before him
(Ps. l. 8);
with them they hoped to bribe God, and purchase a license to go on in
sin. That therefore which God had all along laid to their charge was
breaking his commandments in the course of their conversation, while
they observed them, in some instances, in the course of their devotion,
&c.
1. They set up their own will in competition with the will of God:
They hearkened not to God and to his law; they never heeded
that; it was to them as if it had never been given or were of no force;
they inclined not their ear to attend to it, much less their
hearts to comply with it. But they would have their own way, would do
as they chose, and not as they were bidden. Their own counsels
were their guide, and not the dictates of divine wisdom; that shall be
lawful and good with them which they think so, though the word of God
says quite contrary. The imagination of their evil heart, the
appetites and passions of it, shall be a law to them, and they will
walk in the way of it, and in the sight of their eyes.
2. If they began well, yet they did not proceed, but soon flew off.
They went backward, when they talked of making a captain, and
returning to Egypt again, and would not go forward under God’s conduct.
They promised fair: All that the Lord shall say unto us we well
do; and, if they would but have kept in that good mind, all would
have been well; but, instead of going on in the way of duty, they drew
back into the way of sin, and were worse than ever.
3. When God sent to them by word of mouth to put them in mind of the
written word, which was the business of the prophets, it was all one;
still they were disobedient. God had servants of his among them in
every age, since they came out of Egypt unto this day, some or
other to tell them of their faults and put them in mind of their duty,
whom he rose up early to send (as before,
v. 13),
as men rise up early to call servants to their work; but they were as
deaf to the prophets as they were to the law
(v. 26):
Yet they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear. This had been
their way and manner all along; they were of the same stubborn
refractory disposition with those that went before them; it had all
along been the genius of the nation, and an evil genius it was, that
continually haunted them till it ruined them at last.
4. Their practice and character were still the same. They are worse,
and not better, than their fathers.
(1.) Jeremiah can himself witness against them that they were
disobedient, or he shall soon find it so
(v. 27):
“Thou shalt speak all these words to them, shalt particularly
charge them with disobedience and obstinacy. But even that will not
work upon them: They will not hearken to thee, nor heed thee.
Thou shalt go, and call to them with all the plainness and
earnestness imaginable, but they will not answer thee; they will
either give thee no answer at all or not an obedient answer; they will
not come at thy call.”
(2.) He must therefore own that they deserved the character of a
disobedient people, that were ripe for destruction, and must go to them
and tell them so to their faces
(v. 28):
“Say unto them, This is a nation that obeys not the voice of the
Lord their God. They are notorious for their obstinacy; they
sacrifice to the Lord as their God, but they will not be ruled by him
as their God; they will not receive either the instruction of his word
or the correction of his rod; they will not be reclaimed or reformed by
either. Truth has perished among them; they cannot receive it;
they will not submit to it nor be governed by it. They will not speak
truth; there is no believing a word they say, for it is cut off from
their mouth, and lying comes in the room of it. They are false both
to God and man.”
| The Desolation of Judah. | B. C. 606. |
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29 Cut off thine hair, O Jerusalem, and cast it away, and
take up a lamentation on high places; for the LORD hath rejected
and forsaken the generation of his wrath.
30 For the children of Judah have done evil in my sight, saith
the LORD: they have set their abominations in the house which is
called by my name, to pollute it.
31 And they have built the high places of Tophet, which is in
the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their
daughters in the fire; which I commanded them not, neither came
it into my heart.
32 Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that it
shall no more be called Tophet, nor the valley of the son of
Hinnom, but the valley of slaughter: for they shall bury in
Tophet, till there be no place.
33 And the carcases of this people shall be meat for the fowls
of the heaven, and for the beasts of the earth; and none shall
fray them away.
34 Then will I cause to cease from the cities of Judah, and
from the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of mirth, and the voice
of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the
bride: for the land shall be desolate.
Here is,
I. A loud call to weeping and mourning. Jerusalem, that had been a
joyous city, the joy of the whole earth, must now take up a
lamentation on high places
(v. 29),
the high places where they had served their idols; there must they now
bemoan their misery. In token both of sorrow and slavery, Jerusalem
must now cut off her hair and cast it away; the word is peculiar
to the hair of the Nazarites, which was the badge and token of their
dedication to God, and it is called their crown. Jerusalem had
been a city which was a Nazarite to God, but now must cut off her
hair, must be profaned, degraded, and separated from God, as she
had been separated to him. It is time for those that have lost their
holiness to lay aside their joy.
II. Just cause given for this great lamentation.
1. The sin of Jerusalem appears here very heinous, nowhere worse, or
more exceedingly sinful
(v. 30):
“The children of Judah” (God’s profession people, that came
forth out of the waters of Judah,
Isa. xlviii. 1)
“have done evil in my sight, under my eye, in my presence; they
have affronted me to my face, which very much aggravates the affront:”
or, “They have done that which they know to be evil in my sight,
and in the highest degree offensive to me.” Idolatry was the sin which
was above all other sins evil in God’s sight. Now here are two things
charged upon them in their idolatry, which were very provoking:
(1.) That they were very impudent in it towards God and set him at
defiance: They have set their abominations (their abominable
idols and the altars erected to them) in the house that is called by
my name, in the very courts of the temple, to pollute it
(Manasseh did so,
as if they thought God would connive at it, or cared not though he was
ever so much displeased with it, or as if they would reconcile heaven
and hell, God and Baal. The heart is the place which God has chosen to
put his name there; if sin have the innermost and uppermost
place there, we pollute the temple of the Lord, and therefore he
resents nothing more than setting up idols in the heart,
Ezek. xiv. 4.
(2.) That they were very barbarous in it towards their own children,
They have particularly built the high places of Tophet, where
the image of Moloch was set up, in the valley of the son of
Hinnom, adjoining to Jerusalem; and there they burnt their sons
and their daughters in the fire, burnt them alive, killed them, and
killed them in the most cruel manner imaginable, to honour or appease
those idols that were devils and not gods. This was surely the greatest
instance that ever was of the power of Satan in the children of
disobedience, and of the degeneracy and corruption of the human nature.
One would willingly hope that there were not many instances of such a
barbarous idolatry; but it is amazing that there should be any, that
men could be so perfectly void of natural affection as to do a thing so
inhuman as to burn little innocent children, and their own too, that
they should be so perfectly void of natural religion as to think it
lawful to do this, nay, to think it acceptable. Surely it was in a way
of righteous judgment, because they had changed the glory of God into
the similitude of a beast, that God gave them up to such vile
affections that changed them into worse than beasts. God says of this
that it was what he commanded them not, neither cam it into his
heart, which is not meant of his not commanding them thus to
worship Moloch (this he had expressly forbidden them), but he
had never commanded that his worshippers should be at such an expense,
nor put such a force upon their natural affection, in honouring him; it
never came into his heart to have children offered to him, yet they had
forsaken his service for the service of such gods as, by commanding
this, showed themselves to be indeed enemies to mankind.
2. The destruction of Jerusalem appears here very terrible. That speaks
misery enough in general
(v. 29),
The Lord hath rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath.
Sin makes those the generation of God’s wrath that had ben the
generation of his love. And God will reject and quite forsake those who
have thus made themselves vessels of wrath fitted to
destruction. He will disown them for his. “Verily, I say unto you,
I know you not.” And he will give them up to the terrors of their own
guilt, and leave them in those hands.
(1.) Death shall triumph over them,
Sin reigns unto death; for that is the wages of it, the end of those
things. Tophet, the valley adjoining to Jerusalem, shall be
called the valley of slaughter, for there multitudes shall be
slain, when, in their sallies out of the city and their attempts to
escape, they fall into the hands of the besiegers. Or it shall be
called the valley of slaughtered ones, because thither the
corpses of those that are slain shall be brought to be buried, all
other burying places being full; and there they shall bury until
there be no more place to make a grave. This intimates the
multitude of those that shall die by the sword, pestilence, and famine.
Death shall ride on prosperously, with dreadful pomp and power,
conquering and to conquer. The slain of the Lord shall be many.
This valley of Tophet was a place where the citizens of Jerusalem
walked to take the air; but it shall now be spoiled for that use, for
it shall be so full of graves that there shall be no walking there,
because of the danger of contracting a ceremonial pollution by the
touch of a grave. There it was that they sacrificed some of their
children, and dedicated others to Moloch, and there they should fall as
victims to divine justice. Tophet had formerly been the burying place,
or burning place, of the dead bodies of the besiegers, when the
Assyrian army was routed by an angel; and for this it was ordained
of old,
Isa. xxx. 33.
But they having forgotten this mercy, and made it the place of their
sin, God will now turn it into a burying place for the besieged. In
allusion to this valley, hell is in the New Testament called
Gehenna–the valley of Hinnom, for there were buried both the
invading Assyrians and the revolting Jews; so hell is a receptacle
after death both for infidels and hypocrites, the open enemies of God’s
church and its treacherous friends; it is the congregation of the
dead; it is prepared for the generation of God’s wrath. But
so great shall that slaughter be that even the spacious valley of
Tophet shall not be able to contain the slain; and at length there
shall not be enough left alive to bury the dead, so that the
carcases of the people shall be meat for the birds and beasts of
prey, that shall feed upon them like carrion, and none shall have the
concern or courage to frighten them away, as Rizpah did from the dead
bodies of Saul’s sons,
Thy carcase shall be meat to the fowls and beasts, and no man shall
drive them away. Thus do the law and the prophets agree, and the
execution with both. The decent burying of the dead is a piece of
humanity, in remembrance of what the dead body has been–the tabernacle
of a reasonable soul. Nay, it is a piece of divinity, in expectation
of what the dead body shall be at the resurrection. The want of it has
sometimes been an instance of the rage of men against God’s witnesses,
Here it is threatened as an instance of the wrath of God against his
enemies, and is an intimation that evil pursues sinners even
after death.
(2.) Joy shall depart from them
(v. 34):
Then will I cause to cease the voice of mirth. God had
called by his prophets, and by less judgments, to weeping and
mourning; but they walked contrary to him, and would hear of
nothing but joy and gladness,
And what came of it? Now God called to lamentation
(v. 29),
and he made his call effectual, leaving them neither cause nor heart
for joy and gladness. Those that will not weep shall weep; those that
will not by the grace of God be cured of their vain mirth shall by the
justice of God be deprived of all mirth; for when God judges he will
overcome. It is threatened here that there shall be nothing to
rejoice in. There shall be none of the joy of weddings; no mirth, for
there shall be no marriages. The comforts of life shall be abandoned,
and all care to keep up mankind upon earth cast off; there shall be
none of the voice of the bridegroom and the bride, no
music, no nuptial songs. Nor shall there be any more of the joy of the
harvest, for the land shall be desolate, uncultivated and
unimproved. Both the cities of Judah and the streets of
Jerusalem shall look thus melancholy; and when they thus look about
them, and see no cause to rejoice, no marvel if they retire into
themselves and find no heart to rejoice. Note, God can soon mar the
mirth of the most jovial, and make it to cease, which is a reason why
we should always rejoice with trembling, be merry and wise.
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