Some of our brethren live in countries where they have experienced the tyranny and incompetence of human government at its most selfish and inept. They have heard the cries of anguish, hunger, suffering and death. They have seen the land needlessly wasted and material and human resources misused. In their own lifetimes, they may have witnessed a pleasant country turned miserable solely through the corrupt practices of human rulers.
Brethren in such circumstances can relate to Jeremiah and the anguish he felt as he watched the final deterioration and collapse of his homeland.
There is, however, one notable difference. Israel was God’s chosen nation. They were given divine laws to govern the needs of the individual and the nation. If they were obedient, they would enjoy every blessing.
They had every factor working in their favor; they didn’t have to go through the agony of disorder, poverty and ruin. But they did suffer because they deliberately chose to defy God and walk in the stubbornness of their own hearts. King, princes, priests, prophets and ordinary citizens turned from Yahweh and disobeyed Him. For that, “I will recompense their iniquity and their sins double; because they have defiled my land…” (Jer. 16:18).
“For these things I weep”
“Oh my anguish, my anguish! I writhe in pain. Oh, the agony of my heart! My heart pounds within me, I cannot keep silent…disaster follows disaster; the whole land lies in ruins” (Jer. 4:19,20 NIV). One translation of this renders the last part of verse 19: “the very walls of my heart moan inside me.” This expresses the depth of the distress felt by Jeremiah and by God (see v.18 NIV).
In reading through the prophecy, it is useful to mark the dialog in some identifiable way to distinguish between the declarations of God, the words of Jeremiah and the (often implied) statements of the people. In some places, this may be difficult, because it is hard to distinguish between the words of Jeremiah and the expression of God’s emotions (e.g. 12:7-10).
Jeremiah is known as the weeping prophet. His grief is so intense that he frequently refers to his weeping or tears (8:21; 9:1,10). Since he had to proclaim to this wicked people the imminence of disaster, it would be difficult for him to remain dispassionate. His was a life of suffering and sorrow. At one point, he lamented, “Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men; that I might leave my people, and go from them!” (9:2) He wept for his beloved nation crumbling because of the wickedness of the people. He wept for fallen Zion, for lost opportunity. He wept, too, for the humiliation of God’s people and the disgrace brought upon His holy name.
“My people committed two evils”
“For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water.” The Hebrew for “fountain” is MAQOR, which indicates a natural flow of water. The word rendered “living” is CAHY, the common Hebrew word for life or alive. The word for “cistern” is BOR, meaning a pit or container dug in order to catch water from an outside source, thus a cistern.
Last year’s drought dramatically demonstrated this figure of speech on our own property. We have two small spring-fed ponds; and even at the height of the dry period, there was water. But nearby catch-basins dried up quickly and even now have not fully recovered. Quite literally, water is life. Why leave a continually flowing spring for a broken cistern that would quickly lose any water it contained?
That is precisely God’s question!
Jeremiah 1:16 clearly explains His analogy: “I will utter my judgments concerning them touching all their wickedness, who have forsaken me, and have burned incense unto other gods, and worshiped the works of their own hands.” They turned from a living God, the life-giving God, to clay formed by their own hands. As a result, God would “give them over” to poisoned water, water of gall (cp. 8:14; 9:15).
In all their dealings, they ceased trusting in Yahweh and relied instead upon themselves or nations around them. They turned away from God and embraced the gods of their neighbors, with all the associated fleshly standards and wicked practices. In reality, all sin may be summed up as forsaking the way of life for the way of death, as serving mammon and rejecting God, as choosing Baal over God. We can take our pick. Yet who would choose a broken cistern over a flowing spring? Israel did, most people do and many times we even are tempted to do so.
Adultery
A servant of God would not choose to live with a prostitute. We would find it difficult to accept an adulterous situation. We would find it impossible to deal with blatant harlotry, open infidelity. Yet Judah expected God to accept her unfaithfulness with impunity.
The people had allied themselves with Egypt and Babylon, had accepted their form of worship and had adulterated their relationship with Yahweh, their husband. They continued in their perversion even after God repeatedly warned them through His watchmen, the prophets (6:16,17). We are betrothed to Christ; we have promised to keep ourselves chaste until the “marriage” when we will be presented without spot to our beloved husband-savior. Presently we are burdened by human nature, yet with God all things are possible; flesh may be cleansed and purified. Adultery, rebellion and denial will bring the severest of divine judgments. We cannot embrace the world and expect God’s approval. He rejected unrepentant Judah. Similar conduct on our part will result in our own rejection.
Balm of Gilead
Jeremiah frequently refers to the “health” of the nation. In Jer. 8:21,22, he states, “For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt; I am black; astonishment hath taken hold on me. Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician there? why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?”
The Hebrew for “hurt” is SHEBER, a fracture, from SHABAR which means to burst. This word is used in Isa. 61:1 which was quoted by Jesus when referring to his work of “binding up the brokenhearted” (Luke 4:18). Because of their spiritual breach, Jeremiah was “black,” that is, in mourning. In anguished empathy for the pain of Zion, Jeremiah asks, “Is not the LORD in Zion?” He was not because “they provoked Him with their graven images.” There would be no healing for them at that time.
But there would come a time when Yahweh would remember them: “For I will restore health unto thee, and I would heal thee of thy wounds, saith Yahweh…” (30:17) This is, no doubt, a reference to the means by which they would be healed, or bound up: “With his stripes, they (we) are healed.” (Isa. 53:5) In Jer. 33:6,8, the figure is continued: “I will bring it (the nation) health and cure, and I will cure them, and will reveal unto them the abundance of peace and truth…and I will cleanse them from all their iniquity…” This would be possible because “my righteous servant shall justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.” (Isa. 53:11)
The new covenant
Israel had failed to keep the covenant. They had disobeyed God; they had turned from His law. They failed to see beyond the literal ordinances — the sacrifices, the incense and the physical structure of the temple. They were not changed inside. Their hearts had been as hard as the stone tables that Moses brought down from Mount Sinai.
Early on, they had been told, “to obey is better than sacrifice.” They had not listened to Hosea’s warning from God, “For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.” (Hos. 6:6) They had not retained God in their minds; they had no compassion for the weak, hungry and homeless. They turned deaf ears to Micah: “He hath shewed thee, 0 man, what is good; and what doth Yahweh require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” (Mic. 6:8) Sacrifices would not please God apart from a changed heart (Jer. 7:21-23; 6:16-21).
There would come a day when God would lead them back. “Behold, the days come, saith Yahweh, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah…I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts, and will be their God, and they shall be my people.. .for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest…for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” (Jer. 31:31-34)
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One