Jeremiah's Second and Third Prophesies
CHAPTER 3
The prophet pleads for genuine repentance and gives the requirement for repentance in Chapters 3:1-4:4.
READ Jeremiah 3:1-5 and see that Israel is depicted as a wife who has been unfaithful to her husband, the Lord much like the theme in the Book of Hosea. Even though Hosea prophesied about it much earlier and married a prostitute as an object lesson, Israel returned to God anytime she chose while at the same time being devoted to idol gods.
Verses 19-20 continue the thought of verses 1-5. Israel behaved as an adulterous wife and forsook her husband.
Israel didn't recognize that the only way for them to return to God was through genuine repentance.
Jeremiah gives a plea for repentance and a promise of restoration. "Return, O faithless sons, I will heal your faithlessness" (3:22a). He predicts in Verses 3:22b-25 that Israel will repent and return to God but not right away.
CHAPTER 4
Jeremiah continues to plead for Judah and Jerusalem to repent. He gives them two illistrations to accomplish this.
1. Break up your fallow ground and sow not among thorns (v. 3). Fallow ground is unplowed ground that has become hardened by the sun or covered over with briars and bushes. In order to be fit for farming such soil must be cleared off and broken up. Only then does it have the possibility of productivity. The soil of Judah's soul had become fallow, overrun with the thorns ad weeds of unconfessed sin, unreal worship, and uncommitted living.
2. Jeremiah’s second illustration is the Jewish custom of circumcision, a purification rite of initiation into the religious community. The prophet was well aware that many individuals bore this external physical mark of Judaism, the cutting away the flesh of the foreskin.The external action of cutting the flesh was not enough. There was a need for an inner, spiritual cutting that penetrates the deepest recesses of the human heart. Jeremiah prophesies ruin unless true repentance is done, according to verse 4b.
The Coming Judgment (4:5-6:30)
Jeremiah continues his prophecies of the judgment from Chapter 4:5-6:30. He does this through a series of eight poems centered around the coming of a foe from the north against Judah for Judah's sin to forsake God. The poems are in 4:5-10, 11-18, 19-22, 23-28, 29-31; 5:15-19; 6:1-8, 22-26.
READ about the enemy from the north in Chapter 4:5-31 in five of the eight poems.
They describe the successive steps the foe’s advance against Jerusalem from the initial warning of danger to destruction of the city.
CHAPTER 5
The enemy in Chapter 4 was from the north. In Chapter 5, the enemy is from within (5:1-31).
A description of the corruption of Jerusalem (vv. 1-9) and the issuance of a call to the destroyer to come upon Judah (vv. 10-14), even a foe from the north (vv. 15- 17). This chapter ends with “an appalling and disgusting situation” in the land (vv. 30, 31).
CHAPTER 6
The prophet continues to alternate between the description of corruption found in Judah and Jerusalem and the coming of God’s instrument of their punishment. However, two significant ideas are presented for the first time: the prophet’s attitude toward the sacrificial cultus (v. 20) and his function as an tester of his people (vv. 27-30).
Chapter 6 comes to a close with the metaphor from the mining industry.
CHAPTER 7
There is an obvious break between the prophecies recorded in Chapters 2-6 and those found in Chapters 7-10. In fact, there are 14 years between the early and later prophecies.
Jeremiah is commanded to stand in the gate of the temple and warn the worshippers to amend their ways and deal justly with their fellowman (v. 5), if they expect God to permit them to remain in the land given to their fathers (v. 7).
Jeremiah charges that the people are treating God’s covenant as a license for immoral living and coming to his house saying, we are delivered (vv. 8-10). By such actions they have made God’s house a den of robbers (v.11). Because they have done so God will destroy the temple at Jerusalem as he did Shiloh.
Finally, as the result of Judah’s trust in temple ritual rather than in a true relationship with her covenant God, Jeremiah announces God’s purpose concerning her.
The very people in Judah who were trusting in the temple were also worshipping other gods, openly in the streets of Jerusalem. All members of the family were involved (v. 18).
Jeremiah again attacks the people for their apostasy and idolatrous practices. He specifically charges the people with two evils: abominations in the temple and child sacrifice in the valley of the son of Hinnom (vv. 30-31).
CHAPTER 8
Backsliding is the theme in Chapter 8:4-7. Jeremiah contrasts the conduct of his people with that of migratory birds (v. 7). These birds are faithful to their migratory instincts but God’s people are unfaithful to the laws that govern their being.
There are two poems in 8:18-9:9:1. They are in contrast to each other. In the first poem (8:18- 9:1), the prophet expresses a sensitive and tender compassion for his people whom he dearly loves. In the second poem (9:2-9) he expresses a feeling of strong revulsion toward his people and desires to be done with them.
The people want to know why God has forsaken them. The Lord answers immediately with an inquiry as to why they have provoked Him with their idolatry (v. 19b).
After hearing the answer, the people lament. They say the harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved (v. 20). Jeremiah pictures the people of Judah as having missed one opportunity after another to repent and be saved from coming judgment.
After voicing his passionate grief a second time (v. 21), Jeremiah poses three searching questions (v. 22).
1. Is there no balm in Gilead? The expected answer is, Yes. Gilead was known for its medicinal herbs and the balm from resin of the storax tree.
2. Is there no physician there? Again the answer is, Yes. Gilead was also known for its physicians.
3. Why then is there no healing for the wound of my people? The people have not called on the right physician. They have neglected the one sure source of a cure. On the physical level there was a source for healing. But Gilead’s balm and her doctor’s care were not sufficient for the deep wound carried by the prophet’s own people. There could be no renewal of Judah’s health as long as her heart remained rebellious and unregenerate.
The way the people acted broke Jeremiah's heart. "Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for . . . my people (9:1). Remember, Jeremiah is known as the weeping prophet.
CHAPTER 9
Jeremiah’s revulsion in 9:2-9 shows Jeremiah's disgust and horror at the people's stubborn sinfulness. Therefore, he desires to remove himself from them. God's own people acted as if they did not know Him, says the Lord (3b, 6b). So God must refine and test (v. 7a; cf. 6:27-30) Judah. He cannot let her go unpunished (v. 9).
Jeremiah calls for a circumcision of the heart (9:25-26) because God's people were not different from the pagan nations. Therefore, they could expect God's punishment.
CHAPTER 10
Jeremiah compares idols with the true God (10:1-16).
1. The first is the warning to Judah not to copy the customs of neighboring nations, such as superstition about the heavens and the belief in heavenly deities (vv. 1-3a).
2. A second emphasis is the powerlessness of idols. They are things that men make. An idol is no more than a piece of wood, covered with precious metal. Like a scarecrow, it can do neither evil nor good (vv. 3b-5).
3. A final emphasis of the poem is the contrast between the living God and impotent idols. Idols are lifeless things, fashioned by men, while the living Lord is the creator and governor of the universe, whose power is shown by his rule over nature and the nations.
Jeremiah laments and intercedes (10:17-25). He commands the inhabitants to prepare for the long journey into exile (v. 18). The prophet intercedes for his people and petitions God to pour out His wrath upon those nations that have caused the exile of the people (v. 25).
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