Jeremiah - Lesson 9

• Chapters 1-6 The foundation of this book is established by the LORD calling Jeremiah as a prophet to Judah in the final days of that kingdom. The LORD’s people, Israel and Judah, had rejected their God by worshipping false gods and without their repentance, the LORD is sending a nation from the North as judgment—but not for a complete destruction of His people.

• Chapter 7 Preaching at a gate at the temple, Jeremiah prophesies about the impending destruction of the temple and the city like was done at Shiloh. The temple’s existence is not going to save Jerusalem from the judgment to be brought, because of the people's worship of foreign gods and their disregard for the needy.

• Chapter 8 When judgment comes on Jerusalem it will be the apostate Jews who will turn to their worship of false gods leading the way to destruction, instructed by the spiritual leaders of the day. The LORD is saddened by the necessity of discipline in Jeremiah’s day in the same way He is when the same situation occurs in the time of Christ.

Jer. 9:1   Oh that my head were waters
And my eyes a fountain of tears,
That I might weep day and night
For the slain of the daughter of my people!
Jer. 9:2  Oh that I had in the desert
A wayfarers’ lodging place;
That I might leave my people
And go from them!
For all of them are adulterers,
An assembly of treacherous men.
Jer. 9:3  “They bend their tongue like their bow;
Lies and not truth prevail in the land;
For they proceed from evil to evil,
And they do not know Me,” declares the LORD.
Jer. 9:4  “Let everyone be on guard against his neighbor,
And do not trust any brother;
Because every brother deals craftily,
And every neighbor goes about as a slanderer.
Jer. 9:5  “Everyone deceives his neighbor
And does not speak the truth,
They have taught their tongue to speak lies;
They weary themselves committing iniquity.
Jer. 9:6  “Your dwelling is in the midst of deceit;
Through deceit they refuse to know Me,” declares the LORD.

• Verse 1 The LORD describes the depth of His desire to mourn over Jerusalem.

  • Verse 2 Seeking shelter in a place meant for a short stay as one travels is preferable to staying in the company of the LORD’s people because of the guilt of their continual spiritual adultery and deception.

    • The LORD, however, never leaves His people because He is a faithful God.

    • The LORD sees the constant spiritual adultery. The LORD sees the despicable worship of other gods His people go after.

  • This is like a person in a marriage who sees what an unfaithful partner does and the pain this constantly brings. Though the marriage partner does not leave, it would be tempting to leave and not see and be reminded of the adultery.

  • The spiritual adultery of God’s people has gone on for decades as He has looked on.

• Verse 3 The LORD uses the picture of a man holding a bow in preparation to shoot an arrow and the bending of that bow is the pressure used to launch an arrow.

  • The tongue is described as the bent bow.

  • The arrow being shot from the bow are the words, those words are lies.

  • The lies build upon each other, as described here, proceeding from evil to evil.

    • Picture a warrior with a quiver full of arrows he can pull quickly and cause great destruction.

    • These people who have the name of the people of the LORD in fact do not know the LORD.

• David used the same imagery in Psa 5:8-9, 52:1-4

Psa. 5:8 O LORD, lead me in Your righteousness because of my foes;
Make Your way straight before me.
Psa. 5:9 There is nothing reliable in what they say;
Their inward part is destruction itself.
Their throat is an open grave;
They flatter with their tongue.

Psa. 52:1 Why do you boast in evil, O mighty man?
The lovingkindness of God endures all day long.
Psa. 52:2 Your tongue devises destruction,
Like a sharp razor, O worker of deceit.
Psa. 52:3 You love evil more than good,
Falsehood more than speaking what is right. Selah.
Psa. 52:4 You love all words that devour,
O deceitful tongue.

• Jer. 9:4 The LORD declares there is no one who can be trusted, not a relative or a neighbor.

  • The relatives take advantage of one another in devious ways.

  • The neighbors lie about each other.

    • The lack of cohesive trust in one another tears society down, each person looking for their own gain and not caring for anyone else.

    • When a society loses the ability to take care of each other and to take care of the vulnerable, it is the beginning of the end of that society.

    • Sowing the seeds of distrust is a cornerstone to tearing down any society.

• Verse 5 Lying is described as pervasive and exhausting.

  • This is a good description of a pathological liar; they lie even when they don’t need to as they can’t seem to help themselves, and then they are exhausted trying to weave the lies long-term while trying to remember which lies they have told to whom.

• Verse 6 These people live in deceit and use the deceit to keep from knowing the LORD.

  • This would appear to be lying to oneself, no self-awareness at all.

  • This can be witnessed when trying to speak about the LORD or the simple truth of the gospel with someone who already has an established religion or belief system they are dedicated to. They are not interested in hearing anything that would challenge the narrative they are dedicated to already.

    • There are many who live in the deceit of what they have believed, and that deceit keeps them from a true relationship with the LORD.

  • This is the picture being drawn by the LORD about those who should have been His people, yet they have willingly gone along with deceit brought by the scribes and leaders of the day.   

Jer. 9:7 Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts,
“Behold, I will refine them and assay them;
For what else can I do, because of the daughter of My people?
Jer. 9:8  “Their tongue is a deadly arrow;
It speaks deceit;
With his mouth one speaks peace to his neighbor,
But inwardly he sets an ambush for him.
Jer. 9:9  “Shall I not punish them for these things?” declares the LORD.
“On a nation such as this
Shall I not avenge Myself?
Jer. 9:10 “For the mountains I will take up a weeping and wailing,
And for the pastures of the wilderness a dirge,
Because they are laid waste so that no one passes through,
And the lowing of the cattle is not heard;
Both the birds of the sky and the beasts have fled; they are gone.
Jer. 9:11 “I will make Jerusalem a heap of ruins,
A haunt of jackals;
And I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.”

• Verse 7 The LORD describes Himself as the LORD of hosts again as He continues to declare He will be the one refining them and testing them.

  • The people who survive the onslaught will be taken into captivity and it is there the LORD will continue to refine and test them.

  • The LORD uses this method because of what His people have done to Jerusalem.

• Verse 8 The LORD continues to use the description of the tongue to describe how the words of deceit are the arrows used against the neighbors.

  • The tongue speaks words of peace yet the heart desires and plans for destruction.

• Verse 9 The LORD declares because this is a nation claiming to be His people, He cannot avoid punishing them as they bring shame to His name.

  • The LORD brought destruction to other nations who had tried to destroy His people.

  • When the people of the LORD are destroying themselves, the LORD intervenes to save them from themselves.

• Verse 10 The mountains and the plains will be empty, and the animals and birds will even flee.

  • Verse 11 The LORD will lay waste to Jerusalem.

  • All the cities of Judah will be left empty. The destruction will be complete in the land, though the LORD had promised to spare some of the people taken into captivity when He promised there would not be complete destruction.   

Jer. 9:12 Who is the wise man that may understand this? And who is he to whom the mouth of the LORD has spoken, that he may declare it? Why is the land ruined, laid waste like a desert, so that no one passes through?
Jer. 9:13 The LORD said, “Because they have forsaken My law which I set before them, and have not obeyed My voice nor walked according to it,
Jer. 9:14 but have walked after the stubbornness of their heart and after the Baals, as their fathers taught them,”
Jer. 9:15 therefore thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, “behold, I will feed them, this people, with wormwood and give them poisoned water to drink.
Jer. 9:16 “I will scatter them among the nations, whom neither they nor their fathers have known; and I will send the sword after them until I have annihilated them.”

• Verse 12 The LORD now lays out His accusation with questions.

  • First, He identifies there were wise men who should have understood what was being spoken.

  • Second, the LORD says there were men He did speak to, but they did not declare His words.

  • Finally, this purposeful lack of understanding is why the destruction must come.

• Verse 13 The people have forsaken the LORD’s law that He gave them by not being obedient in their actions.

  • Verse 14 The people chose instead to worship the Baals, brought to them by their fathers.

    • This worship of Baal began early in the history of Israel. Judges 2:8-13.

Judg. 2:8 Then Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died at the age of one hundred and ten.
Judg. 2:9 And they buried him in the territory of his inheritance in Timnath-heres, in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash.
Judg. 2:10 All that generation also were gathered to their fathers; and there arose another generation after them who did not know the LORD, nor yet the work which He had done for Israel.
Judg. 2:11 Then the sons of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD and served the Baals,
Judg. 2:12 and they forsook the LORD, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods from among the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed themselves down to them; thus they provoked the LORD to anger.
Judg. 2:13 So they forsook the LORD and served Baal and the Ashtaroth.

• This worship continued in Gideon’s day. Judges 6:24-30.

Judg. 6:24 Then Gideon built an altar there to the LORD and named it The LORD is Peace. To this day it is still in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.
Judg. 6:25 Now on the same night the LORD said to him, “Take your father’s bull and a second bull seven years old, and pull down the altar of Baal which belongs to your father, and cut down the Asherah that is beside it;
Judg. 6:26 and build an altar to the LORD your God on the top of this stronghold in an orderly manner, and take a second bull and offer a burnt offering with the wood of the Asherah which you shall cut down.”
Judg. 6:27 Then Gideon took ten men of his servants and did as the LORD had spoken to him; and because he was too afraid of his father’s household and the men of the city to do it by day, he did it by night.
Judg. 6:28 When the men of the city arose early in the morning, behold, the altar of Baal was torn down, and the Asherah which was beside it was cut down, and the second bull was offered on the altar which had been built.
Judg. 6:29 They said to one another, “Who did this thing?” And when they searched about and inquired, they said, “Gideon the son of Joash did this thing.”
Judg. 6:30 Then the men of the city said to Joash, “Bring out your son, that he may die, for he has torn down the altar of Baal, and indeed, he has cut down the Asherah which was beside it.”

• The worship of Baal continued all the way to the kings of Israel. 1Kings 16:31-33

1Kings 16:31 It came about, as though it had been a trivial thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, that he married Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and went to serve Baal and worshiped him.
1Kings 16:32 So he erected an altar for Baal in the house of Baal which he built in Samaria.
1Kings 16:33 Ahab also made the Asherah. Thus Ahab did more to provoke the LORD God of Israel than all the kings of Israel who were before him.

• The worship of Baal was a continual sin of the LORD’s people.

  • Jer. 9:15 The LORD again identifies Himself as the LORD of hosts when he speaks of the judgment He will bring on this people, described as feeding them wormwood and poisoned water to drink.

    • Wormwood is a plant with bitter juice.

    • Water was often made poisonous by adding a bitter herb.

  • The judgment the LORD is bringing on His people is bitter; the people left Him no option.

  • A modern phrase used to convey this thought is, “That is a bitter pill to swallow.”

• Verse 16 The LORD is going to take them into a nation their ancestors had not known.

  • A land far, far away.

  • Those who were responsible for the deception of the people, the wise ones, some of them will leave and yet they will be annihilated in captivity.

Jer. 9:17 Thus says the LORD of hosts,
“Consider and call for the mourning women, that they may come;
And send for the wailing women, that they may come!
Jer. 9:18 “Let them make haste and take up a wailing for us,
That our eyes may shed tears
And our eyelids flow with water.
Jer. 9:19 “For a voice of wailing is heard from Zion,
‘How are we ruined!
We are put to great shame,
For we have left the land,
Because they have cast down our dwellings.’”
Jer. 9:20 Now hear the word of the LORD, O you women,
And let your ear receive the word of His mouth;
Teach your daughters wailing,
And everyone her neighbor a dirge.
Jer. 9:21 For death has come up through our windows;
It has entered our palaces
To cut off the children from the streets,
The young men from the town squares.
Jer. 9:22 Speak, “Thus says the LORD,
‘The corpses of men will fall like dung on the open field,
And like the sheaf after the reaper,
But no one will gather them.’”

• Verses 17 -18 The LORD of hosts calls on those who know how to communicate the pain of grieving to others to be called together for the mourning of what His people are about to endure.

  • Verse 19 There will be actual wailing for what is to happen in Zion.

    • There is immense shame as the people leave the land and there is no home remaining for them in the Promised Land.

• Verse 20 Let the women understand the time is now to prepare for a time of grief, prepare your daughters and your neighbors for what is about to take place.

  • There will be so much death the need for trained mourners will outstrip those who are available and so training needs to take place.

• Verse 21 There will be death beyond the imagination. No place will be safe as the city is overrun. No home spared. Children will be murdered and not spared.

  • The young men who normally gather in the town square will not survive.

  • During the siege of Jerusalem there may have been pestilence that devastated the city from within.

• Verse 22 The dead bodies of the men residing outside the cities or fleeing the cities will be left on the surface of the ground with no one to bury them. It will look like what happens in a harvest when the sickle is put to the base of the plants and afterward all the plants are lying flat.

Jer. 9:23 Thus says the LORD, “Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riches;
Jer. 9:24 but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD who exercises lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things,” declares the LORD.
Jer. 9:25 “Behold, the days are coming,” declares the LORD, “that I will punish all who are circumcised and yet uncircumcised —
Jer. 9:26 Egypt and Judah, and Edom and the sons of Ammon, and Moab and all those inhabiting the desert who clip the hair on their temples; for all the nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised of heart.”

• Verse 23 There will be nothing to boast about in regard to a man’s wisdom, strength or wealth.

  • Verse 24 There will only be one thing to boast about and that will be for the one who truly knows the LORD. The way one would demonstrate this knowledge of the LORD would be to testify that He brings lovingkindness, justice and righteousness to the earth.

    • This is how the LORD describes Himself to Moses. Ex. 34:4-7.

Ex. 34:4 So he cut out two stone tablets like the former ones, and Moses rose up early in the morning and went up to Mount Sinai, as the LORD had commanded him, and he took two stone tablets in his hand.
Ex. 34:5 The LORD descended in the cloud and stood there with him as he called upon the name of the LORD.
Ex. 34:6 Then the LORD passed by in front of him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth;
Ex. 34:7 who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.”

• The LORD describes Himself as not only being the one to be lovingkindness, justice and righteousness to man, but He also must not leave the guilty unpunished.

  • Jer. 9:25 The LORD speaks truth about a day that has not arrived yet, saying days are coming.

    • In these future days the LORD is going to punish all who are circumcised; this is a description used for a physical Jew, and of these Jews there will be those who are not circumcised spiritually, described here as in their hearts.

• Verse 26 The LORD lists five nations and includes those living in the desert.

  • This group He describes as clipping the hair on their temples.

    • There is no specific association given here for what clipping the hair on the temples is for, but the LORD had already instructed His people they were not to practice this. Lev. 19:27.

Lev. 19:27 ‘You shall not round off the side-growth of your heads nor harm the edges of your beard.

• This practice obviously was used to communicate something the LORD wanted them to avoid.

  • Some Jews have taken this to an extreme and that is why many orthodox Jews can be seen with the long hair growth from the temple area often shaped with a curl.

  • Then there is a description of all nations as considered uncircumcised. The nations of the world do not have their bodies or their hearts circumcised.

    • The LORD now demonstrates what He sees about His people in that they do not have circumcised hearts. They do not know the LORD.

    • The LORD had already revealed what He would do if His people did not circumcise their hearts, earlier in Jer. 4:4.

Jer. 4:4  “Circumcise yourselves to the LORD
And remove the foreskins of your heart,
Men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem,
Or else My wrath will go forth like fire
And burn with none to quench it,
Because of the evil of your deeds.”

• As was discussed in chapter four, this was a spiritual condition. Deut. 10:14-17.

Deut. 10:14 “Behold, to the LORD your God belong heaven and the highest heavens, the earth and all that is in it.
Deut. 10:15 “Yet on your fathers did the LORD set His affection to love them, and He chose their descendants after them, even you above all peoples, as it is this day.
Deut. 10:16 “So circumcise your heart, and stiffen your neck no longer.
Deut. 10:17 “For the LORD your God is the God of gods and the Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God who does not show partiality nor take a bribe.

• The LORD had revealed that if the people did not choose to believe in His Word (being demonstrated by their obeying the Law He had given to them), then judgment was going to come on them.

  • The repeated refrain throughout this chapter of the deception of the tongue brings that sin into clear focus for us.

    • V 2 treacherous

    • V 3 bent tongue, not truth

    • V 4 deals craftily, slanderer

    • V 5 deceives, does not speak truth, taught their tongue to speak lies

    • V 6 in the midst of deceit; through deceit they refuse to know Me,

    • V 8 “Their tongue is a deadly arrow; It speaks deceit;

  • This warning could not be made clearer to the believer today than that found in James 3:1-10

James 3:1 Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we will incur a stricter judgment.
James 3:2 For we all stumble in many ways. If anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body as well.
James 3:3 Now if we put the bits into the horses’ mouths so that they will obey us, we direct their entire body as well.
James 3:4 Look at the ships also, though they are so great and are driven by strong winds, are still directed by a very small rudder wherever the inclination of the pilot desires.
James 3:5 So also the tongue is a small part of the body, and yet it boasts of great things. See how great a forest is set aflame by such a small fire!
James 3:6 And the tongue is a fire, the very world of iniquity; the tongue is set among our members as that which defiles the entire body, and sets on fire the course of our life, and is set on fire by hell.
James 3:7 For every species of beasts and birds, of reptiles and creatures of the sea, is tamed and has been tamed by the human race.
James 3:8 But no one can tame the tongue; it is a restless evil and full of deadly poison.
James 3:9 With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the likeness of God;
James 3:10 from the same mouth come both blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be this way.

• The warning is very clearly laid out.

  • Verse 2 The standard of the perfect tongue is given as a path to a perfect man.

  • Verse 3-4 The small size of things that yield great power are demonstrated in the bit in a horse’s mouth and the rudder of a ship.

  • Verse 5 The smallness of the tongue should not delude us in understanding the power it wields.

  • Verse 6 The tongue brings destruction like a fire: it can start with a small spark and turn into a raging destructive inferno in our life and is literally fueled by the fire of hell.

  • Verse 8 No one can tame the tongue.

• The words we speak with our tongue are to be given great contemplation. They are important.

  • Peter concurs in 1 Peter 3:8-12.

1Pet. 3:8 To sum up, all of you be harmonious, sympathetic, brotherly, kindhearted, and humble in spirit;
1Pet. 3:9 not returning evil for evil or insult for insult, but giving a blessing instead; for you were called for the very purpose that you might inherit a blessing.
1Pet. 3:10 For,
“THE ONE WHO DESIRES LIFE, TO LOVE AND SEE GOOD DAYS,
MUST KEEP HIS TONGUE FROM EVIL AND HIS LIPS FROM SPEAKING DECEIT.
1Pet. 3:11 “HE MUST TURN AWAY FROM EVIL AND DO GOOD;
HE MUST SEEK PEACE AND PURSUE IT.
1Pet. 3:12 “FOR THE EYES OF THE LORD ARE TOWARD THE RIGHTEOUS,
AND HIS EARS ATTEND TO THEIR PRAYER,
BUT THE FACE OF THE LORD IS AGAINST THOSE WHO DO EVIL.”

• This responsibility to keep guard over the tongue seems daunting.

  • The reason for this tremendous task is because the real power behind the tongue begins in our hearts. Mark 7:17-23

Mark 7:17 When he had left the crowd and entered the house, His disciples questioned Him about the parable.
Mark 7:18 And He said to them, “Are you so lacking in understanding also? Do you not understand that whatever goes into the man from outside cannot defile him,
Mark 7:19 because it does not go into his heart, but into his stomach, and is eliminated?” (Thus He declared all foods clean.)
Mark 7:20 And He was saying, “That which proceeds out of the man, that is what defiles the man.
Mark 7:21 “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries,
Mark 7:22 deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness.
Mark 7:23 “All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man.”

• The way to tame the tongue is to purify the heart.

  • The people who were to be of God in Jeremiah’s day had hard hearts filled with evil and it was displayed in their words.

  • The same is true for those who claim to be the people of God today.

  • We need to bring our hearts before God to purify them so our words will be pure and bring glory to the God who has saved us.