Jeremiah 7
Big idea: The sermon that nearly got him killed, preached in the gate of the temple: a slogan repeated three times will not protect a building, and there is a ruined sanctuary at Shiloh that people can go and look at.
Jesus quotes verse 11 — a den of robbers — when he clears the temple, and the trial for this sermon is told at chapter 26.
7:1–20 — Has this house become a den of robbers?
The location is the point: stand in the gate of Yahweh's house, and proclaim there. He is preaching to people on their way in to worship. And the slogan he quotes is a liturgical chant: don't trust in lying words, saying, the temple of Yahweh, the temple of Yahweh, the temple of Yahweh, are these. Repeating it three times is either how it was actually said or a mimicry of how it was said, and either way the effect is the same.
1 The word that came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, saying, 2 “Stand in the gate of Yahweh’s house, and proclaim this word there, and say, ‘Hear Yahweh’s word, all you of Judah, who enter in at these gates to worship Yahweh.’” 3 Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel says, “Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place. 4 Don’t trust in lying words, saying, ‘Yahweh’s temple, Yahweh’s temple, Yahweh’s temple, are these.’ 5 For if you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings, if you thoroughly execute justice between a man and his neighbor; 6 if you don’t oppress the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow, and don’t shed innocent blood in this place, and don’t walk after other gods to your own hurt, 7 then I will cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, from of old even forever more. 8 Behold, you trust in lying words that can’t profit. 9 Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Baal, and walk after other gods that you have not known, 10 then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, ‘We are delivered,’ that you may do all these abominations? 11 Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I myself have seen it,” says Yahweh. 12 “But go now to my place which was in Shiloh, where I caused my name to dwell at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel. 13 Now, because you have done all these works,” says Yahweh, “and I spoke to you, rising up early and speaking, but you didn’t hear; and I called you, but you didn’t answer; 14 therefore I will do to the house which is called by my name, in which you trust, and to the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I did to Shiloh. 15 I will cast you out of my sight, as I have cast out all your brothers, even the whole offspring of Ephraim. 16 “Therefore don’t pray for this people. Don’t lift up a cry or prayer for them or make intercession to me; for I will not hear you. 17 Don’t you see 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 the dough, to make cakes to the queen of the sky, and to pour out drink offerings to other gods, that they may provoke me to anger. 19 Do they provoke me to anger?” says Yahweh. “Don’t they provoke themselves, to the confusion of their own faces?” 20 Therefore the Lord Yahweh says: “Behold, my anger and my wrath will be poured out on this place, on man, on animal, on the trees of the field, and on the fruit of the ground; and it will burn and will not be quenched.”
7:21–34 — I didn't speak concerning burnt offerings
The opening is sarcastic and the sarcasm is functional: add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices and eat meat. If the offerings are not being accepted, they may as well be dinner. And then the historical claim, which is one of the most discussed sentences in the prophets: I didn't speak to your fathers or command them in the day I brought them out of Egypt concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices — but this I commanded them, saying, listen to my voice, and I will be your God, and walk in all the way I command you. Readers differ on whether this denies that the sacrificial law was given at Sinai, or states a priority in the strongest available terms, or uses a rhetorical form that means not this so much as that. The bundle sets the readings out and adopts none.
21 Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel says: “Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices and eat meat. 22 For I didn’t speak to your fathers or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices; 23 but this thing I commanded them, saying, ‘Listen to my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people. Walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.’ 24 But they didn’t listen or turn their ear, but walked in their own counsels and in the stubbornness of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward. 25 Since the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt to this day, I have sent to you all my servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them. 26 Yet they didn’t listen to me or incline their ear, but made their neck stiff. They did worse than their fathers. 27 “You shall speak all these words to them, but they will not listen to you. You shall also call to them, but they will not answer you. 28 You shall tell them, ‘This is the nation that has not listened to Yahweh their God’s voice, nor received instruction. Truth has perished, and is cut off from their mouth.’ 29 Cut off your hair, and throw it away, and take up a lamentation on the bare heights; for Yahweh has rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath. 30 “For the children of Judah have done that which is evil in my sight,” says Yahweh. “They have set their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to defile it. 31 They have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I didn’t command, nor did it come into my mind. 32 Therefore behold, the days come”, says Yahweh, “that 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 place to bury. 33 The dead bodies of this people will be food for the birds of the sky, and for the animals of the earth. No one will frighten them away. 34 Then I will 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 will become a waste.”
Scripture text: World English Bible (public domain).