Jeremiah 6:11

Jeremiah prophesied in the late 7th and early 6th centuries BC, from about 627 to 586 BC, through the last kings of Judah before the exile to Babylon, among them Josiah, Jehoiakim and Zedekiah. Assyria was declining, Babylon was rising and Egypt was still a force, and Judah often made alliances that defied God’s counsel. Josiah’s reforms (2 Kings 22–23) brought a short return to covenant faithfulness, but the heart of the nation stayed unrepentant, and under his successors idolatry, oppression and an empty show of worship spread again. The people had forgotten the covenant made at Sinai (Exodus 19–24) and the curses for unfaithfulness set out in Deuteronomy 28. They trusted that the temple made Jerusalem safe (Jeremiah 7:4), the confidence Jeremiah confronts in the temple sermon of Jeremiah 7.

Jeremiah 6 follows the corruption laid bare in Jeremiah 5, and it carries on the message God gave Jeremiah from his call in Jeremiah 1. Its opening verses (Jeremiah 6:1–8) show an enemy coming from the north, tell the people of Benjamin to flee, and describe Jerusalem as a city ripe for siege. They end with the LORD pleading with Jerusalem to take warning before he turns from her. This passage is his answer to a city that would not be corrected. After it, the LORD calls the people back to the ancient paths (Jeremiah 6:16), says they have rejected his word (Jeremiah 6:19), lays stumblingblocks before them (Jeremiah 6:21) and sends a great nation from the north (Jeremiah 6:22). That nation was Babylon, whose king God calls his servant when he announces seventy years of captivity (Jeremiah 25:8–11).

“Thus saith the LORD of hosts” opens the passage with God’s own authority. Yᵉhôvâh is God’s covenant name, and tsâbâʼ, “hosts”, means a great company of people, especially one organised for war, so the title names him as the commander of every army in heaven and on earth. What follows is his deliberate act, even though he carries it out through a foreign army.

The verb ʻâlal means to do a thing thoroughly, and in particular to glean, going back over a vine or a field to gather what was left after the main harvest. The Hebrew uses the verb twice, which the KJV renders “throughly glean”. By implication, in a bad sense, it can also mean to deal harshly with someone. Israel knew gleaning well, because the law told them to leave the gleanings of their vineyards for the poor (Leviticus 19:10). Here that familiar mercy becomes a picture of judgment. The invader will go over the vine again and again until nothing is left on it.

The word for vine, gephen, is the grapevine, named from its bending, twining growth. Scripture often pictures Israel as God’s vine, planted and tended so that it would bear fruit. Isaiah sings of God’s vineyard that brought forth wild grapes (Isaiah 5:1–7), and Hosea recalls how God found Israel like grapes in the wilderness (Hosea 9:10). In this verse the vine that was meant for fruitfulness is stripped in judgment.

“The remnant of Israel” here means those who had survived earlier blows. Elsewhere in the prophets the remnant is a word of hope, the small number God keeps alive so that his people continue, as in Isaiah 1:7–9. In this verse even the survivors are swept up, as the law had warned when it said God would scatter Israel among the nations (Leviticus 26:33).

“Turn back thine hand as a grapegatherer into the baskets” is a command to the gatherer, the invading army, to reach into the vine once more. The word for grapegatherer, bâtsar, comes from a root meaning to clip off, and it is the word for gathering grapes. Each grape is a person and the baskets are the captivity, so the picture is of a deportation that leaves no one behind.

Jeremiah asks, “To whom shall I speak, and give warning, that they may hear?” The question carries his frustration. He has a warning from God and almost no one will receive it. His laments elsewhere show how heavy this calling was for him (Jeremiah 15:10).

“Behold” comes twice in this verse, and each time it points to something shocking. The first is “their ear is uncircumcised”. The word ʻârêl properly means exposed, and it is the ordinary word for uncircumcised. Circumcision was the sign of Israel’s covenant with the LORD and was at the heart of who they were as his people. An uncircumcised ear belongs to a member of God’s people and stays closed to his voice. The people could hear sounds perfectly well. Their hearts were hardened by sin and rebellion, so they could neither take in God’s word nor obey it. The law already spoke of uncircumcised hearts that must be humbled (Leviticus 26:41) and called Israel to circumcise their hearts (Deuteronomy 10:16). Moses told Israel that the LORD had not yet given them ears to hear (Deuteronomy 29:4), Isaiah was sent to a people whose ears were heavy (Isaiah 6:9–10), and Stephen called the leaders of his day “uncircumcised in heart and ears” (Acts 7:51).

“They cannot hearken” describes a refusal that has become an inability. The verb qâshab means to prick up the ears, to listen closely and give heed. A people that had long refused to listen now could not.

The second “behold” is “the word of the LORD is unto them a reproach”. The word cherpâh means contempt, disgrace, rebuke or shame. God’s word, which should have been honoured as life-giving truth, was to them an insult, a rebuke to be resented. “They have no delight in it” completes the picture. The verb châphêts means to like, to be pleased with or to desire, and it describes the heart’s attachment to something. They had no such attachment to the word of the LORD, and they despised what it said.

“Therefore” ties verse 11 to the deafness of verse 10. Because the people will not hear, Jeremiah says, “I am full of the fury of the LORD.” The word chêmâh means heat, and figuratively rage or poison. As God’s messenger, the prophet carries the LORD’s anger within him and must proclaim it. The words can also be heard as God himself speaking through Jeremiah, which makes little difference to the point, because the fury is the LORD’s either way.

“I am weary with holding in” uses lâʼâh, to tire or grow weary, and a verb that properly means to keep in or contain. This weariness pictures, in human terms, God’s long patience, which has held back judgment through many warnings and opportunities to repent. The LORD is “slow to anger” (Psalm 103:8), and Nahum says the same while adding that he is great in power and will by no means clear the guilty (Nahum 1:3). Nehemiah recalls how God bore with Israel for many years and testified against them by his prophets (Nehemiah 9:30). His patience is great, and it has a limit.

“I will pour it out” uses shâphak, to pour out, spill or shed, the word used for shedding blood, pouring a drink offering and pouring molten metal. God’s anger is pictured as a liquid poured out on the land.

The rest of the verse names who it will reach, from the youngest to the oldest. “The children abroad” are children outside, since chûwts means outside, so these are little ones playing in the streets or the fields. Next come “the assembly of young men together”, the young men gathered in company, with yachad meaning together, as one. Then “the husband with the wife shall be taken”, where lâkad means to catch, as in a net, trap or pit, and so to capture or seize. Last come “the aged with him that is full of days”, the elders and the very old who have lived out a long life. Family and community alike will be caught up in the calamity.

Verse 12 brings the judgment into every household. The word bayith means a house, and it also covers a household, a family and a family line. To lose one’s house was to lose a settled life, a heritage and a future for one’s children. “Shall be turned unto others” uses çâbab, which means to turn about or surround, and here it means to be turned over to new owners. The homes would be seized and handed to others.

“With their fields and wives together” widens the loss. Fields were a family’s livelihood and wives its future. The word for wives here is the word for wife in verse 11, and yachad, “together”, is the same word that gathered the young men in that verse. Everything a man in Judah counted as security would be taken at once. The covenant curses had named this very loss of house and family (Deuteronomy 28:30), and after the fall of Jerusalem the survivors mourned, “Our inheritance is turned to strangers” (Lamentations 5:2).

“For I will stretch out my hand upon the inhabitants of the land” names who is behind it. The verb nâṭâh means to stretch or spread out, and yâd, the hand, stands for power and action. It is the same word as “thine hand” in verse 9, so the gatherer’s hand and God’s hand belong to one act. Isaiah also speaks of the LORD’s hand stretched out against his people in anger (Isaiah 5:25). “Saith the LORD” seals the verse as God’s own word.

Verse 13 explains why the judgment must be so complete. “From the least of them even unto the greatest of them” sweeps across the whole people. The word qâṭân means small, young or insignificant, each in comparison with others, and gâdôwl means great in size, age or standing. The common people and the powerful are named together to say that every level of society was corrupt.

“Every one is given to covetousness” uses betsaʻ, which means plunder, and by extension gain, usually unjust gain. A whole nation, rich and poor, had made getting more its aim, by whatever means. This is the covetousness that the tenth commandment forbids.

“From the prophet even unto the priest every one dealeth falsely” turns to the religious leaders. Prophets were appointed to speak God’s word, and priests taught the law, served at the temple and offered sacrifices. The word sheqer means falsehood, a lie or a sham. The very people who should have rebuked the nation’s greed shared in it, and their example led the people further astray. Jeremiah brings the same charge elsewhere, that the prophets prophesy falsely and the priests rule by their means (Jeremiah 5:30–31), and that both prophet and priest are profane (Jeremiah 23:11). Micah charged Jerusalem’s leaders with working for money (Micah 3:11), Isaiah called the watchmen of his day greedy shepherds (Isaiah 56:11), and Paul calls the love of money the root of all evil (1 Timothy 6:10). Isaiah’s picture of the whole nation as a body sick from head to foot fits this verse (Isaiah 1:4–6).

Verse 14 is the best-known line of the passage. “They” are the false prophets and corrupt priests of verse 13, who should have guided the people in truth. “They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly.” The verb râphâʼ means to mend or cure, and it is used of God’s healing and also of human healers and physicians. The prophets and priests acted as doctors to the nation. The word for hurt, sheber, means a breaking, a fracture, an injury or a disaster. The people’s wound was a deep break caused by their sin and rebellion. “Slightly” comes from qâlal, to be light or to make light, and so trifling or easy. They treated a broken bone as if it were a scratch, offering soothing words and assurances of safety and calling no one to repent.

Their remedy was a word: “Peace, peace; when there is no peace.” “Peace” comes three times in the verse. The word shâlôwm names a state of completeness, soundness, welfare, peace and safety. The false prophets promised the people that kind of wholeness while judgment was coming and an army was on its way from Babylon. Their repetition was insistent and soothing, and it kept the people from facing their sin. Real peace rests on a right relationship with God, and while that relationship was broken by sin, no human assurance could bring it back.

These prophets spoke peace to win the people’s favour, against true prophets like Jeremiah, who called for repentance. God had already warned of disaster from the north (Jeremiah 4:6), and Jeremiah suffered for telling the truth, persecuted by Pashhur the priest (Jeremiah 20:1–2). The same charge against prophets and priests comes again in Jeremiah 8:11–12. Ezekiel says that the false prophets of his day seduced the people by saying “Peace” when there was no peace, and daubed a flimsy wall with untempered mortar (Ezekiel 13:10). Paul warns that sudden destruction comes on those who say “Peace and safety” (1 Thessalonians 5:3), and that a time would come when people would gather teachers to suit their own desires (2 Timothy 4:3–4). The wound of sin runs through all humanity (Romans 3:10–18), and only God can truly heal it.

Verse 15 asks a question and answers it at once: “Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush.” “Ashamed” stands twice in the verse, and the Hebrew uses two different words for it. The first, yâbêsh, means to dry up or wither and also to become weak or be ashamed. The second, bûwsh, properly means to grow pale, and so to be ashamed or disappointed. The word for blush, kâlam, means to be ashamed or disgraced. The word behind “could” is the common verb for knowing, so the people had forgotten how to blush. In Israel shame helped to hold people back from wrongdoing and to keep the community’s moral standards, so a people without shame showed how deep the breakdown went. Their consciences had been hardened by repeated sin until even the body’s sign of shame was gone.

“Abomination”, tôwʻêbah, means something utterly wrong and detestable, and the same word can name an idol. The abominations of Judah included the worship of false gods, along with the greed and falsehood of verse 13 and the oppression of the vulnerable.

The way back was still open to a people willing to own their sin. Scripture says that whoever covers his sins will not prosper, while whoever confesses and forsakes them will find mercy (Proverbs 28:13), and Jeremiah himself carries God’s call to backsliding Israel to return (Jeremiah 3:12–14). A people who refuse that way are given over to their own hardness, as Paul describes when God gives people up to a reprobate mind (Romans 1:28–32). The letter to the Hebrews warns, from the Psalms, against hardening our hearts when we hear God’s voice (Hebrews 3:7–8).

“Therefore they shall fall among them that fall” means that Judah will share the fate of those who collapse in defeat and death when the invasion comes. “At the time that I visit them” uses pâqad, which means to attend to, visit, inspect, muster, appoint or punish. God can visit with friendly or hostile intent, and here his visit is a reckoning for their sins. “They shall be cast down” uses kâshal, to totter, waver, stumble or fall, the picture of legs giving way beneath a person. Their moral fall would end in their fall before the enemy, and “saith the LORD” makes it certain.

The New Testament takes up the pictures of this passage and shows their fulfilment in Jesus. Israel was the vine that failed to bear fruit, and Jesus calls himself the true vine, with his Father as the one who tends it (John 15:1). All real fruit now comes through him. A branch that does not abide in him is cast out, gathered and burned (John 15:6), and Jesus speaks of a final harvest when the tares are gathered for burning and the wheat into the barn (Matthew 13:30), and of the day when he separates the nations as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats (Matthew 25:32–33). For those who are in Christ Jesus there is “no condemnation” (Romans 8:1).

The fury that Jeremiah could hardly hold in is the wrath of a holy God against sin, and on the cross it fell on Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). Isaiah foretold it: “the chastisement of our peace was upon him” (Isaiah 53:5–6). He was cast down for the abominations of others, and he redeemed us from the curse of the law by being made a curse for us (Galatians 3:13), so that whoever believes in him has everlasting life (John 3:16). Judah’s houses and fields were turned over to others, while those who belong to Christ have an inheritance that cannot perish or fade, kept in heaven for them (1 Peter 1:3–5). He has prepared a place for them in his Father’s house (John 14:2–3), he came that they might have life more abundantly (John 10:10), they are of the household of God (Ephesians 2:19), and they receive a kingdom that cannot be moved (Hebrews 12:28).

The deaf ears of Judah have their counterpart in the Gospels. Jesus spoke to people who heard and did not understand (Mark 4:12), and he asked his opponents why they did not understand his speech (John 8:43). He is the Word who was with God and was God (John 1:1), and his words became a reproach to many. Yet Jeremiah himself foretold a new covenant in which God writes his law on the heart (Jeremiah 31:33). In Christ the Spirit circumcises the heart (Romans 2:29), he calls everyone who has an ear to hear what the Spirit says (Revelation 2:7), and the believer comes to delight in God’s law (Psalm 1:2) and to find his words sweeter than honey (Psalm 119:103).

Against the greedy prophets and priests of verse 13 stands Jesus, the good shepherd who gives his life for the sheep (John 10:11), who is himself the truth (John 14:6). He exposed the hypocrisy and greed of the religious leaders of his day (Matthew 23), warned his hearers to beware of covetousness (Luke 12:15) and told them to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness (Matthew 6:33).

Against the false peace of verse 14 stands the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6), who came to guide our feet into the way of peace (Luke 1:79). Jesus made peace through the blood of his cross, reconciling us to God (Colossians 1:20). He heals the wound of sin at its root, and the peace of God that he gives passes all understanding (Philippians 4:7). He gives it “not as the world giveth” (John 14:27).

And against the shameless hearts of verse 15 stands the work of the Holy Spirit, whom Christ sent to convict the world of sin, righteousness and judgment (John 16:8). God promised a new heart and a new spirit (Ezekiel 36:26), and the godly sorrow that he works in a believer leads to repentance and salvation (2 Corinthians 7:10).

This passage shows us a God who speaks before he strikes. He sent Jeremiah to a city that would not listen, and he held back his anger until the prophet was weary of holding it in. He also shows us that his patience has an end, and that the end comes on a whole people when every level of society, the leaders of worship among them, has made peace with sin.

The passage also shows how much harm a comforting lie can do. A wound treated lightly stays unhealed, and a people told “Peace, peace” lose the power to blush. God’s word, which Judah treated as a reproach, is the very thing that tells us the truth about our wound so that he can heal it. In Christ the peace that Judah’s prophets only announced has been made real, and a heart that had forgotten how to blush is given back the gift of godly sorrow.