JEREMIAH
10
A
Bible Study - Commentary by Jim Melough
Copyright
2003 James Melough
10:1. "Hear ye
the word which the Lord speaketh unto you, O house of Israel:"
It isn't just Judah, but the
whole house of Israel that is addressed here, reminding us that even though
the ten tribes (Israel) were captives in Assyria, because of sin, they weren't
forgotten by God. They were still His people, and dear to His heart, and so
is it with every believer. As Paul assures us in Ro 8:31-39, nothing can
separate the believer from the love of God - not even our sins. They will
separate us from communion with God, but not from His love, for while He must
chastise us when we sin, the writer of Hebrews reminds us that, "Whom the Lord
loveth He chasteneth," He 12:6.
10:2. "Thus
saith the Lord, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed
(terrified) at the signs (portents, omens) of heaven; for the heathen are
dismayed at them."
Whether in the age of law or
that of grace, the principle is the same: faith separates believer from
unbeliever. Israel was not to learn the ways of the unbelieving surrounding
nations, nor of the Assyrians whose captives they were. It was, in fact, for
having practiced heathen ways (idolatry) that they had been carried into
captivity.
Some believe that though the
nations (the heathen) worshiped the heavenly bodies, the reference here isn't
to idolatry, but to the superstitious fear exhibited by the nations in
response to unusual astral phenomena. The idea of worship, however, can't be
dismissed, for certainly verse five, for example, indicates that God was
indeed warning His people against idolatry, and the need of that warning is
apparent when it is remembered that much idolatry centers on the worship of
the heavenly bodies. This is especially significant in view of the fact that
before there was written language, God had presented the Gospel, not only in
His arrangement of the stars, but in His also having named them (see comments
on 9:11).. It isn't strange that Satan, who is tireless in his efforts to
corrupt every Divine original, should have applied his evil genius to the
corruption of this also.
10:3. "For the
customs of the people are vain (foolish, false, empty, futile): for one
cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with
the axe."
The foolishness of idolatry
ought to be apparent, for even the most ignorant must realize that it is the
height of folly to believe that the carving of the most skilled craftsman
could ever transform an inanimate thing into a god.
10:4. "They deck
it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that
it move not."
Paul declares the madness of
abandoning the knowledge of God, for of those who have done so he has written,
"Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of
the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to
birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things," Ro 1:22-23. How can
anyone but an utter fool believe that a god can be created by carving a
wooden image, and adorning it with silver and gold, when the so-called god has
to be nailed in place to keep it from falling over!
10:5. "They are
upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because
they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also
is it in them to do good."
Their being likened to palm
trees has reference only to their upright position, but literally they are
likened to scarecrows in a garden, and there is peculiar propriety in the
analogy, for as the birds are afraid of a scarecrow which lacks any power to
hurt them, so do idolaters fear "gods" which are equally powerless, the idol
as much as the scarecrow requiring to be carried and set in place by men,
neither having the power to speak or move, much less to do either evil or
good. What folly, then, to fear or reverence such a thing! Yet such is the
foolishness of men estranged from God, that millions do! His earthly people,
who of all men ought to have known better, were guilty of just such madness.
Nor is modern man one whit better, for the money, education, fame, pleasure,
religion, etc., with which he has replaced the heathen's idols of wood, are as
powerless as they to do anything to save him from hell and fit him for heaven.
10:6. "Forasmuch
as there is none like unto thee, O Lord; thou art great, and thy name is great
in might."
From here through verse ten
is recorded the response of the prophet to the Divine declaration of the
worthlessness of idols.
Their very impotence is the
backdrop against which God's omnipotence is displayed. It is He Who by a
word, has called the universe into existence, and Who by that same word
upholds it. It is He to Whom all things owe their existence. It is He Who
has created the material from which vain man fashions his idols, none of which
can so much as speak, yet of Him we read relative to creation that, "By the
word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the
breath of his mouth .... For he spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it
stood fast," Ps 33:6-9.
10:7. "Who would
not fear thee, O King of nations? for to thee doth it appertain: forasmuch as
among all the wise men of the nations, and in all their kingdoms, there is
none like unto thee."
“... to thee doth it
appertain” means “it (reverence) is Thy due or right.”
Such is the madness of man
in his unregenerate state that he will fear an idol which his own hands have
fashioned, yet live in contempt of the God Who has made him, and Who gives him
breath!
Relative to God's
sovereignty over the nations, it is placed beyond question by prophecy, for
only One Who is omnipotent and omniscient could, for example, have detailed so
accurately the succession of empires recorded in the book of Daniel.
10:8. "But they
are altogether brutish and foolish: the stock is a doctrine of vanities."
One translation of this
verse reads, "They are fools and blockheads one and all, learning their
nonsense from a log of wood." The denunciation is of the doctrines taught by
those who claim to be the spokesmen of the idols. Only those void of reason
will believe that a carved block of wood could promulgate any
doctrine. Even the brute creation, which functions mainly by instinct rather
than reason, displays no such aberration as does the man, who though he
functions on a higher plane, abandons reason in favor of such lunacy.
10:9. "Silver
spread into plates is brought from Tarshish, and gold from Uphaz, the work of
the workman, and of the hands of the founder (goldsmith): blue and purple is
their clothing: they are all the work of cunning (skillful) men."
The wooden stock, shaped by
the wood-carver, is then passed to the founder(goldsmith) to be adorned with
beaten silver and gold, and then to the skilled tailors to be dressed in
gorgeous robes, but in spite of magnificent adornment, it still remains an
inanimate thing, infinitely lower than the lowest of its votaries.
Who can begin to fathom the
depths to which fallen man may sink when he rejects the knowledge of the true
God!
Nothing is known of Uphaz
which means desire of fine gold, though some believe that it may be
another name for Ophir on the south west coast of Arabia. Tarshish is
believed to have been in southern Spain.
The references to silver,
gold, and raiment, however, remind us that idolatry, for all its foolishness,
is the evidence that inherent to man is consciousness of God, and the
awareness, no matter how vague, of the need of what these things represent,
for silver is the biblical symbol of redemption; gold, of glory; and raiment,
of righteousness (the filthy rags of self-righteousness, or the spotless
righteousness of Christ, which clothes the believer). It is that inherent
consciousness of God that impels all men, from the most primitive to the most
sophisticated, to worship something.
10:10. "But the
Lord is the true God, he is the living God, and an everlasting king: at his
wrath the earth shall tremble, and the nations shall not be able to abide his
indignation."
In contrast with the
lifeless idols, God is not only the One Who lives, without having had a
beginning, and Who will continue to live for ever, but He is the One Who gives
life to all things, and without Whom nothing could exist, and to Whom all men
must eventually give account.
His sovereignty likewise is
inherent and eternal, nor does anything have the power to resist it, for
whether the rebellion be that of Satan or men, it is Divinely permitted, and
will eventually be punished. The imagined sovereignty of the idol exists only
to the degree conferred by man himself. And the natural phenomena which men
fear, and attribute to the anger of their idol, are, though they know it not,
the manifestation of the power of the One they have chosen to ignore, He alone
having the power to make the earth tremble.
That awful day is fast
approaching when the permission to rebel will be withdrawn, and God will call
the rebels to account. On that day, "the nations shall not be able to abide
his indignation."
10:11. “Thus
shall you say unto them, The gods that have not made the heavens and the
earth, even they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens.”
The prophet is here
commanded to declare to idolatrous Judah that their so-called gods, which were
incapable of making anything, would be destroyed by the true God Whom they had
rejected, the Creator of the heavens and the earth, and of all that is in
them.
Men too, who refuse to
repent of their sins, and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord,
will also perish from the earth, their failure to repent condemning them to an
eternal existence in the dreadful torment of the unquenchable flame of the
lake of fire.
10:12. “He hath
made the earth by his power, he hath established the world by his wisdom, and
stretched out the heavens by his discretion (intelligence, skilfulness,
understanding).”
In contrast with the
so-called gods which were formed by men’s hands, from material which God
Jehovah and brought into existence out of nothing, the earth was the product
of His power, its every movement being directed by his wisdom, its sidereal
heavens declaring His intelligence in the arrangement of the stars He has
placed there, that very arrangement being His presentation of the Gospel long
before there was any written language, see comments on 9:11.
10:13. “When he
uttereth his voice, there is a multitude (tumult, crowd) of waters in the
heavens, and he causeth the vapors (mist) to ascend from the ends of the
earth; he maketh lightnings with rain, and bringeth forth the wind out of his
treasures.”
The utterance of His voice
is the literal thunder, but only a small fraction of earth’s multitudes
recognize it as anything but a natural phenomenon, yet a careful reading of
Scripture reveals that virtually every mention of thunder is connected with
the expression of God’s displeasure.
Waters in a good sense speak
of blessing, but in a bad sense as here, of judgment, and it is instructive to
consider that the rain which follows thunder is almost invariably a
destructive downpour rather than the gentle rain that promotes plant growth.
Vapor (mist) when used in a
bad sense, as here, usually has a bad connotation, being connected with
judgment rather than blessing, see for example Ps 135:7; Ac 2:19; 13:11 and 2
Pe 2:17.
Wind is one of the biblical
symbols of the Holy Spirit, see e.g., Jn 3:8, a gentle wind representing His
beneficent influence; a furious storm wind, His destructive judgmental power
in operation. It is in this latter sense that the word is to be understood in
the present context.
An unsuspecting wicked world
is about to become the object of God’s judgment in the now imminent
Tribulation.
10:14. “Every
man is brutish (like a brute, incapable of coherent thought) in his knowledge;
every founder (goldsmith) is confounded (put to shame) by the graven image:
for the molten image is falsehood (lifeless counterfeit, a delusion), and
there is no breath in them.”
As already noted every man
has within him the inherent instinct to worship something, just as every
animal has within it the instinct to live according to the nature God has
given it, nor does any creature, except man, ever evince any desire to live
contrary to its nature. When man therefore worships an idol he reduces
himself to the level of the beast, for idolatry requires him to abandon his
God-given ability to think and reason rationally, so that he foolishly endows
his idol with attributes superior to his own, when everything connected with
it declares the contrary. Every goldsmith who bows before the thing his own
hands have formed makes a fool of himself, for he is declaring that the
inanimate object is somehow endowed with powers superior to his own, though
everything about it declares the opposite. It cannot even do what he does
naturally: breathe. Much less can it speak, see, hear, smell, move, or react
to any stimuli.
If the natural man, who has
lost the knowledge of God, thus makes a fool of himself by bowing to an idol,
how much greater was the folly of Israel and Judah who had that
knowledge, and who carried on the pretense of worshiping Jehovah while also
bowing to idols!
10:15. “They are
vanity (worthless, nothing), and the work of errors (erring ones): in the time
of their visitation (revelation of their worthlessness) they shall perish.”
The time was fast
approaching when the inability of the idols to deliver their deluded votaries
out of the hand of the Babylonians, would reveal their utter worthlessness,
and the madness of the men who had put their trust in them rather than in the
omnipotent Lord of hosts.
The destruction of
idolatrous Judah in the day of testing is but a figure of the eternal
destruction that will overtake the men of this generation who have also
rejected the knowledge of God, and put their trust instead in today’s
worthless idols: money, education, sports, pleasure, to name but a few. The
utter worthlessness of these things, and the madness of having occupied
oneself with them while despising the precious blood of Christ, which alone
can cleanse sin and fit men for heaven, will be fully revealed only when the
doomed soul takes its flight into hell to await consignment to the eternal
torment of the lake of fire.
10:16. “The
portion of Jacob is not like them: for he is the former of all things; and
Israel is the rod of his inheritance: The Lord of hosts is his name.”
The One Who is Jacob’s God
is not like the worthless lifeless idols which Jacob’s descendants had made
for themselves, and which they worshiped instead of that same omnipotent God
of their forefathers.
Jacob’s God is the One Who
by a mere word has called the universe into existence, whereas the idols
Israel and Judah worshiped were the figments of their own deluded minds, and
the work of their own hands. And incredible though it seems that same
idolatrous nation was the one He had chosen from among all the nations on
earth to be His own special people!
10:17. “Gather
up thy wares out of the land, O inhabitant of the fortress.”
This was God’s command to
Judah to gather up their belongings and flee from the cities into which they
had fled for refuge in anticipation of the coming siege, for no city was
strong enough to save them from the fury of the Babylonians whom God had
chosen to be His instrument for the chastisement of His rebellious people.
That impending siege was
itself a foreshadowing of the one which overtook them in AD 70 when the Romans
were God’s agents of destruction against the rebellious nation, and which was
itself also the adumbration of the still future and even more terrible
destruction to come upon them in the now imminent Tribulation.
We miss an important part of
the lesson, however, if we fail to discern in God’s command given by Jeremiah,
His command to men today to flee from the wrath to come, not here on earth,
but first in hell, and then eternally in the lake of fire. There was no
hiding place for that rebellious generation addressed by prophet, for they had
exhausted God’s patience, their refusal to repent in God’s time carrying them
over that fatal line that separates His mercy from His wrath. The unconverted
reader of this material is urged to heed the warning given here symbolically,
and explicitly stated in Ge 6:3, “My spirit shall not always strive with man,”
and again in Pr 29:1, “He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall
suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.”
10:18. “For thus
saith the Lord, Behold, I will sling out the inhabitants of the land this once
and will distress them, that they may find it so.”
This continues to emphasize
the dreadful finality of the sentence, and the speed with which it would be
executed. They had passed for ever beyond hope of mercy. God in His wrath
was about to cast them out of His sight as one would cast a stone out of a
sling, the distance such a stone would travel being a faint indication of the
impassable distance God was about to put between Himself and them. His
pleadings had wearied them, but now they were to experience the unutterable
horror of having wearied Him by their continued rejection of His pleas. It is
impossible to imagine the horror that will grip those who on earth despised
God, and who will find themselves at last in hell, banished eternally from His
presence beyond hope of mercy.
“... that they may find it
so,” has been translated “and harry them until they pay the penalty,”
Moffat; “... to see if they will find me then,” Jerusalem Bible;
“... at last you shall feel my wrath,” Taylor; “... I will press them
hard, and squeeze them dry,” New English Bible.
10:19. “Woe is
me for my hurt! my wound is grievous (incurable): but I said, Truly this is a
grief, and I must bear it.”
This is the hopeless
confession and lament of Judah brought at last to realize that she has sinned
away her day of grace, so that deliverance is impossible. She must perish.
It is, however, also the echo of the hopeless moan that will come from the
lips of all who having spurned God’s offer of pardon and mercy while it was
available, find themselves at last in hell awaiting their final consignment to
the eternal torment of the lake of fire.
10:20. “My
tabernacle (tent, home) is spoiled (destroyed), and all my (tent) cords are
broken: my children are gone forth of me (as captives), and they are not:
there is none to stretch forth my tent any more, and to set up my curtains.”
The hopeless dirge is
continued here in the bitter sorrow that would accompany Judah’s expulsion
from the land, with her cities and villages laid waste, her children carried
off into captivity, with parents and children separated, never to see each
other again.
Poignant as it is, however,
this lament falls very far short of conveying the hopeless horror that will
accompany the descent of the unconverted sinner into hell. No words can
express what it will be like to sink into the eternal misery of that awful
place, leaving behind for ever everything that was held dear on earth.
The very reading of this
ought to strike terror into every unconverted heart, and impel the penitent
cry uttered by the Philippian jailor in Acts 16:30, “What must I do to be
saved?” God’s response to that cry being, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
and you will be saved,” Acts 16:31.
10:21. “For the
pastors are become brutish, and have not sought the Lord: therefore they shall
not prosper, and all their flocks shall be scattered.”
The pastors here were the
rulers or leaders of the people, and their having become “brutish” means that
they had become callously indifferent to the welfare of those entrusted to
their care, and had long since ceased to seek guidance from the Lord.
Few will fail to see in this
the adumbration of conditions in today’s Christendom. With a few very rare
exceptions the political and spiritual leaders of the people are also
indifferent to the needs of those over whom God has set them. Particularly is
this true in the spiritual realm, hireling clerics for the most part being
concerned only with their own advancement rather than the welfare of the souls
of their charges. Note for example the almost universal failure to preach the
biblical Gospel of the need to repent and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ in
order to be saved from hell and fitted for heaven. What passes in Christendom
today for the Gospel has been expunged of everything that might offend, so
that it fails to strike into any heart that fear of God which is essential for
a genuine conversion.
Those “pastors” of Judah
didn’t prosper, nor did their “flocks:” both were carried captive into
Babylon; and the type has been fulfilled also today, for the majority of the
clerics masquerading as “shepherds” of God’s people, and the majority of the
people themselves have also been carried captive into what Babylon represents:
the false religious system which presently lords it over Christendom. The
majority of the clerics, together with the majority of their congregations,
are as ignorant of God’s character as was the Judah addressed by the prophet.
The judgment of the Babylonian captivity is a type of the Tribulation
judgments that will engulf today’s apostate Christendom after the true Church
has been raptured home to heaven, and everything points to the immanence of
that judgment.
10:22. “Behold,
the noise of the bruit is come, and a great commotion out of the north
country, to make the cities of Judah desolate, and a den of dragons
(jackals).”
“Bruit” means literally
news, report, rumor, tidings, of such a dire nature as to stun,
devastate, stupefy the hearer; while “commotion” means tumult, mighty
uproar, a great shaking. These combine to indicate the terrible nature of
the coming judgment, the “north country” of that day being Babylon. As
already noted, however, that judgment was itself but the foreshadowing of the
catastrophe that came in AD 70, both of them pointing forward to the still
more terrible cataclysm now impending: that of the Great Tribulation which
will leave the whole world a desolation.
“Dragons” is also translated
jackals, nightdogs, wolves, the truth being declared in this
being that the desolated land would become the haunt of wild animals. It
would in fact be the very opposite of the land into which Israel had first
been brought following their deliverance from Egypt’s bondage: a land “flowing
with milk and honey.”
The terrible picture of
judgment, however, goes far beyond that of a desolated Palestine, and a world
lying in ruins at the end of the Great Tribulation: it is God’s warning of the
eternal ruin and misery awaiting every unbeliever, first in hell, and
ultimately in the unquenchable flame of the awful lake of fire.
10:23. “O Lord,
I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to
direct his steps.”
Jeremiah is the speaker, and
Taylor’s translation of this verse reads, “... it is not within the power of
man to map his life and plan his course.” This may not be taken to mean that
man has no power of choice, and that every circumstance of his life is
predestinated. Scripture makes it very clear that he does have freedom to
choose, see e.g., 2 Pe 3:9, “The Lord ... is longsuffering ... not willing
that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance,” and John
5:40, “Ye will not come to me, that ye might have life,” but beyond that
circle of freedom lies the overall controlling power of God to work all things
(the good and the bad) together for His own glory, and the eternal blessing of
those who are content to leave the ordering of their lives in His omnipotent
hand. It must be recognized, however, that relative to salvation God has
imposed a time limit within which man can decide to save his soul by trusting
in Christ as his Savior, or doom himself to eternal torment by refusing to
exercise that faith. Once a man has crossed over that invisible line which
separates God’s mercy from His wrath, he is no longer given the power of
choice, and is as surely doomed as if he were already in hell, hence the
warning, “My spirit shall not always strive with man,” Ge 6:3, and “He, that
being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that
without remedy,” Pr 29:1.
The greatest folly of which
man can be guilty is to remain in the state of condemnation and death chosen
for him by Adam, when by his own free-willed choice to trust Christ as his
Savior he can pass out of that state into one of justification and everlasting
life. Make no mistake: whether a man will be in heaven or hell is determined
by his own free-willed choice, God’s response to that choice being to
predestinate the believer to eternal life in heaven; and the unbeliever, to
eternal torment in the lake of fire.
10:24. “O Lord,
correct me, but with judgment, not in thine anger, lest thou bring me to
nothing.”
This is the earnest prayer
of the submissive believer who has learnt that God’s will is always best. He
desires to have God correct, discipline, chasten him, for he remembers
what is written, “For whom the Lord loves he chastens ... Now no chastening
for the present seems to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless, afterward it
yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto those who are exercised
thereby,” Heb 12:6-11.
But the instructed believer
portrayed here realizes the terrible nature of even the smallest disobedience:
it deserves death, hence his plea, “correct me, but with judgment, not in
thine anger,” i.e., with moderation, gentleness, for were God to punish the
sin as it deserves, the offender must die: he would be brought to nothing, as
other translations render it: “lest Thou crush me to atoms,” “grind me to
dust,” “reduce us to nothing,” “I would die.”
If we would learn the deadly
character of sin we must view Calvary against the background of Eden. Adam
brought death upon the human race, not by committing murder, but by disobeying
God’s command relative to a piece of fruit! It was that one act that resulted
in the transformation of Adam’s nature into the ruined thing which now impels
men to commit the terrible sins that have blighted the world for the past six
thousand years. It was that one act of disobedience by Adam that required the
last Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ to suffer and die on the cross when He in
love beyond human comprehension voluntarily took Adam’s guilty place before
the One of Whom it is written, “Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil,
and canst not look on iniquity,” Hab 1:13. It was His voluntary exposure of
Himself, as our Substitute and Sin-bearer, to the terrible anger of that same
holy God, that impelled His desolate cry of utter despair, “My God, My God,
Why hast thou forsaken me?” Mt 27:46.
Because God dealt with Him
there, not as His beloved sinless Son,
but as the last Adam, the
guilty transgressor, pouring upon the Lord Jesus Christ all the fury of His
righteous wrath against sin, atonement has been made. The life forfeited by
the first Adam was yielded up by the last Adam, thus satisfying all the claims
of God’s violated throne, and establishing a basis of perfect justice upon
which a holy God can come out to repentant sinners, and pardon every sin
(Christ has died for them), bestowing at the same time His priceless gift of
eternal life, so that the penitent believer stands before Him as a new
creation, possessed of Christ’s life and nature, clothed in His spotless
righteousness, forever beyond the reach of judgment and therefore also of
death.
The sins committed
thereafter by the believer are dealt with on a very different basis from those
committed when he was an unbeliever. His sins: past, present, and future, are
all atoned for judicially by the precious blood of Christ, God imputing
Christ’s death to the penitent believer whom He now treats as a beloved son
whom He must correct (discipline, chasten) so that his life may become more
closely conformed to that of the Lord Jesus Christ, Who having died in the
believer’s stead, has Himself been raised again from among the dead, His
resurrection being the guarantee that God has accepted Christ’s life in place
of that of the once guilty transgressor.
10:25. “Pour out
thy fury upon the heathen that know thee not, and upon the families that call
not on thy name: for they have eaten up Jacob, and devoured him, and consumed
him, and have made his habitation desolate.”
This appears to be the plea
of Jeremiah; and “the heathen,” the Babylonians, and it seems to have been
impelled, not by what had yet happened, but by what he knew would occur when
the enemy actually invaded the land.
“... devoured” means to
eat, burn up; and “consumed,” to end, finish, cause to cease or perish,
destroy; the destruction continuing to foreshadow that of AD 70, and of
the now imminent Tribulation.
The use of the name Jacob
rather than Israel emphasizes that the nation was characterized by what was of
the flesh rather than the spirit, the symbolic portrait being also a very
accurate one of today’s sinful world, occupied also with all that is of the
flesh rather than the spirit.
[Jeremiah
11]