Jeremiah 7 · The Lantern

Jeremiah’s Message at the Temple Gate

The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,

Stand in the gate of the LORD’s house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the LORD, all you of Judah, that enter in at these gates to worship the LORD.

Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place.

Do not trust in lying words, saying, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, are these.

For if you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings; if you thoroughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbor;

If you oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your hurt:

Then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, for ever and ever.

Look, you trust in lying words, that cannot profit.

Will you steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense to Baal, and walk after other gods whom you know not;

And come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered to do all these abominations?

Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Look, even I have seen it, says the LORD.

And they come to Jerusalem: and Jesus went into the temple, and began to cast out them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves; And would not suffer that any man should carry any vessel through the temple.

Wherefore, brethren, if we do the will of God our Father, we shall be of the first Church, that is, spiritual, that hath been created before the sun and moon; but if we do not the will of the Lord, we shall be of the scripture that saith, "My house was made a den of robbers." So then let us choose to be of the Church of life, that we may be saved.

(Verse 11.) Has this house (or mine) become a den of thieves, as it is written (Vulg. Therefore), in which my name has been invoked in your eyes? I, I am: I have seen, says the Lord.

But go now to my place in Shiloh, where I set my name at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel.

And now, because you have done all these works, says the LORD, and I spoke to you, rising up early and speaking, but you heard not; and I called you, but you answered not;

Therefore will I do to this 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 have done to Shiloh.

And I will cast you out of my sight, as I have cast out all your brothers, even the whole seed of Ephraim.

Judah’s Idolatry Persists

Therefore pray not you for this people, neither lift up cry nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to me: for I will not hear you.

Just as God knows how to heal, so does he furthermore know how to smite. He knows how to make peace but likewise permits evils. He prefers repentance but moreover commands Jeremiah not to pray for the reversal of ills on behalf of the sinful people.

And with regard to the deluge again He did the self-same thing, by His acts excusing Himself to Noah. And also to Ezekiel in like manner, when He caused him dwelling in Babylon to see men's evil deeds in Jerusalem.

(Verse 16.) Therefore, do not pray for this people, nor take on their praise and prayer (or do not ask to obtain mercy for them). And do not resist me, for I will not listen to you. So that it may not seem that the Prophet does not obtain what he asks for, God commands that he not pray for the sinful people who do not repent.

Do you not see what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?

The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings to other gods, so that they may provoke me to anger.

Do they provoke me to anger? says the LORD: do they not provoke themselves to the confusion of their own faces?

Therefore thus says the Lord GOD; Look, my anger and my fury shall be poured out upon this place, upon man, and upon beast, and upon the trees of the field, and upon the fruit of the ground; and it shall burn, and shall not be quenched.

Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Put your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat flesh.

You are blessed who are delivered from the curse. Christ, the Son of God, by his coming has confirmed and completed the law but has taken away the additional precepts, although not all of them, yet at least the more grievous ones. He confirmed the former and abolished the latter, and he has again set the free will of humankind at liberty.

(Verse 21) Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat the flesh. When He condemns the temple, He consequently condemns the sacrifices as well; and He indirectly accuses them because they offer victims not out of reverence for Him, but out of a desire for feasts.

It is made clear also from this that the obsolete prescriptions of the law had been imposed because of Israel's limitations.

For I spoke not to your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices:

But this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people: and walk you in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well to you.

But they listened not, nor inclined their ear, but walked in the counsels and in the imagination of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward.

Since the day that your fathers came forth out of the land of Egypt to this day I have even sent to you all my servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them:

Yet they listened not to me, nor inclined their ear, but hardened their neck: they did worse than their fathers.

Therefore 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.

But you shall say to them, This is a nation that obeys not the voice of the LORD their God, nor receives correction: truth has perished, and is cut off from their mouth.

Cut off your hair, O Jerusalem, and cast it away, and take up a lamentation on high places; for the LORD has rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath.

The Valley of Slaughter

For the children of Judah have done evil in my sight, says the LORD: they have set their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to pollute it.

And they have built the high places of Tophet, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my heart.

Therefore, look, the days come, says the LORD, that it shall no more be called Tophet, nor the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of slaughter: for they shall bury in Tophet, till there be no place.

And the carcasses of this people shall be food for the birds of the heaven, and for the beasts of the earth; and none shall fray them away.

Then will I cause to cease from the cities of Judah, and from the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of merriment, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride: for the land shall be desolate.

Jeremiah7

Jeremiah’s Message at the Temple Gate

Judah’s Idolatry Persists

The Valley of Slaughter