Righteous art thou, Jehovah, when I plead with thee; yet will I speak with thee of [thy] judgments. Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper? [wherefore] are all they at ease that deal very treacherously?
Jeremiah opens chapter 12 by settling one thing he will not dispute: God is righteous. Only then does he bring his hardest question. If treacherous people thrive, what happens to our confidence that God rules the world?
Jeremiah does not accuse. He states God's righteousness first, and then pleads about God's judgments in that spirit.
Jeremiah pleads with God about these judgments, but in a humble and submissive way. God accepts this, and in accepting it He makes him feel the evil of the people more deeply — a painful necessity. At the same time He sustains the prophet's faith by the personal interest He shows in him.
Two people can raise the same question in very different spirits. Samuel Ridout sets Jeremiah beside Job, who also called God just — but said it with a bitter edge.
Job seems to agree with Bildad that God is just. He says, "Of course He is just, for there is no appeal from whatever He does. He has both wisdom and power, and can overwhelm any pointless attempt to reason with Him." This is terrible. It is not someone humbly asking God for a reason, as Jeremiah does in the same kind of trouble (Jer. 12:1-4). It is the hardness of despair — might is right; and God has might on His side.
The offence was not that wicked people did well. It was that they talked about God while their inner life had nothing to do with Him. Verse 2 calls Him near in their mouth and far from their reins — the reins meaning the inner self. Jeremiah preached during a national reform under king Josiah, and he could see through it.
He saw the outward revival at that time, in Josiah's reign; but he knew the lack of inward reality. So he saw that they were like fruit that looks fresh and healthy on the outside but is rotten at the core. Corruption had to spread quickly over everything. And so it came to pass: "They grow," he says to the Lord, "yes, they bring forth fruit: You are near in their mouth, and far from their reins" (Jer. 12:2). Outward departure was bound to follow this inward unreality.
Jeremiah takes that grievance straight to God.
Here the prophet complains to the LORD of the prosperity of the wicked in the land — all the more of a stumbling-block because He was as near in their mouth as He was far from their reins.
Jeremiah is not the first to raise it. Asaph, in Psalm 73, wore himself out on the same puzzle. Only one place gave him the answer.
Asaph had the same experience (Psalm 73): The wicked are prosperous, proud, and arrogant; they are scoffers; they deride God, and yet "They prosper in the world; they heap up riches"! He, Asaph, who has purified his heart, who has washed his hands in innocency, is experiencing daily trials. With painful effort he tries to see into this mystery of the ways of God. He says, "When I thought how to understand this, it was too painful for me — until I went into the sanctuary of God." There the Lord gives an answer to His servant. Asaph now understands the end of the wicked.
Jeremiah gets no tidy solution. He gets a warning instead: the road ahead is rougher than the road behind (v. 5, quoted below in an older translation).
For Jeremiah the answer is not so comforting. Instead, it is a challenge. "If you have run with the footmen, and they have wearied you, then how can you contend with horses?" In other words, if small trials like those caused by your family are enough to weary you, what will you do when greater trials come? Then you face charging "horses," or the "swelling of the Jordan." We must learn to endure today's trials so that they strengthen us for tomorrow's.
The prayer of these verses is not only Jeremiah's own story. One writer sees a pattern here for godly sufferers still to come.
In his outburst of grief, and in deep confusion of mind, Jeremiah states the old question: why does the righteous man suffer? Why does the wicked prosper? And then comes the prayer for His intervention. Such will again be the case with the godly remnant at the end of this present age. They will suffer and be persecuted as godly Jeremiah was, and pray as Jeremiah prayed.
- Start settled. Jeremiah names God as righteous before he asks anything, so the question is a plea and not a charge.
- Ask, don't accuse. Humbly asking God for a reason is not the same as the hardness that says might is right — and God accepts the first.
- See the real problem. Success was not the scandal. God near in the mouth and far from the heart was — and that unreality always spreads outward.
- Go where it is answered. Thinking it through only wore Asaph out. In the sanctuary of God he saw how the wicked end.
- Expect the harder road. God answers with a question: if footmen already tire you, how will you run against horses? Today's trial trains you for tomorrow's.
Thou hast planted them, they also have taken root they advance, yea, they bring forth fruit thou art near in their mouth, but far from their reins.
Jeremiah has just called God righteous, and then brings his complaint anyway. The people God planted are thriving, yet they keep Him on their lips while their inner life has nothing to do with Him.
The ESV reads "far from their heart." Older translations read "reins." That word points to a part of the body used as a picture. A Bible dictionary gives the plain sense:
The kidneys, used symbolically for the inward thoughts and feelings. Ps. 7:9; Ps. 16:7; Ps. 26:2; Ps. 139:13; Prov. 23:16; Jer. 12:2; Jer. 17:10; Jer. 20:12; Lam. 3:13; Rev. 2:23.
So the charge is precise, not vague. God has a place in their speech, but no place in the thoughts and feelings that drive them. And that inner place is the one God searches:
It is a serious thing to deal with a living God who searches the reins and the heart, as the Lord Jesus does. Yet if we come in faith, it is also a blessed thing. When we truly know His grace, it is a joy to welcome His search into the self-love or flippancy we do not see in ourselves.
God Himself is the planter here, which is why this is a complaint against God and not just an observation. One writer ties the picture of fruit to what Jeremiah watched in his own day. King Josiah had led a national religious revival, but it never went deep:
He saw the outward revival at that time, in Josiah's reign; but he knew the lack of inward reality. So he saw that decay would soon spread over everything, like fruit that looks fresh and blooming on the outside but is unsound at the core. And so it came to pass, "They grow," he says to the Lord, "yes, they bring forth fruit: You are near in their mouth, and far from their reins" (Jer. 12:2). Outward departure must inevitably follow this inward unreality.
Jeremiah does not just complain that wicked people prosper. His complaint is about wicked people who also talk about God. One writer points to this as the sharper edge of the trouble:
The first four verses of Jeremiah 12 carry this on. There the prophet complains to the Lord about the prosperity of the wicked in the land. It was all the more painful a stumbling-block because God was as near in their mouth as He was far from their inward being.
Jeremiah is not the only one who raised this. Asaph, one of Israel's singers, wrote a psalm about the same problem. One writer traces how he came through it:
Asaph had the same experience (Ps. 73). The wicked are prosperous, proud, and arrogant. They are scoffers who mock God, and yet "They prosper in the world; they heap up riches" (Ps. 73:3-12)! Asaph himself has purified his heart and washed his hands in innocence, yet he faces trials every day. He struggles hard in his mind to see into this mystery of God's ways: "When I thought how to understand this, it was too painful for me – until I went into the sanctuary of God." There the Lord gives an answer to His servant. Asaph now understands the end of the wicked.
Commentators differ on how far we should copy Jeremiah here. One writer sees his question kindly, as a man "humbly daring to ask God for a reason" (Samuel Ridout). Another says the reply Jeremiah got turned him away from arguing the case at all.
The chapter does not end with an explanation. It ends with the Lord pointing His servant somewhere else:
"Righteous are You, O Lord," exclaims Jeremiah (Jer. 12:1). Yet he pleads with Him about the prosperity of the wicked. "You are near in their mouth and far from their inward being," he says. This describes a state that is sadly common in the Christian world today. The Lord shows His servant that arguing about these things is not wise. Even his own closest relatives had betrayed him. So he must trust in the Lord... The true servant must cling to the righteous Lord (vv. 5-9) — that is his wisdom.
- Near — God had a real place in their speech. The verse does not accuse them of ignoring Him. It accuses them of keeping Him at the level of talk.
- Far — "Reins" means the kidneys, a picture of the inward thoughts and feelings. God had no place there, and that is the place He searches.
- Rooted — They were planted, growing, fruitful. Outward growth proves nothing, since fruit can be fresh on the outside and unsound at the core.
- Grievous — Their prosperity was a stumbling-block to Jeremiah for one reason. It was not just that the wicked did well. It was that people who talked about God did well.
- Answer — Asaph's route through the same puzzle was the sanctuary, where he learned the end of the wicked. Jeremiah's answer was to stop arguing and hold on to the righteous Lord.