For go now unto 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.
God sends Jeremiah to people who felt safe because His temple stood in their city. His answer to them is a journey: go to Shiloh, look at the ruins of the first place He put His name, and ask why they are ruins.
Shiloh was where the tabernacle — God's tent among Israel — stood after they entered the land. One writer draws out what that nearness demanded, and what the ruins now say.
His Name demanded holiness in them and obedience from them. It demanded practical godliness, and a national life He could smile upon. How Israel's history comments on Israel's disobedience! The ruins of Shiloh show Jehovah's unchanging holiness. Their desolation is a powerful witness to God's displeasure when people depart from Him. Yet the ark stayed there for more than three hundred and fifty years. Every one of those years declares the Lord's great patience with His rebellious people!
The wickedness the verse names was not only among the people. It reached the priests who served at that very spot.
Shiloh was the place where God had put His name; but what was the end of it? A witness of judgment to all generations… Under the priesthood there was complete corruption, even in the priests. We see it in 1 Samuel 2, and in the moving scene of chapter 3, which marked Ichabod on the people of God.
("Ichabod" means "the glory has departed" — the name given when enemies captured the ark.)
Judah assumed the temple tied God's hands: He had chosen it, so He must defend it. Shiloh answers that.
Shiloh was the place where the tabernacle first stood in the land. What was Shiloh now? God had profaned it: and God would do the very same thing where the ark was now placed, where the sanctuary was in Jerusalem. It is impossible that God should bind Himself to maintain an empty form. He would no longer sustain what was a beautiful picture of His truth. In His eyes, the state of the people and of the priests was the most offensive evil under the sun. The greater the truth, the blessing, or at least the privileges, He had granted to the Jewish people and their priests, the greater the wickedness of their insults to His holiness in His own temple.
The same writer notes the reversal this produced: the building they leaned on became the target the invader wanted most.
The temple was not their strong fortress against the judgments of the king of Babylon. Far from it: the temple would be the main point on which all these judgments would converge. And if the king of Babylon destroyed the city of Jerusalem as a whole, the sanctuary would suffer most of all.
There is a pattern here. It explains why the chant "the temple of the Lord" rose loudest when behaviour was worst.
The most ancient relations with God serve no good purpose when man puts his trust in them. When he is far from God, he attaches himself to the old things that God set up, so as to reject what God may be giving now… God had established the altar, temple, sacrifices, feasts, and priests. But when wickedness is there, judgment must begin with His house… Those who say, "The temple of Jehovah, the temple of Jehovah are these," are not the ones occupied with the Lord of the temple. The more evil the conscience is, the more it attaches itself to forms.
What fell at Shiloh fell again at Jerusalem. One writer traces the same rule into our own day.
Peter tells us, "Judgment must begin at the house of God." We see it in the symbolic history of the churches in Revelation 2 and 3. God will judge corrupt Christendom no less than He judged corrupt Judaism… When the truth is falsified and true piety is gone, what can come but judgment from God? — and all the more so if this false thing bears His holy Name.
Shiloh stood in the territory of Ephraim. But losing the sanctuary was not the end of the story.
The failure of the tribe moved the place of God's sanctuary out of the territory of Ephraim, where it had been, and it settled at last in the inheritance of Judah, at Jerusalem… Here we see the truth found everywhere in Scripture. When the first man fails, and everything entrusted to him falls into ruin, God comes in and brings in Christ, "the second Man." Under His headship, and in His hands, everything is secured beyond change.
- Name — Shiloh was where God first made His name dwell in the land. That nearness demanded holiness, obedience and real godliness.
- Ruin — The corruption reached even the priests. The place God had chosen became a witness of judgment to every generation after.
- Reality — God will not bind Himself to maintain an empty form. The greater the privilege, the greater the offence of insulting His holiness in His own house.
- Forms — The further a conscience drifts, the tighter it grips old forms. Those who chant "the temple of the Lord" are not the ones occupied with the Lord of the temple.
- Christ — Judgment begins at God's house, then and now. But the first man fails, and all he was trusted with falls into ruin. Then God brings in the second Man, and in His hands everything is secure.
And now, because ye have done all these works, saith Jehovah, and I spoke unto you, rising up early and speaking, and ye heard not, and I called you, and ye answered not;
God says this to people who felt safe because they had His temple. He answers that false security with a fact they could not deny. He had spoken to them again and again, and they never listened or answered.
The chapter builds its case on the ruin of Shiloh, where God's tent, the tabernacle, once stood. One commentator asks what its fate says about any sacred building:
Shiloh was the place where Israel first set up the tabernacle in the land (verse 12). What was Shiloh now? God had profaned it. He would do the very same thing in Jerusalem, where the ark and the sanctuary now stood. It is impossible that God should bind Himself to maintain an empty form. He would no longer sustain what was a beautiful picture of His truth. In His eyes, the state of the people and of the priests was the most offensive evil under the sun.
Where the ESV says God spoke "persistently," older translations read "rising up early." That phrase runs through the whole book. One writer counted the repetitions and read them as a window into what God felt:
One feature of this book shows the intensity of feeling that filled the Lord's heart for His people and city. Strong expressions come over and over again. In His concern for their good He speaks of "rising up early" to speak to them, time after time — eleven times at least! How this speaks of the Lord's intense love for them! No wonder He wept over Jerusalem! "They have forsaken Me!" "They have forgotten Me!" "They have turned their backs on Me!" He says again and again. This shows how He felt their treatment, and the bitter suffering they were bringing on themselves.
Zephaniah uses the same phrase, but of the people instead of God:
"I said, Surely you will fear Me, you will accept instruction; so that your dwelling would not be cut off, however I punished them. But they rose early and corrupted all their deeds." The LORD rose early to send them messages and warnings. They rose early to indulge in their wickedness.
God kept calling long after Jeremiah. One writer traces that line of renewed testimony to its end:
In His goodness, God has renewed His testimony again and again. In His patience He has sent His prophets, rising up early, as it is said, to send them until there was no remedy (see Jer. 7). Last of all, He sent His own Son. The result, as we have already said, is that all the righteous blood, from Abel to Zechariah, came upon one generation. By rejecting God's last witness, they filled up the measure of their fathers' guilt.
So much speaking, and no answer. One writer explains why the prophetic word alone could never secure a heart:
"I spoke to you," He said to His people, "rising up early and speaking, but you did not hear; and I called you, but you did not answer" (Jer. 7:13)… God never left Himself without a witness on earth. But Israel's sad history of backsliding proved one thing beyond question. To secure men for Himself, God needed something other than the prophetic word, or even the ministry of angels. God knew what was needed from the beginning… He would reveal Himself as Father. That revelation would secure a true and steadfast response in the hearts of men.
The threat falls on the building because it carries His name. The same principle reaches past Jerusalem:
Likewise the apostle Peter tells us, "Judgment must begin at the household of God" (1 Peter 4:17)… God will judge corrupt Christendom no less than He judged corrupt Judaism… When people falsify the truth and true godliness is gone, what can come but judgment from God? This is all the more true if this false thing bears His holy name.
- He spoke. God's complaint is not silence but disregard. He rose up early to speak, and the repeated phrase shows how much He cared.
- They rose too. He rose early with warnings. They rose early to corrupt their deeds — the same energy, in the opposite direction.
- No shelter. Shiloh proved God will not prop up an empty form. A building with His name on it protects no one whose life insults Him.
- No remedy. The prophets kept coming until only His Son was left to send. Patience has an end, and rejecting the last witness fills up the account.
- Still speaking. The prophetic word never won the heart. So God kept something in reserve — to reveal Himself as Father, and win the answer no warning could.
I will even do unto the house which is called by my name, wherein ye trust, and unto the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh;
Judah kept coming to the temple to worship while their lives were full of wickedness. God answers their confidence in the building by pointing to a ruin they could go and see.
The verse calls the temple "the house that is called by my name." That phrase runs through the whole chapter.
The house of God is what bears His holy Name, as He says, "which is called by My Name" (Jer. 7:10-11, 12, 14, 30). In Old Testament times this could be said of either the Tabernacle or the Temple, but of no other such structure then or since. Both are mentioned here (vv. 1-11, 12-14).
"In which you trust" is God's own description of what they were doing. The habit was old, passed from parents to children.
Just as their fathers had put their confidence in the ark rather than in Jehovah, so their children trusted in the temple rather than in Him whose Name the temple bore. Because of the wickedness of His people, for the honour of His holy Name, God must bring His judgment on them and on His house.
Their reasoning assumed that God would stay put no matter how they behaved in front of Him.
God stoops to reason with His people, in spite of how coarse they are. He points them to Shiloh, where the tent of meeting was first set up. How empty and foolish the notion, that God would keep His seat where His people insulted Him to His face!
God does not argue from theory. Shiloh was the first place He chose for His name, and the ruins were still there to see.
Jehovah's changeless holiness is written on the ruins of Shiloh. Its desolation is a powerful witness to God's displeasure against turning away from Himself... Yet each of the three hundred and fifty years and more that the ark remained there declares the Lord's great patience with His rebellious people! God will always keep His truth, but He has made His saints the caretakers of it; if, then, His people dishonour Him, He will scatter them, and they will lose their place of trust.
What happened there was not a local accident but a lasting lesson.
Shiloh was the place where God had put His name; but what was the end of it? A witness of judgment to all generations. Under the priesthood there was complete corruption, even among the priests.
God gave them the house, and He gave them the land. They took that long run of favour as proof that nothing could go wrong.
Their boast in an unbroken succession of national privilege was a false trust... There is nothing more certain to bring destruction on Christendom than the idea of a security that cannot fail. I do not mean security for the soul, for the believer. That assurance is quite right. We cannot hold too strongly to the eternal life of the believer. But some apply to the state of Christendom the idea that it will go on for ever, when God has warned us in His word that Christendom will fall just like the Jewish state before it. To think that way is to be caught by the tricks of the wicked one.
The same mistake did not end with Judah.
They trusted in the temple of the Lord, as if some kind of blessing were attached to the house itself and the house would shield them from disaster... Such a false trust in ordinances and outward worship is only too obvious in Christendom also. The masses of unsaved people with their religious observances think it is a protection and secures the Lord's help and blessing.
The line of judgment does not stop at Jerusalem.
Judgment fell on the house "that was in Shiloh," where the Lord made His name dwell at first (Jer. 7:12); then it came on the house at Jerusalem... And so it happened. In the same way the apostle Peter tells us, "It is time for judgment to begin at the household of God" (1 Peter 4:17)... Corrupt Christendom will be judged no less than corrupt Judaism was... When the truth is falsified and true godliness is gone, what can come but judgment from God? — and all the more so, if this false thing bears His holy Name.
- Name. The temple was holy only because God's name was on it. That name marked out two buildings in Israel's history and no others.
- Trust. The name became their excuse. One generation leaned on the ark, the next on the building. Neither leaned on God.
- Shiloh. God points to a place they could walk to. Shiloh saw over three centuries of His patience, then ruin. The rubble still shows His holiness.
- Gift. God gave them the house and the land, and He could take both back. A long run of privilege is no promise that it will last.
- Warning. The name they hid behind is the reason judgment reaches them first. God judges His own house first, not last.
and I will cast you out of my sight, as I have cast out all your brethren, all the seed of Ephraim.
Jeremiah's temple sermon ends with the sentence itself: God will drive the crowd in His house out of His presence, as He drove out their northern relatives, "the offspring of Ephraim." So can a holy building and a long record of privilege protect people whose lives deny them?
Before naming Ephraim, God pointed back to Shiloh. It was the first place in the land where the tabernacle stood, and God had abandoned it.
This is exactly the moral of Jeremiah 7. The prophet takes as his text, so to speak, that Shiloh had lost its prestige. Shiloh was the place where the tabernacle was originally set up in the land (verse 12). What was Shiloh now? God had profaned it, and God would do the very same thing where the ark was now placed, where the sanctuary was in Jerusalem. It is impossible that God should bind Himself to maintain an empty form. He would no longer sustain what was a beautiful picture of His truth. In His eyes the state of the people and of the priests was the most offensive evil under the sun. God had given the Jewish people and their priests great truth and blessing, or at least great privileges. That made their insults to His holiness in His own temple all the more wicked.
"Your kinsmen" were not distant strangers. Assyria had already carried the ten northern tribes away, and Scripture records that removal in the same words Jeremiah now uses of Judah.
In 2 Kings 17 God sums up the whole situation of Israel. For 260 years the ten tribes lived as a separate nation under nineteen kings, all evil. Then the LORD gave them up to the Assyrian oppressor. "Therefore the LORD was very angry with Israel and removed them out of his sight. None was left but the tribe of Judah only" (verse 18). Judah learned no lesson from the ruin of their brothers. The LORD bore with their evil ways for 130 years more. In the end He gave them into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar. "Judah also did not keep the commandments of the LORD their God… And the LORD rejected all the descendants of Israel… until he had cast them out of his sight" (verses 19-20).
The threat landed on people who were sure it never could, because they had the temple. That confidence has a cause.
But we see here that the most ancient relations with God serve no good purpose when a man puts his trust in them. When he is far from God, he attaches himself to the old things that God set up, so as to reject what God may actually be giving. But no one can deceive God about right and wrong… God had established the altar, temple, sacrifices, feasts and priests. But when wickedness is there, judgment must begin with His house. That judgment is only the more terrible if the effects of the Holy Spirit are not there. The only result of being outwardly near to God is a more unsparing judgment. Again, the more Christendom departs from truth and righteousness, the more it rests on institutions as being of God. … The more evil the conscience is, the more it attaches itself to forms.
Shiloh fell, then Jerusalem fell. Commentators carry that pattern forward to our own day.
And what a solemn fact it is — judgment fell on the house "which was in Shiloh," where the Lord set His "name at the first" (Jer. 7:12); then it came on the house at Jerusalem, just as He said it would (v. 14). And so it happened. In the same way the apostle Peter tells us, "judgment must begin at the household of God" (1 Peter 4:17). We see it in the symbolic history of the churches in Revelation 2 and 3. Corrupt Christendom will be judged no less than corrupt Judaism was.
Ephraim's fall was not the end of the story. What Ephraim lost passed to another tribe and another place.
Jacob gave Ephraim the place of firstborn over his brother Manasseh — the place of privilege. But the tribe failed, and so the place of God's sanctuary left the territory of Ephraim where it had been. It settled at last in the inheritance of Judah, at Jerusalem. "Our Lord was descended from Judah." Here we see a truth found everywhere in Scripture. When the first man fails, and everything entrusted to him falls into ruin, God comes in and brings in Christ, "the second Man." Under His headship and in His hands everything is held secure, beyond all change.
- Privilege. Nearness to God raises the standard. The greater the blessing, the greater the guilt of insulting Him inside His own house.
- Precedent. Shiloh proves God will not maintain an empty form. He once set His name there and then abandoned it.
- Pattern. God cast Ephraim out of His sight. Judah refused to read the warning, and the same sentence fell on them.
- Presumption. A drifting conscience clings hardest to forms. Being near God on the outside, with the heart far away, makes the judgment harsher, not lighter.
- Purpose. When the first man ruins everything trusted to him, God brings in Christ, the second Man. His hands hold everything secure.
And thou, pray not for this people, neither lift up cry nor prayer for them, and make not intercession to me; for I will not hear thee.
God stops Jeremiah in the middle of his work as a prophet — not from preaching, but from praying. The command raises a hard question. What has a people done when God tells His own servant He will not listen for them?
God told Jeremiah to give this message in the gate of the temple. The people there had built their confidence on the building itself.
Their worship was only external. They trusted in the temple of the Lord, as if the house itself carried a blessing and would shield them from disaster... The same false trust in religious forms and outward worship is only too clear in the Christian world too. Crowds of unsaved people keep up their religious observances. They think this protects them and guarantees the Lord's help and blessing.
Their offerings continued. So did something else, and it ran through the whole household.
God still waited in patience. But the dreadful state of Israel made His sentence of judgment unchangeable. Earlier in the chapter God had called on them to amend their ways. He promised that they would still live in the land if they obeyed His voice. Now He says, "do not pray for this people... for I will not hear you." Children, fathers and women were all united in a common effort "to pour out drink offerings to the queen of heaven," engaged in gross idolatry, though still offering sacrifices in the temple. But God desired obedience, not sacrifice, even as He had told king Saul so long before.
The refusal is startling because of who speaks it, and because of what He had said to the same nation before.
The Lord told the prophet that He would answer no prayer of intercession. "I will not hear you." What a word this is, coming from Him who had told Israel to cry to Him and He would answer. They had provoked Him by making cakes to the queen of heaven.
Jeremiah had stood in the gap for this people, and their reproaches fell on him while he did it. The command marks a limit, not a change in God's patience.
Let us remember that the Lord is "slow to anger." Outrageous provocations were going on, and poor Jeremiah was himself the target of much of them, since the reproaches meant for the Lord fell on him. Still he could appeal to God, telling how he had stood in the gap to turn away the anger from them. Then the Lord said to him, "do not pray for this people," and the anger took its course. For the one who has the mind of God, intercession is always the place to make a way for God's love — until that place is closed.
God gives the same command again later in the book. One writer asks what it cost the man who loved this people — and what it cost God.
This, to one who loved the people of God, was in every way a trial: what was it to Him who loves as only God can love? Yet it remains true. There are times when the principle applies, and faith must find it out and act on it, whatever the accusation of being unloving.
Two truths about God stand together here.
The government of God is as real as the grace of God. In the exercise of government "He can by no means clear the guilty," nor recognise or accept what has failed. But grace may find a way of escape and bring in salvation — praise His name!
This refusal is not limited to Jeremiah's day. One writer links the verse to the New Testament.
Prayer that halts God's governmental anger is not new; see 1 John 5:16. It is refused in Jeremiah 7:16 and chapter 15:1.
Another writer explains from that passage when prayer is out of place.
It is a most serious thing so to outrage the government of God that it must vindicate itself... Christian feeling rests on what is due to the glory of God. In such a case it would sense that pleading for any easing of the penalty is fighting the rights of divine government. So the apostle says, "I do not say that he shall pray for it."
- Trust misplaced. They leaned on the temple building for safety, while their worship stayed outward only. The same false confidence appears wherever people treat religious observance as protection.
- Hearing refused. God had invited Israel to cry to Him. Now He says He will not listen, because they kept offerings in His house while whole households served idols.
- Obedience wanted. God asked for amended ways, not sacrifices — the same lesson He had already given King Saul.
- Intercession bounded. Intercession is the place for anyone with God's mind to make a way for His love. But that place can close, and faith must see when it has.
- Government real. God's government is as real as His grace. Grace can still open a way of escape, but the New Testament repeats the same limit on prayer.
Seest thou not what they do in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem?
God has just told Jeremiah to stop praying for Judah, and then asks him a question instead: does he see what is going on in the towns and the streets? The question is not for information — it is His own reason for not hearing the prophet's prayer.
The people assumed God would stay in His house whatever they did. So He points them back to Shiloh. The tabernacle first stood there — the tent that housed God's presence before the temple was built.
He points to Shiloh, where first the tabernacle of the congregation had been set up. How empty and foolish the notion, that God would keep His seat where His people insulted Him to His face!
The command in the previous verse is not unique in Scripture.
Prayer that stops the course of God's governmental anger is not new; see 1 John 5:16. It is refused in Jeremiah 7:16 and chapter 15:1. Here the question is only asked.
Kelly notes how far that refusal reached.
Suppose the best men who ever lived appeared in the land, the men best known for their prayers of intercession. Even they could not change His fixed determination to judge the land. "Though," He says, "Moses and Samuel stood before Me, yet My heart would not turn toward this people."
The next verse answers God's question. It shows one household at work.
Earlier in the chapter God had called on them to change their ways. He promised they would still live in the land if they obeyed His voice. But now He says, "Do not pray for this people, or lift up a cry or prayer for them, and do not intercede with Me, for I will not hear you." Children, fathers and women were all united in a common effort "to pour out drink offerings to the queen of heaven." They were busy with gross idolatry, though they still offered sacrifices in the temple. But God wanted obedience, not sacrifice, just as He had told king Saul long before.
The "queen of heaven" was no local invention of Judah's.
They had fallen in with the worship of a female idol. That worship was common among the idolatrous nations around them: the Phoenicians, the Assyrians, the Egyptians and the Babylonians. The Babylonians called their Venus, Ishtar, the queen of heaven. The Assyrians called her Beltis, the female form of Baal. In the sculpture they placed a star over her head and called her "the mistress of the heavens." The Phoenicians worshipped this "queen of heaven" under the name of Ashtoreth or Astarte. The Jews had adopted this wicked worship, with all kinds of immoral ceremonies attached to it. The women made cakes to present to this goddess. Jewish tradition tells us that they stamped the image of the idol on each cake.
Alongside the cakes went drink offerings — wine poured out. Both the incense and the wine stood for something else.
Incense spoke of the merits of Christ. Drink offerings spoke of the joy found in the life and death of the Lord Jesus. Yet by the incense they burned to idols, and the wine they poured out, the people claimed by their action to have found merit in false gods. And they claimed joy in a rite which was in fact the worship of demons, little as they knew it.
- Seen. God's question is not asking for news. He is showing His prophet what He Himself already sees in every town and street of Judah.
- Refused. What God sees is why He stops the prayer. Once He has settled the judgment, He turns intercession back — even Moses and Samuel would not have moved Him.
- Shared. The sight is a family at work together: children, fathers and women, each with a job, in one idolatry.
- Stolen. The incense and poured-out wine belonged to God and pointed to Christ. Handed to an idol, they became the worship of demons.
- Shell. All this went on while the sacrifices continued in the temple. People can go this far and still keep the outward form of religion.
The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink-offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger.
Jeremiah 7:18 shows a whole family at work on one task: baking cakes for a foreign goddess. God says they do it "to provoke me to anger" — and these same people still went to the temple and called it their safety.
Three groups, three jobs. This was not one person's secret sin.
Children, fathers and women were all united in one common effort to pour out drink offerings to the queen of heaven. They were deep in idolatry, and yet they still offered sacrifices in the temple. But God wanted obedience, not sacrifice, just as He had told king Saul long before.
Judah did not invent this goddess. She came from the nations around them.
They had joined in the worship of a female idol. This worship was very common among the idol-worshipping nations around them: the Phoenicians, the Assyrians, the Egyptians and the Babylonians. The Babylonians called their goddess Ishtar the queen of heaven. The Assyrians called her Beltis, the female form of Baal. In their carvings they put a star over her head and called her "the mistress of the heavens." The Phoenicians worshipped this "queen of heaven" under the name of Ashtoreth or Astarte. The Jews took up this wicked worship, and all kinds of immoral ceremonies went with it. The women made cakes to present to this goddess. Jewish tradition tells us that they stamped the image of the idol on each cake.
Not every writer names her the same way.
Jeremiah also says that in Judah and Jerusalem the people made cakes to the QUEEN OF HEAVEN. Most take this to mean the moon, worshipped as Astarte.
The verse also names poured-out drink offerings. God Himself had given that act its meaning.
Incense spoke of the merits of Christ. Drink offerings spoke of the joy found in the life and death of the Lord Jesus. Yet the people burned that incense to idols and poured out that wine to them. By this act they claimed that the merits belonged to false gods. They claimed to have found joy in a rite that was in fact the worship of demons, little as they knew it. What an insult to God, and to Him whom the sacrifice pictured, when Israel gave drink offerings to idols!
All this went on while the same people filled the temple and called it God's house.
In chapter 7 the prophet exposes the double life of the people. On one side they spoke of "the temple of the LORD" as their own possession. They made sure to stand before the Lord in "this house, which is called by My name." They even thought God had rescued them so that they could carry on with their detestable practices (v.10). They had every appearance of godliness. They even gathered in the place God had chosen. But what about their actual behavior?
Writers call that mixture worse than open idolatry.
What made this idolatry so offensive was that they joined the idols of the nations to the Lord. To be a plain, out-and-out idolater was not nearly as evil as to know the true God and still put false gods on the same level as Him.
This was no passing phase. In the end the people defended the habit instead of dropping it.
So they gloried in their shame. They took no notice of the works of the Lord or of the work of His hands, and it destroyed them. They read their troubles as the price of neglecting the queen of heaven. Their will was fully set on a so-called religion that treated plain depravity and passion as sacred.
Writers do not leave this sin in the past. They ask whether the same swap of mediators has come back.
And if we come closer to home, is there not as clear a setting up of false mediators in the Church of Rome as there ever was of false gods in Israel? Israel had their "queen of heaven." Does Rome not have hers? People give her even more passionate devotion, and they do it after turning from far clearer light.
- Household — Children gathered, fathers kindled, women kneaded. Idolatry here was a shared family job.
- Temple — The same people kept every appearance of godliness in God's house, and still baked for the goddess at home.
- Substitute — The "queen of heaven" was a goddess borrowed from the nations around, served with stamped cakes and immoral rites. Some take the title to mean the moon.
- Insult — Drink offerings were God's own language of joy in Christ, handed over to false gods. That is worse than open idolatry, because these people knew the true God.
- Result — Their will hardened. They blamed their ruin on stopping the idol worship, and that same false trust in outward religion is the warning for today.
Is it I whom they provoke to anger? saith Jehovah; is it not themselves, to the shame of their own face?
God speaks through Jeremiah to people who crowded His temple while their homes served other gods. Here He turns their own logic back on them with a question: if they set out to provoke Him, who ends up harmed?
Even at this depth of corruption, the Lord does not strike at once. He argues His case. He points to Shiloh, where the tent of worship first stood in the land.
But God stoops to reason with His people, despite how coarse they had become. He points to Shiloh, where the tent of meeting was first set up. What an empty and foolish idea, that God would keep His seat where His people insulted Him to His face!
The question in this verse belongs to that reasoning. A holy place gives no cover to people who insult God inside it. So the Judge shows the accused what they have done to themselves.
The verse answers itself: the provocation boomerangs. One writer draws the same principle out of the very first sin, when Adam hid himself.
Adam hides himself from God. Is there no harm in having broken with God so badly that you want to get out of His presence? And it is not God you have harmed so much as yourselves. The God of love brings home to a person's conscience the knowledge of the harm he has done to his own soul. One weighty reason why God has given His blessed word is to show a person what he has done to himself before God. He has given it in love; for if He were dealing with people in judgment He would have left them under it.
Telling people what their sin has cost them is an act of love, not cruelty.
People can push that truth too far, as if sin never touched God at all. Commentators hold both sides: the ruin falls on us, and the offence is against Him.
First, let us recall that all sin is against God. It affects Him and not only us who are sinners. True, it ruins us and brings us under the power of death and judgment. But it is also an outrage against His holy nature. It defies His authority and tries to dishonour Him in front of His creatures.
So the Lord is not denying that they provoke Him. He is asking who ends up wrecked by it.
The verse ends with their own shame. That shame comes from the idols, which prove worthless to the very people who made them.
If Israel witnesses to God, the idolaters become their own witness to the emptiness of their idols. Those who make the idols are "nothing," and their images "do not profit." They "neither see nor know," and their helplessness brings shame to their makers.
A god that cannot see, know, or act leaves its worshipper exposed. The shame is not an extra punishment added on. It is what the idol was always going to pay out.
Later, in Egypt, these same people told Jeremiah that their troubles began when they stopped burning incense to the queen of heaven, an idol they had long served. They read their ruin backwards.
So they gloried in their shame, paying no attention to the works of the Lord or the working of His hands, to their own destruction. They blamed their disasters on neglecting the queen of heaven. That is because their will was fully set on a so-called religion, one that made corruption and lust sacred.
This is the last stage of what this verse describes. People first ignore the shame, then defend it, then call it blessing.
- Aim. They aimed their worship at other gods. God's question strips away the illusion that He is the one damaged.
- Recoil. The blow comes back on the one who threw it. As one writer puts it, "it is not God you have harmed so much as yourselves." God gave His word in love, to show people the harm they have done to themselves.
- Reality. Sin is not harmless to God either. It ruins us, and at the same time it outrages His holy nature and defies His authority.
- Shame. Their own shame is the idol's payout: helpless images make their makers look foolish.
- Warning. Unchecked, that shame gets renamed blessing. In Egypt the survivors credited the queen of heaven with their good years, and that boast ran straight to their own destruction.
Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah Behold, mine 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.
God's temple sermon in Jeremiah 7 ends here. The sentence falls on the people, and on the place, the animals, the trees and the crops. One question presses hard: why does a house that carries God's own name give its people no shelter?
Everything in the verse hangs on the word "therefore." One commentator lists the charges that lead up to it:
Jeremiah warns them against deceptive words in verses 4 and 8: "Do not trust in these deceptive words: 'This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD.'" This might sound very pious and religious. But they themselves practised oppression and idolatry, and they carried on dishonest trading in His house. Therefore His anger and His fury should be poured out upon this place (v. 20).
"This place" is the temple in Jerusalem. Earlier in the chapter God points them to Shiloh. That was the site where the tabernacle first stood in the land, and God later abandoned it. The lesson is blunt:
What was Shiloh now? God had profaned it. And God would do the very same thing to the place where the ark now stood — the sanctuary in Jerusalem. It is impossible that God should bind Himself to maintain an empty form. He would no longer sustain what was a beautiful picture of His truth. In His eyes the state of the people and of the priests was the most offensive evil under the sun.
The verses just before name the offence. Whole families joined in idolatry while the temple services carried on. They had copied the worship of the nations around them:
They had provoked Him by making cakes to the queen of heaven. They had fallen in with the worship of a female idol. Such worship was common among the idolatrous nations around them — the Phoenicians, the Assyrians, the Egyptians and the Babylonians. They called the Babylonian Venus, Ishtar, the queen of heaven... The women made cakes to present to this goddess.
God announces the fury only after He shuts the door of prayer. One writer sets the two halves of the chapter side by side — God's offer, and His sentence after they refused it:
God still waited in long-suffering. But the dreadful state of Israel made His sentence of judgment unchangeable. Earlier in the chapter God had called upon them to amend their ways. He promised that they would still dwell in the land if they obeyed His voice. But now He says, "Do not pray for this people, or lift up a cry or prayer for them, and do not intercede with me, for I will not hear you." Children, fathers and women all worked together to pour out drink offerings to the queen of heaven. They were engaged in gross idolatry, though they still offered sacrifices in the temple. But God desired obedience, not sacrifice, even as He had told king Saul so long before.
Commentators apply the verse to today. It speaks first to anyone resting on religious routine:
Such a false trust in ordinances and outward worship is only too evident in Christendom also. Crowds of unsaved people keep up their religious observances. They think this protects them and secures the Lord's help and blessing.
It speaks next to the whole professing church. God begins His judgment where people wear His name:
Judgment fell on the house at Shiloh, where the Lord first set His name. It came again on the house at Jerusalem... The apostle Peter tells us, "For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God" (1 Peter 4:17)... Corrupt Christendom will be judged no less than corrupt Judaism was. When people falsify the truth and true piety is gone, what can come but judgment from God? That is all the more certain if this false thing bears His holy name.
- Cause — The fury is a "therefore." Oppression, idolatry and dishonest trading inside God's own house brought it on.
- Slogan — They trusted deceptive words. The chant about the temple sounded pious while their lives said the opposite.
- Shiloh — God had already emptied one sanctuary of His presence. He will not bind Himself to maintain an empty form.
- Sentence — God offered mercy first: amend your ways and stay in the land. Only after refusal does He forbid prayer and call the judgment unchangeable.
- Mirror — Judgment begins at the household of God. Religious routine is no shelter. The warning lands hardest where people wear His name without the reality.