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.