therefore thus saith Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel, Behold, I will feed this people with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink,
The land lies in ruins, and God here says why. The cause is a broken relationship, and the sentence that follows is a meal of bitterness and a cup of poison.
The bitter food is not random. One writer sets out the case behind it, moving from cause to result.
Jerusalem will be heaps, ruins and a den of dragons. The cities of Judah will be desolate. But why is it like this? Because they forsook His law, did not obey His voice, and practised idolatries. Therefore their portion would be wormwood and gall. They would be scattered among the nations.
Older translations call the two images "wormwood" and "water of gall." Neither is a real dish. Both are plants, and Scripture uses them only as pictures.
Wormwood occurs in Scripture only in a figurative sense. Turning to idolatry is compared to being a root that bears gall and wormwood (Deut. 29:18)... Because of the wickedness of His people, God said He would feed them with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink (Jer. 9:15; Jer. 23:15). Jeremiah, lamenting over the condition of Israel, compared it to being drunk with wormwood (Lam. 3:15, 19). When the third trumpet sounds in Revelation, a star named Wormwood falls from heaven. A third of the waters turn to wormwood, and many men die. The moral sources of life will become destructive.
The other word is just as strong. Gall means "some extremely bitter or poisonous plant, not definitely identified," a word that stands for bitterness (Morrish Bible Dictionary).
The image already carried a warning in the law. One writer follows it forward to this verse.
Deuteronomy 29:19-20 speaks of the man who hears the curses of the law and says, "I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of my own heart." Scripture likens him to a root that bears gall and wormwood... In Jeremiah 9:15, wormwood seems to be the bitter results of disobedience, even being scattered among the nations.
One writer walks through the whole chapter, from the prophet's tears to the one boast left standing.
"Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears," mourns the prophet. Adultery, treachery, lying, slander and deception marked the people. So did wickedness, double-dealing and ignorance of God (Jer. 9:1-8). "Shall I not punish them for these things?" says the Lord... Wormwood and water of gall should be theirs. Let the mourning women be called... And in the two verses between (vv. 23-24), Jeremiah exalts the blessed Lord before the eyes of faith. He says, "Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom... but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows ME, that I am the Lord who exercises loving-kindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth."
The same word reappears at the cross, where it had a practical use.
Gall was mixed with the sour wine or vinegar that the Roman soldiers drank. Men about to be crucified were given this mixture. People now think the purpose was to make them less sensitive to the torture. It was offered to the Lord, but refused (Ps. 69:21; Matt. 27:34).
He did not push it away untasted, and one writer explains what that deliberate order shows.
He tasted it first before refusing it. Of course He knew what it was before He tasted it. But by tasting it He let His enemies know something. He was not refusing a drink out of defiance. He refused it because of the numbing gall added to it. He would bear His sufferings without this, in full consciousness of all that was involved — not only in what men did to Him, but in the far deeper suffering of being made a curse of God.
Jeremiah later drank what he had announced. In Lamentations 3 he tells what he did with that memory.
From verse 19 he spreads it all out before the Lord and asks Him to remember it. Out of the utter collapse of his soul he begins to gain confidence. "Remembering my affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall. My soul still remembers them, and is humbled within me. This I call to mind, therefore I have hope." It is not Christ, but certainly the Spirit of Christ leading on an afflicted and broken heart. Weeping may last for a night, but joy comes in the morning.
- Cause — The bitter portion follows a charge: they left His law, ignored His voice, and turned to idols.
- Picture — Wormwood and gall are never real food. They are bitter, poisonous plants, and Scripture uses them as images of bitterness and of life's sources turned deadly.
- Fruit — They taste the bitter result of their own disobedience, and it ends with them scattered among the nations.
- Contrast — The same chapter leaves one boast standing: knowing the Lord Himself, who exercises loving-kindness, judgment and righteousness.
- Reversal — Christ tasted the gall at the cross and refused it, choosing to suffer with a clear mind. Jeremiah remembered his own wormwood and gall, and in that memory he found hope.
and will scatter them among the nations, whom neither they nor their fathers have known; and I will send the sword after them, till I have consumed them.
Verse 15 promised bitter food and poisonous water; verse 16 names where they will drink it — far from home, among strangers, with a sword behind them. Was this just a small nation collapsing, or God's own act, and does "until I have consumed them" mean the end of Israel?
Verse 15 promised bitter food; older translations call it wormwood, a bitter plant. One writer explains what that bitterness points to.
In Jeremiah 9:15, wormwood seems to mean the bitter results of disobedience — even the scattering among the nations.
The sentence does not fall out of nowhere. Chapter 9 opens with the prophet weeping, and the list of what he weeps over explains the verdict that follows.
Adultery, treachery, lying, slander, deception, iniquity, duplicity and ignorance of God marked the people (Jer. 9:1-8). "Shall I not punish them for these things?" says the Lord. "Yes, I will make Jerusalem a heap of ruins." Then he asks: who is the wise man that may understand this?
Exile was not God's first move against them. One writer traces the steps that came before it, and what life after it would be like.
So God had to deal with them in judgment. Yet how slow to anger He was! He sent one blow only after the blow before it had failed to bring them to repentance. At last exile had to be their lot. Then, as exiles and captives, they would find the Lord's face, once turned towards them, turned away. The sound of a shaken leaf would chase them. They would run as if from a sword, and fall when no one was chasing them. They would perish among the nations, and the land of their enemies would swallow them up.
Being sent away is not being let off. One writer sets the scattering beside two other judgments falling at the same time.
We see then how God dealt with them. One third would die of plague and famine inside the besieged city. One third would fall by the sword around Jerusalem. The last third God would scatter to every wind, and He would draw a sword after them.
Human armies carried out the exile. Yet God says, "I will scatter them." One writer shows how Daniel prayed about that same scattering.
He lays hold of a deeply important principle. When division and scattering have happened, we must accept these evils as coming from God, acting in His holy discipline. They are not merely the result of particular acts of folly or wickedness by individual men... So Daniel loses sight of the folly and wickedness of individual men. He mentions no names. He does not point to Nebuchadnezzar's ruthless violence. Looking beyond these men, he sees in the scattering the hand of a righteous God.
On their own, the closing words sound like the end of the nation. Later in the same book God speaks to that fear. One writer notes what the people had reason to dread.
The chapter ends with consolation to the chosen people, who might well have dreaded utter extinction now for their folly and self-will. "Fear not, O Jacob my servant, declares the LORD, for I am with you. I will make a full end of all the nations to which I have driven you, but of you I will not make a full end. I will discipline you in just measure, and I will by no means leave you unpunished." The Lord is full of compassion and tender mercy.
God made a full end of the nations, but not of His own. One writer draws out the lesson for believers today.
This contrast teaches us something important about discipline. It is not designed to destroy. It is designed to restore and to lead to blessing. God may discipline believers, but He does not condemn them with the world.
- Cause — Chapter 9 lists the reasons: lying, treachery, slander, and under it all, not knowing God.
- Patience — Exile was the last blow after many. God struck again and again, each time hoping for repentance, before He sent them away.
- Hand — The armies were human; the sentence was God's. Daniel's prayer names no man. It sees only the hand of a righteous God.
- Pursuit — Distance was no shelter. God drew a sword after them, so the unknown nations became a place of judgment, not escape.
- Limit — He made a full end of the nations He drove them into, but not of them. Discipline is meant to restore, never to destroy.