Jeremiah 9a. Shall I Not Punish Them?

 God, through his prophet Jeremiah, continues to make his accusations against Judah. As I said last week, sometimes it is difficult to separate God’s direct voice from Jeremiah’s lament. However, could that be a false distinction?

 Think about it. Jeremiah is not just an inert megaphone through which God speaks to the people. Jeremiah is human, a preacher who must convey the perspective, concerns, and commands of the Lord God to people who do not want to hear the bad news. There were many false prophets in Jeremiah’s day, so it was easy for the people to find a preacher who would preach news that supports their perspective. A preacher, priest, or missionary today is not too far removed from Jeremiah’s predicament. That is, a preacher who is faithful to God’s word, which we now have in written form, should deliver all the real news: ‘People need to repent of their sins, or they will pay the penalty’. I fear that a number of our ministers prefer to scratch itchy ears. The annual salary is higher for those preachers, and they might even get to be on TV. 

8:21–9:1.

For the brokenness of the daughter of my people 

I am broken,

I mourn, 

and horror has seized me.

Is there no balm in Gilead?   

Is there no physician there?

Why then has the health of the daughter of my people   

not been restored?

O that my head were a spring of water

   and my eyes a fountain of tears,

so that I might weep day and night   

for the slain of the daughter of my people!

Who is speaking? Sometimes God, sometimes Jeremiah; they think the same thing. I wish that was true of me more often. 

 This confirms why Jeremiah is often called ‘The Weeping Prophet’. However, the text also pushes us to see that YHWH is a weeping God. It is difficult to pronounce and carry out the necessary judgment for a people’s apostasy and unfaithfulness. If we say that God is personally involved in our lives, and we certainly think that about Jesus’ venture to Galilee and Judea in the First Century, then does God not feel the pain? Did Jesus not weep over Jerusalem? This, of course, is a question of philosophical interest where claims of the ‘immovable mover’ clash with the notion that God cares deeply about us. I bet my life on the latter. 

9: 2-6. 

O that I had in the desert   

a traveler’s lodging place,

that I might leave my people   

and go away from them!

For they are all adulterers,   

a band of traitors.

They bend their tongues like bows;   

they have grown strong in the land

for falsehood and not for truth,

for they proceed from evil to evil,   

and they do not know me, says the LORD.

Beware of your neighbors,   

and put no trust in any of your kin,

for all your kin are supplanters,   

and every neighbor goes around like a slanderer.

They all deceive their neighbors,   

and no one speaks the truth;

they have taught their tongues to speak lies;   

they commit iniquity and are too weary to repent.

Oppression upon oppression, deceit upon deceit!   

They refuse to know me, says the LORD.

 Who wants to get away from people for a while, Jeremiah or God? I will not answer that question. You try.

 The reason for getting away from these people, that is, the people called Israelites, is that they are unfaithful and prone to evil. The proliferation of adjectives (adulterers, traitors, liars, supplanters, slanderers, deceivers, evil-doers, workers of iniquity, purveyors of deceit) makes it look like God is piling on words to explain how bad it really is. Let’s just take a closer look at one phrase.

 ‘Supplanters’ is not a word that I use every day. In fact, I do think that I have ever used it. So, I dug a little deeper. Many translations say something like this: “Be on your guard against your neighbors and put no trust in any of your kinfolk; for all your brothers will utterly supplant, and every friend walks around as a slanderer.”

Nice community to live in, no? 

There is an interesting doubling up of words here that has many layers of meaning. The phrase translated as ‘utterly supplant’, or sometimes just 'supplanters' leaving out the duplication, is really two words that share the same root. In Hebrew, the base word of both is aqab which means ‘to seize by the heel, to trip up, to hold back’. 

 The phrase in the text is aqowb yaqob, two words that are variants of aqab. If you look closely, you will see that the second word in the phrase is very close to the name ‘Jacob’. Remember that the Hebrew consonant here is sometimes transliterated into English as ‘y’ and sometimes ‘j’ (Which is why we sometimes see ‘Yahweh’ and sometimes ‘Jehovah’, both of which translate YHWH).

 Now, recall the story of Jacob who began life as a ‘cheater’ (another possible translation of the word). He cheated his brother Esau out of his birthright as the oldest son; and then he had to flee into exile for 14 years. Along the way, he learned to trust in God instead of cheating people, and after an encounter with God, he was given the name ‘Israel’ meaning ‘he struggles with God’.

 Look at the layers of meaning here! God is accusing the people of Judah, who are called Israelites, of reverting back to being deceivers and usurpers just like Jacob who was immature and needed some discipline. The phrase essentially repeats the same word thus emphasizing how much they are like their early ancestor. The rest of the adjectives confirm the people’s character.

9: 7-9. 

Therefore, thus says the LORD of hosts (armies):

I will now refine and test them,   

for what else can I do

with the daughter of my people?

Their tongue is a deadly arrow;   

it speaks deceit through the mouth.

They all speak friendly words to their neighbors   

but inwardly are planning to lay an ambush.

Shall I not punish them for these things?

says the LORD,   

and shall I not bring retribution   

on a nation such as this?

 God is asking Jeremiah a question. We get to look over Jeremiah’s shoulder and consider the question as well. “Shall I not punish them for these things?” What would you do?

 You might object: “God offers salvation through forgiveness of sins; he doesn’t punish people any more…until after death…right?” No, that would be a misreading of Scripture and a misunderstanding of what is happening here. 

 First, time and again in these first 9 chapters of Jeremiah, God has offered forgiveness and then pleaded with the people to repent of their sins and come back to him. The response: Nothing. Silence. What you talking about, Willis?

 Second, getting right with God does require confession of sins and repentance, followed by God’s mercy. But returning to God does not end at the altar where one prays the sinner’s prayer. God's mercy is a life-changing ever-present grace. Our confession is just the beginning of daily listening to Scripture and obeying God. Jesus called it ‘denying yourself and taking up your cross daily'.

Ultimately, God expects real change in a person’s life and in a group’s lives. The reason for forgiveness is so that the person will be free from guilt and fear, free to learn God’s ways and thus walk the same path as Jesus walked. Judah refused to repent, refused to seek God, and refused to change. Does there not come a time when God should punish them? I’m not asking for myself, I'm asking for a friend.