Peter Pett's Commentary on the Bible
Jeremiah 6:16-26
YHWH Now Describes The Total Intransigence Of His People And Dismisses Their Attempts To Pacify Him By Religious Ritual And Offerings, Confirming To Them The Judgment That Is Inevitably Coming On Them Because Of Their Sins (Jeremiah 6:16).
The intransigence of the people is now brought out by their response to YHWH's pleading. When He calls on them to walk in the old paths, they adamantly refuse. When He gives them watchmen in order to warn them of the consequences of their present behaviour they close their ears. It is not that they have not heard, it is because they have refused to listen. And that is why YHWH calls on the nations and the whole earth to witness the fact that He is bringing on them ‘evil, the fruit of their thoughts'. Because they have adamantly refused to listen to His words and have rejected His Instruction, they will reap what they have sown.
It is not that they have failed in the niceties of religious ritual. They still give the impression of desiring to worship Him by what they bring to His house. But it is all in vain if with it they are disobedient, for it reveals that they do not really know Him. That is why they will stumble and fall and a terrible enemy will come against them causing great grief and wailing, so that it will not even be safe to go outside the city walls. And the passage closes with Jeremiah's call on his people to mourn because of the destroyer who will suddenly come upon them.
Judah's Blatant Refusal To Obey YHWH.
‘Thus says YHWH, “Stand you in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk within it, and you will find rest for your souls.” But they said, “We will not walk in it.”
Had the people been willing to respond they could still have escaped the coming judgments, for YHWH was still calling on them to take their stance in the ways, and seek the old paths where the good way is, being established in the good way, so that they could walk in it (thus fulfilling the requirements of the covenant, God's Law). And indeed He promised that if they did so they would find rest to their souls (true peace). But their only answer was to blatantly refuse, saying ‘we will not walk in it'. Their hearts were totally set against the requirements of the covenant.
This is the Old Testament equivalent of ‘take My yoke on you and learn of me -- and you will find rest to your souls' (Matthew 11:29), except that here in Jeremiah the idea is possibly more on physical well-being. The idea of ‘walking in the ways of YHWH' is a common one in Deuteronomy (Deuteronomy 5:33; Deuteronomy 8:6; Deuteronomy 10:12; Deuteronomy 11:22; Deuteronomy 19:9; Deuteronomy 26:17; Deuteronomy 28:9; Deuteronomy 30:16) and regularly linked with the idea of loving God. The two go together. We cannot claim to love God and refuse to walk in His ways.
‘And I set watchmen over you, saying, “Listen to the sound of the ram's horn,” but they said, “We will not listen.”
YHWH had then set watchmen over them, His true prophets, who had, as it were, sounded the warning on the ram's horn. But they had closed their ears saying, ‘we will not listen to your warnings'. So it was not that His people had not had every opportunity, it was that they had simply turned their backs on them.
The Inevitable Consequences Which Must Follow.
‘Therefore hear, you nations, and know, O congregation, what is among them. Hear, O earth. Behold, I will bring evil on this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not listened to my words, and as for my law, they have rejected it.'
The seriousness and solemnity of the situation is brought out by God's wide appeal to witnesses as to what He is going to do, and why He is going to do it. He calls on the nations as witnesses, and on ‘the congregation'. And then He calls on the earth itself. The ‘congregation' is a word commonly used to represent the whole of Israel, but it cannot mean that here, unless it refers to the congregation in exile, for they are to be witnesses of what is among the people of Judah. It is possible therefore that the appeal is to the congregation of God that stands in judgment (Psalms 82:1). This would tie in with the contrast with ‘earth'. Alternatively it could be seen as referring to the righteous remnant (Christ would build His congregation on the righteous remnant - Matthew 16:18).
What is to be witnessed is ‘what is among them', their sin and its consequences. For He is bringing evil on this people, as the ‘fruit of their thoughts'. What they have sown in their thoughts, so will they reap. It will be the consequence of their having set their minds against Him by saying, ‘we will not walk in it' and ‘we will not listen' (Jeremiah 6:16). It is because they have not listened to His words and warnings, and because they have rejected His Instruction (torah, law, instruction), in other words have rejected His covenant, that evil and judgment must come on them.
God Cannot Be ‘Buttered Up'.
‘To what purpose comes frankincense to me from Sheba,
And the sweet cane from a far country?
Your burnt-offerings are not acceptable,
Nor your sacrifices pleasing to me.
And in view of their rejection of the requirements of the covenant, and of His Law, there is little purpose in their bringing to Him expensive gifts. Frankincense from Sheba, and sweet cane from a far country may be all very well. But they do not replace good, old-fashioned obedience. Nor in those circumstances are offerings and sacrifices pleasing to Him. We have here the constantly repeated assertion by the prophets that ritual offerings are not sufficient in themselves, unless they are accompanied by love and obedience (compare 1 Samuel 15:22; Isaiah 1:11; Hosea 6:6; Amos 5:21).
Sheba was in Arabia to the east, and a source of perfumes and scents. Frankincense was required for the preparation of the holy incense (Exodus 30:34) and the holy anointing oil, while the ‘far country' is probably India from where would come the aromatic calamus that was also required.
‘Therefore thus says YHWH, “Behold, I will lay stumbling-blocks before this people, and the fathers and the sons together will stumble against them, the neighbour and his friend will perish.”
Having called on His witnesses YHWH now gives His verdict. He is going to fill their way with grave difficulties which will cause ‘this people', who have sinned so greatly, to stumble totally against them, and they will all, both father and son, and the friend with his neighbour, perish together. They all got along together, and now they would all perish together.
The Invaders From The North.
‘Thus says YHWH, “Behold, a people come from the north country, and a great nation will be stirred up from the uttermost parts of the earth. They lay hold on bow and spear, they are cruel, and have no mercy, their voice roars like the sea, and they ride on horses, every one set in array, as a man to the battle, against you, O daughter of Zion.”
The nature of the cause of stumbling is then described. YHWH will call from the north a people, a great nation (compare Jeremiah 5:15; Jeremiah 50:41), from the uttermost parts of the earth. Opinion is divided as to whether this refers to the Scythian hordes mentioned by Herodotus or to the Babylonians, or indeed to both for they sometimes operated together. They are described as laying hold of bow and spear, as cruel, as merciless, as advancing with loud war-cries (roaring like the sea), while riding on horses, and as well armed, all in all presenting a fearsome picture. And these fearsome warriors have banded together against the comely and delicate daughter of Zion, Jerusalem.
Whilst they either came from the Black Sea area or from Babylon, or from both, to most of the people of Judah this was the ‘uttermost parts of the earth' for their knowledge of the world was very limited and these nations were at the furthest horizons of their world.
‘Cruel.' The harshness of the Assyrians and Babylonians is well attested. It made the Palestinian nations, whose bloodthirstiness appals us, look like angels. They were pitiless and merciless, a trait brought out by Nebuchadnezzar's later treatment of Zedekiah when he first slew his sons before his eyes and then gouged out his eyes. They would cut off hands and noses, put out eyes, flay their victims alive, and cast them alive into furnaces (compare Daniel 3:11).
Judah's Fearful And Mournful Response To Their Advance.
‘We have heard the report of them,
Our hands grow feeble,
Anguish has taken hold of us,
Birth-pains as of a woman in labour.”
The reaction of Judah to this news is then described. They were filled with fear, and anguish, and, in modern parlance, they went weak at the knees. Their hands began to shake and they lost their strength, anguish seized hold of them. They felt themselves as being like a woman undergoing her labour pains in expectancy of what was to come. The pictures vividly bring out the panic that takes hold of a nation in the face of an invincible and cruel enemy.
‘Do not go forth into the field,
Nor walk by the way,
For the sword of the enemy,
Terror is on every side (magor misabib).'
So desperate will the situation be, and so close the enemy, that it will no be longer safe to go out into the countryside, or walk along local roads outside the shelter of the cities, because the sword, and their enemy, and terror will be everywhere. This would at times be a repeated experience during the reigns of Jehoiakim and Zedekiah, but would come to finalisation at the end of Zedekiah's reign.
‘Terror is on every side.' This became a watchword to Jeremiah, so much so that he would even give this appellation to his bitter enemy (Jeremiah 20:3), and would have it thrown at him by the people (Jeremiah 20:10). See also Jeremiah 46:5; Jeremiah 49:29.
‘O daughter of my people, gird yourself with sackcloth, and wallow yourself in ashes, make you mourning, as for an only son, most bitter lamentation, for the destroyer will suddenly come upon us.'
The passage ends with a lament by Jeremiah, and a call to the people to go into serious mourning ‘as for an only son', because the Destroyer is soon to come among them. They are not only to put on ashes but are to wallow in them. The wearing of sackcloth and pouring on the head of ashes was a regular evidence of grief and mourning, and here it was to be with ‘most bitter lamentation'. What greater grief indeed than that for an only son, who was the perpetuator of the family name, the heir to the inheritance and the one to whom the whole family would in future look for protection and provision. His death would be a devastating loss.