Jeremiah 4:1-4

F. The Rewards of Repentance Jeremiah 4:1-4

TRANSLATION

(1) If you return, O Israel, (oracle of the LORD) unto Me return; and if you will remove your abominations from before Me, and never waver (2) and you sware, As the LORD lives, in truth, in justice and in righteousness then nations shall bless themselves in Him and in Him they shall glory. (3) For thus says the LORD, to the men of Judah and Jerusalem: Plow up your unplowed ground! Do not sow among the thorns! (4) Circumcise yourselves to the LORD. Remove the foreskins of your heart, O men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, lest like a fire My wrath goes out and burns and there be no one to quench it because of the evil of your deeds.

COMMENTS

If she was to reap the rewards of repentance Israel must make sure that she turns unto the Lord. The pronoun Me is in an emphatic position in the Hebrew sentence structure of Jeremiah 4:1. Israel had turned to other gods and to other nations. She was constantly turning in one direction or the other. Now she must make sure she returns to Me. A genuine return to the Lord will involve three distinct actions on the part of the nation. (1) They must remove all their abominations, i.e., their idols and the rites conducted in their worship, from before the face of the Lord. (2) From that point on they must never waver, i.e., run to and from other gods, but rather remain steadfastly faithful to the Lord. (3) They must swear by the life of the Lord. As the Lord lives was the common form of the Jewish oath. The men of Israel must swear to the Lord and by the Lord. They must renew their covenant to the Lord by swearing allegiance to Him.[156] To swear by the Lord means to call Him to witness to the truth of a statement. Lest one take this matter of swearing lightly three qualifications are placed upon the act. The oath must be made (a) in truth, i.e., in sincerity; (b) in justice, i.e., in keeping with that which is right; and (c) in righteousness, i.e., in accordance with the commandments of the law of God (Deuteronomy 6:24-25). Following this lengthy statement of the stipulations concerning repentance, the Lord adds a beautiful promise. If Israel truly repents then the Lord will make them a blessing to the whole world and the promise of Jeremiah 3:17 will be fulfilled. The heathen will come to bless and glorify the Lord when they see the way in which He will bless penitent Israel (Jeremiah 4:2).

[156] Cf. Deuteronomy 26:17 f.; 2 Kings 23:3; Nehemiah 9:1 to Nehemiah 10:39.

From the explicit promise of reward in Jeremiah 4:2 the prophet develops two metaphors which contain implicit promises to penitent sinners. In the first metaphor, which Jeremiah has borrowed from Hosea (Hosea 10:12), the heart of the men of Judah is like a field which has never been cleared of dense brush and plowed for planting. (Jeremiah 4:3). It is no easy task to clear that land of thorn and thistle and plow that virgin soil. Superficial plowing will not do for the roots of the weeds can only be destroyed as the ground is worked again and again. But no harvest of any consequence can be reaped from a field which has not thoroughly been prepared. So must the sinner laboriously work to root up and kill the thorns of wickedness and idolatry. The seed of the word of God does not stand a chance in a heart which harbors the roots of sin. But the more thorough the plowing, the richer the harvest.

In Jeremiah 4:4 the metaphor changes as Jeremiah calls upon the men of Judah to circumcise themselves to the Lord. Here the prophet is taking a slap at the mere formal, ritualistic notions of circumcision. All Jews were circumcised; but not all were circumcised to the Lord. Jeremiah is certainly not advocating that the outward act of circumcision be abandoned. God Himself had commanded His people to perform this act. But the prophet is demanding that circumcision be carried out in the right spirit. Israel must not only circumcise the foreskin of their flesh but also of their hearts (Deuteronomy 10:16). While the outward act of circumcision made a man a member of the commonwealth of Israel, it was the circumcision of the heart that made a man part of the true Israel of God. The outward act was of no consequence if the heart was unchanged. The earnest entreaty of the Lord closes with an ultimatum. If these men fail to live up to their circumcision then the consuming fire of God's wrath will break forth against them and no one will be able to extinguish that fire (Jeremiah 4:4).