Jeremiah 9:9-16

B. Impending Destruction Jeremiah 9:9-21

Because of the national corruption, destruction is necessary and imminent. The land will become desolate (Jeremiah 9:9-15) and death will reign supreme throughout the land (Jeremiah 9:16-21).

1. Desolation of the land (Jeremiah 9:9-16)

TRANSLATION

(9) On account of these things shall I not punish them (oracle of the LORD)? Shall not I take vengeance on a nation which is like this? (10) Upon the mountains I shall lift up weeping and lamentation and in the pastures of the wilderness a lamentation; for they are burned up so that no man passes by and they do not hear the noise of the cattle. The birds of the heavens as well as the cattle have fled, have gone away. (11) And I will make Jerusalem heaps, the habitation of jackals, and the cities of Judah I will make a desolation without inhabitant. (12) Who is the wise man that he may discern this and to whom has the mouth of the LORD spoken that he may declare it? Why is the land destroyed, burned like a wilderness so that no one passes by? (13) And the LORD said: Because they forsook My law which I placed before them and they did not hearken to My voice nor walk in it. (14) But they walked after the stubbornness of their heart and after the Baalim which their fathers taught them. (15) Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I am about to cause them viz., this people, to eat wormwood and cause them to drink the poisoned water of gall. (16) And I will scatter them among nations which neither they nor their fathers have known and I will send after them the sword until I have consumed them.

COMMENTS

In view of the terribly corrupt conditions which prevail in Judah God is perfectly justified in taking vengeance upon that land (Jeremiah 9:9). Jeremiah knows what will befall his beloved land. He knows that when the judgment falls he will be weeping and lamenting the desolation which will befall that once proud little country. The pasture lands of the wilderness i.e., the uninhabited region, which once were covered with flocks and herds will become so utterly waste that even the birds depart for lack of food (Jeremiah 9:10). The cities of Judah will not escape the desolation. Their ruins will become the habitation of wild creatures (Jeremiah 9:11). The I of Jeremiah 9:11 is no longer Jeremiah, but God.

In Jeremiah 9:12 Jeremiah challenges the wise men of the land and those who claimed to have received divine revelation to explain why the land has become desolate (Jeremiah 9:12). They are unable to explain it and so God himself gives the explanation. God had placed His law before this people at Sinai. He had amplified His law and kept it before the people through the preaching of the prophets. Yet the people forsook the law of God, refused to hearken to His instruction or walk in His way (Jeremiah 9:13). In their stubborn rebellion they followed after the Canaanite deities, the Baalim. This apostasy and idolatry they had learned from their fathers (Jeremiah 9:14). Where fathers go, sons will follow. What an ungodly legacy the fathers had left to their descendants!. The iniquities of fathers are often magnified in the lives of sons and when iniquity is full the punishment is inevitable (cf. Exodus 20:5). The sons must now eat the wormwood and drink the water of gall (Jeremiah 9:15). Wormwood and gall, two bitter and noxious substances, were symbols in the Old Testament for bitter affliction. Judah will become desolate because she will be depopulated. God will scatter the Jews among the far-distant foreign nations. Even in captivity the sword of divine retribution will pursue them until they are consumed (Jeremiah 9:16). Those who would be consumed in captivity are, of course, the unbelieving and unrepentant (cf. Amos 9:9-10). Those who turned to God in sincerity and truth would be restored to their homeland (Jeremiah 16:14-15; Jeremiah 31:9; Jeremiah 31:18-19).