seekeroftruth
Well-Known Member
Jeremiah 18:1 This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: 2 “Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will give you my message.” 3 So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. 4 But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.
5 Then the word of the Lord came to me. 6 He said, “Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does?” declares the Lord. “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel. 7 If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, 8 and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. 9 And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, 10 and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it.
11 “Now therefore say to the people of Judah and those living in Jerusalem, ‘This is what the Lord says: Look! I am preparing a disaster for you and devising a plan against you. So turn from your evil ways, each one of you, and reform your ways and your actions.’ 12 But they will reply, ‘It’s no use. We will continue with our own plans; we will all follow the stubbornness of our evil hearts.’”
13 Therefore this is what the Lord says:
“Inquire among the nations:
Who has ever heard anything like this?
A most horrible thing has been done
by Virgin Israel.
14 Does the snow of Lebanon
ever vanish from its rocky slopes?
Do its cool waters from distant sources
ever stop flowing?[a]
15 Yet my people have forgotten me;
they burn incense to worthless idols,
which made them stumble in their ways,
in the ancient paths.
They made them walk in byways,
on roads not built up.
16 Their land will be an object of horror
and of lasting scorn;
all who pass by will be appalled
and will shake their heads.
17 Like a wind from the east,
I will scatter them before their enemies;
I will show them my back and not my face
in the day of their disaster.”
Who has ever heard anything like this?
A most horrible thing has been done
by Virgin Israel.
14 Does the snow of Lebanon
ever vanish from its rocky slopes?
Do its cool waters from distant sources
ever stop flowing?[a]
15 Yet my people have forgotten me;
they burn incense to worthless idols,
which made them stumble in their ways,
in the ancient paths.
They made them walk in byways,
on roads not built up.
16 Their land will be an object of horror
and of lasting scorn;
all who pass by will be appalled
and will shake their heads.
17 Like a wind from the east,
I will scatter them before their enemies;
I will show them my back and not my face
in the day of their disaster.”
18 They said, “Come, let’s make plans against Jeremiah; for the teaching of the law by the priest will not cease, nor will counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophets. So come, let’s attack him with our tongues and pay no attention to anything he says.”
19 Listen to me, Lord;
hear what my accusers are saying!
20 Should good be repaid with evil?
Yet they have dug a pit for me.
Remember that I stood before you
and spoke in their behalf
to turn your wrath away from them.
21 So give their children over to famine;
hand them over to the power of the sword.
Let their wives be made childless and widows;
let their men be put to death,
their young men slain by the sword in battle.
22 Let a cry be heard from their houses
when you suddenly bring invaders against them,
for they have dug a pit to capture me
and have hidden snares for my feet.
23 But you, Lord, know
all their plots to kill me.
Do not forgive their crimes
or blot out their sins from your sight.
Let them be overthrown before you;
deal with them in the time of your anger.
hear what my accusers are saying!
20 Should good be repaid with evil?
Yet they have dug a pit for me.
Remember that I stood before you
and spoke in their behalf
to turn your wrath away from them.
21 So give their children over to famine;
hand them over to the power of the sword.
Let their wives be made childless and widows;
let their men be put to death,
their young men slain by the sword in battle.
22 Let a cry be heard from their houses
when you suddenly bring invaders against them,
for they have dug a pit to capture me
and have hidden snares for my feet.
23 But you, Lord, know
all their plots to kill me.
Do not forgive their crimes
or blot out their sins from your sight.
Let them be overthrown before you;
deal with them in the time of your anger.
a. Jeremiah 18:14 The meaning of the Hebrew for this sentence is uncertain
This is from Bible-studys.org.
Judgment could be averted if there were true repentance. Examples are Israel during Hezekiah’s reign (Micah: 3:9-12), and Nineveh following Jonah’s preaching (Jonah chapter 3).
"Remember that I stood before thee to speak good for them, and to turn away thy wrath from them": He was an intercessor for them with God. Pleaded with him on their behalf, that good things might be bestowed upon them, and that wrath might be averted from them. So Christ did for the Jews that crucified him (Luke 23:34). This is an instance of their ingratitude. That though he had been an advocate for them, stood in the gap between God and them, and was persistent for their good. Yet this was all the recompense he had from them. They sought his life to take it away. This kindness of his for them was forgotten by them. But he trusts the Lord will remember it, and not suffer them to act the base part they intended. And now he determines no more to plead their cause, but to utter evils upon them, as follows.
This is the very same message that David gave (in the book of Psalms, chapter 35). They are trying to say that Jeremiah is not of God. They have dug a hole for his soul. Jeremiah had tried to intercede for them, but God told him not to do it. Jeremiah had done the job God sent him to do, but they hated him for it. They believed Jeremiah was speaking for himself, instead of God. They had been so blinded by their sins, they did not realize what he was saying was true. Jeremiah is asking God to deal with them for this rejection.
Jeremiah has been so angered by what they have done and said to him, that he no longer asks God to save them. He wants the wrath of God to descend on them and take vengeance for their actions toward him. God does not need Jeremiah to figure out what to do to them, no more than He needs our help to dole out punishment. God is just in His judgements, and sometimes we are not. Perhaps, Jeremiah is saying, "All of the things you said would happen to them, let it be so". Jeremiah had already prophesied these things would happen.
"Deal thus with them in the time of thine anger": The set time for his wrath to come upon them to the uttermost. Then do unto them according to all the imprecations now made; which the prophet foresaw, and believed he would do; and therefore thus spake.
Jeremiah wants to be compensated for what they had done to him. He has stopped weeping for them, and begun to feel the anger God had felt earlier. They had planned to kill Jeremiah, and he wants God to kill them. This is such a change from the pleading of Jeremiah to God to save them. He suddenly agrees with the judgement God has made against them. Now, he wants God to destroy them.
This is from the easy English site.Jeremiah had made some officials very angry. So they planned to say that he made false prophecies. They said that he was insulting the LORD. He spoke about trouble for the nation. The officials said that he was not loyal to the nation. They would have plenty of religious experts without Jeremiah. Priests taught what the law meant. For example, the people asked Haggai about the meat that they gave to the LORD (Haggai 2:11-14). Wise men would give practical advice. The prophets would give to them the LORD's messages. So they did not need Jeremiah. The priests, the wise men and the prophets were three groups of officials. It was probably those three groups who had agreed to attack Jeremiah. He had spoken against them many times.
Jeremiah asked the LORD to notice what was happening to him. Jeremiah had prayed for good things for his people. And he asked the*LORD to remember that. He had asked the LORD not to be angry with them. But they were not grateful. Instead, they were planning to kill him. People dug large holes to catch animals. One of David's soldiers had killed a lion that had fallen into a large hole (2 Samuel 23:20). Jeremiah felt that his enemies were trying to trap him like an animal.
Jeremiah's words that wish such damage seem very different from his other messages. But Jeremiah was a person with feelings. His own people's attitude had hurt his feelings deeply. He also cared about the LORD whose covenant his people had not obeyed. The LORD’s people had not kept their serious promise to obey him. So Jeremiah believed that the LORD must punish them. The details about the troubles that would come are also in Deuteronomy 28. When the enemy came, people would die in battle. Other people would starve to death.
I wanted to call this chapter "fake news". Apparently there were three groups of officials..... priests, wise men, and prophets. Jeremiah had been warning these three groups of officials. Jeremiah started warning these people when he was a teenager. I can only imagine what would happen today if a teenager got up in the face of the house, senate, and judiciary. I can only imagine what would happen today if a teenager called the president corrupt. After all, telling the officials that they are all sinning and they should get right with God..... is calling them corrupt. That's what he was doing. Jeremiah was pointing a finger on behalf of God and the priests, wise men, and prophets who had been preaching to the paychecks and free housing were plotting to silence him.
This is from the blueletterbible.org site.
That is hopeless! So we will walk according to our own plans: Judah was in the tragic place of feeling it was hopeless to repent. It did not feel hopeless because they feared God would not respond as he promised. It seemed hopeless because they simply did not feel it was worth it to change the dictates of their evil heart simply because one prophet told them so.
The law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet: This was (in part) the message of the false prophets. If a man held the title of priest, he must have the law. If he were considered wise, he must have good counsel. If he were called a prophet, he must have a word from God. This was a mentality that pretty much denied the existence of corrupt priests, foolish elders, and unfaithful prophets.
“Jeremiah had been relentless in his condemnation of the three classes of officials referred to here, priests, wise men, and prophets. It is probably a fair inference that it was these men of the establishment who instigated the plot.” (Thompson)
A later prophet would state this in the reverse: Then they will seek a vision from a prophet; but the law will perish from the priest, and counsel from the elders. (Ezekiel 7:26)
Deal thus with them in the time of Your anger: The common link between Jeremiah 18 and these imprecatory psalms is that they bring the longing for vengeance to God and surrender it to Him – instead of taking it upon themselves. This is a good and godly impulse when one has been so severely wronged.
Jeremiah wasn't the first one to give up on the people. Jonah did the same thing. Neither of these prophets wanted to go face the morons in charge. These two, Jeremiah and Jonah, were just going about their human business, when God told them to go tell the wickedest humans around to straighten up or God was going to shut them down for good. In Jonah's case.... he fought the mission... got tied up with a big fish for a while.... finally relented... told the wickedest humans around to straighten up.... and they did... and God let them go... and Jonah got mad. In Jeremiah's case..... he was willing to go on the mission.... he was on duty through the reign of several kings [according to the commentaries].... he was a willing prophet... but in Jeremiah's case it was the wickedest humans around who plotted to murder him in order to shut him up... so Jeremiah said.... "have at it God... I give up."
Jeremiah isn't handing God a snickers and begging him to calm down anymore. Even Jeremiah can see it's no use.... they're trying to shoot the messenger rather than changing the ending of the song. Even Jeremiah is saying.... "have at it God... I give up". As if God needs Jeremiah's approval....
