This Material Has Not Been Edited For s11

THIS MATERIAL HAS NOT BEEN EDITED FOR

SCRIPTURAL ACCURACY, SPELLING, OR GRAMMAR

J E R E M I A H

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Jer 11:1-17 Bible Text

11:1 THE WORD that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: 2 hear the words of this covenant or solemn pledge, and speak to the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. 3 Say to them, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Cursed is the man who does not heed the words of this covenant or solemn pledge 4 Which I commanded your fathers at the time that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, from the iron furnace, saying, Listen to My voice and do according to all that I command you. So will you be My people, and I will be your God, 5 that I may perform the oath which I swore to your fathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as it is this day. Then I answered, Amen (so be it), O Lord. 6 And the Lord said to me, proclaim all these words in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem: Hear the words of this covenant or solemn pledge and do them.

7 For I earnestly protested to and warned your fathers at the time that I brought them up out of the land of Egypt, even to this day, protesting to and warning them persistently, saying, Obey My voice. 8 Yet they did not obey or incline their ear [to Me], but everyone walked in the stubbornness of his own evil heart. Therefore I brought upon them all [the calamities threatened in] the words of this covenant or solemn pledge, which I had commanded, but they did not do. 9 And the Lord said to me, a conspiracy is found among the men of Judah and among the inhabitants of Jerusalem. 10 They have turned back to the iniquities of their forefathers, who refused to hear My words; they have gone after other gods to serve them. The house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken My covenant or solemn pledge which I made with their fathers.

11 Therefore thus says the Lord: Behold, I am bringing evil and calamity upon them which they will not be able to escape; though they cry to Me, I will not listen to them. 12 Then the cities of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem will go and cry out to the gods to whom they offer incense, but they cannot save them at all in the time of their evil trouble. 13 For [as many as] the number of your cities are your gods, O Judah; and [as many as] the number of the streets of Jerusalem are the altars you have set up to the shameful thing, even altars to burn incense to Baal. 14 Therefore do not pray for this people or lift up a cry or prayer for them, for I will not listen when they cry out to Me in the time of their evil trouble. 15 What right has My beloved [to be] in My house when she has wrought lewdness and done treacherously many times? Can vows and the holy flesh [of your sacrifices] remove from you your wickedness and avert your calamity?

Can you by these [escape your doom and] rejoice exultantly? 16 The Lord [acknowledged you once to be worthy to be] called a green olive tree, fair and of good fruit; but with the roar of a great tempest He will set fire to it, and its branches will be consumed. [Ps 52:8; Jer 21:14.] 17 For the Lord of hosts, Who planted you, has pronounced evil and calamity against you because of the evil which the house of Israel and the house of Judah have done against themselves in provoking Me to anger by offering incense to Baal. AMP

[General Information – 11:1-13:27: Jeremiah’s lament concerning Judah’s broken covenant with God.] The prophetic word formula in Jeremiah 11:1 marks the beginning of this unit, which presents a dialogue between God and Jeremiah concerning Judah’s breaking of its covenant. Whereas God instructs Jeremiah to announce punishment against Judah and to perform symbolic actions to illustrate the nation’s guilt, Jeremiah laments the situation and demands that God act justly.

[General Information - 11:1-17:] Jeremiah relates how God instructed him to announce to the people of Jerusalem and Judah that they have broken the covenant made between God and their ancestors. Many interpreters speculate that this text may have been composed to call upon the people of Jerusalem and Judah to support Josiah’s reform, but that it was later reworked to account for Judah’s subjugation to Egypt or Babylonia in the years following Josiah’s death or perhaps to explain the Babylonian exile. The centrality of the notion of “covenant” as well as much of the terminology of this prose suggest clear affinities with Deuteronomy.

[Jewish Study Bible]

Ch. 11-13 Judah's Faithlessness to Covenant Obligations, and the Consequences Thereof

1. In the first part of this compilation of discourses (Jer 11:1-17) Judah is upbraided for disloyalty to the covenant, on account of which people and kingdom are threatened with sore disaster.

2. In the second part (11:18-12:17), the murderous attempt of the people of Anathoth against the prophet's life (11:18-23) gives occasion for a description of Judah's irreclaimable perverseness; while Jeremiah's expostulation with God as to the prosperity of godless men, and the reproof there for received by him from God (12:1-6), call forth an announcement that, in spite of God's long-suffering, judgment on Judah and all nations will not be for ever deferred (12:7-17).

3. Finally, in the third part, ch. 13, we have first a further account, by means of a symbolical action to be performed by the prophet, of the abasement of Judah's pride in banishment to Euphrates (vv. 1-11); and next, an account of the judgment about to fall on Judah in the destruction of Jerusalem, and this both in figurative and in direct language (vv. 12-27).

From the contents of the discourses it appears unquestionable that we have here, gathered into the unity of a written record, various oral addresses of Jeremiah, together with some of the experiences that befell him in the exercise of his calling. The discourse throughout contains nothing that might not have been spoken or have happened in the time of Josiah; nor have we here any data for determining precisely the dates of the several portions of the whole discourse.

Jer 11:1

The prophecy contained in (Jer 11-12) seems to belong to an early period of Jeremiah's life. The covenant (Jer 11:2) was that renewed by Josiah in his 18th year, after the discovery of the Book of the Law in the temple (2 Kings 23:3); while (Jer 11:13) apparently refers to the public establishment of idolatry by Manasseh (Jer 21:3). The people took no hearty part in Josiah's reformation, and the prophet therefore sets before them the consequences that will inevitably fellow upon their disloyalty to their covenant-God. The prophecy was probably called forth by the conspiracy of the men of Judah and of his own relatives of Anathoth to murder Jeremiah (Jer 11:18-23; 12:1-6), for such deeds, which but too well represented the nation's whole course, punishment must come, if unrepented of. (From Barnes' Notes)

Verse 1-17. Judah's Disloyalty to the Covenant, with the Consequences Thereof-In (vv. 2-8) is a short summary of the covenant made with the fathers; in (vv. 9-13) is an account of the breaking of this covenant by Judah, and of the calamity which results there from; and in (vv. 14-17) further description of this calamity.

11:2 Hear and recite are in the plural because, according to traditional interpretation, this statement is addressed to the three prophets active at this time. According to Pesikta Rabbati, the prophetess Huldah (2 Kings 22:14-20; 2 Chronicles 34:22-28), a relative of Jeremiah, spoke to the women, while Jeremiah, spoke to the men on the streets (see verse 6). Jeremiah’s teacher, Zephaniah (Zephaniah 1:1), preached in the synagogue. [Jewish Study Bible]

Verse 2"The words of this covenant" are, as is clear from the succeeding context, the words of the covenant recorded in the Pentateuch, known from the reading of the Torah. The call to hear the words thereof can only have the meaning of: to give ear to them, take them to heart. Taken thus, this introductory verse serves to exalt the importance of the truths mentioned, to mark them out as truths which God had commanded all the prophets to proclaim. If it be the prophets in general who are addressed in v. 2, the transition to "and say thou" is easily explained.

Jeremiah, too, must himself do that which was the bounden duty of all the prophets, must make the men of Judah and Jerusalem call to mind the curse overhanging transgressors of the covenant. The words: Cursed is the man, etc., are taken from (Deut 27:26), from the directions for the engagement to keep the covenant, which the people were to solemnize upon their entry into Canaan, and which, according to (Josh 8:30 ff.), they did solemnize.

(Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament)

Jeremiah 11:4

Conspiracy against the Covenant

11:4. iron-smelting furnace. In the ancient world they did not use a blast furnace such as is used today to produce cast iron. Iron has a melting point of 1537 degrees centigrade, a temperature that could not be consistently achieved by ancient technology. But once the iron is heated beyond 1100 degrees centigrade, it takes a spongy, semisolid form that can be forged. The furnace was usually fueled by charcoal to provide the carbon necessary for the chemical process. The strength of the steel is dependent on the amount of carbon it is able to absorb. The lower the temperature, the more often the process has to be repeated in order to get rid of enough slag to achieve a usable product. While a furnace can certainly be a metaphor of oppression, the fire of the smelting furnace is not destructive but constructive. It is the furnace that transforms the malleable ore to the durable iron product. The Egypt experience transformed Israel into the covenant people of God. (From IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament)

Jeremiah 11:5

11:5. land flowing with milk and honey. The phrase "flowing with milk and honey" was a common cliché in Scripture designating the fertility of an area. The Canaanites described the land in ritual texts in a similar manner, as did the Egyptian literary text of Sinuhe (early second millennium B.C.) from Egypt. For more information see comment on Exodus 3:7-10.

(IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament)

11:3-5 The reference to the curses that will overtake those who do not obey the covenant recalls the curses directed against those who disregard God’s expectations in (Deuteronomy chapter 27). God’s statement, that you may be My people and I may be your God, is a typical expression of the covenant relationship between God and Israel (Genesis 17:7-8; Exodus 6:7; Deuteronomy 26:17-19; 29:12; Jeremiah 7:23; 31:1, 33).

Jeremiah’s response, Amen, Lord, echoes Israel’s affirmation of the curses in (Deuteronomy Chapter 27). Amen, from a root meaning “true,” is an exclamation meaning “surely!” that signifies the acceptance and endorsement of what has just been said. [Jewish Study Bible]

Verses 3-5.The quotation is made freely from memory. Instead of "that heareth not the words of this covenant," we find in Deut. l. c.: "the confirmed not the words of this law to do them." The choice there of the word yaaqiym (OT: 6965) [to rise, accomplish] is suggested by its connection with the act of solemnization enjoined. The recitation and promulgation of the law upon Mount Gerizim and Ebal (Deut 27) had no other aim than that of solemnly binding the people to keep or follow the law; and this is what Jeremiah means by "hearing."

The law to be established is the law of the covenant, i.e., the covenant made by Jahveh with Israel, and spoken of in (Deut. 28:69 and 29:8) as the "words of this covenant." This covenant, which Moses had made with the sons of Israel in the land of Moab (Deut. 28:69), was but a renewal of that solemnly concluded at Sinai (Ex 24). And so Jeremiah speaks of this covenant as the one which Jahveh commanded the fathers in the day, i.e., at the time, of their leaving Egypt.

"In the day that," etc., as in (Jer 7:22). "Out of the iron furnace:" this metaphor for the affliction endured by Israel in Egypt is taken from (Deut 4:20). The words: hearken unto my voice and do them (the words of the covenant), suggest (Deut 27:1-2); and the words: so shall ye be my people, suggest (Deut 29:12), a passage which itself points back to Exodus. (Jer 6:7; 19:5 f., Lev 27:12; Deut 7:6, etc). That I may establish, i.e., perform, the oath which I have sworn unto your fathers, i.e., the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Deut 7:8, etc.), promising to give them a land flowing, etc.

According to (Deut 27:15 ff)., the people were to take on themselves the curses attached to the breaking of the law, curses which they did take on themselves when the law was promulgated in Canaan. As the whole congregation did on that occasion, so here the prophet, by his "yea," expresses his adherence to the covenant, and admits that the engagement is yet in full force for the congregation of God; and at the same time indicates that he, on his part, is ready to labour for the fulfillment of the covenant, so that the people may not become liable to the curse of the law.

(Keil & Delitzsch Commentary)

11:6-8 God’s instructions revert to the singular as they are now addressed only to Jeremiah. The terms (literally “the words”) of this covenant refers to laws found in the “torah” and the curses imposed if they are not obeyed (Deuteronomy Chapters 28-30). [Jewish Study Bible]