Devotional Commentary on Jeremiah
9
The
first verse is considered by the original Hebrew to belong to the last verse of
the previous chapter.
Calvin
in his commentary of 1567 translated the verse correctly and the reading of the
Targum is the same, but modern translators just make it “were” and paraphrase
it as “be” whereas Calvin correctly translated it as ponet in Latin meaning, “set,
place” and ultimately give. “Who will give My head water?” Meaning, who will
calm Me down. As right as the translation of Calvin was, as wrong was his
interpretation that it is Jeremiah talking instead of God. Middle Age Rabbi
Redak interpreted like Calvin that it is Jeremiah speaking. But, this is not
correct and Middle Age Rabbi Kara differed correctly with Redak saying it is
not Jeremiah but the Lord speaking. God is replying to the wayward remnant
here.
He
is suppose to meet them in Jerusalem regularly on set times but He wishes to
just run away and find a overnight place in the desert. They are adulterers and
a company of traitors (verse 1). Calvin said that if people just preach the
simple message, there is no warmth unless there are some thorns on it. Calvin
is right, nothing has changed in 1567 and nothing has changed in our own day. “They
have directed their tongues” (wayyaderku = the same root as road or way), like
bows falsely (sheqer).” Normally the shooter wants to shoot on target but the
wayward spiritual Israel seeks to purposefully pull the bow too much or too
little to fall short of God’s expectations or slightly left or right, up or
down biblical standards of God’s Revelation and Torah to miss the mark. This
they rationalize away with their tongues and cover it up, says the Lord (verse
2). This kind of slight deviation from God’s biblical truths, made them grow
popular or strong in the country or countries of the world but not for truth
(welo le-emunah) (verse 2c). Since they go out from evil unto evil (mera-ah el
ra-ah) “and Me they do not know” says the Lord (verse 2d). It is clearly the
Lord speaking and not Jeremiah.
The
Lord asked them to be careful of their so-called spiritual neighbors and that
they should not trust them (verse 3a) for “every neighbor will walk fraudulently”.
The
Lord is seeking a certain spiritual quality not a seeking of human populist
trends. “And a man upon his neighbor will compel [Egyptian ḥtr meaning “tax, compel, levy”]
and truth they will not speak” (verse 4a).”They have taught to their tongues
the speaking of lies” (verse 4b). This is an education of deception.
Jeremiah
did then a very ungrammatical thing: he wrote two verbs next to each other, “they
cause iniquity, they are weary” (verse 4c). There are no copulative between the
two verbs.
He
did the same at the end of verse 9. They are staying in the middle of deceit
and in deceit they do not know Me “says the Lord” (verse 5). God does not
approach near deceit since that is the domain of Satan himself.
God
decided to refine them and test them since what else can the Lord do with the
remnant (the daughter of my people) (verse 6). Their tongues is a deadly arrow
and they speak peace to each other but in their inside they lay a trap for
their neighbor. (God says they are double-faced) (verse 7). This double life is
the cause that God wonder if He should not visit them for these things and whether
He shall not avenge His soul on a nation [remnant] like this (verse 8).
God
says He will weep and wail for the mountains and lament for the restplaces of
the wilderness, because they are withered (dry) and without anyone passing
through (deserted) (verse 9). The sound of cattle is not heard and the birds of
the heavens “and unto the beasts, they have fled, they have walked”. This is
again a very interesting case of a double verb side by side without a
copulative between them. Almost ungrammatical. However, that is how the mind of
a human works. There are people who talk this way so that their conversation
and personality are fitting to their conversation or their conversation are fitting
to their personality and they do this.
“And
I will give Jerusalem to heaps, from a howl [Egyptian cwn meaning
howl] of jackals and the cities of Judah I will give desolation without
inhabitant” (verse 10).
Jeremiah
then asks the question to his fellow remnant members, who is so wise to
understand this or declare it? Someone has to explain why the land is a
wilderness in his vision of events to come (verse 11). The answer does not come
from a human but from the Lord to Jeremiah to explain the horrified condition
in his vision. The Lord says that they have forsaken His law (Torah) which He
set before them and have not listened in His voice nor walked in it (verse 12).
God
set before their feet a way of the commandments to walk in and to listen to His
voice of command to walk in that way for happiness and salvation.
But,
they do not walk in the way of the Lord. They followed the way of their own
heart and walk after Baalim which their fathers taught them (verse 13). There
even was an education for Baal. The Rabbis of the Talmud came to the conclusion
that the remnant of Jeremiah’s day “did not proceed with the Torah according to
its proper intention and devotion”. This was Jesus’ underlying message to them
already in His days.
One
may ask, how is it possible for one who knows Israelite religion practices to
switch so easily and smoothly to Baal-worship. Here is the answer: At Ugarit in
Syria they have discovered since 1929 tablets at Ugarit or Rash Shamra with
hymns dating from the middle time of the Judges nearly a 150 years after Moses.
Many of those hymns compare very well with Psalms in the collections of David
and other psalm writers in the Hebrew Bible. Sometimes only the name of Yahweh
or Elohim is replaced with Baal or Astarith.
Here
is how they originated. When the Israelites entered Canaan in 1410 BCE, some of
them secularized and to do business, (SAGAZ or secular habiru) went and lived
at Ugarit. They took their songbooks and other worship material like the law of
Moses with them and favorite Israelite songs and laws became Ugaritized. To
find mirrors of Israelite Psalms then with hymns to Baal is thus truth mixed
with error and this situation persisted for centuries so that in Jeremiah’s
time the remnant could easily close their eyes for the word Baal although the rhythm
and song is exactly the same for Yahweh. This ecumenical playing between
religions is also evident in our own day and the struggle and rejection by God
of this phenomenon is exactly the same.
The
punishment that God had in mind for this rebellious remnant is then explained
in verse 14: He will feed them “to a living one” [Egyptian word cnh
meaning “living one”] and He will give them to drink “water of a head”
literally in Hebrew, but since Jeremiah knew Egyptian as well one can maybe
suggest that the word is the Egyptian word rs or rst which means “south”.
Translate then “water of the south” or Egypt.
Egypt
is punishment for the remnant to return to because in their history that is
where they came from with a bitter historical past. To return is punishment and
horror. The Middle Age Rabbis thought it is the “head [of a snake]” thus “poison”.
They would be scattered among the nations and a sword would destroy them
(klwty) (verse 15).
Now
we come to two verses 16-17 which is the doctrine of the Trinity. That the
Rabbis missed it, is the real question. Jeremiah said it is the Lord speaking:
They are to consider and call mourners and skillful women are to come as for a
funeral. In verse 17, the Lord is still speaking and said that these wailers
should come and wail “over us” (alynu) with the –nu = us. God is more than one,
namely “us”? Of course. That is what the Trinity doctrine is all about. There
is the same doctrine in Genesis 1:26 “Let us make man”. Moses knew the Trinity
doctrine, Jeremiah had it, Amos had it in Amos 1-2 but the Rabbis lost it. Wail
“so that our (-nu) eyes may shed tears and our (-nu) eyelids gush with water”.
In
verse 18 is a complete switch from God in the previous verses to Jeremiah and
his people. The wailing is no longer the Lord and the Trinity, it is Zion. “For
a sound of wailing is heard from Zion.” Jeremiah also heard the reaction from
the remnant of Zion on earth. It is not only the Trinity crying about the remnant
sins and results of punishment, it is also the remnant themselves crying
because of the punishment but hard-heartedly occupied with sin. “How we
[Jeremiah and the remnant] are ruined. We are much ashamed, because we have
left the land because they have cast down our dwellings” (verse 18). This was a
vision of what is going to happen in 586 BCE by Jeremiah long in advance.
Jeremiah
addresses the women of the remnant that they have to teach their daughters a
lamentation and teach their neighbors (verse 19). Jeremiah said that he saw
that “death has come up in our windows; it has come into our palaces; to cut
off the infants from the streets and the young men from the squares” (verse
20). These females are to speak that the carcasses of men shall fall like dung
on a open field and like sheaves after a reaper with none to gather them”
(verse 21).
The
Lord speaks and said to Jeremiah to tell them that no man bust boast of his own
strength and ability and IQ (verse 22). The only one who can boast is the one
who boasts in the Lord in that the person knows the Lord (verse 23). That
person needs to understand and know that the Lord practices kindness, justice
and righteousness on the earth. These qualities are making God unique on earth
since they are intertwined.
He
has to punish because of justice and He has to expect a standard because He is
righteous but He is also kind to forgive the contrite repenting sinner. “For in
these things I delight, says the Lord” (verse 23). It is important in life to
find out what delights the Lord and to follow in His steps to do likewise and
refrain from not doing likewise.
“Behold
days are coming, says the Lord, when I will punish every circumcised one with
his uncircumcision” (verse 24). Watch this: circumcised people can be uncircumcised.
The Rabbis of the Middle Ages were totally confused here. So they altered the
text by creating new copulatives and conjunctions for the text that is not in
the original. The original reads: “every circumcised one in his uncircumcision”.
Rabbi Rashi changed the text to apply it not to the good in the remnant alone
but also to the bad in the remnant: “Every circumcised one who has a foreskin,
even an uncircumcised heart [still the remnant for punishment from the Lord]
and surely I will punish the heathens”.
Rashi
made a double entry from a single entry and distinguish between physically
circumcised and uncircumcised.
Rabbi
Redak took another direction: “Every circumcised one and everyone who has a
foreskin”. For Redak it is two different groups and nations here, Jews and
Gentiles. He changed the preposition “in” to a copulative “and”. Changed the
Word of God to fit his own concept. Rashi was the closest although also wrong.
The
Targum completely misunderstood the theology behind the verse with many
elaborations: “Look, days are coming says the Lord and I will punish upon all
the peoples the searching of the stars and upon the house of Israel to pay
their works for the searching of the stars”. Astrological worship is wrong but
this is not what the text reads. It says that even though a person is
circumcised but that person’s heart is not with God or following God in His
Torah, not obeying Him, turning away from Him, then that (physical) circumcised
person is counted as “uncircumcised’ of heart with God and that cancels the
physical circumcision.
The
true purpose of circumcision in the Old Testament is not only to be a signifier
of nationhood but also an accompanied spiritual circumcision of heart. “I
belong to God and not to myself”. To elaborate on this situation of physical
circumcision and spiritual circumcision Jeremiah added one more verse saying
that Egypt, Judah, Edom, the children of Ammon, Moab and all those cast off to
the corners, who dwell in the desert, all are uncircumcised, Judah included,
although they are physically circumcised. They are all under the umbrella of “uncircumcision”
because “all the house of Israel are of uncircumcised of hearts” (verse 25).
Dear God
Jeremiah showed us a Trinity that
cries over the uncircumcised unspiritual condition of His people the remnant,
ancient and in our times. We desire to return to God whole-heartedly and
receive the circumcision of heart for eternal salvation. Amen.