Jeremiah 18
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
In Jeremiah 2–17, Yahweh brings a covenant lawsuit against Judah, charging that they have forsaken him, the fountain of living waters, to hew out broken cisterns and go after other gods like an unfaithful wife.
He warns of disaster from the north and, through the Temple Sermon (ch. 7), condemns their false trust in the temple while they practice injustice and idolatry, declaring he will make that house like Shiloh.
Judah refuses to repent, so God pronounces the broken covenant (ch. 11), sends drought, and two times tells Jeremiah not to pray for the people.
All through these chapters, Jeremiah mourns his own suffering and persecution (including the plot from Anathoth to kill him), and God gives signs — the ruined loincloth, the ban on marriage and mourning — while declaring that the one who trusts in man is cursed, the one who trusts in the Yahweh is blessed,
and asks the question: Jeremiah 17:9 “9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”
and answers it: Jeremiah 17:10 “10 I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.”
Chapter
1 The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying, 2 Arise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will cause thee to hear my words. 3 Then I went down to the potter’s house, and, behold, he wrought a work on the wheels. 4 And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.
Yahweh tells Jeremiah to go and preach His word. Like in chapter 17, Jeremiah’s to preach using an object lesson.
The Cambridge Dictionary defines an object lesson like this: an action or story that teaches you how or how not to act, or that clearly shows the facts of a situation, usually a bad one:
Jeremiah listens and obeys. When he gets to the potters house, he sees the potter sitting there, feet turning the bottom wheel while the top wheel turns with it. On that top wheel the potter was shaping a pitcher, a bowl, or a pot.
As he’s watching he sees that vessel get messed up. Not just a blemish, it was ruined.
Not because the potter wasn’t any good at his job, after all he’s a potter. Been doing it for a very long time and had all kinds of experience.
The potter knows exactly what the vessel is supposed to be like and knows “this aint gonna work”. The vessel just wasn’t what the potter intended.
Then he watches the potter, not throw the ruined vessel away, but he just made that vessel again.
The clay didn’t complain, it didn’t yell out “you can’t do that”, it didn’t fight against being made again, it just sat there giving in to whatever the potter wanted to do with it
The clay was at the mercy of the potter, and the potter took the messed up vessel and reshaped it into something useful
And look at what Jeremiah thought, “as seemed good to the potter to make it”
5 Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 6 O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the LORD. Behold, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel.
Yahweh says: “Israel, I can do to you what this potter does with the clay.”
God has the same right and power over them the potter has over the clay.
After all, Israel has acted worse than a prostitute running to idols and foreign nations and away from the covenant God that called and rescued her.
7 At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy it; 8 If that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them. 9 And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it; 10 If it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them.
Yahweh tells Israel “she’s not so special she’s immune from the same judgement as the nations around her”.
At one moment God says what happens to nations and kingdoms when those nations and kingdoms sin against Yahweh:
Jonah 3:1–2 “1 And the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the second time, saying, 2 Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee.”
Jonah 3:4 “4 And Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.”
But if that nation God’s judging turns to Him He also has the right and power to spare them, and will:
Jonah 3:10 “10 And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.”
At another moment Yahweh says a nation and kingdom is born and grows, the same language God used with Jeremiah at his calling:
Jeremiah 1:10 “10 See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant.”
But if that nation or kingdom sins against Yahweh, He has the right and power to destroy them
When we hear “repent” we immediately think of the sin or wrong we’ve done and have to turn from.
That’s right for us as fallen creatures subject to sin, but we aren’t God.
God is perfectly holy and righteous, and just:
Psalm 92:15 “15 To shew that the LORD is upright: he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him.”
the word “repent” here is the same as in Jonah 3:10. If a nation turns back to Him, He’ll “take back” the judgement; If it doesn’t, He’ll “take back” the blessings.
God will change His course of action, not changing His character or being caught by surprise — He always meant to hold back judgement on the nation that turns and hold back blessing from the nation that doesn’t.
11 Now therefore go to, speak to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, Thus saith the LORD; Behold, I frame evil against you, and devise a device against you: return ye now every one from his evil way, and make your ways and your doings good. 12 And they said, There is no hope: but we will walk after our own devices, and we will every one do the imagination of his evil heart.
Yahweh sends Jeremiah to tell Judah that God says:
“I’m shaping calamity and disaster against you, so turn and I’ll shape something else for you”
Their answer is at least an honest one, and that makes it even worse:
“It’s no use, we don’t deny your charges or your judgements, but we’ll do what’s right in our own eyes and whatever we want to do, no matter the outcome.”
Their depravity is so great and their hearts so hardened to God, they tell Him “no thank you to His mercy”
The clay at the wheel sat still and let itself be remade—Judah is the clay that talks back. God says "return, let me remake you," and the vessel says "no."
13 Therefore thus saith the LORD; Ask ye now among the heathen, who hath heard such things: the virgin of Israel hath done a very horrible thing. 14 Will a man leave the snow of Lebanon which cometh from the rock of the field? or shall the cold flowing waters that come from another place be forsaken? 15 Because my people hath forgotten me, they have burned incense to vanity, and they have caused them to stumble in their ways from the ancient paths, to walk in paths, in a way not cast up;
Go ask the pagans of heathen nations around them if they’ve “ever heard of such”. They’d even be shocked to hear it!
“the virgin of Israel" (betulat yisrael)—is a title of Israel’s covenant standing and God's tenderness for—His treasured, set-apart people. And she has done this.
How much worse for Israel—the nation Yahweh Himself chose, to fall so far as to forget and abandon the One True and Living God
The translation of vs 14 is a little tricky. The exact wording is debated, but the picture is clear: these are things in nature that don't happen—snow doesn't desert the mountain, streams don't run dry.
At about 10,000 feet, snow stays on the top of Mount Lebanon around 6 months a year with some of it in the shade and crags lasting all throughout the summer.
And even what melts, runs off keeping the mountain streams flowing all year
All that was natural; Israel leaving Yahweh was not. Once snow melts, it stops being snow and if the waters gone there’s no hope. If Israel abandons God, it stops being Israel and without the life giving water of Yahweh, it dies.
Israel had abandoned Yahweh for idolatry. Traded the safe paths He led them on for paths that were overgrown and full of obstacles.
16 To make their land desolate, and a perpetual hissing; every one that passeth thereby shall be astonished, and wag his head. 17 I will scatter them as with an east wind before the enemy; I will shew them the back, and not the face, in the day of their calamity.
The judgement for abandoning Yahweh is God making the once rich nation of Israel so desolate, even the people people passing by will shake their heads in disbelief and hissing in horror as they see it
The wind from the east (v. 17) is the dry Sirocco from the desert, which can be scorching for human beings and all of nature.
It is also a symbol of God’s judgment (see 4:11–12; 13:24). Just as the wind scatters, God will scatter his people into exile amongst other nations.
The last part of 17 is an echo of the covenant blessing of Numbers 6:25–26 “25 The LORD make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee: 26 The LORD lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.” changing.
Because they turned their back on Him in idolatry, God is turning His back on them!
18 Then said they, Come, and let us devise devices against Jeremiah; for the law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Come, and let us smite him with the tongue, and let us not give heed to any of his words.
Chapter changes to Jeremiah’s situation, and another response of wanting to “shoot the messenger because they can’t stand the message”
They say to themselves: “We have the priest, the wise man, and the prophet; we don’t need this guy!”
The shame is they think hiding behind the priests, the sages, and the prophets will silence him — not seeing that the office they're hiding behind is the very one God filled by sending Jeremiah
They plan to use slander and lies to discredit him
19 Give heed to me, O LORD, and hearken to the voice of them that contend with me. 20 Shall evil be recompensed for good? for they have digged a pit for my soul. Remember that I stood before thee to speak good for them, and to turn away thy wrath from them.
Jeremiah’s imprecatory prayer. Starts with mad about the injustice they’ve done toward him.
He’s appealing to God to make it right!
And notice—he's the one who used to stand between them and God's wrath, pleading for them. He interceded for the very men now trying to kill him.
21 Therefore deliver up their children to the famine, and pour out their blood by the force of the sword; and let their wives be bereaved of their children, and be widows; and let their men be put to death; let their young men be slain by the sword in battle. 22 Let a cry be heard from their houses, when thou shalt bring a troop suddenly upon them: for they have digged a pit to take me, and hid snares for my feet. 23 Yet, LORD, thou knowest all their counsel against me to slay me: forgive not their iniquity, neither blot out their sin from thy sight, but let them be overthrown before thee; deal thus with them in the time of thine anger.
The prayer itself (what he actually asks). Jeremiah calls down the full covenant curse—famine, their children dead, wives widowed, the men killed, no mercy. Thhe man who stood between them and God's wrath now asks God to let it fall.
Why it's not personal vengeance. These are covenant-lawsuit terms, not a private grudge. Jeremiah invokes the sanctions of Deuteronomy 28 on covenant-breakers who've tried to murder God's messenger—he hands the case to the Judge ("forgive not their iniquity," v. 23) rather than taking revenge himself (cf. Rom 12:19, "vengeance is mine, saith the Lord"). He wants God's justice done, not his own.
The tension you let stand. It still doesn't sit easy next to "love your enemies" and "Father, forgive them"—and it shouldn't. The imprecatory psalms carry the same weight. Better to tell the men honestly: this is a real man at the end of himself, handing his enemies to God instead of his own hand—and Scripture lets that raw prayer stand without tidying it up.
Conclusion
Conclusion
"Jeremiah 18 is grace refused, not doom decreed—God held the door open, and Judah, the clay that could talk back, said no."
