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7. False Religion Worthless

¹ This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: ² “Stand at the gate of the LORD’s house and there proclaim this message:

“‘Hear the word of the LORD, all you people of Judah who come through these gates to worship the LORD. ³ This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Reform your ways and your actions, and I will let you live in this place. ⁴ Do not trust in deceptive words and say, “This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD!” ⁵ If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, ⁶ if you do not oppress the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm, ⁷ then I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your ancestors for ever and ever. ⁸ But look, you are trusting in deceptive words that are worthless.

⁹ “‘Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, Or and swear by false gods burn incense to Baal and follow other gods you have not known, ¹⁰ and then come and stand before me in this house, which bears my Name, and say, “We are safe”—safe to do all these detestable things? ¹¹ Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of robbers to you? But I have been watching! declares the LORD.

¹² “‘Go now to the place in Shiloh where I first made a dwelling for my Name, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of my people Israel. ¹³ While you were doing all these things, declares the LORD, I spoke to you again and again, but you did not listen; I called you, but you did not answer. ¹⁴ Therefore, what I did to Shiloh I will now do to the house that bears my Name, the temple you trust in, the place I gave to you and your ancestors. ¹⁵ I will thrust you from my presence, just as I did all your fellow Israelites, the people of Ephraim.’

¹⁶ “So do not pray for this people nor offer any plea or petition for them; do not plead with me, for I will not listen to you. ¹⁷ Do you not see what they are doing in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? ¹⁸ The children gather wood, the fathers light the fire, and the women knead the dough and make cakes to offer to the Queen of Heaven. They pour out drink offerings to other gods to arouse my anger. ¹⁹ But am I the one they are provoking? declares the LORD. Are they not rather harming themselves, to their own shame?

²⁰ “‘Therefore this is what the Sovereign LORD says: My anger and my wrath will be poured out on this place—on man and beast, on the trees of the field and on the crops of your land—and it will burn and not be quenched.

²¹ “‘This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Go ahead, add your burnt offerings to your other sacrifices and eat the meat yourselves! ²² For when I brought your ancestors out of Egypt and spoke to them, I did not just give them commands about burnt offerings and sacrifices, ²³ but I gave them this command: Obey me, and I will be your God and you will be my people. Walk in obedience to all I command you, that it may go well with you. ²⁴ But they did not listen or pay attention; instead, they followed the stubborn inclinations of their evil hearts. They went backward and not forward. ²⁵ From the time your ancestors left Egypt until now, day after day, again and again I sent you my servants the prophets. ²⁶ But they did not listen to me or pay attention. They were stiff-necked and did more evil than their ancestors.’

²⁷ “When you tell them all this, they will not listen to you; when you call to them, they will not answer. ²⁸ Therefore say to them, ‘This is the nation that has not obeyed the LORD its God or responded to correction. Truth has perished; it has vanished from their lips.

²⁹ “‘Cut off your hair and throw it away; take up a lament on the barren heights, for the LORD has rejected and abandoned this generation that is under his wrath.

The Valley of Slaughter

³⁰ “‘The people of Judah have done evil in my eyes, declares the LORD. They have set up their detestable idols in the house that bears my Name and have defiled it. ³¹ They have built the high places of Topheth in the Valley of Ben Hinnom to burn their sons and daughters in the fire—something I did not command, nor did it enter my mind. ³² So beware, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when people will no longer call it Topheth or the Valley of Ben Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter, for they will bury the dead in Topheth until there is no more room. ³³ Then the carcasses of this people will become food for the birds and the wild animals, and there will be no one to frighten them away. ³⁴ I will bring an end to the sounds of joy and gladness and to the voices of bride and bridegroom in the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem, for the land will become desolate.

The children, he says, gather wood He ascribes the collecting of wood to the young; for it was a more laborious work. As then that age excels in strength, they collected wood; and the fathers kindled the fire: the women, what did they do? They were busy with the meal. Thus no part was neglected. “What then is to be done? and what else can I do, but wholly to cut off a people so wicked?” Then he says, that they may make כונים, cunim, which is translated “cakes, “and this is the most common rendering. Some think that kindling is meant, deriving the word from כוה, cue, which means to kindle. But I prefer the opinion of those who derive the word from כון, cun, which is to prepare, as cakes are things prepared. I do not then doubt, but that cakes are meant here, as it appears also from other places. The second interpretation I regard as too refined. ²⁰¹²⁰¹ The ancient versions (the Arabic excepted) and the Targum render the word, cakes — placentas It is only found elsewhere in Jeremiah 44:19. — Ed.

With regard to the word למלכת, lamelcath, many consider the letter א left out, and think that “works” are intended. In this case מ would be a servile: but others consider it a radical, and render the word, “Queen;” which appears to me probable; though I do not wholly reject what some hold that the workmanship of the heavens is here meant. Some understand the stars, others the sun, and others the moon: let every one enjoy his own opinion. However, I think, that if the workmanship of the heavens be meant, the whole celestial host is to be included, as the Scripture thus calls all the stars. But if “the Queen of the heavens” be adopted, then I am inclined to think that the moon is intended: and we know how much superstition has ever prevailed among most people as to the worship of the moon. Hence I approve of this meaning. Yet I readily admit that all the stars, not one only, may be here designated, and called the work or the workmanship of the heavens. And the Jews, we know, were very much given to this madness: for as the sun was considered by the Orientals as the supreme God, when the Jews became enamoured with this error, they also thought that some high and adorable divinity belonged to the sun: they turned also afterwards to the stars; and this absurdity is often referred to in the Law and also in the Prophets. ²⁰²²⁰² The Septuagint render the words here, “the host of heaven,“ and in Jeremiah 44:17 and 19, “the queen of heaven.” The Vulgate in the three places, renders them “the queen of heaven,“— the Targum, “the star of heaven,“ — and the Syriac, “the army of heaven,“ in the two first places, but in the last, “the queen of heaven.” There are several MSS., in the three places, which insert the א, so as to make the word “work,“ or workmanship: but this change has evidently arisen from the Septuagint. But this word is never used to designate the work of the visible heavens: the word used in that case is מעשה. See Psalm 8:3; Psalm 19:1; Psalm 102:25; Psalm 143:5. Our version and the Vulgate are no doubt right. But what is intended by the queen of heaven is not the moon; for the word commonly used for the moon is always masculine, and the word generally used for the sun is commonly feminine. This may appear strange; but so it is. In South Wales the word for sun is always feminine, but in North Wales, masculine.
In Deuteronomy 4:19, the sun, the moon, and the stars, as constituting the host of heaven, are mentioned together: these the first, as including all the rest, seems to be intended. Instead of “queen,“ we should say in our language, “the king of the heavens.” We do not read that the Jews worshipped the moon; but the worship of the sun among them is specifically referred to and mentioned. See 2 Kings 23:11; Ezekiel 8:16. The Israelites adored the sun under the name of Baal, which was the Chemosh of the Moabites, and the Moloch of the Ammonites. — Ed.

It is then added, That they may pour forth libations to foreign gods, to provoke me to wrath When God complains of being provoked, it is the same as though he had said, that the Jews now openly carried on war with him, — “They sin not through ignorance, nor is it unknown to them how much they offend me by these profanations; but it is as it were their object and design to provoke me and to carry on war with me by these acts of impiety.”