The Book of Jeremiah (New International Commentary on the Old Testament) by J. A. Thompson

Author:J. A. Thompson [Thompson, J. A.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: REL006060 Religion / Biblical Commentary / Old Testament
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
Published: 1980-09-11T16:00:00+00:00

The passage 23:9–40 comprises five units, which were probably originally separate sayings delivered at different times but brought together here because of their common theme, embraced under the general heading in v. 9, To the prophets. Jeremiah was at very great odds with the other prophets of his day, whom he regarded as by and large false prophets, and he never ceased denouncing them (2:8; 4:9; 5:31; 6:13–15; 14:13–16; etc.). The sayings collected here concentrate on the problem of false prophecy and provide a good picture of why Jeremiah was opposed to them. The five units are vv. 9–12, 13–15, 16–22, all in poetic form, vv. 23–32 partly if not completely poetic, and vv. 33–40 often regarded as prose but arguably poetic also.

In the passage before us the national apostasy is seen as adultery, probably a reference to the participation of the people in Canaanite religious rites, which not only indicated Israel’s attempt to share her allegiance with other gods (hence the term adultery), but sometimes involved the people in sexually oriented fertility rites. The leaders of this apostasy were the prophets and priests. In vv. 9–12 there is no direct address to the prophets.

9 The word heart here denotes the mind. Jeremiah was not so much heartbroken (AV, RSV) as deeply disturbed (“shattered”) in his mind. He was affected physically and had no strength in his limbs, so that he was like a drunken man as he thought of Yahweh and his holy words and then looked upon the moral and religious condition of his people. Judah was altogether corrupt (5:1–6:30). Once before Jeremiah had wanted to flee away from it all (9:1–5 [Eng. 2–6]) because it pained him so (4:19).

10 The land was full of adulterers (menāʾăpîm). The adulterous state of the land was demonstrated both by idolatry and moral depravity (5:7–8). The worship of Baal, the Canaanite fertility-god, far from producing the hoped-for fertility of the land, had produced the opposite effect. The land lay parched5 and barren. Only Yahweh, and not Baal, could guarantee the good of the land (Hos. 2:5–8; Amos 4:4–9). Heb. miḏbār here cannot be “wilderness” in the sense of an arid desert, but denotes uninhabited pasturage out on the steppes. In the last couplet they must be the “adulterers,” who run on an evil course (merûṣâ) and exercise illegitimate (lit. “not right”) power.

11 It is best to understand vv. 11–12 as being a word from Yahweh, who refers to both prophet and priest as alienated from God (ḥānēp).6 In that case my own house refers to the temple, which the priests had polluted with pagan and immoral practices (2 K. 21:3–7; 23:4–7). Despite the reform of Josiah in 621 B.C. whereby he rooted out pagan cults from the temple and its precincts, after his death in 609 B.C. there was a recurrence of these practices in the days of Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah. Ezekiel gives a good idea of what went on in the temple precincts during the last years of the state of Judah (Ezek.

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