The Temple of the Lord
The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: “Stand in the gate of the Lord’s house; and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the Lord all you men of Judah who enter these gates to worship the Lord. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and your deeds, and I will let you dwell in this place. Do not trust in these deceptive words: “This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord; the temple of the Lord’ (Jeremiah 7:1-4).
Jeremiah was the son of a priest (1:1). He was one of the many messengers YHWH sent “because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place” (2 Chro. 36:15).
After the writer of the Chronicles tells us that YHWH sent messengers to His people, he writes,
But they kept mocking the messengers of God, despising his words and scoffing at his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord rose against his people, until there was no remedy (2 Chro. 36:16).
Micah writes:
For her wound is incurable (1:9).
Can you imagine how much courage it would have taken to stand in the gate of the Lord’s house under these circumstances? Jeremiah’s message begins:
Hear the word of the Lord all you men of Judah who enter these gates to worship the Lord.
Jeremiah is telling the people that his message is from the Lord, YHWH. (He emphasizes this three times.) It is addressed to:
all you men of Judah who enter these gates to worship the Lord.
The problem with the men of Judah was that they were guilty of violating at least the first three of the Ten Commandments of the Lord (Exo. 20:3-7).
The message:
Amend your ways and your deeds, and I will let you dwell in this land.
Those of you who are familiar with our study in Lamentations know that this simply did not happen. Judah, like Israel, did not “amend” her ways and her “deeds” and she was not allowed to dwell in the land given to Abraham.
In 587 bc, Babylon devastated Jerusalem, shutting the inhabitants up behind her walls to starve her to death. Some fled south but the Edomites routed them back to her captors. A few elite of her number were taken captive (Dan. 1:3, 4). Only the helpless were left to fend for themselves in the rubble.
Notice the final two lines of our text:
Do not trust in these deceptive words: “This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord; the temple of the Lord.”
The temple had become a lucky charm or talisman to the people. They made the same mistake the Philistines made when they assumed that the power of Israel was the Ark of the Covenant. The Philistines stole the Ark assuming they had robbed Israel of their power base. All they got for their troubles were hemorrhoids (see 1 Sam. 5 & 6 in NASV).
The temple had become one of their many idols. Their emphasis was on the temple and not on the Lord. This was one of the many evidences of how far Judah—and Israel before her—had drifted from YHWH.
Jeremiah’s father was a priest among the men of Anathoth. The men of Anathoth are later characterized as seeking the life of Jeremiah. They said,
Do not prophesy in the name of the Lord, or you will die by our hand” (Jere. 11:21).
The Lord told Jeremiah,
Behold, I will punish them. The young men shall die by the sword, their sons and their daughters shall die by famine, and none of them shall be left. For I will bring disaster upon the men of Anathoth, the year of their punishment (11:22-23).
And that is precisely what happened.