Jeremiah 17

Jeremiah 17:1

17:1-11 Judah’s idolatry, deeply engraved, will result in her being sent off into captivity. God’s mountain is Jerusalem. . . . To trust in man brings a curse; to trust in the LORD brings blessing. God knows man’s deceitful . . . heart and will punish the man who gets riches dishonestly “as a partridge that broods but does not hatch,” and then sees the chicks leave. Verse 9 is an unpopular (but nonetheless very true) estimate of the natural heart of man. R. K. Harrison comments on what is translated “desperately wicked” in the KJV tradition and “gravely ill” by some: Unregenerate human nature is in a desperate condition without divine grace, described by the term gravely ill in verse 9 (RSV desperately corrupt, NEB desperately sick). Cf. Jer_15:18 and Jer_30:12, where the meaning “incurable” occurs. Every generation needs regeneration of soul by the Spirit and grace of God (cf. Joh_3:5f.; Tit_3:5). To those who may feel that this is too harsh an indictment of their heart, we quote an extended but needed expose9 by Matthew Henry: There is that wickedness in our hearts which we ourselves are not aware of and do not suspect to be there; nay, it is a common mistake among the children of men to think themselves, their own hearts at least, a great deal better than they really are. The heart, the conscience of man, in his corrupt and fallen state, is deceitful above all things. It is subtle and false; it is apt to supplant (so the word properly signifies); it is that from which Jacob had his name, a supplanter. It calls evil good and good evil, puts false colours upon things, and cries peace to those to whom peace does not belong. When men say in their hearts (that is, suffer their hearts to whisper to them) that there is no God, or he does not see, or he will not require, or they shall have peace though they go on; in these, and a thousand similar suggestions, the heart is deceitful. It cheats men into their own ruin; and this will be the aggravation of it, that they are self-deceivers, self-destroyers.

Herein the heart is desperately wicked; it is deadly, it is desperate. The case is bad indeed, and in a manner deplorable and past relief, if the conscience which should rectify the errors of the other faculties is itself a mother of falsehood and a ringleader in the delusion. What will become of a man if that in him which should be the candle of the Lord give a false light, if God’s deputy in the soul, that is entrusted to support his interests, betrays them? Such is the deceitfulness of the heart that we may truly say, Who can know it? Who can describe how bad the heart is. 17:12-18 Jeremiah rejoices that Judah’s place of security is the glorious high throne of God. Then he speaks of the folly of trusting anyone else and prays to the hope of Israel, on behalf of the people, for healing and deliverance. The people ask him where the judgment is that God had promised. Jeremiah reminds the Lord that he had not tried to escape from being a shepherd of God, neither had he desired the woeful day of Jerusalem’s destruction; he had only spoken the words of the Lord. He asks God to vindicate him by punishing those who were scoffing at the word of God.

Jeremiah 17:19

F. Jeremiah’s Sabbath Sermon (17:19-27)Here the kings of Judah, and all Judah, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem are admonished to hallow the Sabbath. They are promised future rulers of David’s dynasty and continuance of temple worship if they obey, and are warned of the penalty for refusing to obey (the destruction of Jerusalem). Irving Jensen explains why Sabbath observance was so important to Israel: The real test of the heart’s relation to God is obedience to His Word. One of the laws for Israel was the hallowing of the Sabbath by not working on that day (Jer_17:21-22). The constant pressure of materialism upon the lives of all, including the people of God, made the keeping of such a commandment difficult, and for this reason this one commandment of the ten was a real test of the priority of the temporal or the eternal in the heart. Was the keeping of the Sabbath law that crucial to Judah? The symbolic action of Jeremiah and the explicit words he was told to speak gave an affirmative answer. Similar principles apply to the Lord’s Day for Christians. It too is for spiritual and physical refreshment, remembrance of the Redeemer and our redemption, worship of the Lord, and commemorating our Lord’s first-day-of-the-week resurrection victory.