Jeremiah (1-31) 26:8 Commentary and Bible Study

So when Jeremiah finished speaking on an occasion, the priests and the prophets and all the people take him and say, ‘Thou shalt surely die.’ He was arrested by them and the form of words suggests in a very violent, spontaneous and unruly way and virtually sent us to death on the spot. ‘Why hast thou prophesied in the name of the LORD, saying, This house shall be like Shiloh, and this city shall be desolate without an inhabitant?’ They took that as being blasphemous: to say such things in the house of the Lord. And yet these words had come from God’s prophet, who had spoken consistently to them for many years, and never deviated from his message. How could they be so mistaken, for they seem to be convinced of what they are saying. But their zeal for the house of God was not according to knowledge. Their own Scriptures told them that they would be severely judged if they persisted in their disobedience. ‘And it shall come to pass, that as the LORD rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you; so the LORD will rejoice over you to destroy you, and to bring you to nought; and ye shall be plucked from off the land whither thou goest to possess it. ⁶⁴ And the LORD shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other; and there thou shalt serve other gods, which neither thou nor thy fathers have known, even wood and stone. ⁶⁵ And among these nations shalt thou find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest: but the LORD shall give thee there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind: ⁶⁶ And thy life shall hang in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have none assurance of thy life’ (Deuteronomy 28:63-66). But it suited the priests and the false prophets who opposed Jeremiah and his message, because he bluntly rebuked them for their practices; it suited them to pretend zeal for the house of God, when in truth they were zealous for their own self-justification. They claimed that Jeremiah had gone beyond a limit, and that God could never act against his own house and his own people, and they hid behind this claim to conceal their own failures and sins. Certainly it would cause them deep consternation when Jerusalem finally fell and the temple was destroyed.‘When the princes of Judah heard these things, then they came up from the king's house unto the house of the LORD, and sat down in the entry of the new gate of the LORD'S house. ¹¹ Then spake the priests and the prophets unto the princes.’ There is some formal procedure here to bring Jeremiah to court and to bring charges against him to condemn him, and the priests and prophets say, ‘This man is worthy of death, for he hath prophesied against this city as you heard with your ears.’ There was such a commotion that when the princes, the rulers of Judah, heard these things, then they came up from the king's house to the house of the Lord and sat down in the entry of the new gate of the Lord's house. Then the priests and the prophets, the false prophets, they put their case very loudly. ‘This man is worthy to die; for he hath prophesied against this city, as ye have heard with your ears.’ How dare he? You have heard it with your own ears.