Jeremiah (1-31) 6:27 Commentary and Bible Study

The scene at the end of chapter 6 is very bleak. But Jeremiah is told, ‘I have set thee,’ established you, positioned you in your place. You mustn't move; you mustn't run. You mustn't say, ‘No, I am going to be an itinerant.’ That is a good thing, but not for Jeremiah. ‘I have set thee’ – stay at your post – ‘for a tower.’ You have got to be strong, and a place that the remnant can flee to, ‘and a fortress among my people, that thou mayest know and try their way’, challenge them, from morning to evening. It will be difficult. ‘They are all grievous revolters, walking with slanders.’ Jeremiah will face relentless hostility from those who do not turn to God, and lies and slanders which he is going to have to put up with a keep going. God does not minimise the difficulty for his servant, but prepares him from what he is going to face. None of it should be unexpected. ‘They are brass and iron; they are all corrupters’ – as hard as iron in their hearts and their unwillingness to submit to the message. Switching to a new image, the Lord says, ‘The bellows are burned, the lead is consumed of the fire; the founder melteth in vain: for the wicked are not plucked away.’ This is about the failure of the smelting process to produce anything worthwhile. The bellows have been used to direct oxygen into the fire and raise its temperature, possibly to the point where the bellows themselves have been damaged. The lead has been mixed with the silver ore in order to extract the precious metal and the mixture put in the flames. In fact nothing has happened and the lead has simply been burned up, so that the founder, the silversmith, has done all this work for nothing. In the same way, Judah has been through the discipline of God but no useful result has come from it. It has been unsuccessful in bringing some to repentance and extracting at least a portion of the people out of the corrupt nation as a whole. The wicked are not plucked away, and the whole mixture remains as corrupt as before. ‘Reprobate silver shall men call them, because the LORD hath rejected them.’ Judah will deservedly receive this name, after all its failure to respond to the words of the prophets: they will be called ‘reprobate silver’, because God has rejected the vast majority of them, and certainly more of them than might have been expected. Human sin is so unreasonable.