Jeremiah (1-31) 9:17 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

Navigator

Jeremiah (1-31) 9:17

Comments

Judah needs to teach itself to do what it is failing to do, and therefore it should call for the professional mourners. These would often be present at funerals, to set the mood for the occasion, but here they are to mourn for the whole nation because this is the only fitting response to what is coming. Judah is not responding appropriately to the imminent judgment that is now unstoppable. Perhaps it can be prompted to weep over its situation by the use of professional mourning women. This is Jeremiah’s powerful way of telling the people that they are not taking God’s warning seriously. If they really believed the prophet’s words, they would be pouring out their souls in grief, as a first step to confessing their sins before God. Instead they are haughty, self-confident, dismissive of all God’s warnings. Their hearts are so hard that it seems they will never them take seriously until it is too late. That response adds to their guilt, for the prophet’s warning is God last communication with the nation before it falls.Jeremiah does not even mention their need to repent, because repentance without the soul first being filled with genuine sorrow is worth nothing. The professional mourners were no doubt detached from the real sorrow of the occasion; it was only a job to them. Yet they somehow trained themselves to manipulate their emotions and put on this show of mourning. But Judah needs to respond with genuine tears, not just for the invasion that is at the door, but for the sins which have led to it. Truly they will wail when the Babylonians come, when they see with their own eyes what their prophets had foretold, but by then it will be too late to turn. ‘For death is come up into our windows, and is entered into our palaces, to cut off the children from without, and the young men from the streets.’ In verse 21 and 22 Jeremiah set the scene before their eyes, and makes it painfully realistic. The Chaldeans will enter into their homes, and even into the king’s palaces. Nowhere will be safe. They will murder the beloved children; they will destroy without mercy, and not even bury the dead, but leave them as rotting carcases on the fields, and then go their way. The strongest language is called for to jolt them out of their complacency, but, for the majority, even this is not going to wake them up.

Application

We can speak to an unbelieving world in the same way. Mankind’s failure to weep and its continued partying and celebration is so out of sync with what is about to take place. The world’s happiness is shallow, sham, a make-believe self-deception. If it knew what was good for it, it would send for those who could teach it a much more sobering view of life. The preacher of the gospel must preach first to the minds of men and women. He must preach to the understanding and explain and teach what Christ has done to save sinners. But he must also put some effort into stirring up the people to anticipate what it will be like to stand before the Judge of all the earth. Man has the capacity to look ahead, and he must use that capacity to consider what it will be to fall into the hands of the living God, for ‘our God is a consuming fire’ (Hebrews 12:29; Deuteronomy 4:24).

Questions

Outline

Purpose

Introduction

Jeremiah (1-31) 9:17 Commentary and Bible Study