Read Jeremiah 7 and 8 at Bible Gateway.
The Hebrew paragraph divisions:
Jer 7:1-2 {s} Stand in the gate of YHVH’s house, proclaim YHVH’s word to all Judah who enters His house of worship
Jer 7:3-15 {p} Amend your ways that you may dwell here forever, but if you do not hear, I will cast you out
Jer 7:16-20 {p} Do not intercede for them, for I will not hear: they worship other gods to provoke Me to anger
Jer 7:21-28 {s} Did I command sacrifices when I brought you out of Egypt? I commanded ‘Obey My voice’
Jer 7:29-31 {p} Lament + I have rejected this generation: they have polluted My house with abominations + burned their children in the fire of Tophet
Jer 7:32-8:3 {s} Corpses of this evil generation buried in Tophet/ bones unburied before the gods they served
Jer 8:4-12 {p} They have rejected the word of the LORD, so what wisdom to they have? In their time they shall fall
Jer 8:13-16 {p} YHVH has put us to silence because we have sinned against Him/ the land has been devoured
Jer 8:17 {s} YHVH will send serpents, vipers which cannot be charmed, among them to bite them
Jer 8:18-22 {s} Jeremiah’s mourning for the daughter of Zion heard in a far country/ no recovery for their health
The chiastic structure of the strong paragraph from Jer 8:4-12:
1a) Jer 8:4-7, Why has this people fallen so that they do not rise?
1b) Jer 8:8-9 The false pen of the scribe works falsehood/ wise men are ashamed + dismayed;
central axis) Jer 8:10a Therefore I will give their wives to others, and their fields to those who will inherit them;
2b) Jer 8:10b-12a, Prophet + priest deals falsely/ they were not ashamed when they committed abominations;
2a) Jer 8:12b {p} Therefore they shall fall/ In the time of their punishment they shall be cast down.
The 1A pair asks an interesting question. It essence, it is, What causes backsliding? Verses 4-6 ask the question, and verse 7 answers it:
“Moreover you shall say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord: “Will they fall and not rise? Will one turn away and not return? Why has this people slidden back, Jerusalem, in a perpetual backsliding? They hold fast to deceit, they refuse to return. I listened and heard, but they do not speak aright. No man repented of his wickedness, saying, ‘What have I done?’ Everyone turned to his own course, as the horse rushes into the battle. Even the stork in the heavens knows her appointed times (moed); and the turtledove, the swift, and the swallow observe the time of their coming. But My people do not know the judgment (mishpat) of the LORD.” Jer 8:4-7
They do not know the judgment, or mishpatim, of the LORD. Mishpatim is one of eight Hebrew words which describe the commands of the LORD contained in Torah! So even the stork knows her appointed times, her moedim, but the LORD’s people did not know the mishpatim or judgments of the LORD, that they should observe His moedim or Sabbaths, and reject the moedim of the false gods surrounding them. Later in the chapter we learn that they also committed adultery, shed innocent blood, dealt falsely, were coveteous — in other words, lived in rejection of the Ten Commandments of God inscribed on two tablets of stone, which summarize the Torah, or teaching, of God.
Church, have we likewise rejected the Ten Commandments of God, and His Torah, or teaching and instruction in His ways of righteousness? If we have rejected His appointed times, we have rejected the doorway of obedience to the Ten, and thus obedience to the LORD Himself, for the LORD gave His people the Sabbath commandment to test whether they would obey Him or not (Exo 16:4-5, but read the whole chapter to realize that the first thing He taught His people upon leaving slavery in the kingdom of darkness, er, I mean, Egypt, is Sabbath rest in Messiah Yeshua, er, I mean, Bread from Heaven). When we reject the Sabbath, we close our eyes to the judgments of the LORD. And that is exactly what has happened in the Church today. This is why the Church is backslidden and compromising with the world in so many things.
We can be the change we wish to see in the world however. It starts with repentance, with turning away from believing the word of a man who said, God’s Law has passed away, rather than the word of Jesus, who said, As long as heaven and earth endures, so My Law will endure (Mat 5:17-19). It starts with praying the Lord’s Prayer: “May Your Kingdom come, Father, where You are King, and Your word is my command, first in my heart, then in my household, then in my church, my community, my nation, and this world,” like ripples going ever outward in a pond. What can one person do? Change themselves, change the church, and change the world. ♥
Leave a Reply