Jeremiah 17:13-23

13 LORD, you are the hope of Israel; all who forsake you will be put to shame. Those who turn away from you will be written in the dust because they have forsaken the LORD, the spring of living water.

14 Heal me, LORD, and I will be healed; save me and I will be saved, for you are the one I praise.

15 They keep saying to me, “Where is the word of the LORD? Let it now be fulfilled!”

16 I have not run away from being your shepherd; you know I have not desired the day of despair. What passes my lips is open before you.

17 Do not be a terror to me; you are my refuge in the day of disaster.

18 Let my persecutors be put to shame, but keep me from shame; let them be terrified, but keep me from terror. Bring on them the day of disaster; destroy them with double destruction.

Keeping the Sabbath Day Holy

19 This is what the LORD said to me: “Go and stand at the Gate of the People,^[a] through which the kings of Judah go in and out; stand also at all the other gates of Jerusalem.

20 Say to them, ‘Hear the word of the LORD, you kings of Judah and all people of Judah and everyone living in Jerusalem who come through these gates.

21 This is what the LORD says: Be careful not to carry a load on the Sabbath day or bring it through the gates of Jerusalem.

22 Do not bring a load out of your houses or do any work on the Sabbath, but keep the Sabbath day holy, as I commanded your ancestors.

23 Yet they did not listen or pay attention; they were stiff-necked and would not listen or respond to discipline.

Jeremiah 17:13-23 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO JEREMIAH 17

This chapter is a further prophecy of the destruction of the Jews, with the causes of it, their sins, as their idolatry, which was notorious; of which their own consciences, their altars, and their children, were witnesses, Jer 17:1,2 for which they are threatened with the spoil of their substance and treasure, and discontinuance in their land, Jer 17:3,4 as also their confidence in an arm of flesh, which brought the curse of God upon them, when such are blessed that trust in him; and the difference between those that trust in men and those that trust in the Lord is illustrated by very apt similes, Jer 17:5-8, the source of which vain confidence is the wicked heart of man, known to none but God, Jer 17:9,10 and the vanity of it is exposed by a partridge sitting on eggs without hatching them, Jer 17:11, and their departure from God, by trusting in the creature, and in outward things, is aggravated by their temple being the throne and seat of the divine Majesty; by what God is to his people that trust in him; and by the shame and ruin that follow an apostasy from him, Jer 17:12,13, wherefore the prophet, sensible of his own backslidings, prays to be healed and saved by the Lord, who should have all the praise and glory, Jer 17:14 and then relates the scoffs of the people at the word of God by him, another cause of their ruin; declares his own innocence and integrity; prays for protection and security from fear in a time of trouble; and for confusion, terror, and destruction to his persecutors, Jer 17:15-18, then follows an order to him from the Lord, to go and stand in the gate of the city, and exhort all ranks of men to the observation of the sabbath, with directions how to keep it, which had not been observed by their fathers, and which was another cause of their ruin, Jer 17:19-23, and the chapter is closed with promises of blessings in city, court, and country, in church and state, should they religiously observe the sabbath day; but if they profaned it, the city of Jerusalem, and its palaces, should be burnt with fire, Jer 17:24-27.

Cross References

• 1. Psalms 71:5; Jeremiah 14:8
• 2. Isaiah 1:28; S Jeremiah 2:17
• 3. S Psalms 69:28; Psalms 87:6; Ezekiel 13:9; Daniel 12:1
• 4. S Isaiah 12:3; John 4:10
• 5. S Isaiah 30:26; Jeremiah 15:18
• 6. S Psalms 119:94
• 7. S Exodus 15:2; S Psalms 109:1
• 8. S Isaiah 5:19; 2 Peter 3:4
• 9. Psalms 139:4
• 10. Psalms 88:15-16
• 11. S Psalms 46:1; Jeremiah 16:19; Nahum 1:7
• 12. S Psalms 18:18
• 13. Psalms 35:1-8; S Isaiah 40:2; S Jeremiah 12:3
• 14. Jeremiah 7:2; Jeremiah 26:2
• 15. Jeremiah 19:3
• 16. Jeremiah 22:2
• 17. Numbers 15:32-36; S Deuteronomy 5:14; Nehemiah 13:15-21; John 5:10
• 18. S Genesis 2:3; S Exodus 20:8; Exodus 31:13; Isaiah 56:2-6; Ezekiel 20:12
• 19. Jeremiah 7:26
• 20. Jeremiah 19:15
• 21. S 2 Chronicles 28:22; S Jeremiah 7:28; Zechariah 7:11

Footnotes

• [a]. Or "Army"