Jeremiah 7 Study Notes

7:16-17 The Lord commanded the prophet, do not pray for these people. The nation had passed the point of no return (11:14; 14:11; 15:1). God would no longer listen to intercessions on behalf of the people of Judah.

7:18 The queen of heaven was the Assyr-ian-Babylonian goddess Ishtar, parallel to the Canaanite goddess Astarte. Both were astral deities (perhaps Venus) linked with love, fertility, and warfare. The women made cakes, perhaps in the shape of stars (44:15-19) as part of her worship ritual. King Manasseh introduced this false worship (2Kg 21:1-9), and it revived after King Josiah’s death.

7:19 Worshiping the “queen of heaven” (v. 18) also involves bringing shame on themselves.

7:20 God was directly affected by what his people did, but anger is not one of his primary qualities or attributes. Rather, it is a response to injustices, which strike against his holy nature. Jeremiah referred to God’s anger many times (v. 18; 8:19; 11:17; 25:6-7; 32:29-32; 44:3,8).

7:21-23 The phrase I did not speak with them . . . concerning burnt offering and sacrifice does not show, as some critics have assumed, that the laws about the cult and sacrifices originated in the era after the prophets rather than back in Moses’s day. The word “concerning” (Hb ‘al dibre) is best rendered “for the sake of,” “in the interest of,” or “out of concern for” (Dt 4:21; 2Sm 18:5; 2Kg 22:13). The point is that God never commanded his people to perform empty rituals. Rather, their offerings and sacrifices were to be heartfelt and born of a desire for obedience.

7:24-26 God traces Judah’s stubbornness and evil to the time when he brought them out of . . . Egypt.

7:27-28 The verb for disappeared (lit “severed”), is as if their tongues were cut out. According to Jr 9:3 they became “champions of untruth” (Jack Lundbom). The word for truth can also mean “integrity.”

7:29 Judah is addressed as a former virgin or bride of the Lord. The undefiled Nazirites were required to cut and burn their hair when the term of their vow was fulfilled (Nm 6:13-18). Now Judah is told that she must cut off the hair of your sacred vow and throw it away not because she has completed her vow, but rather because she has violated it. She is no longer consecrated to the Lord, having become a prostitute physically and spiritually.

7:30 They have even brought foreign gods into the Lord’s house. This would have been an act of Jehoiakim. See Ezk 5:11.

7:31 Topheth is an Aramaic word meaning “fire pit,” “fireplace,” or “hearth,” which was pronounced with the vowels from the Hebrew word bosheth, meaning “shame.” This high place was located in Ben Hinnom Valley, south of Jerusalem. Kings Ahaz (2Kg 16:3) and Manasseh (2Kg 21:5-6) instituted pagan sacrifices here, including the offering of Judah’s children to the god Baal or Molech. Child sacrifice was forbidden by Mosaic law (Lv 18:21; 20:2-5; Dt 18:10). This practice was abolished under King Josiah (2Kg 23:10). During Jeremiah’s days the sacrifices appear to have been revived. Later generations dumped their garbage in the Ben Hinnom Valley (Hb gey-hinnom), perhaps in protest to the atrocities that had been enacted there. Understandably, this place became a symbol for the place of future judgment called Gehenna (Mt 5:22).

7:32-34 So devastating will be the invasion of Judah that corpses will lie everywhere (see note at Ps 79:2). Worst of all, no one will be left to scare scavengers away. The land will fall silent and become a desolate waste.