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Bible - OT - Jeremiah: Cost of idolatry

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Toward the end of a polemic against Judah’s idolatry, which occupies every hill and mountain and leafy tree, Jeremiah makes this comment: “the shameful thing has consumed the labor of our fathers since our youth, their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters” (Jeremiah 3:24). ”Shameful thing” is bosheth, which could mean, abstractly, “shame.” Jeremiah follows with an exhortation to “lie down in our shame, and let our humiliation cover us” (v. 25). Shame is clearly an effect of idolatry. But in Jeremiah 11:3, the same word refers to an idol for which Judah sets up altars and to which they burn incense. In 3:24, the context supports the NASB translation as “shameful thing,” the shameful idol that causes shame.

Devotion to the shameful thing not only causes shame, but impoverishment. Quite literally, idols eat (‘akal) our labor and its products. All the time invested in raising sheep, oxen, goats literally goes up in flames when offered to a nothing. Sons and daughters pass through the fire, and all the invested hopes and energies are consumed. For Scripture, the same things offered to Yahweh are glorified and multiplied; not shame but glory is the product of sacrificing our labor to Him.

Our idols are as insatiable as ancient ones: Addictions, for instance, consume money, time, energy, life, children, marriages – and for what? The only product is humiliation.

posted by Peter J. Leithart on Friday, January 27, 2012 at 7:36 am

Bible - OT - Exodus Bible - OT - Jeremiah: Egypt’s Gods

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Israel complained about conditions in the wilderness.

Some in Israel wanted to return to Egypt.

In Egypt, they worshiped Egypt’s gods.

Therefore: The complaint in the wilderness was a complaint against Yahweh, and conversely a call to turn back to the gods of the fathers.

The logic is identical to that of the worshipers of the Queen of Heaven in Jeremiah’s time: “we will certainly carry out every word that has proceeded from our mouths, by burning sacrifices to the queen of heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, just as we ourselves, our forefathers, our kings and our princes did in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem; for then we had plenty of food and were well off and saw no misfortune. But since we stopped burning sacrifices to the queen of heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have lacked everything and have met our end by the sword and by famine” (Jeremiah 44:17-18).

posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, February 22, 2011 at 4:41 am

Bible - OT - Jeremiah: Decreation in Jeremiah 4

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My son Christian submitted the following study of Jeremiah 4 for a class assignment.

Jeremiah 4:23-26

23 I beheld the earth, and indeed it was without form, and void;
And the heavens, they had no light.
24 I beheld the mountains, and indeed they trembled,
And all the hills moved back and forth.
25 I beheld, and indeed there was no man,
And all the birds of the heavens had fled.
26 I beheld, and indeed the fruitful land was a wilderness,
And all its cities were broken down
At the presence of the LORD,
By His fierce anger.

posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, October 5, 2010 at 4:58 am

Bible - OT - Jeremiah: City and Well

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Jeremiah 6:7 says of Jerusalem, “As a well keeps cold its waters, so shee keeps cold her wickedness.”

Cities are wells. How? Visually there is a resemblance: Walls enclose a city as walls enclose the shaft of a well. No doubt too there is a third term in the comparison: Women are wells, cities are feminine, and therefore wells are cities. But in Jeremiah, the accent is on what wells and cities might contain. People went to wells in ancient Israel to get water, and so people might go to a city to find the necessities of life. Water bubbles up inside a well, and flows out, and a city also always has an outflow. Living water flows from some cities (like the bride-city of Revelation), but from Jerusalem in Jeremiah’s day there comes only “fresh” wickedness, destruction, and violence.

posted by Peter J. Leithart on Friday, April 30, 2010 at 6:04 am

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