Jeremiah 4



Jeremiah 4                                                 The Book of Jeremiah  Book of Jeremiah
 
Jeremiah 4:1 If thou wilt return, O Israel, saith the Lord, return unto me: and if thou wilt put away thine abominations out of my sight, then shalt thou not remove.
  • Israel, All tribes of Israel
  • Then shalt thou not remove = and stray not from God
  • Jeremiah 2:22 For though thou wash thee with nitre, and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before me, saith the Lord God.
    23 How canst thou say, I am not polluted, I have not gone after Baalim? see thy way in the valley, know what thou hast done: thou art a swift dromedary traversing her ways;
    24 A wild ass used to the wilderness, that snuffeth up the wind at her pleasure; in her occasion who can turn her away? all they that seek her will not weary themselves; in her month they shall find her.
    25 Withhold thy foot from being unshod, and thy throat from thirst: but thou saidst, There is no hope: no; for I have loved strangers, and after them will I go.
    26 As the thief is ashamed when he is found, so is the house of Israel ashamed; they, their kings, their princes, and their priests, and their prophets.
  • Jeremiah 3:2 Lift up thine eyes unto the high places, and see where thou hast not been lien with. In the ways hast thou sat for them, as the Arabian in the wilderness; and thou hast polluted the land with thy whoredoms and with thy wickedness.
2 And thou shalt swear, The Lord liveth, in truth, in judgment, and in righteousness; and the nations shall bless themselves in him, and in him shall they glory.
  • Thou shalt swear = Reference to Deuteronomy 10:20 Thou shalt fear the LORD thy God; him shalt thou serve, and to him shalt thou cleave, and swear by his name.
  • In truth, in judgment, and in righteousness = truly, yea, justly and righteously, the three referring to the one thing, "shalt swear".
3 For thus saith the Lord to the men of Judah and Jerusalem, Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns.
  • And Jerusalem =  "and the inhabitants of Jerusalem", as in verse 4
4 Circumcise yourselves to the Lord, and take away the foreskins of your heart, ye men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem: lest my fury come forth like fire, and burn that none can quench it, because of the evil of your doings.
  • Deuteronomy 10:16 Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiff necked.
  • Deuteronomy 30:6 And the LORD thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live.
  • Hosea 6:6 For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.
  • Mercy = loving kindness = God wants your LOVE
  • John 14:15 If ye love me, keep My commandments.
  • Matthew 9:13 But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
  • Matthew 12:7 But if ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless.
  • Foreskins of your heart = mind
5 Declare ye in Judah, and publish in Jerusalem; and say, Blow ye the trumpet in the land: cry, gather together, and say, Assemble yourselves, and let us go into the defenced cities.
  • Jeremiah 46:14 Declare ye in Egypt, and publish in Migdol, and publish in Noph and in Tahpanhes: say ye, Stand fast, and prepare thee; for the sword shall devour round about thee.
    15 Why are thy valiant men swept away? they stood not, because the Lord did drive them.
  • Jeremiah 50:1 The word that the Lord spake against Babylon and against the land of the Chaldeans by Jeremiah the prophet.
    2 Declare ye among the nations, and publish, and set up a standard; publish, and conceal not: say, Babylon is taken, Bel is confounded, Merodach is broken in pieces; her idols are confounded, her images are broken in pieces.
    3 For out of the north there cometh up a nation against her, which shall make her land desolate, and none shall dwell therein: they shall remove, they shall depart, both man and beast.
6 Set up the standard toward Zion: retire, stay not: for I will bring evil from the north, and a great destruction.

7 The lion is come up from his thicket, and the destroyer of the Gentiles is on his way; he is gone forth from his place to make thy land desolate; and thy cities shall be laid waste, without an inhabitant.

8 For this gird you with sackcloth, lament and howl: for the fierce anger of the Lord is not turned back from us.

9 And it shall come to pass at that day, saith the Lord, that the heart of the king shall perish, and the heart of the princes; and the priests shall be astonished, and the prophets shall wonder.
  • King . . . princes . . . priests . . . prophets = All had become false and corrupt since Josiah's day
10 Then said I, Ah, Lord God! surely thou hast greatly deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, Ye shall have peace; whereas the sword reacheth unto the soul.
  • Greatly deceived = Hebrew idiom for declaring that they would be deceived: by the false prophets who prophesied peace.
11 At that time shall it be said to this people and to Jerusalem, A dry wind of the high places in the wilderness toward the daughter of my people, not to fan, nor to cleanse,

12 Even a full wind from those places shall come unto me: now also will I give sentence against them.

13 Behold, he shall come up as clouds, and his chariots shall be as a whirlwind: his horses are swifter than eagles. Woe unto us! for we are spoiled.

14 O Jerusalem, wash thine heart from wickedness, that thou mayest be saved. How long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within thee?

15 For a voice declareth from Dan, and publisheth affliction from mount Ephraim.
  • From Dan . . . Ephraim = The enemy would enter the Land from the north, as he afterward did.
  • Mount = hill country of
16 Make ye mention to the nations; behold, publish against Jerusalem, that watchers come from a far country, and give out their voice against the cities of Judah.

17 As keepers of a field, are they against her round about; because she hath been rebellious against me, saith the Lord.

18 Thy way and thy doings have procured these things unto thee; this is thy wickedness, because it is bitter, because it reacheth unto thine heart.

19 My bowels, my bowels! I am pained at my very heart; my heart maketh a noise in me; I cannot hold my peace, because thou hast heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war.
  • My bowels = Put by Figure of speech (of Effect), for the emotions which produce and affect their movement.
  • Bowels . . . very heart . . . heart.
  • My very heart = the walls of my heart.
  • Thou hast = Hebrew text reads "I have"; read "thou hast", as in Authorized Version.
20 Destruction upon destruction is cried; for the whole land is spoiled: suddenly are my tents spoiled, and my curtains in a moment.
  • Curtains = for tents, in which a large proportion of the people lived.
21 How long shall I see the standard, and hear the sound of the trumpet?

22 For my people is foolish, they have not known me; they are sottish children, and they have none understanding: they are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge.
  • Sottish means to be stupid or sod , stupid
  • Known = acknowledged
23 I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was without form, and void; and the heavens, and they had no light.
  •  The earth, and, lo, it was without form = 1st earth age
  • Isaiah 45:18 For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else.
    19 I have not spoken in secret, in a dark place of the earth: I said not unto the seed of Jacob, Seek ye me in vain: I the LORD speak righteousness, I declare things that are right.
    20 Assemble yourselves and come; draw near together, ye that are escaped of the nations: they have no knowledge that set up the wood of their graven image, and pray unto a god that cannot save.
    21 Tell ye, and bring them near; yea, let them take counsel together: who hath declared this from ancient time? who hath told it from that time? have not I the LORD? and there is no God else beside me; a just God and a Saviour; there is none beside me.
    22 Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.
24 I beheld the mountains, and, lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved lightly.

25 I beheld, and, lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens were fled.
  • There was NO man on the earth
  • Jeremiah is NOT talking about the time of Noah Flood, he talking about the first earth age
  • Noah was on the Ark and two of each flesh from all races was on the ark
  • Genesis 6:19  And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female.
  • Genesis 7:15 And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh, wherein is the breath of life.
26 I beheld, and, lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness, and all the cities thereof were broken down at the presence of the Lord, and by his fierce anger.

27 For thus hath the Lord said, The whole land shall be desolate; yet will I not make a full end.

28 For this shall the earth mourn, and the heavens above be black: because I have spoken it, I have purposed it, and will not repent, neither will I turn back from it.

29 The whole city shall flee for the noise of the horsemen and bowmen; they shall go into thickets, and climb up upon the rocks: every city shall be forsaken, and not a man dwell therein.

30 And when thou art spoiled, what wilt thou do? Though thou clothest thyself with crimson, though thou deckest thee with ornaments of gold, though thou rentest thy face with painting, in vain shalt thou make thyself fair; thy lovers will despise thee, they will seek thy life.
  • Thou = Put for idolatrous Israel
  • Face = eyes
  • Life = soul
31 For I have heard a voice as of a woman in travail, and the anguish as of her that bringeth forth her first child, the voice of the daughter of Zion, that bewaileth herself, that spreadeth her hands, saying, Woe is me now! for my soul is wearied because of murderers.
 
Exactly 2520 years from the exile of Benjamin, Iceland became an independent nation.
 
  The first tribe to be conquered by the Assyrians was Manasseh, in 745 B.C. Exactly 2520 years later America became a nation on July 4, 1776.

(Leviticus. 26: 28-46) God warned Israel that if they persisted in continually breaking His Laws, not only would curses come upon them.

He would punish them for seven times, (a time being 360 years, seven times would be 2520 years) and would banish them from the land of Palestine and scatter them among the heathens (like lost sheep)

• Study the book: Abrahamic Covenant, (A study outline of the identity of God's people) By E. Raymond Capt - page 25
 
                                                                 Jeremiah 4