Jeremiah

Chapter 9:12-26 (ESV) - Who is the man so wise that he can understand this? To whom has the mouth of the LORD spoken, that he may declare it? Why is the land ruined and laid waste like a wilderness, so that no one passes through? And the LORD says: “Because they have forsaken my law that I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice or walked in accord with it, but have stubbornly followed their own hearts and have gone after the Baals, as their fathers taught them. Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will feed this people with bitter food, and give them poisonous water to drink. I will scatter them among the nations whom neither they nor their fathers have known, and I will send the sword after them, until I have consumed them.”

Thus says the LORD of hosts:
“Consider, and call for the mourning women to come;
    send for the skillful women to come;
let them make haste and raise a wailing over us,
    that our eyes may run down with tears
    and our eyelids flow with water.
For a sound of wailing is heard from Zion:
    ‘How we are ruined!
    We are utterly shamed,
because we have left the land,
    because they have cast down our dwellings.’”

Hear, O women, the word of the LORD,
    and let your ear receive the word of his mouth;
teach to your daughters a lament,
    and each to her neighbor a dirge.
For death has come up into our windows;
    it has entered our palaces,
cutting off the children from the streets
    and the young men from the squares.
Speak: “Thus declares the LORD,
‘The dead bodies of men shall fall
    like dung upon the open field,
like sheaves after the reaper,
    and none shall gather them.’”

Thus says the LORD: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.”

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will punish all those who are circumcised merely in the flesh— Egypt, Judah, Edom, the sons of Ammon, Moab, and all who dwell in the desert who cut the corners of their hair, for all these nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart.”

Question to consider: When were the “coming days” fulfilled in which the circumcised were punished?

Throughout this prophecy, the LORD seems to declare an undoing of the blessings with which He blessed Israel when He led them out of Egypt— the most stark being that of the land itself which would become uninhabitable and desolate.

Instead of being given a song of rejoicing, they would be given a dirge, lamenting what was to be taken from them. Instead of receiving the lift-giving manna which was sweet as honeycomb, their food would become bitter. Instead of making bitter water sweet as He did at Marah (Exodus 15:22-27), the LORD would poison it. Instead of being given a land flowing with milk and honey, the people would be scattered among the nations, for they chose to serve the gods of the nations rather than the one who had given them everything. Instead of being the sword of God purging the nations from sin, they would be consumed by the sword of Babylon.

The LORD warned them through Moses before entering the land that they would be tempted to forget Him once they received the abundance of the land. It was the LORD alone who brought them out of Egypt and into the land, and yet they forgot the LORD and boasted in their might. Instead of growing in the wisdom of the LORD through His word, they boasted in their own wisdom and ability to create wealth. The apostle Paul, out of concern that he might boast in his own wisdom, resolved to only boast in the cross of Christ. I think he may have had this word of the LORD to Jeremiah in mind when he wrote against those who tried to get the Gentiles to be circumcised in the flesh, “For even those who are circumcised do not themselves keep the law, but they desire to have you circumcised that they may boast in your flesh. But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. And as for all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God.” (Galatians 6:13-16)

Paul recognized that these days described to Jeremiah had come when the gospel was sent out to the Gentiles. Those who were uncircumcised in the flesh but had circumcised hearts through Christ Jesus were blessed. Those who were circumcised in the flesh but had uncircumcised hearts were punished when Jerusalem was destroyed in AD 70.

Prayer

Dear heavenly Father, may we resolve to boast only in the cross of Christ, circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, having been buried and raised with Him in baptism, through faith in Your powerful work which raised Christ from the dead and now forms us in His image. Amen.