The human mind is more deceitful than anything else.
It is incurably bad. Who can understand it? - Jeremiah 17:9
(NET)
With these words, the God of
Israel, presumably speaking through His prophet Jeremiah, sends forth a
stinging rebuke against His covenant people. Before attributing an
incurably bad and deceitful mind to His own people that had been culled out
from humanity so as to be the shining lights of His glory in and to the world,
He accuses them of placing “trust in mere human beings” (17:5b). The
Creator God here says that He will curse His people that do such things, “who
depend on mere flesh and blood for their strength” (17:5c), because in that,
they demonstrate that their “hearts have turned away from the Lord”
(17:5d).
Of course, when the reader of Scripture stumbles across any
mentions of curses, that reader’s thoughts should be caused to dwell upon the
curses to be found in Leviticus and Deuteronomy that are especially pronounced
against idolatry, which are set in juxtaposition to the blessings that are to
be enjoyed for faithfulness to covenant obligations, the proper worship and
recognition of the covenant God, and appropriate bearing of the divine image.
The statement about the human
mind found here in Jeremiah is not necessarily to be taken as a generalization
and universal condemnation. Rather, it
is specifically connected to trust in human beings, so it asks to be understood
as a reference to idolatry. Jeremiah is in the midst of communicating
judgment and exile to the Creator God’s people, and in doing, lets them know
that their idolatry is the key component of that judgment. The
implications of the judgment is that rather than being a light reflecting the
glory of their God, and subsequently directing the nations to the worship of
the one and only God of Israel, they had instead imitated the nations surrounding
them and gone after their idols. It is because of that then, that “The
Lord said, ‘So I will let them know My mighty power in judgment. Then
they will know that My Name is the Lord’.” (16:21)
Remembering that there is a wider context and a continuous
narrative stream in Jeremiah, it is appropriate to back up to the fifteenth
chapter so as to learn that the punishment to be rendered by their God for this
idolatry will be severe. The covenant God
speaks about His people and says “I will have war kill them. I will have
dogs drag off their dead bodies. I will have birds and wild beasts devour
and destroy their corpses. I will make all the people in all the kingdoms
of the world horrified at what has happened to them” (15:3b-4a). Naturally,
kingdoms being horrified at the woes of Israel stands in stark and glaring
contrast to what the God of Israel had intended for His covenant people.
It is worth inquiring as to when
the fate of this people was sealed? It is suggested that the were going
to suffer judgment “because of what Hezekiah’s son Manasseh, king of Judah, did
in Jerusalem” (15:4b). As is to be routinely found in the historical
narrative of Israel, the king stands for and represents the people, with the
people often subject to cursing because of him and his actions. Later on
in the Scriptural narrative, it will be possible to find another King that
stands for and represents the people, and that it is through Him that the
people of God become blessed.
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