Jeremiah 11:1-23--The Broken Covenant

Jeremiah 11
English Standard Version

The Broken Covenant
11 The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: 2 “Hear the words of this covenant, and speak to the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. 3 You shall say to them, Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: Cursed be the man who does not hear the words of this covenant 4 that I commanded your fathers when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, from the iron furnace, saying, Listen to my voice, and do all that I command you. So shall you be my people, and I will be your God, 5 that I may confirm the oath that I swore to your fathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as at this day.” Then I answered, “So be it, LORD.”

6 And the LORD said to me, “Proclaim all these words in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem: Hear the words of this covenant and do them. 7 For I solemnly warned your fathers when I brought them up out of the land of Egypt, warning them persistently, even to this day, saying, Obey my voice. 8 Yet they did not obey or incline their ear, but everyone walked in the stubbornness of his evil heart. Therefore I brought upon them all the words of this covenant, which I commanded them to do, but they did not.”

9 Again the LORD said to me, “A conspiracy exists among the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. 10 They have turned back to the iniquities of their forefathers, who refused to hear my words. They have gone after other gods to serve them. The house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken my covenant that I made with their fathers. 11 Therefore, thus says the LORD, Behold, I am bringing disaster upon them that they cannot escape. Though they cry to me, I will not listen to them. 12 Then the cities of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem will go and cry to the gods to whom they make offerings, but they cannot save them in the time of their trouble. 13 For your gods have become as many as your cities, O Judah, and as many as the streets of Jerusalem are the altars you have set up to shame, altars to make offerings to Baal.

14 “Therefore do not pray for this people, or lift up a cry or prayer on their behalf, for I will not listen when they call to me in the time of their trouble. 15 What right has my beloved in my house, when she has done many vile deeds? Can even sacrificial flesh avert your doom? Can you then exult? 16 The LORD once called you ‘a green olive tree, beautiful with good fruit.’ But with the roar of a great tempest he will set fire to it, and its branches will be consumed. 17 The LORD of hosts, who planted you, has decreed disaster against you, because of the evil that the house of Israel and the house of Judah have done, provoking me to anger by making offerings to Baal.”

18 The LORD made it known to me and I knew;
    then you showed me their deeds.
19 But I was like a gentle lamb
    led to the slaughter.
I did not know it was against me
    they devised schemes, saying,
“Let us destroy the tree with its fruit,
    let us cut him off from the land of the living,
    that his name be remembered no more.”
20 But, O LORD of hosts, who judges righteously,
    who tests the heart and the mind,
let me see your vengeance upon them,
    for to you have I committed my cause.

21 Therefore thus says the LORD concerning the men of Anathoth, who seek your life, and say, “Do not prophesy in the name of the LORD, or you will die by our hand”— 22 therefore thus says the LORD of hosts: “Behold, I will punish them. The young men shall die by the sword, their sons and their daughters shall die by famine, 23 and none of them shall be left. For I will bring disaster upon the men of Anathoth, the year of their punishment.”

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The LORD reminds the people that they have a covenant that they are supposed to keep that defines them as a "the LORD's people."  The other covenants we see in the Bible are things that God does without us swearing anything, but the people of Israel swore to keep this covenant, even before it was written on the stone tablets.  They agreed to the blessings and the curses of the Mosaic Covenant, and the LORD promises that the curses of that covenant are about to come upon them.

Disobedience and rebellion always have their consequences.  The LORD will be longsuffering, but He will not let the wicked go unpunished.  He warned the first generation to keep the covenant and they did not, and they died in the wilderness, not entering the Promised Land.  Now there is another generation following in their footsteps and the LORD is going to cast them out of the Promised Land into Exile.

Specifically, the LORD is upset that the people have turned to idols and worshiped the gods of other nations (which are really demons).  These other gods seemingly let the people revel in their sin and iniquity, but they will not be able to save the people when the LORD brings judgment on them.  The lies of these demons will be exposed when the day of judgment comes, but it will be too late for all those who have lived in darkness and refused to walk in the Light.

Jeremiah is told again not to pray for the people to escape this judgment, because the LORD knows it is what they need to go through.  It is the wages they have earned for their wickedness.  They heard the voice of the LORD through the prophets and have refused to listen to it.  The LORD cannot bless their iniquity.  They were called to be a good tree to produce good fruit, but they have produced only diseased and bad fruit because they are now a diseased and bad tree.  Only God can heal them and cause them to bear good fruit again.  They have gone even further though in provoking the LORD to anger by making sacrifices to Baal.  The LORD is a jealous God and will not permit the glory and worship that is only due to Him to be given to an idol or false god.

The people hated the message so they decided to attack the messenger.  You may see that these words point to what the Jewish leaders would conspire to do to Jesus as well.  They could not have His Light continue to expose their evil deeds that were done in darkness.  They were supposed to have the light of life within them, but the "light" within them was darkness, so the darkness was great among the people as those charged with being the light to the world did not have the light or chose not to share it.

There were wicked men who assumed they could stop the LORD's Word from coming true by threatening those who spoke it.  Jeremiah was threatened with death if he did not stop speaking the prophecy that the LORD gave to him.  The LORD told Jeremiah to keep preaching and prophesying and to endure whatever persecution came his way, and the LORD would put to death all those who threatened violence against him.  He did not promise to keep Jeremiah from persecution (quite the opposite--He told Jeremiah up front that he would be hated, persecuted and that no one would listen to him, but the LORD's message needed to be spoken.).  We live in a world full of wicked men who hate those who speak the Word of God too, and they threaten us with censure, arrest, violence, and even death, just like they did with Jeremiah.  Even if they don't try to "cancel" us, they will not listen to us, and they will try to keep others from hearing our message (it is not enough for them to simply choose to not listen--they must make the choice for other what they can an cannot listen to).  So it is with the wicked that want everyone to "tolerate" (and applaud) their wickedness.  They hate when someone shines the light of God's Word onto them and the culture and reveals what has been growing in the darkness.  Jesus said in John 3 that men choose to love the darkness because their deeds are evil.  "​And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. 20 For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. 21 But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God." (John 3:19-21)