The Lord is the creator of heaven and earth and yet people boast about many things, their wisdom, their wealth, their strength. The Lord is looking for one who knows the Lord and demonstrates it by, in Jeremiah 9:24 “showing loyal love, justice, and righteousness on the earth”. The Lord asks, in Jeremiah 9:12 “Who is the wise man that can understand this?”. The Lord sends the prophet saying in Jeremiah 26:3 “Perhaps they will listen and turn back each from his evil way”, though no one listens. Instead, they in Jeremiah 26:8 “the priests and the prophets and all the people laid hold of him, saying, “You will die!”. They are not only rejecting the prophet, but they are rejecting the Lord’s plea in Jeremiah 26:13 “amend your ways and your deeds”.
Who Is the Wise Man That Can Understand
The One Who Boasts Boast That he Knows Me
Jeremiah 9:22–26
There are many things men boast about, their wisdom, their strength, their conquests in Jeremiah 9:20. But in the test of time and in the annals of history, there is one thing that a man can boast about and that is in
Jeremiah 9:24 But only in this must the one who boasts boast, that he has insight, and that he knows me, that I am Yahweh, showing loyal love, justice, and righteousness on the earth, for in these things I delight,” declares Yahweh.
The prophet is talking about more than just knowing the Lord. There is “insight” and wisdom to live “showing loyal love, justice, and righteousness”. This is “contrary to the dogma of some philosophers, that God does not interfere in terrestrial concerns (Ps 58:11) … in these … I delight—as well in doing them as in seeing them done by others (Mic 6:8; 7:18)”.1
How many men today are willing to faithfully love the wife of their youth? How many will love the mother of their children? These are things for a man to boast about. The man that can boast in the Lord is the one that does what the Lord has asked in
Micah 6:8 He has told you, O mortal, what is good, and what does Yahweh ask from you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?
He is the Maker of the Earth by His Power
Jeremiah 10:1–16
There is a word from the prophet “O house of Israel” in Jeremiah 10:1 but it is not from the prophets own mind, it is not from his intellect or imagination. in
Jeremiah 10:2 ‘Thus says Yahweh: “You must not learn the way of the nations, and you must not be dismayed by the signs of the heavens, for the nations are dismayed by them …”‘
There is a natural worldly knowledge and wisdom that people seek after, but it cannot save them. These things, in Jeremiah 10:9 “the work of the craftsman”, will perish. So the prophet brings the word from the Lord in
Jeremiah 10:11 “Thus you shall say to them, ‘Gods who did not make the heavens and the earth will perish from the earth and from under these heavens…'”
As it says in
Proverbs 14:12 “There is a way that seems upright to a man, but its end is the way of death”.
Amend Your Ways and Obey the Voice of Yahweh Your God
Jeremiah 26:1-13
Judah had fallen away from following the Lord before king Josiah. But Josiah turned to seek the Lord and they found peace the remainder of Josiah’s life (see Because You Have a Responsive Heart). Now, the Lord makes an offer again to Josiah’s son saying in
Jeremiah 26:3 “Perhaps they will listen and turn back each from his evil way, and I will relent of the disaster that I am planning to do to them because of their evil deeds”.
But when they heard these words, rather than humble themselves and “amend their ways” they responded in
Jeremiah 26:8 “And then as Jeremiah finished speaking all that Yahweh had commanded him to speak to all the people, then the priests and the prophets and all the people laid hold of him, saying, “You will die!”
It wasn’t the word of the prophet they rejected, it was the word of the Lord offering them a way to delay judgement. The Lord was giving them an opportunity to turn back to him. This was about one hundred years after Jonah had gone to Nineveh and the whole nation repented, then fallen away again and were destroyed near the time of Josiah’s death. The point is, there were examples for them to see of the power of repentance, but they would not hear it.
Yahweh (the Lord) Sent Me to You to Speak
Jeremiah 26:14–24
If You Truly Do Justice
Jeremiah 7:1–8
Study Verses
- Jeremiah 9:22–26 The One Who Boasts Boast That he Knows Me
- Jeremiah 10:1–16 He is the Maker of the Earth by His Power
- Jeremiah 26:1-13 Amend Your Ways and Obey the Voice of Yahweh Your God
Today’s Reading
- Jeremiah 9:4-26
- Jeremiah 10:1-16
- Jeremiah 26:1-24
- Jeremiah 7:1-8
References
- 1. Jamieson, R., Fausset, A. R., & Brown, D. (1997). Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (Vol. 1, p. 516). Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.
