7:1–10:25 As this section opens, God sends Jeremiah to the Temple gates to refute the false belief that God would not let harm come to the Temple or to those who lived near it. Jeremiah rebukes the people for their false and worthless religion, their idolatry, and the shameless behavior of the people and their leaders. Judah, he says, is ripe for judgment and exile. This happened during the reign of Jehoiakim, a puppet of Egypt. The nation, in shock over the death of Josiah, was going through a spiritual reversal that removed much of the good Josiah had done. The themes of this section are false religion, idolatry, and hypocrisy. Jeremiah was almost put to death for this sermon, but he was saved by the princes (see chapter 26).
7:2, 3 The people followed a worship ritual but maintained a sinful lifestyle. It was religion without personal commitment to God. Attending church, taking communion, teaching church school, singing in the choir—all are empty exercises unless we are truly doing them for God. It is good to do these activities, not because we ought to do them for the church, but because we want to do them for God.
7:9-11 There are several parallels between how the people of Judah viewed their Temple and how many today view their churches. (1) They didn’t make the Temple part of their daily living. We may go to beautiful churches well-prepared for worship, but often we don’t take the presence of God with us through the week. (2) The image of the Temple became more important than the substance of faith. Going to church and belonging to a group can become more important than a life changed for God. (3) The people used their Temple as a refuge. Many use religious affiliation as a hideout, thinking it will protect them from evil and problems.
7:11, 12 Jesus used these words from 7:11 in clearing the Temple (Mark 11:17; Luke 19:46). This passage applied to the evil in the Temple in Jesus’ day as well as in Jeremiah’s. God’s Tabernacle had been at Shiloh, but Shiloh had been abandoned (Psalm 78:60; Jeremiah 26:6). If God did not preserve Shiloh because the Tabernacle was there, why would he preserve Jerusalem because of the Temple?
7:15 Ephraim is another name for Israel, the northern kingdom, which had been taken into captivity by Assyria in 722 B.C.
7:18 The “queen of heaven” was a name for Ishtar, the Mesopotamian goddess of love and fertility. After the fall of Jerusalem, the refugees from Judah who fled to Egypt continued to worship her (44:17). A papyrus dating from the 5th century B.C., found at Hermopolis in Egypt, mentions the queen of heaven among the gods honored by the Jewish community living there.
7:19 This verse answers the question, Who gets hurt when we turn away from God? We do! Separating ourselves from God is like keeping a green plant away from sunlight or water. God is our only source of spiritual strength. Cut yourself off from him, and you cut off life itself.
7:21-23 God had set up a system of sacrifices to encourage the people to joyfully obey him (see the book of Leviticus). He required the people to make these sacrifices, not because the sacrifices themselves pleased him, but because they caused the people to recognize their sin and refocus on living for God. They faithfully made the sacrifices but forgot the reason they were offering them, and thus they disobeyed God. Jeremiah reminded the people that unless they were prepared to obey God in all areas of life, acting out religious rituals was meaningless. (See the chart in Hosea 7, p. 1835.)
7:25 From the time of Moses to the end of the Old Testament period, God sent many prophets to Israel and Judah. No matter how bad the circumstances were, God always raised up a prophet to speak against their stubborn spiritual attitudes.
7:27 Why did God instruct Jeremiah to prophesy and proclaim if the effort would be fruitless? God demonstrates his consistent faithfulness even in the face of human resistance. God was also “going on record” for those beyond Jeremiah’s generation. See 1 Corinthians 10:1-11 for an explanation of God’s detailed recording of the past failures of his people. The stories are intended to guide us and prevent us from making the same mistakes.
7:31, 32 The altar called Tophet (meaning “fireplace”) was set up in the Hinnom Valley, the valley where debris and rubbish from the city were thrown away. This altar was used to worship Molech—a god who required child sacrifice (2 Kings 23:10). Their valley of sacrifice would become their valley of slaughter by the Babylonians. At the place where the people had killed their children in sinful idol worship, they themselves would be slaughtered.