“Idol Worship” [photo by Zack Detwiler]
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OBSERVE:
Jeremiah’s prophetic word is framed as a debate between the Lord and his people. God is asking a rhetorical question of Israel that they cannot answer. They cannot answer because there is no good answer — and the Lord’s complaint is that they have not stayed in dialogue with him:
Thus says the Lord:
What wrong did your ancestors find in me
that they went far from me,
and went after worthless things, and became worthless themselves?
The worthless things no doubt relate to the false gods and goddesses of the Canaanites, and the idols that represent those gods. But the question is made more poignant by the observation that when they seek what is worthless they themselves became worthless.
Of course there is no good answer — the Lord had done no wrong to them, only blessing them. And they have chosen that which cannot satisfy.
The Lord points out that Israel didn’t even bother to trump up false charges against him:
They did not say, “Where is the Lord
who brought us up from the land of Egypt,
who led us in the wilderness,
in a land of deserts and pits,
in a land of drought and deep darkness,
in a land that no one passes through,
where no one lives?”
Had they said all these things about their sojourn in the wilderness, he could have reminded them of the rest of the story:
I brought you into a plentiful land
to eat its fruits and its good things.
The truth is, though, that no sooner had Israel been given this land of abundance, they corrupted it:
But when you entered you defiled my land,
and made my heritage an abomination.
God’s intention had been to make Israel his heritage. Solomon’s prayer before the altar after his coronation, more than 300 years earlier, reflects this sense of a special relationship between the Lord and Israel:
For you have separated them from among all the peoples of the earth, to be your heritage, just as you promised through Moses, your servant, when you brought our ancestors out of Egypt, O Lord God (1 Kings 8:53).
Jeremiah’s prophecy moves on and becomes more particular. He next addresses the priests, rulers and prophets who have a unique responsibility to remain faithful to the Lord. Like the people of Israel, they also have failed to engage the Lord in the debate that he seeks:
The priests did not say, “Where is the Lord?”
Those who handle the law did not know me;
the rulers transgressed against me;
the prophets prophesied by Baal,
and went after things that do not profit.
The priests who handle the sacrifices in the temple and the interpretation of the law have no personal relationship with the Lord; ergo they cannot guide the rulers who transgress against God. And even worse, it is the prophets, who normally represent the more “inspired” aspect of Hebrew faith, who are seeking inspiration from Baalism! They are the very ones leading Israel to seek meaning in worthless things.
So the Lord ratchets up his debate with them:
Therefore once more I accuse you,
says the Lord,
and I accuse your children’s children.
The Lord then demands that they investigate other nations, such as the island of Cyprus in the Mediterranean Sea to the west, and Kedar which is in the deserts to the east of Judah. (They are to look as far to the west and as far to the east as they can to discover that other nations don’t treat their gods the way Israel has treated Yahweh.) They are charged to ask:
Has a nation changed its gods,
even though they are no gods?
His point is that even though these other nations worship false gods, at least they are loyal to them! This is a contrast to Israel:
But my people have changed their glory
for something that does not profit.
The Lord finally calls upon even the heavenly court to witness Israel’s infidelity to him:
Be appalled, O heavens, at this,
be shocked, be utterly desolate,
says the Lord,
And the Lord sums up his lover’s quarrel with Israel with two charges against them:
for my people have committed two evils:
they have forsaken me,
the fountain of living water,
and dug out cisterns for themselves,
cracked cisterns
that can hold no water.
The wickedness of Israel’s behavior is self-apparent. Their first sin was abandoning the God who had led them out of Egypt, guided them through the wilderness to the Land of Promise, and also given them the Law. Their second sin was seeking to create their own cisterns that are cracked and leaky. In other words, they have attempted to create their own syncretistic religion, blending Yahwism with the nature and fertility religions of Baal and Asherah that already existed in the land of Canaan.
In this one-sided argument between God and his people, Jeremiah is building the case against Israel. Obviously, the Northern Kingdom known as Israel fell at the hands of Assyria almost 100 years earlier in 721 B.C. Jeremiah is speaking to the only tribe of Israel that remains, which is Judah. And he will build to a crescendo as he warns of the coming doom at the hands of the Empire of Babylon.
Judah will not be able to say, “Nobody warned us!”
APPLY:
No modern nation has quite the unique relationship with God that Israel has. Some Americans would like to believe that the United States is God’s favored nation today, but there is no Biblical evidence for that claim. And the state of Israel is a secular state, not a theocracy.
However, I think we can apply Jeremiah’s prophecy in a general way to all nations, and to all cultures that have been influenced by Judeo-Christianity. Have we not departed from Biblical truths and our personal knowledge of God? Have we not departed from classical, Scriptural Christianity and sought after worthless things? In so doing, have we not established value systems on the false gods of pleasure, treasure, fame, and self-interest? Do our priests and prophets — our pastors and religious leaders — who are charged with interpreting the Scriptures actually know God? Do they really understand the Scriptures? Do those who govern politically adhere to a moral code that reflects the moral law of God? Is it possible that we have exchanged our faith in the God who reveals himself in Scripture for those things that are idols?
A quick scan of newsfeeds over the past several decades suggests that there has been — at least in the United States, and also in many other traditionally Judeo-Christian nations — an increase in moral and spiritual decadence.
Have we forsaken God, and tried to dig our own cisterns of meaning and purpose that are cracked and leaking?
What God is seeking from us , just as he did with Judah, is dialogue that ultimately leads to relationship with him.
RESPOND:
One of the truths that strikes me in this passage is what happens when we worship and pursue things that are worthless. We discover that they are worthless, and that our lives have become worthless as well.
It has become a cliche to say “On their deathbed, no one says to themselves: ‘I wish I’d spent more time at the office.'” That cliche may have transitive properties in other areas as well. On their deathbed, who will say to themselves, “I wish I’d made more money so that I could take it with me.” “I wish I’d watched more t.v.” “I wish I had spent less time developing my relationship with God.”
I have a theory that we become more and more like whatever, or Whomever, we worship. And if we worship worthless things, we become more like them. And if we worship God, we become more like God.
Lord, may my worship be focused only on you — not my “ideas” of you, but truly on you. Wean me away from those things that are useless and worthless, and give my life your purpose! Amen.
PHOTOS:
“Idol Worship” by Zack Detwiler is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic license.
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