Jeremiah 7

The Temple Sermon

At the temple gate Jeremiah tells a city that trusts in the building to mend its ways, and warns that the house will go the way of Shiloh.

The chapter gives no date. Chapters 7–20 are the prophecies under Jehoiakim (608–597 B.C. by the Bible Dictionary), and Jeremiah 26:1 dates a temple address with the same warning to the beginning of Jehoiakim’s reign Read with footnotes in Gospel Library

Background

This is the first long sermon in the book, and it opens the Bible Dictionary's section on Jeremiah's work under King Jehoiakim (chapters 7–20).

This is the first long sermon in the book, and it opens the Bible Dictionary's section on Jeremiah's work under King Jehoiakim (chapters 7–20). The Lord tells Jeremiah to stand in the gate of the temple and speak to everyone who comes in to worship. The chapter itself is undated; Jer. 26:1–9 dates a temple address with the same warning, that the house will be made “like Shiloh,” to the beginning of Jehoiakim's reign, and tells how Jeremiah was seized for it. That arrest is probably what followed this sermon, though neither chapter says so outright.

The audience is a people who believe the temple makes them safe. A reform under Josiah had made it the only place of sacrifice, and its place in the nation's life was greater than ever. Jeremiah's answer is that the building does not protect people who steal, kill, swear falsely, and worship Baal, and then walk in and say they are safe.

The Church's chapter heading sums it up: “If the people of Judah repent, they will be preserved—The temple has become a den of robbers—The Lord rejects that generation of the people of Judah for their idolatries—They offer their children as sacrifices.” Jesus used verse 11 when He cleansed the temple.

The thread through the chapter

The chapter turns on one word, trust. Verses 4 and 8 name the false trust: “The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD.”

The chapter turns on one word, trust. Verses 4 and 8 name the false trust: “The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD.” The people have made a holy place into a guarantee. The rest of the chapter takes that trust apart in four steps.

First, the Lord sets out the real condition for staying in the land: mend your ways, deal justly, protect the vulnerable, serve no other gods (verses 3–7). Second, He points to Shiloh, where another holy place with the ark in it was lost (verses 12–15). Third, He shows that the people's religion is a fraud on both sides: they pray to a goddess (verses 17–19), and they bring sacrifices while ignoring the first thing He asked for, which was obedience (verses 21–28). Last, the sermon ends in the valley where children were burned, which will be renamed for its dead (verses 30–34). Between these steps stands the hardest line for the prophet: do not pray for this people (verse 16).

Tap any highlighted phrase to open a note beneath its versein the margin.

Verses 1–7

Mend your ways

In plain words

The Lord told Jeremiah to stand in the gate of His house and say to all Judah as they came in to worship: “Change your ways and your actions, and I will let you stay in this place. Do not trust the deceptive words, ‘The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord is here!’ Only if you really change your ways, deal justly with one another, do not oppress the foreigner, the orphan, and the widow, do not shed innocent blood here, and do not follow other gods to your own harm, will I let you live in this place, in the land I gave your fathers forever.”

1 The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,

2 Stand in the gate of the LORD’s house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the LORD, all ye of Judah, that enter in at these gates to worship the LORD.

Context #

The sermon at the gate

Jeremiah gives this sermon at the entrance to the temple, and a temple address with the same warning nearly cost him his life.

Jeremiah gives this sermon at the entrance to the temple, and a temple address with the same warning nearly cost him his life. The chapter has no date, but Jer. 26:1–9 reports a temple address “in the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim” with the same warning, “Then will I make this house like Shiloh.” When he finished, “the priests and the prophets and all the people took him, saying, Thou shalt surely die.” Given the people's reverence for the temple, “though it was a false reverence, it is not surprising that Jeremiah was quickly arrested and imprisoned (see Jeremiah 26).” The two chapters do not say in so many words that they describe the same day, so the link is probable rather than certain.

The boldness is easier to see against Josiah's reform, which “had made it the sole place of sacrificial worship of Jehovah for all Jews in an attempt to stamp out idol worship,” so that “the temple and its priests thus had acquired by this time greater importance than ever before.” Jeremiah, born into a priestly family, was telling the nation that the center of its worship could be lost.

Sources: Chapter 23: As Ye Sow, So Shall Ye Reap (Jeremiah 1–19), Old Testament Student Manual: 1 Kings–Malachi (2003). The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Jeremiah”, Bible Dictionary.

3 Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place.

4 Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, are these.

Context #

Why the temple felt like a guarantee

The “lying words” are a slogan, and the people had reasons to believe it.

The “lying words” are a slogan, and the people had reasons to believe it. Jerusalem was thought to be safe because the Lord's house stood there: “He would naturally protect it from desecration and destruction.” About a century earlier, the Lord had spared the city from the Assyrians in Hezekiah's day, which “strengthened the belief that the Lord would preserve Jerusalem and its temple from all enemies.” Josiah's recent reform “may have led some people to hold an exaggerated view of their own righteousness and favor in God's eyes.” And there were false prophets, such as Hananiah (Jer. 28:15), who “gave the opposite message—that God would preserve them from their enemies.”

The Lord does not deny that the temple is His. He denies that it works as protection for people who break His commandments. The same belief meets the reader in the Book of Mormon: in the same city early in Zedekiah's reign (1 Ne. 1:4), Laman and Lemuel did not “believe that Jerusalem, that great city, could be destroyed according to the words of the prophets” (1 Ne. 2:13).

Sources: Scripture Central, “Why Did Some in Lehi’s Time Believe that Jerusalem Could Not Be Destroyed?”, KnoWhy #451. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

5 For if ye throughly amend your ways and your doings; if ye throughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbour;

6 If ye oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your hurt:

7 Then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, for ever and ever.

Verses 8–15

A den of robbers, and Shiloh

In plain words

“You trust in deceptive words that do you no good. You steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Baal, and follow gods you have not known, and then you come and stand in this house that bears my name and say, ‘We are safe,’ only to go on doing all these abominations. Has this house become a hideout for robbers in your eyes? I have seen it myself. Go to my place at Shiloh, where I first set my name, and see what I did to it because of my people's wickedness. Because you have done all this, and I spoke to you again and again and you did not listen, I will do to this house what I did to Shiloh, and I will drive you from my presence, as I drove out all your brothers, the whole family of Ephraim.”

8 Behold, ye trust in lying words, that cannot profit.

9 Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom ye know not;

10 And come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered to do all these abominations?

Language #

“Delivered” means “safe”

The people say “We are delivered” in the sense of “We are safe,” and the phrase that follows tells what they mean to keep doing.

The people say “We are delivered” in the sense of “We are safe,” and the phrase that follows tells what they mean to keep doing. In a modern rendering they “say, ‘We are safe!’—only to go on doing all these abominations.” On one reading of the Hebrew, the conjunction behind “to do” always means “in order to do”: the thought is that they come to the temple “to procure an indulgence for their wicked ongoings, not merely for what they had already done, but for what they do from day to day.” That fits the verse's flow: worship as a license, not a repentance.

On that reading, the charge in verses 9–10 is not only that the people sin and also worship, but that they use the worship to excuse the sin.

Sources: New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition, National Council of Churches, 2021; on BibleGateway. Carl Friedrich Keil, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Jeremiah, Trans. David Patrick and James Kennedy. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1874–1880; in Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub.

11 Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, even I have seen it, saith the LORD.

Related Scriptures #

A den of robbers, and the cleansing of the temple

A den of robbers is the robbers' retreat, the place they go to be safe, and that is what the people have made of the temple.

A den of robbers is the robbers' retreat, the place they go to be safe, and that is what the people have made of the temple. Thieves, murderers, and adulterers who gathered there and “supposed that by appearing there they procured the absolution of their sins… were in very act declaring the temple to be a robbers' retreat.” The Lord adds, “even I have seen it.”

Jesus took up these words when He drove the sellers from the temple: “It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves” (Matt. 21:13). He joined Jeremiah's phrase to Isa. 56:7, “my house shall be called an house of prayer for all people,” and the Church edition's footnote on this verse sends the reader to Matthew and to Luke 19:46.

Sources: Carl Friedrich Keil, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Jeremiah, Trans. David Patrick and James Kennedy. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1874–1880; in Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub. Chapter 23: As Ye Sow, So Shall Ye Reap (Jeremiah 1–19), Old Testament Student Manual: 1 Kings–Malachi (2003). The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

12 But go ye now unto my place which was in Shiloh, where I set my name at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel.

Context #

What happened at Shiloh

Shiloh was Israel's first religious center in the land, and it was lost.

Shiloh was Israel's first religious center in the land, and it was lost. It lay in the tribe of Ephraim, and the tabernacle stood there “during the greater part of the period of the Judges,” and the place “continued to be the religious center of the nation… until after the loss of the Ark in the disastrous battle of Ebenezer.” The elders of Israel had said, “Let us fetch the ark of the covenant of the Lord out of Shiloh unto us, that, when it cometh among us, it may save us out of the hand of our enemies” (1 Sam. 4:3). Instead “the ark of God was taken” (1 Sam. 4:11). The psalmist remembers it as an act of God: “he forsook the tabernacle of Shiloh” (Ps. 78:60).

The comparison is deliberate: “the parallel between Israel and Judah should have been evident,” and “for the wicked to look to the temple as a source of protection was foolish.” The people had once trusted a sacred object to save them and lost both the object and the battle. They were repeating the mistake with a larger building. Verse 14 says the Lord will do to the temple “as I have done to Shiloh.”

Sources: “Shiloh”, Bible Dictionary. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Chapter 23: As Ye Sow, So Shall Ye Reap (Jeremiah 1–19), Old Testament Student Manual: 1 Kings–Malachi (2003).

13 And now, because ye have done all these works, saith the LORD, and I spake unto you, rising up early and speaking, but ye heard not; and I called you, but ye answered not;

14 Therefore will I do unto this house, which is called by my name, wherein ye trust, and unto the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh.

15 And I will cast you out of my sight, as I have cast out all your brethren, even the whole seed of Ephraim.

Context #

The brethren already cast out

“All your brethren, even the whole seed of Ephraim” are the northern tribes, already exiled: “the whole seed of Ephraim is the ten tribes.”

“All your brethren, even the whole seed of Ephraim” are the northern tribes, already exiled: “the whole seed of Ephraim is the ten tribes.” The history bears it out: Assyria took Samaria and carried Israel away, and “the Lord was very angry with Israel, and removed them out of his sight: there was none left but the tribe of Judah only” (2 Kgs. 17:6; 2 Kgs. 17:18). The Lord uses nearly the same words for what is coming to Judah: “I will cast you out of my sight.”

Sources: Carl Friedrich Keil, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Jeremiah, Trans. David Patrick and James Kennedy. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1874–1880; in Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Verses 16–20

Do not pray for them

In plain words

“As for you, do not pray for this people or plead for them, for I will not listen to you. Do you not see what they do in the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem? The children gather wood, the fathers light the fire, the women knead dough, to make cakes for the queen of heaven and pour out drink offerings to other gods, to provoke me. Is it me they are hurting? Is it not themselves, to their own shame?” So the Lord God said, “My anger and my wrath will be poured out on this place, on people and animals, on trees and crops, and it will burn and not be put out.”

16 Therefore pray not thou for this people, neither lift up cry nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to me: for I will not hear thee.

Related Scriptures #

Pray not for this people

The Lord forbids Jeremiah to intercede, and the verse's “therefore” ties the command to what has gone before: the Lord called and the people “answered not” (verse 13), so now “I…

The Lord forbids Jeremiah to intercede, and the verse's “therefore” ties the command to what has gone before: the Lord called and the people “answered not” (verse 13), so now “I will not hear thee.” The chapter gives no further reason. The prohibition returns twice in the next chapters: “Therefore pray not thou for this people” (Jer. 11:14), “Pray not for this people for their good” (Jer. 14:11).

Jeremiah does not simply fall silent. In chapters 14–15 he offers “urgent prayer on behalf of his people,” and “the Lord rejects all intercession.”

Sources: The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Chapter 23: As Ye Sow, So Shall Ye Reap (Jeremiah 1–19), Old Testament Student Manual: 1 Kings–Malachi (2003).

17 Seest thou not what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?

18 The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger.

Context #

The queen of heaven

The queen of heaven was “the fertility goddess, such as the Babylonian Ishtar.”

The queen of heaven was “the fertility goddess, such as the Babylonian Ishtar.” Foreign worship of this kind had a history in Judah: under Manasseh “there was introduced the worship of the heavenly planets in accordance with the dictates of the Assyro-Babylonian religion,” and Jeremiah found idolatry “rampant among his people,” the worship of the queen of heaven included (7:18; 44:19).

The verse shows a whole household at work: children gather the wood, fathers light the fire, women knead dough for the cakes. The Lord says the people are hurting themselves, “to their shame” (the footnote's reading of “the confusion of their own faces,” verse 19).

The worship comes back at the end of Jeremiah's ministry, in Egypt, where the people refuse his warning: “we will not hearken unto thee,” and say that when they burned incense to her, “then had we plenty of victuals, and were well, and saw no evil” (Jer. 44:16–18). They had judged the goddess by results.

19 Do they provoke me to anger? saith the LORD: do they not provoke themselves to the confusion of their own faces?

20 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, mine anger and my fury shall be poured out upon this place, upon man, and upon beast, and upon the trees of the field, and upon the fruit of the ground; and it shall burn, and shall not be quenched.

Verses 21–28

Obey my voice

In plain words

“Add your burnt offerings to your other sacrifices, and eat the meat yourselves! When I brought your fathers out of Egypt I did not speak to them or command them about burnt offerings and sacrifices. This is what I commanded: ‘Obey me, and I will be your God and you will be my people. Walk in all the way I command you, so that it may go well with you.’ But they did not listen or pay attention. They followed the stubbornness of their evil hearts, and went backward, not forward. From the day your fathers left Egypt until now I have sent you all my servants the prophets, day after day. Still they did not listen, but stiffened their necks and did worse than their fathers. You will tell them all this, but they will not listen; you will call, but they will not answer. Say to them: ‘This is the nation that has not obeyed the Lord its God or accepted correction. Truth has perished; it is gone from their mouths.’”

21 Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Put your burnt offerings unto your sacrifices, and eat flesh.

Language #

Burnt offerings and obedience

Verses 21–23 put obedience ahead of sacrifice: they “reminded the people that obedience is more critical to God than the outward rituals of sacrifice performed in the temple.”

Verses 21–23 put obedience ahead of sacrifice: they “reminded the people that obedience is more critical to God than the outward rituals of sacrifice performed in the temple.” Verse 21 is biting. Most of a sacrifice's meat was eaten by the worshippers, but a burnt offering was “wont to be burnt entire upon the altar”; let them eat that too, since God takes no pleasure in it.

Verse 22 says the Lord did not command their fathers “concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices” when He brought them out of Egypt. That need not mean He never commanded sacrifice. One reading takes the verse as a contrast: what He commanded first was “Obey my voice” (verse 23), which echoes Ex. 19:5, “if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me,” spoken at Sinai, at “the beginning of the law-giving.” Other prophets say the same: “to obey is better than sacrifice” (1 Sam. 15:22); “I desired mercy, and not sacrifice” (Hosea 6:6).

Sources: Chapter 23: As Ye Sow, So Shall Ye Reap (Jeremiah 1–19), Old Testament Student Manual: 1 Kings–Malachi (2003). Carl Friedrich Keil, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Jeremiah, Trans. David Patrick and James Kennedy. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1874–1880; in Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

22 For I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices:

23 But this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people: and walk ye in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well unto you.

24 But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, but walked in the counsels and in the imagination of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward.

25 Since the day that your fathers came forth out of the land of Egypt unto this day I have even sent unto you all my servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them:

26 Yet they hearkened not unto me, nor inclined their ear, but hardened their neck: they did worse than their fathers.

27 Therefore thou shalt speak all these words unto them; but they will not hearken to thee: thou shalt also call unto them; but they will not answer thee.

28 But thou shalt say unto them, This is a nation that obeyeth not the voice of the LORD their God, nor receiveth correction: truth is perished, and is cut off from their mouth.

Verses 29–34

Mourning and Tophet

In plain words

“Cut off your hair and throw it away; raise a lament on the heights, for the Lord has rejected and abandoned this generation that has aroused His wrath. The people of Judah have done evil in my eyes. They have set their abominations in the house that bears my name and defiled it. They have built the high places of Tophet in the valley of Ben Hinnom to burn their sons and daughters in the fire, which I never commanded, and which never entered my mind. So the days are coming when it will no longer be called Tophet or the Valley of Ben Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter, for they will bury in Tophet until there is no more room. The bodies of this people will be food for the birds and the animals, and no one will scare them off. I will end the sounds of joy and gladness, the voices of bridegroom and bride, in the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem, for the land will become a ruin.”

29 Cut off thine hair, O Jerusalem, and cast it away, and take up a lamentation on high places; for the LORD hath rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath.

30 For the children of Judah have done evil in my sight, saith the LORD: they have set their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to pollute it.

31 And they have built the high places of Tophet, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my heart.

Context #

Tophet and the valley of Hinnom

Tophet was a spot in the valley of Hinnom, south of Jerusalem, “where human sacrifices were offered to Molech.”

Tophet was a spot in the valley of Hinnom, south of Jerusalem, “where human sacrifices were offered to Molech.” The law forbade it outright: “thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Molech” (Lev. 18:21). Even so, King Manasseh “made his son pass through the fire” (2 Kgs. 21:6), and Josiah “defiled Topheth… that no man might make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire to Molech” (2 Kgs. 23:10). Jeremiah's hearers are accused of building it up again. The Lord says He never commanded it and that it never “came into my heart.”

The valley is renamed in verse 32: “the valley of slaughter,” where they will bury the dead until there is no room. The same renaming is given again in Jer. 19:6. The valley's later history went further. As Gehenna it became “a place in which the refuse of the city was burned, and for that reason it was symbolic of the place of torment after death,” which is how the New Testament uses the name (Matt. 5:29–30).

Sources: “Topheth”, Bible Dictionary. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Gehenna”, Bible Dictionary. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Chapter 23: As Ye Sow, So Shall Ye Reap (Jeremiah 1–19), Old Testament Student Manual: 1 Kings–Malachi (2003).

32 Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that it shall no more be called Tophet, nor the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of slaughter: for they shall bury in Tophet, till there be no place.

33 And the carcases of this people shall be meat for the fowls of the heaven, and for the beasts of the earth; and none shall fray them away.

34 Then will I cause to cease from the cities of Judah, and from the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride: for the land shall be desolate.

Seeing Christ in Jeremiah 7

Jesus took up Jeremiah's words in the temple of His own day. When He drove out the buyers and sellers He said, “It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves” (Matt. 21:13), joining the charge of Jeremiah 7:11 to the promise of Isa. 56:7 that God's house “shall be called an house of prayer for all people.” The sermon shows what the temple is for. It is meant to be a house of prayer, and the Lord is not satisfied by the building without the obedience. The covenant promise at the center of verse 23, “I will be your God, and ye shall be my people,” returns in the new covenant, where the Lord writes His law in His people's hearts and “will be their God, and they shall be my people” (Jer. 31:33).

Worth exploring next

Read Jer. 26, where the same warning about Shiloh brings Jeremiah before the priests, the prophets, and the princes, and he is acquitted. Compare Jeremiah's call to stand and speak in Jer. 1:17–19, and the false prophets who say the opposite in Jer. 28. Verses 31–32 return in Jer. 19, and the queen of heaven in Jer. 44.

Sources & further reading

“Jeremiah”, Bible Dictionary.
Chapter 23: As Ye Sow, So Shall Ye Reap (Jeremiah 1–19), Old Testament Student Manual: 1 Kings–Malachi (2003).
The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Scripture Central, “Why Did Some in Lehi’s Time Believe that Jerusalem Could Not Be Destroyed?”, KnoWhy #451.
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition, National Council of Churches, 2021; on BibleGateway.
Carl Friedrich Keil, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Jeremiah, Trans. David Patrick and James Kennedy. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1874–1880; in Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub.
“Shiloh”, Bible Dictionary.
“Topheth”, Bible Dictionary. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
“Gehenna”, Bible Dictionary. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

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