Jeremiah 7:4

"Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The temple of Jehovah, the temple of Jehovah, the temple of Jehovah, are these. For if ye thoroughly amend your ways and your doings; if ye thoroughly execute justice between a man and his neighbor; if ye oppress not the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood, neither walk after other gods to your own hurt: then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, from of old, even forevermore."

Note the triple repetition of "The temple of Jehovah." It appears that the people were using these words as a kind of charm or talisman to protect and bless them even in the pursuit of their wicked ways. As Matthew Henry stated it, "It was the cant of the times; it was in their mouths upon all occasions. If they received bad news, they lulled themselves to sleep again, saying, `We cannot but do well, we have the temple of the Lord among us.'"[4]

Jeremiah's breaking in upon that crowd of arrogant, overconfident, hypocrites with the stinging words of Jehovah, commanding them either to repent or perish must have been resented like a plague of smallpox. "Is it any wonder that this `temple sermon' caused a terrific uproar and almost cost Jeremiah his life (Jeremiah 26:7ff)?" [5]

"Shed not innocent blood in this place ..." (Jeremiah 7:6). Cook and other scholars believe that the reference here is to, "The innocent blood shed there judicially. Of one such judicial murder, Jehoiachim had already been guilty (Jeremiah 26:23)."[6] There were probably many other such crimes.

The particular sins mentioned here, which God through Jeremiah commanded the Jews to cease from committing, were merely a representative list; and the list will be greatly expanded in later verses. All of these sins of lustful selfishness were the result of Judah's having first rejected their primary obligation to Jehovah as spelled out in the Mosaic covenant at Sinai. "All of their sins were the consequence of their breach of the covenant and their rejection of God's sovereignty."[7] We consider this statement from Thompson as a profoundly accurate declaration. Many people seem to be unaware that once man's primary obligation to Almighty God is either neglected or forsaken, all of the other sins may be expected to follow immediately. They are merely the consequences of man's violation of that higher obligation to his Creator.

"The land that I gave to your fathers forever and ever ..." (Jeremiah 7:7). "This is the very strongest formula in the Hebrew tongue for a perpetual gift, meaning, `from forever unto forever.' Why then do not the Jews still possess the land eternally given to them? Because God never bestows anything unconditionally."[8]

The Jews received the land of Canaan under the terms of a covenant, itself called a covenant of eternity (Genesis 17:7); but that covenant had conditions which the Jews were obligated to observe, as spelled out in the closing chapters of Deuteronomy, with the divine warning that if they rebelled against the covenant God would indeed "pluck them off the land" (Deuteronomy 28:63). In this connection, be sure to read Jeremiah 18:5-10.