Jeremiah 11:1

JEREMIAH 11

THE SINAI COVENANT BROKEN BY ISRAEL

This and the next two chapters are thought to have been written about the same time, coming in the early part of the reign of Jehoiachim, during that four or five year period while Israel was still feeling a false sense of security by reason of their friendship for Egypt.[1] This would have been about 620. B.C.

The great theme here is the breaking of the Sinaitic covenant by the Chosen People. That sacred covenant made by God with the Children of Israel at the time when he brought them up out of Egypt had been neglected and nearly forgotten for ages, until the copy of the Law of Moses was discovered by Hilkiah during the renovation of the temple during the days of Josiah the king (2 Kings 22-23).

Along with Feinberg, we are surprised that, "So much discussion has gone on among expositors as to `which' covenant is meant in Jeremiah 11:1-3, the one made with the nation at Sinai, or the one promulgated by Josiah."[2] There is no doubt whatever that the Sinaitic covenant, all of it, as set forth in the Pentateuch, is the covenant in view here.

THE SINAITIC COVENANT IN VIEW HERE

We are fully aware that the radical critics have exhausted themselves in efforts to prove that the covenant mentioned here was only some small part of the Sinaitic covenant, limited to the Book of Deuteronomy, or even to some very small portion of Deuteronomy. That eighteenth century falsehood of Satan needs to be exploded.

God's Word tells us what book was discovered. It was designated by Hilkiah as The Book of the Law (properly capitalized here, as should be the case in every mention of it) (See 2 Kings 22:3,8). The king referred to it as The Book of the Covenant (2 Kings 23:21), as did also the inspired author of 2Kings, who called it The Book of the Covenant (2 Kings 23:2). These references absolutely disprove the falsehood that anything less than the whole Pentateuch constituted that Book of the Law, or Book of the Covenant, which led to the extensive reforms under king Josiah. "Surely 2 Kings 22-23 makes it clear that Josiah was not introducing a new covenant but only calling for a reaffirmation of the old Mosaic Covenant."[3]

Absolutely everything connected with the reforms of Josiah indicated the restoration in Israel of the entire Mosaic covenant. The whole Mosaic covenant is structured after the pattern of the old suzerainty treaties; and the invocation of the "list of curses" always attached to such treaties, as Henderson pointed out, "is indicated in the phraseology of Jeremiah 11:5 which is borrowed from Deuteronomy 27:26."[4]

Furthermore, there is not even any difference between the covenant as it appears in Deuteronomy from the one in Exodus; for it is expressly declared in Deuteronomy that:

"When Moses made an end of writing the words of this law in a book ... Moses commanded that it be placed by the ark of the covenant." (Deuteronomy 31:24) And upon that same occasion, Moses entrusted that Law to the custodianship of the Levites.

More and more scholars of the present era are accepting the proposition that no fragmentary or incomplete document ever invented by evil men can be substituted for that whole Book of the Law written by Moses. Note the following:

"This covenant refers to the covenant made at Sinai, as related in Exodus 24, with its strong emphasis upon the moral law.[5] The covenant (Jeremiah 11:1-8) is a reference to the covenant that Yahweh made at the time of the national deliverance of Israel from Egypt, as the condition of God's continued blessing.[6] It is a reasonable conjecture that `this covenant' refers to the Mosaic covenant of Sinai.[7] The covenant was the historic agreement sealed centuries earlier at Sinai.[8] "The words of this covenant" are, as is clear from the succeeding context, the words of the covenant recorded in the Pentateuch, known from the reading of the Torah.[9]

Jeremiah 11:1-5

"The word that came to Jeremiah from Jehovah, saying, Hear ye the words of this covenant, and speak unto the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and say thou unto them, Thus saith Jehovah, the God of Israel: Cursed be the man that heareth not the words of this covenant, which I commanded your fathers in the day that I brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, out of the iron furnace, saying, Obey my voice, and do them, according to all which I command you: so shall ye be my people, and I will be your God; that I may establish the oath which I sware unto your fathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as at this day. Then answered I and said, Amen, O Jehovah."

This paragraph fully corroborates all that we stated above concerning what covenant is here under consideration. Jeremiah at the time indicated here possessed the whole Pentateuch at least, and he probably also had available to him a great many of the prophets, certainly including Isaiah. Nothing is any more unbelievable than the allegation of radical critics that there were no scriptures at that time except, maybe, some fragment of Deuteronomy. How could God have commanded Jeremiah to teach the people "the words of this covenant" if, indeed, he did not have them in his possession?

Besides that, it was not the whole people of Israel who had lost the Book of the Law; it was that gang of reprobate priests and scribes in the temple that had lost it! That there was, indeed, at this time, throughout Israel, a residual knowledge of the whole Law of Moses is evident. "The righteous remnant" would indeed have preserved countless portions of it. The proof of this is in 2 Chronicles 34, which reveals that, "The centralization of worship in Jerusalem preceded the discovery of the Book of the Covenant in the temple by Hilkiah."[10]

In the light of all these things, how can we understand a remark like that of Cheyne, who substituted for "the words of this covenant" the totally inadequate expression, "the words of this ordinance!?"[11] In the same breath, he admitted that "the words of this covenant" is a correct rendition of the text; but he declared it to be "unsuitable." Of course, it is "unsuitable" for all of the erroneous allegations the radical critics have thrown at the passages here.

The great significance of God's appeal through Jeremiah to the Israelites at this juncture in their affairs, calling upon them to hear and obey the commandments of the covenant, derived from the fact that, "Whether the promised land would remain in the possession of Israel or not depended upon their observance, or non-observance, of the covenant."[12]

"Amen ..." (Jeremiah 11:5). "This is the standard response to a covenant; and it is Jeremiah's pledge to recall Israel to the historic Sinai event when God promised to supply the material and spiritual needs of his people in their infancy as a nation, in return for their undivided worship and obedience."[13]