Jeremiah 12:7

GOD'S REJECTION OF THE CHOSEN PEOPLE

"I have forsaken my house, I have east off my heritage; I have given the dearly beloved of my soul into the hands of her enemies. My heritage is become unto me as a lion in the forest: she hath uttered her voice against me; therefore I have hated her. Is my heritage unto me as a speckled bird of prey? are the birds of prey against her round about? go ye, assemble all the beasts of the field, bring them to devour."

"I have forsaken my house ..." (Jeremiah 12:7). The word "house" in the Old Testament is almost invariably used of the temple; and we believe that is what it means here. R. Payne Smith declared the meaning here to be, "Not the temple, but Israel and Judah";[7] and since then, many scholars have followed his lead. Thompson attempted to justify the interpretation by pointing out that "it is parallel to `my heritage' in the next clause";[8] and while it is true enough that adjacent clauses are indeed often parallel in the Bible, they are not always so. "Sharpen the arrows, take up the shields" (Jeremiah 51:11) is one of many examples; and we believe the parallelism here is another. Matthew Henry agreed with this and gave the meaning of "forsaken my house" as, "A reference to the temple, which had been his palace; but they had polluted it and forced God out of it."[9]

It is certainly true that God did indeed forsake the temple; and God gives an account of his doing so in Ezekiel (Ezekiel 10:17). Furthermore, God never more returned to any earthly temple; but he did come with the rushing sound of a mighty wind on the day of Pentecost to dwell in his true temple, the Church of our Lord.

Thus the two teachings in Jeremiah 12:7 are (1) the Lord removed his presence, or Spirit, from the Jewish temple, and (2) he forsook the apostate nation, the "righteous remnant" alone being excepted.

"She hath uttered her voice against me ..." (Jeremiah 12:8). In context, this means that the Chosen People had roared like a lion against God Himself! "Judah had not merely become disobedient, but had become intractable and fierce like an untamed lion."[10] She had uttered vicious blasphemies against him and had preferred the reprobate worship of the Baalim to the way of the Lord.

"Is my heritage unto me as a speckled bird of prey? are the birds of prey against her round about ..." (Jeremiah 12:9)? "The Hebrew word here rendered `bird of prey' in both places means `a carrion bird,' ... probably some kind of vulture is meant."[11] "Birds attack other birds of unfamiliar plumage; so Israel, differing from other nations, is attacked by them."[12] At any rate, the total destruction of the Once Chosen nation is prophetically announced in the figure of the beasts of the field being called in to eat her remains.