Jeremiah 9:12 - Meaning and Application

The prophet has two aims here, because Judah and Jerusalem are about to be destroyed. First, he wants people to see that God is acting justly. Their sin brought this judgment on them, so they have no reason to quarrel with God. They should rather grieve over their own sins, because those sins caused all this trouble. Second, he wants them to feel the weight of the coming ruin and its bitter results. If they truly saw the danger, they might turn back in repentance and change their ways, which was the only way to escape, or at least lessen, their share of the disaster.

With that purpose, he calls on the thoughtful and wise to explain God’s fairness, even if his ways seem severe (Jeremiah 9:12). “Who is the wise man, or the prophet, to whom the Lord has spoken?” In other words, if you boast of wisdom and have prophets among you, bring forward anyone who has sound human reason or any real knowledge of God’s word. He will soon see that God has a just case against this people, and he will be able to say so plainly to others. Do these wise men ask, “Why is the land ruined?” What has happened to this land, once specially cared for by God, with his eyes on it for good (Deuteronomy 11:12)? It was once rich and full like the garden of the Lord, crowded with people. Now it is burned over like a wilderness, with no one passing through and no one wanting to live there.

Long ago, it was meant that people would ask, “Why has the Lord done this to this land? What is the meaning of this great anger?” (Deuteronomy 29:24). God now gives the full answer, and everyone must be silent before it. The charge against them is clear and proved, and it appears in Jeremiah 9:13-14. They broke away from their true King. God has forsaken their land justly, because they forsook his law, which he had set before them clearly, fully, and often. They did not obey his commands, listen to his voice, or walk in the paths he had appointed. Their sin began with neglecting duty to God and despising his authority.

Their guilt went further. They also served false masters and rebels, as if they had not only left their king but joined his enemies. They followed their own desires, setting their own wills against God’s will. They walked after the stubborn plans of their own hearts, doing whatever pleased them, even when conscience and God said otherwise. They also worshiped the idols of their own making and imagination, following the customs handed down from their fathers. They walked after the Baals, meaning the many local forms of Baal worship, such as Baal-peor and Baal-berith, one idol for one place and another for another place. Their fathers had taught them this, but the God of their fathers had repeatedly forbidden it.

This is why the land was ruined. The King of kings does not make war on his own people unless they have turned treacherously from him and rebelled, making it necessary to punish them and bring them back to loyalty. In time, they themselves would admit that he was right in all that came upon them.

Now comes the sentence on these convicted rebels, and it must be carried out because it is righteous and cannot be stopped. The Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, has spoken it (Jeremiah 9:15-16), and who can undo it? Their comforts at home will become bitter to them. “I will feed this people with wormwood” means I will give them what is bitter and harmful, and “I will give them water of gall to drink” means their very food and drink will turn into pain and poison. Everything around them will be filled with fear and anguish. God will curse what once seemed to bless them (Malachi 2:2).

Their scattering among the nations will also be their ruin (Jeremiah 9:16). They were corrupted by close contact with the nations around them, and now they will lose themselves among those same nations. They had taken up gods that neither they nor their fathers had known, strange gods and new gods (Deuteronomy 32:17). Now God will put them among neighbors whom neither they nor their fathers know, people they cannot claim any bond with and from whom they can expect no kindness. Even if they are scattered so far apart that they cannot find one another, God will still know where each one is (Psalm 21:8). He will send the sword after them, meaning one deadly judgment after another, until they are destroyed. When God judges, he wins. When he pursues, he catches up.

So the reason for the land’s destruction is clear: it is the due result of their own deeds and the fulfillment of God’s word. Then the prophet calls for the mourning women and uses their skill at lament to stir the people’s emotions and make them feel the sorrow of what has come, or is coming, on them (Jeremiah 9:17). The Lord of hosts himself says, “Call for the mourning women, that they may come.” This shows how dreadful and sorrowful the condition of the people was becoming.

There is work here for professional mourners. He calls for skilled women who know how to compose funeral songs, or at least sing them in sad tones, and who were often hired to fill in where true grief was lacking. “Let them raise a wailing for us” (Jeremiah 9:18). Deaths and funerals were so many that people had already wept until they could no longer weep, as in 1 Samuel 30:4. So let those whose trade it is do the crying now. Or, even more, this exposes the people’s deep dullness and hard-heartedness. They did not feel the judgments they were under, and even with so much bloodshed, they could not bring themselves to shed a tear. They do not cry out when God binds them (Job 36:13).

God sent his mourning prophets to call them to weep and grieve, but the word in their mouths did not move their faith. So, since they would rather go laughing to their ruin, let the mourning women come and work on their feelings. In the end, sinners will have to weep, one way or another.

Here is work for the truly sorrowful. There is cause for lamentation, because the whole scene is tragic (Jeremiah 9:19). A voice of wailing is heard from Zion. Some take this as the song of the mourning women, but it is better understood as the answer of those whose hearts were stirred by their cries. In Zion, the voice of joy and praise used to be heard when the people stayed close to God. But sin has changed the sound, and now it is the voice of grief.

It seems to be the cry of those who fled from all parts of the land to the stronghold of Zion for safety. Instead of rejoicing that they had escaped there, they lamented that they had been forced to seek shelter. They said, “How we are ruined! How we are stripped of everything! We are ashamed and confused by our poverty.” They were ashamed of their losses, but not of their sin. They mourned that they had been driven from the land, not that they had forsaken the Lord and followed their own desires. In this way, hard hearts grieve over trouble, but not over the wickedness that caused it.

There is still more to come that will call for mourning. Things are bad now, but they will get worse. Those whose land has driven them out, as it once drove out the Canaanites rightly because of their sin (Leviticus 18:28), complain that they have been forced into the city. But after a little while, the people in the city, along with them, will be driven out too. Yet hear the word of the Lord, because he has more to say to you (Jeremiah 9:20). Let the women listen, because tender hearts are more ready to feel grief and fear. The men will not pay attention, but the prophets will gladly preach to a gathering of women who tremble at God’s word. Let your ear receive the word from God’s mouth and welcome it, even if it is a word of terror.

Let the women teach their daughters to mourn. This shows that the trouble will last, and grief will pass down to the next generation. Young people are naturally drawn to joy and lightness, but older women should teach the younger ones to be serious. They should tell them that this world is a valley of tears and train them among the mourners in Zion (Titus 2:4-5). Let each woman teach her neighbor lamentation. This shows that the trouble will spread far, from house to house. People will not need to feel sorry for their friends, because everyone will have enough cause to mourn for themselves.

Those who truly feel the terror of the Lord should try to stir that same fear in others. The threatened judgment is made to look dreadful. Many will be slain (Jeremiah 9:21). Death will ride in triumph, and no one will escape when he comes with his commission. He will not be kept out by locked doors, because he comes up through the windows, like a thief in the night. He will also enter the palaces of princes and great men, no matter how grand, strong, or well guarded they are. No palace can keep out death. Those outside are no safer. Death will cut off even the children in the streets and the young men walking there.

The children might have been spared out of pity, since they had done no harm. The young men might have been spared for practical reasons, since they could still be useful. But both will fall by the sword together. In our own day, even the harshest wars usually spare those who are not armed. But then, even boys and girls playing in the streets were given over to the conqueror’s fury.

Those who are slain will also be left unburied (Jeremiah 9:22). The Lord says this to confirm and strengthen what was already said: even the bodies of men will fall like dung, neglected and left to stink like dung does. Common human decency requires survivors to bury the dead, even for their own sake. But here the dead will be so many, and spread so widely across the land, that it will be impossible to bury them all. There will not be enough hands, and the conquerors will not allow it. Even those who should do it will be so crushed with sorrow that they will have no heart for it.

Even the bodies of the fairest and strongest, after lying for a time, become dung, for such weak bodies we have. Here so many will fall that their bodies will lie thick in the furrows of the field, like heaps of dung. No one will pay them any more attention than a harvester pays to the handfuls he leaves for gleaners, because none will gather them up. They will remain in sight as monuments of God’s judgment, so that the eyes of the stubborn survivors may touch their hearts. “Do not slay them, do not bury them, so that my people may not forget” (Psalm 59:11).