Jeremiah 12:1 - Meaning and Application

The prophet knows it will help others to hear what passed between God and his soul. He wants them to know what temptations attacked him, and how he made it through them. So he tells us, first, how he humbly took the freedom to reason with God about his judgments, in Jeremiah 12:1.

He is not trying to quarrel with God or criticize his ways. He wants to understand what God is doing, so he can better accept it and answer objections, both his own and other people’s. Even those who delight in God’s works still seek out the reasons for them (Psalm 111:2). We must not argue against our Maker, but we may reason with him.

The prophet begins with a truth that cannot be doubted, and he holds to it as he wrestles with this matter: “Righteous are you, Lord, when I bring my case before you.” He steadies himself against the temptation to envy the success of the wicked before he talks it through with God. When God’s ways are hard to understand, we must still keep firm thoughts about him. We can be sure he never does the least wrong to any of his creatures.

Even when his judgments are too deep to trace, his righteousness stands as firmly as the great mountains, and it is as plain and sure as can be (Psalm 36:6). Though clouds and darkness are around him at times, justice and righteousness always belong to his throne (Psalm 97:2). When a special event in providence is hard to explain, we must go back to these general truths as our foundation. However dark the providence may seem, the Lord is righteous, as Psalm 73:1 says.

We should say this to God himself, as Jeremiah does here, even while we bring our questions. We do not come to fight with him, but to learn from him, fully sure that he will be proved right when he speaks. So even when we have reason to bring a case before God, we must still confess that whatever he says or does is right.

The thing that troubled the prophet was something that has troubled many wise and good people. He saw wicked people succeeding. Their evil plans went well, and they reached their goals. Their outward lives looked prosperous and secure, even though they acted treacherously, both toward God and toward people. He especially means hypocrites here, as Jeremiah 12:2 shows, people who pretended to be faithful, then turned away from their good beginnings and promises.

God had been very kind to them, and they had gotten ahead in the world. They were planted in a good land, a land flowing with milk and honey, and God himself had planted them there. In fact, he had driven out the nations to make room for them (Psalm 44:2; Psalm 80:8). Many trees are planted and never thrive, but these had taken root. Their success seemed settled and fixed.

They took root in the earth, because they fixed their hope there and drew all their satisfaction from it. Many trees take root and still never bear fruit, but these did grow and produce fruit. Their families were established, they lived in luxury, and spent freely. All this came from the kindness of God’s providence, which seemed to smile on them (Psalm 73:7).

Yet God had favored them even though they had been false to him. He was near in their mouths and far from their hearts. This was not a careless accusation, because Jeremiah spoke by the Spirit of prophecy. Without that, it is not safe to charge people with hypocrisy when their outward behavior looks convincing.

Notice two things. First, though they did not really care about God and had no true love for him, they could still speak of him often and sound serious. Outward religion is easy enough. Many people speak the language of Israel, though they are not true Israelites. Second, though they kept God’s name on their lips and used religious phrases, they could not keep the fear of God in their hearts. The outward form of godliness should lead us to its inward power, but it did not do that for them.

Then the prophet turns to the comfort he found in appealing to God about his own integrity: “But you, Lord, know me” (Jeremiah 12:3). The wicked people he was talking about likely mocked and judged him, as in Jeremiah 18:18. In response, he finds comfort in the fact that God is a witness to his honesty. God knew he was not like them, with God only near their mouths and far from their hearts. He was not what they claimed he was, a deceiver and a false prophet. Those who wrongly abused him did not truly know him (1 Corinthians 2:8).

He appeals to God on one main point, his heart toward God. We are what our hearts are, and our hearts are good or bad depending on whether they are truly for God. That is why we must examine ourselves at this point, so we can approve ourselves before God. He also appeals to God’s full knowledge of him. God knows him better than he knows himself, not by report, but by direct sight. God has tested his heart closely.

God’s knowledge of us is exact, clear, and certain, as if he had made the most careful examination. The Lord knows perfectly how our hearts are toward him. He sees both the trickery of the hypocrite and the sincerity of the upright.

Finally, Jeremiah asks God to turn his hand against these wicked people and not let them keep prospering forever, though they had prospered for a long time. He asks for judgment to pull them out of that rich pasture like sheep for slaughter, so it will be clear that their long success was only like feeding lambs in a wide place, preparing them for the day of slaughter (Hosea 4:16).

God allowed them to keep prospering so that their pride and comfort would fill up the measure of their sin. In the end, that would make them ready for destruction. For that reason, Jeremiah sees it as only right that they should fall into trouble themselves, since they had caused so much trouble to others. They had ruined the land, so they should be driven out of it. The longer they stayed, the more harm they did, like a plague in their own generation (Jeremiah 12:4).

Jeremiah asks, “How long will the land mourn” under God’s judgments? He means the land is suffering because of the wicked people living there. “Will those prosper who destroy everything around them?” That is his cry. Here we see the judgment already falling: the plants in every field wither, the grass burns up, and the land produces nothing. Then the animals die, and the birds suffer too (1 Kings 18:5). This came from a long drought, or lack of rain, that seems to have happened near the end of Josiah’s reign and the start of Jehoiakim’s. Jeremiah mentions it several times (Jeremiah 3:3; 8:13; 9:10, 12), and he speaks of it more fully later in chapter 14.

If this lighter judgment had brought them to repentance, the greater one might have been kept away. Why was this fertile land turned into barren ground? It was because of the wickedness of the people living in it (Psalm 107:34). So the prophet asks that these sinful people might die for their own guilt, and that the whole nation would not have to suffer for them.

Jeremiah also reports the language of their evil hearts: “He will not see our last end.” They may have meant one of three things. They may have meant that God would not see their end, as if he did not know what they were doing or where it would lead. That is practical atheism, because people may speak about God while living as if he were far away from their hearts (Psalm 73:11; Job 22:13). Or they may have meant that Jeremiah would not see their end, as if he were only making threats he could not prove. Or they may have meant, “He will not live to see it, because we will kill him” (Jeremiah 11:21).

This shows a hard truth. When people set their final account far away, or treat it as uncertain, they become more open to sin (Lamentations 1:9). It is also true that all creation groans under the burden of human sin (Romans 8:22). In that sense, the earth mourns because of man’s wickedness. The ground is cursed for his sake.

Now God answers Jeremiah’s complaints in verses 5 and 6. Prophets had to learn from God as well as speak for him. Jeremiah had complained about the wickedness of the men of Anathoth, and about how they still prospered. God’s answer shows that Jeremiah had real cause to complain (Jeremiah 12:6).

God says that Jeremiah’s own relatives, the priests of Anathoth, who were from his father’s house, had treated him treacherously. They should have protected him, or at least acted as his friends. Instead, they secretly worked against him. They stirred up a crowd against him and tried by every possible means to make him look bad. All the while, they pretended they meant no harm. They were the sort of people you could not trust, even when they spoke kindly. God’s faithful servants should not think it strange when their enemies come from their own household (Matthew 10:36), or when those they expected kindness from prove unreliable (Micah 7:5).

Even so, Jeremiah is told that he had gone too far in his distress. He took the bad treatment from his countrymen too heavily. It wearied him because it happened in a peaceful land where he had felt safe (Jeremiah 12:5). It was bitter to be hated and abused by his own relatives. His spirit was shaken, and he was in deep distress. He was even becoming discouraged in his calling and began to think about giving up his work as a prophet.

He also did not realize that this was only the start of his sufferings. Worse troubles were still ahead. He should have used this early pain to prepare for greater hardship. Instead, his trouble with the men of Anathoth made him less ready for what was coming. If running with foot soldiers has worn you out, how will you keep up with horses? If the attacks from the men of Anathoth shook him this much, what would he do when the princes and chief priests in Jerusalem came against him with their full power later on (Jeremiah 20:2; 32:2)? If he was already tired in a land of peace, where there was little danger, what would he do in the “swelling of Jordan,” when the river overflowed and even lions were driven out of their hiding places (Jeremiah 49:19)?

The lesson is plain. In this world we must expect trouble. Life is a race and a battle, and we may be pressed hard. God often begins with smaller trials, so it is wise to expect greater ones later. We may yet be called to face horsemen, and even the sons of Anak, the giant people of old, may be reserved for the final test. So we must prepare ourselves now. We should think ahead and ask how we will keep our integrity and peace when the harder trials come.

The way to prepare is to do well in the smaller trials we already have. We must keep our courage, hold on to the promise, stay on our path, and keep our eyes on the prize. We must run so that we may receive it. Some good interpreters take these words as addressed to the people, who were very safe and fearless despite the coming judgments. If they had already been humbled and weakened by lesser troubles, if the Assyrians had already worn them down, and if the Ammonites and Moabites, their allies and kinsmen, would prove false to them, then how would they stand against such a strong enemy as the Chaldeans? How would they endure an invasion that would come like the rising flood of Jordan?