JEREMIAH
CHAPTER 7
If Jerusalem repent she shall be preserved—The temple has become a den of robbers—The Lord rejects that generation of Jews for their idolatries—They offer their children in sacrifices.
2 Stand in the gate of the LORD’s house, [ The temple. ] and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the LORD, all ye of Judah, that enter in at these gates to worship the LORD.
[ This discourse is given at the temple. Why? Maybe the Lord feels that in front of the temple(a place that is sacred and holy, one designed to remind them of God) the people will be a little more attentive. ]
3 Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, [ Or the God of the covenant people. Israel was the covenant name given to Jacob. ] Amend your ways and your doings, [ If you will make the changes necessary. ] and I will cause you to dwell in this place.
[ You can remain in Jerusalem. ]
4 Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, are these. [ So it is repeated 3 times suggesting that it is the highest decree that you can have. So what we have going on is the false priests are telling the people that they are the chosen people, that God loves them, and if you don;t believe us look to the temple. If God did not love you as a people he would destroy the temple. This is the logic they are employing. It is kind of like no matter what you do you are the chosen people. So they people are convinced that they are okay because the temple is still standing. This instruction is opposite what God is trying to tell them here through Jeremiah his prophet. ]
5 For if ye throughly amend your ways and your doings; if ye throughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbour;
6 If ye oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your hurt:
[ Your spiritual depreament. There are many things in the gospel of which we have not been taught at this point. So when you are reading a book that is talking about things that the prophets have not talked about then you better check yourself. For example the per-earth life, the prophet told us while working on the Temple Endowment Movie that no prophet has ever seen the pre-existence, so we will not speculate. That is why those screens are now blank when they used to show God on the steps in the pre-mortal world. ]
7 Then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, [ Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The war that is going on in the middle east right now, that land does not belong to the Jews(only) and it doesn't belong to the Arabs(only) either. Neither one of them get that land that land as it belongs to Covenant Israel. The day will come when our missionaries will walk those streets we will teach both of those groups, and those who accept and come into the fold become Covenant Israel. The righteous Seed of Abraham and they are the one's who will get the land. ] for ever and ever. [ To live there in the promised land you must be righteous. ]
8 ¶ Behold, ye trust in lying words, [ Or false prophets. ] that cannot profit.
[ Their words cannot save you. ]
9 Will ye steal, [ Suggesting that they are doing this already. ] murder, [ Suggesting that they are doing this already. ] and commit adultery, a [ Suggesting yes they are. ] and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, [ Baal is the strom God or the creator God, he is the false god that's there to replace the great Jehovah. ] and walk after other gods whom ye know not;
10 And come and stand before me in this house, [ The temple. ] which is called by my name, [ The House Of The Lord. ] and say, We are delivered to do all these abominations?
11 Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? [ So what God is saying here is that you guys go out and steal, murder, and commit adultery and do everthing else that you want to do. Then you come to the temple and worship as if nothing is wrong, and then you justify it because you are in God's house and he would destroy it if you were doing something wrong. Wow how do they get there? Do we do that at all today? How? ] Behold, even I have seen it, saith the LORD.
[ Then God offers up his own testimony that yes you have and you know it and I know it. ]
12 But go ye now unto my place which was in Shiloh, [ Or the place where the portable tabernacle of Moses was errected. ] where I set my name at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel. [ The days of Eli when the temple was destroyed. Eli was the custodian and his two wicked sons were the custodians. What happened to the Ark of the Covenant and that Temple? The Philistines destroyed the temple by burning it down, they destroyed it and they took the Ark of the Covenant. Eli was so upset when he heard the news(at 90 years old), that he fell over backwards and broke his neck. Eli thought that he had lost his soul forever because he did not correct his wicked boys. (1 Samuel 4) So God is telling them that if you think that the temple is going to save you then you need to take a journey up to Shiloh where you can have a lesson in history, because you have forgotten that I destroyed that temple by the hands of the Philistines. All due to the wickedness there and this temple will not save you either. ]
13 And now, because ye have done all these works, saith the LORD, and I spake unto you, rising up early [ Up early suggesting that they are being diligent in their efforts to proclaim the truth. ] and speaking, but ye heard not; and I called you, [ Through the authorized priesthood holders is the same as a call from God himself. If you recall one of these prophets was Lehi as well. ] but ye answered not;
14 Therefore will I do unto this house, which is called by my name, wherein ye trust, and unto the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh. [ Where I allowed the Philistines to destroy the temple. Thus removing the temple from their midst. This is the warning to them. ]
15 And I will cast you out of my sight, as I have cast out all your brethren, even the whole seed of Ephraim. [ Which is one of the names for the northern kingdom as it was called: Northern Kingdom, Israel or Ephraim as it had three titles. So therefore at this point they have become known as the lost tribes of Israel. They have been removed from the promised land. Where the Lord put them we do not know. Assyria took them captive in the days of of the Assyrian Kings and then somehow with the help of prophets they escaped Assyria they headed back towards their own land and when they knew they had lost the Assyrians they turned North again and become lost. But not lost to the Lord. One would think that it should not have been very hard to track thousands upon thousands of people. They should have been able to follow them pretty easy. However; there was a great miracle that took place whereby Assyria could no longer find them and they didn't know where they went and they are still lost today. ]
16 Therefore pray not thou for this people, [ The tribe of Ephraim as they were known - along with the others. ] neither lift up cry nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to me: for I will not hear thee. [ Don't pray for them because they are where they are because of their wickedness and selfishness, so leave it alone. Just like Mormon was told to not teach the people anymore because they will not listen (Mormon 1:16) ]
17 ¶ Seest thou [ So the Lord says Hey Jeremiah look don;t you see what the people are doing? This is not something that they are hiding, they are doing it right out in the open as he references the streets. It is in full view. ] not what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?
18 The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, [ The Jews started to worship the Queen of Heaven or "Heavenly Mother" this is a big part of what lead to their destruction.(Jer. 44:17) This represents some kind of worship in Egypt that is going one here. So here we are given the actions of everyone in the family suggesting that the entire family is involved in idolatrous worship. So in a way this means that there is no real reason for God to send more spirit children to families like this as they will just become corrupted. The same thing happened in the days of Noah. So sometimes God has to do harsh things. To God death is a small matter, it is akind to moving a person from one classroom is school to another one. ] and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger.
19 Do they provoke me to anger? saith the LORD: do they not provoke themselves to the confusion of their own faces?
20 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, mine anger and my fury shall be poured out upon this place, upon man, and upon beast, and upon the trees of the field, and upon the fruit of the ground; and it shall burn, and shall not be quenched.
21 ¶ Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Put your burnt offerings unto your sacrifices, and eat flesh.
22 For I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices:
23 But this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people: and walk ye in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well unto you.
24 But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, but walked in the counsels and in the imagination of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward.
25 Since the day that your fathers came forth out of the land of Egypt unto this day I have even sent unto you all my servants the prophets, [ oVer the past hundreds of years I have blessed you with prophets, from Moses until now. ] daily rising up early and sending them:
26 Yet they hearkened not unto me, nor inclined their ear, but hardened their neck: [ Pride. A person who is full of pride is unteachable. ] they did worse than their fathers.
27 Therefore thou shalt speak all these words unto them; but they will not hearken to thee: thou shalt also call unto them; but they will not answer thee.
28 But thou shalt say unto them, This is a nation that obeyeth not the voice of the LORD their God, nor receiveth correction: truth is perished, and is cut off from their mouth.
29 ¶ Cut off thine hair, O Jerusalem, and cast it away, and take up a lamentation on high places; for the LORD hath rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath.
30 For the children of Judah have done evil in my sight, saith the LORD: they have set their abominations in the house which is called by my name, [ The temple. ] to pollute it. [ 2 Kings 21:4,7 Where they put idols in the temple. ]
31 And they have built the high places of Tophet, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, [ At the south edge of the Kidron valley are some steep cliffs called the Hinnom. They are very steep and what the people would do is that they would build hugh fires at the base of the cliffs and then the parents would push their children off of the cliffs into the fire. They are worshipping the God Moloch, a Canaanite deity associated in biblical sources with the practice of child sacrifice. The name derives from combining the consonants of the Hebrew melech (“king”)(Satan does not miss a beat does he, every time he can make something similar to the way God sets things up he does about the same thing. ) with the vowels of boshet (“shame”), the latter often being used in the Old Testament as a variant name for the popular god Baal (“Lord”). The Assyrians, are reported to have worshipped Moloch at the hilled site of Topheth, outside the walls of Jerusalem. This site flourished under Manasseh’s son King Amon but was destroyed during the reign of Josiah, the reformer. ] to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; [ Now we get to the climax of their sins. (Jer. 19:4-6) So in the book Of Mormon when we are told that Laman and Lemuel were like the people of Jerusalem we get an idea from these verse here how bad they were.(Jacob 2:25) ] which I commanded them not, neither came it into my heart.
32 ¶ Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that it shall no more be called Tophet, nor the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of slaughter: [ Because they were killing so many of the little children through sacrifice there. ] for they shall bury in Tophet, till there be no place.