Jeremiah 7

Jeremiah 7:1 . The word of the Lord, &c. — The date of this new sermon is not precisely marked, but it is probable it was delivered not long after the preceding one, and on the following occasion. “Besides the prophets who were commissioned to announce the approaching calamities of Judah and Jerusalem, there were others who took upon themselves to flatter the people with opposite predictions. They taught them to look upon such threats as groundless, since God, they said, would have too much regard to his own honour, to suffer his temple to be profaned, and the seat of his holiness to be given up into the hand of strangers. Jeremiah is therefore commanded openly to reprove the falsehood of these assertions, and to show, by an example in point, that the sanctity of the place would afford no security to the guilty; but that God would assuredly do by his house at Jerusalem what he had done unto Shiloh; and cast the people of Judah out of his sight as he had already cast off the people of Israel for their wickedness.” — Blaney.

Jeremiah 7:2. Stand in the gates of the Lord’s house — Namely, the east gate of the temple, which led directly to it, where he delivered this discourse, before all the people who entered there. And proclaim there this word — Proclaiming signifies both the authority by which he spake, and the divulging of what he spake plainly and boldly. And as it was in so public a place, namely, at the entrance of the court of the people, not of that of the priests, that he uttered this prophecy, so possibly it might be at one of the three feasts, when all the males from all parts of the country were to appear before the Lord in the courts of his house. In that case he would have many collected together to preach to, and that was the most seasonable time to admonish them not to trust in their privileges.

2 . the gate ] In Jeremiah 26:2 “the court” (perhaps the “new gate” of Jeremiah 36:10 ), probably between the inner and outer court, in the latter of which the crowd from city and country would assemble on a fast day or festival. The sympathy of numbers would naturally provoke the attack which followed ( Jeremiah 26:7 ff.).

Verse 2. - Stand in the gate ; i . e . not an outer gate (for the outer court would be filled with the people whom Jeremiah was to address), but one of the three gates which led from the inner court to the outer. Probably it was the gate where Baruch recited the prophecies of Jeremiah at a later period, and which is designated "the new gate of the Lord's house," and said to have been situated in the "upper" i . e . inner court ( Jeremiah 36:10 ; comp. Jeremiah 26:10 ). We may conjecture that either one of the three great festivals or some extraordinary fast had brought a large number of people together at the temple. Jeremiah 7:2