Jeremiah 7:4

7:1-16 No observances, professions, or supposed revelations, will profit, if men do not amend their ways and their doings. None can claim an interest in free salvation, who allow themselves in the practice of known sin, or live in the neglect of known duty. They thought that the temple they profaned would be their protection. But all who continue in sin because grace has abounded, or that grace may abound, make Christ the minister of sin; and the cross of Christ, rightly understood, forms the most effectual remedy to such poisonous sentiments. The Son of God gave himself for our transgressions, to show the excellence of the Divine law, and the evil of sin. Never let us think we may do wickedness without suffering for it.

Trust ye not in lying words,.... In the words of the lying prophets, as the Targum; and to the same purpose is the Arabic version, "do not trust in lying words, for the false prophets do not profit you in anything;'' the things in which they trusted, and in which the false prophets taught them to place their confidence, were their coming up to the temple at certain times for religious exercises, and their attendance on temple service and worship, offering of sacrifices, and the like.

The Septuagint version is, "trust not in yourselves, in lying words"; see Luke 18:9, in their external actions of devotion, in their ritual performances, taking them for righteousness; and adds, what is not in the Hebrew text, "for they altogether profit you not"; in the business of justification before God, and acceptance with him: saying, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, are these; that is, the people that hypocritically worshipped there, as the false prophets told them; and so the Syriac version, "ye are the temple of the Lord"; though that begins the next verse, with the last clause of this, if ye amend your ways, &c. see 1 Corinthians 3:16 or rather the temple of the Lord are those gates through which they entered, Jeremiah 7:2 or those buildings which were pointed at with the finger; or "these", is a clause by itself; and the sense is, these are the lying words that should not be trusted in, namely, the temple and temple services; when all manner of sin and wickedness were committed by them, which they thought to atone for by coming to the temple and worshipping there.

Jeremiah 7:4 . Trust ye not in lying words — Do not flatter yourselves with an opinion that you can be safe and happy on any other terms than those which God points out. Saying, The temple of the Lord, &c., are these — As much as to say, God hath placed his name here, Jeremiah 7:10 , and chose these stately buildings as the place of his peculiar residence, and what reason is there to believe that he will ever forsake it, and give it up to be destroyed by strangers and idolaters? Thus, Jeremiah 18:18 , they express their confidence that the law would not perish from the priests, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. And Micah 3:11 , they are said to lean on the Lord, saying, Is not the Lord among us? No evil can come upon us. These were the lying words on which they trusted, and against trusting in which the prophet here solemnly cautions them. The Targum intimates that the reason of the three-fold repetition of the words, The temple of the Lord, was, because every Jew was obliged to visit the temple thrice a year. But it seems more likely that they are thus repeated, to express the confident and reiterated boasts of the temple, which were in the people’s mouths, and their extreme vehemence and unreasonable presumption.

Verse 4. - The temple of the Lord . Notice the iteration of the phrase, as if its very sound were a charm against evil. It reminds us of the performances of the howling dervishes at Cairo, who "sometimes remain for hours, incessantly shouting the Muslim confession of faith ( la ilaha , etc.)" (Dr. Ebers, in Badeker's 'Egypt,' p. 150). The phrase is repeated three times to express earnestness of the speakers (comp. Jeremiah 22:29 , "O earth, earth, earth"). These false prophets evidently retained a large amount of the old materialistic faith of the Semitic nations (to whom the Israelites belonged by race), which localized the presence and the power of the divinity. The temple was, in fact, their palladium, and as long as it stood, the national independence appeared to them to be secured. They faithfully handed on the teaching of those prophets of the last generation, who, as Micah tells us ( Micah 3:11 ), were wont to "lean upon the Lord, and say, Is not the Lord among us? none evil can come upon us." How Isaiah met this error we may collect from Isaiah 28:16 (see my Commentary). Are these ; i . e . these buildings (comp. 2 Chronicles 8:11 , where for "the places" the Hebrew has "these"). Jeremiah 7:4

4 . lying words ] those of the false prophets, who maintained that the possession of the Temple was enough. Jehovah would never suffer it to be overthrown, and thus its presence would be a kind of charm or fetish. They doubtless relied on such passages as Isaiah 37:22 ff., with the signal overthrow of Assyria that followed, as well as on the sentiment produced by the centralisation of worship at Jerusalem under Josiah. The temple of the Lord ] Cp. for the threefold repetition Jeremiah 22:29 ; Isaiah 6:3 . Here it seems intended as a charm. Cp. 1 Kings 18:26 as illustrated by Mussulman Dervishes at the present day. See Stanley, f. Ch . II. 254, 438. these ] the buildings of the Temple.

Trust ye not in {a} lying words, saying, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, are these. (a) Believe not the false prophets, who say that for the temple's sake, and the sacrifices there the Lord will preserve you, and so nourish you in your sin, and vain confidence.

(4) Trust ye not in lying words . . . —The emphatic threefold repetition of the words thus condemned, “The temple of the Lord,” points to its having been the burden of the discourses of the false prophets, possibly to the solemn iteration of the words in the litanies of the supplicants. With no thought of the Divine Presence of which it was the symbol, they were ever harping on its greatness, identifying themselves and the people with that greatness, and predicting its perpetuity. So in Matthew 24:1 the disciples of our Lord point, as with a national pride, to the buildings of the later Temple. The plural “these” is used rather than the singular, as representing the whole complete fabric of courts and porticoes. The higher truth that the “congregation” of Israel was the living Temple ( 1Corinthians 3:16 ; 1Peter 2:5 ), was not likely to be in the thoughts of those whom Jeremiah rebuked.

The temple of the Lord - Thrice repeated, to emphasize the rejection of the cry ever upon the lips of the false prophets. In their view the maintenance of the temple-service was a charm sufficient to avert all evil. These - The buildings of the temple, to which Jeremiah is supposed to point. The Jews put their trust in the material buildings.

Because this was God’s house, wherein he had promised to dwell, and that for ever, Psalm 132:13,14 , they flattered themselves that he could dwell no where else, and would not depart, and certainly would not suffer the Chaldeans to destroy this, and therefore that no evil could befall them, as they promised themselves, Micah 3:11 ; therefore the prophet cautions them not to deceive themselves in trusting to the temple and its buildings, as the two courts, and house, and holy of holies, implied in the word these, which he doth as it were point to with his finger; (for where the prophets speak distinctly of the form of the temple, they reckon the court, where the people did sacrifice, and the holy place, or house, whereinto the priests only did enter, and the oracle, or holy of holies, wherein was the ark of the covenant, and into which only the high priest entered, and that but once a year;) which these hypocrites looked upon themselves secured by, as it were, by a treble wall, fort, or bulwark, that they could not miscarry; but he would have them to know that neither these, nor the services belonging to them, will be able to secure them, Jeremiah 7:8 Jeremiah 4:14 ; and it is likely their false prophets did thus persuade them, whose prophecies he calls here these lying words; but God will have them know that he doth not choose a nation for the place’s sake, but the place for the nation’s sake; the like caution the apostle gives them, 1 Corinthians 10:2 , &c.

The emphasis that may be in this threefold repetition seems rather to relate to the confident and often reiterated brags and boasts of the temple that were in their mouths, than the worth and excellency of it, in regard of God’s owning it. These; the prophet, standing in the gate at which the people entered, doth as it were point at the several buildings appertaining to the temple, viz. the courts, house, oracle, &c.

4. The Jews falsely thought that because their temple had been chosen by Jehovah as His peculiar dwelling, it could never be destroyed. Men think that ceremonial observances will supersede the need of holiness (Isa 48:2; Mic 3:11). The triple repetition of "the temple of Jehovah" expresses the intense confidence of the Jews (see Jer 22:29; Isa 6:3). these—the temple buildings which the prophet points to with his finger (Jer 7:2).