Jeremiah in This Prophecy Does

Jeremiah in this prophecy does something unusual. He is ordered by God to address the people in the gateway of the Temple and remind them of their need to repent. This is unprecedented for him. He has not had to seemingly belittle the Temple before. It has to be said in the correct context to make sure that the people of Judea and (tribes of Israel that had made it south) understand that by implication it can be destroyed and not protect them unless they repent.

Only then can they remain in the land. The northern kingdom had passed into history. The Temple was not some kind of good luck charm that they could rub and make the punishment just go away. The genre is that of the prophetic classification of literature in the Hebrew Bible. The work is stated as being composed by Jeremiah as dictated to his secretary Baruch.

The audience is the people of Judea to warn them that the price for their sins is exile and that the price for staying in the land to do penance and to return to the ways of the Torah before it is too late and while God was holding the opportunity open. Interpretation Because the Temple was still standing, the people did not believe that they would be exiled for their sins.

This is why Jeremiah is speaking as he is in the Temple gate so that everyone will understand this clearly. In the Me'am Lo'ez translation and commentary on the book of Jeremiah, Rabbi Shmuel Yerushalmi makes this point clear: The introduction to this prophecy is unlike any other uttered by Jeremiah…Jeremiah pronounced words regarding the Temple which appeared to belittle its worth.

& #8230;these words were to spoken from the gateway…the opportunity to repent and thus avoid expulsion from the land still remains open…However, should the chance be missed and Israel not improve its ways, exile will become inevitable. The theme is clear; the Temple alone would not protect them. The points it is teaching is that repentence would and that there was still time to do it to stay in the land.

Otherwise, by implication here and direct statement in later verses, they would suffer the exile promised in the Torah as punishment for violating their covenant with God. We see ourselves as the spiritual Israel. In our walk with God, we have many of the same temptations as the ancient Israelites and Judeans did. We have an agreement with God to live moral lives and to continue in the path carved out by the Jewish people as a light to all of the nations.

If the people of God do not live according to his law, this reflects badly upon how he is perceived by the public at large. As John H. Leith notes in the Basic Christian Doctrine commentary about Jeremiah 7:17: "Christian faith is very realistic…it knows both the fragility…and the limits of life…it is futile to vest one's final hope…even in the Temple of Zion." We must put our faith in the basis of.