JEREMIAH 2:19

Our pastor recently gave one of his usual excellent sermons. His interesting, and valid, point was that when a person rejects the reality of God then he is also rejecting his own status as being made in God's image. That only leaves that person as a mere product of accidental and irrational forces of nature with no inherent value and no true free will. This is the predicament of any atheist or scientific rationalist, even though you will seldom get them to admit it, as I have learned. 

As much as I was edified by that sermon, I must admit to having a problem with the pastor's interpretation of his proof text from Jeremiah. Here is how that passage reads in the NIV:

    “Your wickedness will punish you;

    your backsliding will rebuke you.

    Consider then and realize

    how evil and bitter it is for you

    when you forsake the LORD your God

    and have no awe of me,”

    declares the Lord, the LORD Almighty.”

According to the pertinent underlined words above, I can see how the idea would arise that committing wickedness against God (by denying His awe-inspiring existence) will actually boomerang against the ones who deny so as to deprive them of any special significance themselves. Although one could choose literally hundreds of Bible passage that illustrate that truth, there are a few problems with the particular text that our pastor chose.

The first difficulaty is that almost all translations other than the NIV are unanimous in rendering the key phrases in an entirely different fashion. Thus:

    “...it is evil and bitter for you to forsake...” (RSV, NRSV)

    “...it is an evil thing and bitter, that thou hast forsaken...” (KJV)

    “...how bitter a thing it is and how evil, to forsake...” (NEB)

    “...you will learn how bitter and wrong it is to abandon...” (TEV)

    “...consider carefully how evil and bitter it is for you to abandon...” (JB)

    “...you will see what an evil, bitter thing it is to rebel...” (Living Bible)

    “...so consider and see how bitterly evil it is to have left...” (AB)

Thus, the specific evil is not that which backsliders will receive, but instead describes the sin they have committed against God.

The second issue concerns the audience for God's words as given through the prophet Jeremiah. The Hebrew form of “you” which He refers to in this whole passage is in the feminine plural, and thus, as commentators more learned than I am (J. Bright, to name just one) agree that this must refer to the nation of Israel as a whole, not individuals.

Lastly, although there is an implied consequence to the action of denying or ignoring God, it is not at all the type of consequence that our pastor was talking about.

    “It was Judah's sin and her apostasy that brought troubles upon her. In a sense neither Egypt nor Assyria was responsible for the coming disasters. They were but agents of Yahweh, who had decreed their invasions as a judgment for the nation's sin.” (J. A. Thompson)

    “...the irony of judgment whereby the people blindly bring upon themselves their own punishment...is exemplified in Israel's history and will surely happen again.” (D. R. Jones)

    Cawley and Millard state that the context of the passage is the nation of Israel being punished by Egypt and Assyria.

    “The evil that Judah has done will instruct / chastise them.” (Dearman)

    “God's people could blame no one but themselves for the disasters that had overtaken them.” (Chisholm)

    “The basic content of these chapters [Jeremiah 1-25] is judgment on Judah and Jerusalem.”

In conclusion, although it is permissible at times to particularize a specific biblical teaching concerning the nation of Israel as a whole to a lesson applicable to individuals, it must first be based on a thorough understanding of the specific text. And that requires (a) either a thorough understanding of the nuances of the original languages or consultation with several translations and commentators and (b) a consideration of the surrounding context of the passage.