The Wellspring of Wickedness Text: Jeremiah 6:1-8
Introduction: When the Rod Comes to Town
We live in an age that has forgotten what a covenant is. We think of our relationship with God as a sort of casual arrangement, a loose affiliation, something we can redefine on our own terms. We want the blessings of the covenant without the obligations, the promises without the warnings, the inheritance without the discipline. But the God of Scripture is a covenant-keeping God, which means He is a God who takes His own terms with absolute seriousness. And when His covenant people decide that the terms are optional, that the stipulations are mere suggestions, God does not shrug. He acts. He sends the rod.
Jeremiah’s ministry was to a people who had become experts in self-deception. They had the Temple, they had the sacrifices, they had the religious calendar. They had all the external furniture of faith, but the house itself was rotten to the foundation. They believed that their covenant status was a magical amulet that protected them from consequences. They thought that because they were God's chosen people, God was somehow stuck with them, no matter how much they dragged His name through the filth of their idolatry and oppression. Jeremiah was sent to disabuse them of this notion in the strongest possible terms.
What we have in this passage is a snapshot of covenant discipline on a national scale. It is a terrifying picture. God is not mocked; whatsoever a man, or a nation, sows, that shall he also reap. Judah had sown the wind, and they were about to reap the whirlwind. God was summoning a pagan nation from the north, the Babylonians, to be His instrument of chastisement. He was going to use the wicked to punish the wayward. This is a hard truth, but a necessary one. God is sovereign over all nations, and He will press whomever He pleases into His service, whether they know it or not. Nebuchadnezzar was God's servant, His rod, sent to discipline His rebellious son, Judah.
This is not just ancient history. The principles are perennial. When a people who have been blessed with the light of the gospel turn their backs on it, when they institutionalize their rebellion and call it progress, when they celebrate what God condemns, the warnings of the covenant do not simply expire. They ripen. And so we must read this not as detached observers of a long-ago tragedy, but as a people who need to examine themselves, lest we also be found ripe for judgment.
The Text
"Flee for safety, O sons of Benjamin, From the midst of Jerusalem! Now blow a trumpet in Tekoa And raise a signal over Beth-haccerem, For evil looks down from the north, As well as great destruction. The comely and delicate one, the daughter of Zion, I will ruin. Shepherds and their flocks will come to her; They will pitch their tents around her; They will pasture each in his place. Set yourselves apart for war against her; Arise, and let us go up at noon. Woe to us, for the day declines, For the shadows of the evening stretch out! Arise, and let us go up by night And destroy her palaces!” For thus says Yahweh of hosts, “Cut down her trees And cast up a siege against Jerusalem. This is the city to be punished, In whose midst there is only oppression. Like a well keeps its waters fresh, So she keeps fresh her evil. Violence and devastation are heard in her; Sickness and wounds are continually before Me. Heed discipline, O Jerusalem, Lest My soul become disgusted at you, Lest I make you a desolation, A land not inhabited."
(Jeremiah 6:1-8 LSB)
The Alarm and the Ruin (vv. 1-2)
The passage opens with a frantic alarm. The enemy is not just on the horizon; he is peering over the northern hills.
"Flee for safety, O sons of Benjamin, From the midst of Jerusalem! Now blow a trumpet in Tekoa And raise a signal over Beth-haccerem, For evil looks down from the north, As well as great destruction. The comely and delicate one, the daughter of Zion, I will ruin." (Jeremiah 6:1-2)
The warning is specific. The sons of Benjamin, whose tribal territory included Jerusalem, are told to run for their lives. The trumpet, the shofar, is to be blown in Tekoa, a town south of Jerusalem. A signal fire is to be lit over Beth-haccerem, another strategic height. These are the ancient world's air-raid sirens. The threat is imminent, it is from the north, the direction from which invaders like Assyria and Babylon always came, and it is described as "evil" and "great destruction." But we must be clear. This "evil" is not some rogue force that has slipped God's notice. It is a calamity, a disaster, that God Himself is bringing.
And who is the target? "The comely and delicate one, the daughter of Zion." This is a term of endearment, now dripping with tragic irony. "Daughter of Zion" refers to the covenant people, the inhabitants of Jerusalem. They saw themselves as beautiful, refined, privileged, and untouchable. They were God's chosen, after all. But God says, this delicate one, this pampered daughter, "I will ruin." God is taking direct responsibility. This is not an accident. This is a deliberate, divine act of judgment. Their covenant privilege did not grant them immunity; it heightened their responsibility. Because they were the daughter of Zion, their sin was all the more treacherous, and the discipline would be all the more severe. Judgment begins at the house of God.
The Shepherds of Destruction (vv. 3-5)
Next, the invaders are described with a pastoral metaphor that is turned on its head.
"Shepherds and their flocks will come to her; They will pitch their tents around her; They will pasture each in his place. Set yourselves apart for war against her; Arise, and let us go up at noon. Woe to us, for the day declines, For the shadows of the evening stretch out! Arise, and let us go up by night And destroy her palaces!" (Jeremiah 6:3-5 LSB)
Who are these shepherds? They are the Babylonian commanders, and their flocks are their ravenous armies. This is a picture of a total military occupation. They are not just passing through; they will pitch their tents, settle in, and devour the land as a flock of sheep devours a pasture, stripping it bare. Each commander has his assigned sector, his "place," to consume. This is organized, methodical destruction.
Then the perspective shifts, and we hear the war cries of the invaders themselves. "Set yourselves apart for war against her." The Hebrew for "set apart" is the word for consecration. This is a holy war, a jihad, but it is Yahweh's holy war against His own people. The invaders are His consecrated instruments. Their eagerness is palpable. They want to attack "at noon," at the height of the day, showing their confidence and contempt for Jerusalem's defenses. But then a note of urgency, "Woe to us, for the day declines." They are so eager for the plunder that they lament the setting sun. But it doesn't stop them. Their bloodlust is so great that they resolve to continue the assault by night. They will not rest until her palaces, the symbols of her wealth and pride, are destroyed. This is a picture of relentless, divinely-commissioned fury.
The City to be Punished (vv. 6-7)
Yahweh then gives the reason for this terrible sentence. The city is morally bankrupt.
"For thus says Yahweh of hosts, 'Cut down her trees And cast up a siege against Jerusalem. This is the city to be punished, In whose midst there is only oppression. Like a well keeps its waters fresh, So she keeps fresh her evil. Violence and devastation are heard in her; Sickness and wounds are continually before Me.'" (Jeremiah 6:6-7 LSB)
God Himself gives the command to the Babylonians: "Cut down her trees and cast up a siege." He is the commanding general of the opposing army. Why? Because Jerusalem is "the city to be punished." The Hebrew is emphatic; this is its identity now. It is a city whose defining characteristic is its ripeness for judgment. And the central charge is "oppression." The covenant required justice, care for the poor, and righteousness between neighbors. But Jerusalem was filled with the opposite. The powerful exploited the weak, and there was no recourse.
The next line is one of the most striking metaphors for sin in all of Scripture. "Like a well keeps its waters fresh, So she keeps fresh her evil." A well doesn't have to work to produce water; it is its nature to do so. The water bubbles up from a deep, inexhaustible source. So it was with Jerusalem's sin. Her wickedness was not a series of isolated mistakes; it was an artesian spring. It gushed up from the corporate heart of the city, constantly, naturally, and without effort. This is a picture of total depravity on a civic scale. The unregenerate heart, as Jeremiah would say later, is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked (Jer. 17:9). Here, we see what that looks like when an entire culture is defined by it. The result is a society filled with "violence and devastation," a city of sickness and open wounds, all of which are continually before the face of a holy God.
The Final Gracious Warning (v. 8)
Even at this late hour, with the enemy at the gates, God extends one last call to repentance. This is the terrible goodness of God.
"Heed discipline, O Jerusalem, Lest My soul become disgusted at you, Lest I make you a desolation, A land not inhabited." (Jeremiah 6:8 LSB)
The command is to "Heed discipline." Accept the instruction, the correction. The word implies a willingness to be taught, to be set right. Even now, repentance is possible. This is not a game. God puts the consequences in the starkest possible terms. The first is relational: "Lest My soul become disgusted at you." The Hebrew word means to be alienated, torn away from. It is the language of covenant divorce. God is warning them that their persistent rebellion is on the verge of utterly rupturing the relationship He has with them. Affection has its limits when it is constantly met with betrayal.
The second consequence is physical and historical: "Lest I make you a desolation, a land not inhabited." This is the curse of the covenant, laid out centuries before in Deuteronomy. If they obeyed, the land would flourish. If they rebelled, the land would vomit them out. God is a jealous God, not just for our affections, but for His own holiness. He would rather have His holy land lie empty and desolate than have it be polluted by the constant, unrepentant sin of His people. This is the choice before them: repent and be healed, or persist and be utterly dispossessed.
Conclusion: The Fountain of Grace
The picture of Jerusalem here is a grim one. It is a picture of a people whose sin is a perpetual fountain, gushing up from a corrupt heart. And if we are honest, this is a picture of every human heart apart from the grace of God. We are all, in our natural state, little Jerusalems, keeping our evil fresh. Our hearts are wells of wickedness, and the violence and devastation that flows from them is continually before a holy God.
If this were the end of the story, we would be without hope. If our only option was to "heed discipline" in our own strength, we would all fail. For a heart that is a well of evil cannot, by itself, decide to pump out pure water. It needs more than a warning; it needs a new source.
And this is precisely what the gospel provides. The ultimate judgment that Jerusalem faced was a foreshadowing of a greater judgment to come. The true "day of the Lord" came not in 586 B.C., but on a hill outside Jerusalem called Golgotha. There, the full force of God's wrath against sin, all the violence and devastation our evil deserved, was poured out upon His own Son. Jesus Christ, the true and better Jerusalem, was made a desolation for us.
Because of this, God does something Jeremiah could only long for. He gives His people a new heart. Through the prophet Ezekiel, God promised, "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh" (Ezekiel 36:26). In the new covenant, God does not just warn the well of wickedness; He miraculously transforms it into a fountain of grace. Jesus said, "Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, 'Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water'" (John 7:38).
The warning to "heed discipline" remains for us. But now, it is not a condition for salvation, but a consequence of it. Because God has given us a new heart, we are now able to receive His correction. Because He has washed us, we now hate the filth. The discipline of God in the life of a believer is not the wrath of a judge; it is the loving correction of a Father, who is making us into the comely and delicate bride that He has always intended His people to be. He does this not because we keep our righteousness fresh, but because He has opened up in Christ a fountain of grace that will never run dry.