Commentary - Jeremiah 6:9-15

Bird's-eye view

In this section of Jeremiah, the prophet is continuing Yahweh's covenant lawsuit against Judah. The verdict is in, the sentence is about to be pronounced, and God is detailing the reasons for the coming judgment. The core of the problem is a deep-seated, systemic corruption that has rendered the people completely deaf to the word of the Lord. Their spiritual sickness is terminal. From the top down, from the priest to the prophet, the entire society is rotten with greed and deceit. They have substituted a cheap, superficial religious gloss for genuine repentance, offering false assurances of "peace" while standing on the cliff-edge of destruction. This passage is a stark portrait of a nation that has become so calloused by its own sin that it has lost the very capacity for shame, making judgment not only necessary but inevitable.

Jeremiah is tasked with delivering this hard message, a message that offers no comfort to the comfortable. God uses the agricultural metaphor of gleaning a vineyard to show that His judgment will be thorough; nothing will be missed. The prophet's frustration is palpable as he recognizes the futility of warning a people whose ears are spiritually blocked. The word of God is not a delight to them but an offense. Consequently, the prophet himself becomes a vessel of the divine wrath he can no longer contain, a wrath that will overflow onto every segment of their society without distinction. The coming judgment is a direct result of their universal depravity and their leaders' malpractice in healing the nation's wound with lies.

Outline

Context In Jeremiah

Chapter 6 is part of a larger section (chapters 2-6) where Jeremiah lays out the case against Judah. The enemy from the north (Babylon) has been summoned, and the invasion is imminent. Jeremiah has been pleading, warning, and calling for repentance, but to no avail. This passage comes after vivid descriptions of the approaching army and the terror it will bring. The "why" question hangs in the air. Why is this happening? Verses 9-15 provide a detailed answer. It is not an arbitrary act of God. It is the just and necessary consequence of their covenant infidelity. This section serves as a divine justification for the severity of the coming destruction, demonstrating that every opportunity for repentance was offered and rejected. The spiritual condition described here is the rotten foundation upon which the coming political and military collapse will be built.

Key Issues

Uncircumcised Ears

The central metaphor in this passage is that of "uncircumcised ears." For the Hebrew, circumcision was the physical sign of the covenant, a cutting away of the flesh that signified a separation unto God. It was meant to be an outward picture of an inward reality, what Moses called the "circumcision of the heart" (Deut 10:16). When Jeremiah says their ears are uncircumcised, he is saying that the entryway for God's word is blocked by a spiritual foreskin. They are covenant people in name, they have the physical sign, but they are functionally pagans. They are incapable of hearing, of receiving, of letting the word of God penetrate their understanding and affections.

This is a profound diagnosis of rebellion. The problem is not that God is unclear. The problem is not that the prophet is mumbling. The problem is with the hearers themselves. Their sin has created a callous, a thick layer of spiritual scar tissue, so that the sharp word of God cannot get in. When God's word becomes a "reproach" to a people, something they find offensive and irritating, it is a sign that judgment is at the door. They have made themselves unteachable, and so God will now teach them through other means, namely, the hard-knuckled schoolmaster of invasion and exile.

Verse by Verse Commentary

9 Thus says Yahweh of hosts, “They will thoroughly glean as the vine the remnant of Israel; Pass your hand again like a grape gatherer Over the branches.”

God begins with an agricultural metaphor that would have been chillingly familiar to the people of Judah. After the main grape harvest, the owner would permit the poor to "glean" the fields, picking what was left. But this is not that kind of gleaning. This is a command to the invading army to be utterly thorough. The first pass of the harvest will not be enough. Go back, God says. Pass your hand over the branches again. Miss nothing. This is a picture of a meticulous, exhaustive judgment. No one will be overlooked. The "remnant" here is not a hopeful term, but rather refers to what is left of the northern kingdom, now to be applied to the southern. The point is totality. The judgment will be comprehensive.

10 To whom shall I speak and give warning That they may hear? Behold, their ears are uncircumcised, And they cannot give heed. Behold, the word of Yahweh has become a reproach to them; They have no delight in it.

Here we feel the prophet's exasperation, which is a reflection of God's own grief. Jeremiah looks out over the nation and asks a rhetorical question: Who is there left to talk to? Who can even hear me? The diagnosis follows immediately: their ears are uncircumcised. There is a spiritual blockage. The channel through which God's truth enters the human heart has been sealed shut by their rebellion. Consequently, they "cannot" give heed. This is the biblical doctrine of inability. Their sin has rendered them incapable of responding rightly. The proof of this condition is their attitude toward Scripture. The word of Yahweh is not their joy, their guide, or their treasure. It has become a "reproach," an object of scorn, an irritating nuisance. When a people stop delighting in the law of the Lord, they are spiritually terminal.

11 But I am full of the wrath of Yahweh; I am weary of holding it in. “Pour it out on the infants in the street And on the gathering of choice men together; For both husband and wife shall be captured, The aged with the one full of days.

The prophet, having been filled with the word of God, now finds himself filled with the wrath of God. He is not speaking out of personal animosity; he is a vessel, a conduit for the divine emotion. He has been holding it back, pleading for the people, but he is weary of it. The time for restraint is over. And God gives the command: "Pour it out." The judgment that follows is terrifyingly indiscriminate, which is another way of saying it is totally discriminate. It touches everyone because everyone is culpable. The infants in the street, the young men, husband and wife, the old and the very old. This is a picture of total societal collapse. Covenantal judgment is corporate. When a nation sins as a nation, it is judged as a nation. No one is exempt from the consequences of the corporate rebellion.

12 Their houses shall be turned over to others, Their fields and their wives together, For I will stretch out My hand Against the inhabitants of the land,” declares Yahweh.

This is the language of the covenant curses from Deuteronomy 28. You will build a house, but another will live in it. You will plant a field, but not enjoy its fruit. You will be betrothed to a wife, but another man will take her. These are the promised consequences for covenant-breaking. God is simply making good on His word. He is stretching out His hand, a common biblical idiom for active judgment. This is not something that is merely happening to them; it is something God is actively doing to them because of their sin. He is the Lord of history, and the Babylonians are simply the rod of His anger.

13 “For from the least of them even to the greatest of them, Everyone is greedy for gain, And from the prophet even to the priest Everyone practices lying.

Here is the reason for the all-encompassing judgment: the sin is all-encompassing. It is not a problem of a few bad apples. The whole barrel is rotten. From the bottom of the social ladder to the top, a single motivation drives them: "greedy for gain." Materialism and covetousness have consumed them. And it gets worse. The spiritual leadership, the very men who were supposed to be the nation's conscience, are the worst of all. From the prophet to the priest, the ones who handle the word of God and the things of God, "everyone practices lying." They are dealing falsely, peddling deceit. When the pulpit and the altar become corrupt, the nation has no hope.

14 They have healed the brokenness of My people superficially, Saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ But there is no peace.

This is the central indictment of the false prophets and priests. Their lie was a soothing one. They saw the deep, festering wound of the people's sin, their "brokenness," and instead of cleaning it out with the sharp antiseptic of repentance, they put a cheap bandage on it and told the patient everything was fine. They offered a false gospel. They preached "Peace, peace," when God was declaring war. This is the perennial temptation of the hireling pastor: to tell the people what they want to hear, to offer comfort without conviction, to manage the decline instead of calling for radical reformation. But there can be no true peace apart from righteousness. Crying "peace" when the enemy is at the gates is not ministry; it is malpractice of the highest order.

15 Were they ashamed because of the abomination they have done? They were not even ashamed at all; They did not even know how to feel dishonor. Therefore they shall fall among those who fall; At the time that I punish them, They shall be cast down,” says Yahweh.

The final verse is a diagnosis of their conscience. God asks a rhetorical question: Did their abominable sins produce any shame in them? The answer is a resounding no. They were not ashamed. In fact, it was worse than that. They had sinned so long and so brazenly that they had lost the very capacity for shame. They didn't know how to blush anymore. When a culture loses its sense of shame, it has passed a point of no return. It has seared its conscience as with a hot iron. And so the verdict is final. Because they would not fall on their faces in repentance, they will "fall among those who fall" in judgment. The time of visitation, of punishment, is set, and they will be cast down. God's justice will have the last word.

Application

This passage from Jeremiah ought to land on the modern American church like a bucket of ice water. We live in a time when uncircumcised ears are the norm. The word of God is frequently treated as a reproach, an embarrassment, something to be softened and explained away. We have an entire industry of religious leaders who specialize in healing the wounds of God's people superficially. They preach a gospel of therapy, self-esteem, and personal fulfillment, crying "Peace, peace" to a generation awash in sin and rebellion. They offer a winsome, smiling, powder-puff Christianity that has no power to save because it has no power to convict.

The great sin of our age, like Judah's, is a lust for gain, coupled with a complete inability to blush. We have committed abominations and then celebrated them with parades. We have called evil good and good evil, and we are not the least bit ashamed. This passage warns us what happens when a people's conscience becomes so cauterized that they forget how to feel dishonor. Judgment becomes the only remaining option.

The application for the faithful is twofold. First, we must pray for circumcised hearts and ears, for ourselves and for our people. We must ask God to give us a renewed delight in His law, to make His word our treasure, not a reproach. Second, we must reject and expose the false prophets who offer cheap peace. We need men of God like Jeremiah, who are filled with the wrath of Yahweh against sin, who are not afraid to tell the truth, however harsh. True healing for our land will not come from a bandage, but from the surgeon's knife of God's word, which wounds in order to heal. We must recover our capacity for shame, for godly sorrow that leads to repentance, before we are made to fall among those who fall.