The Roar of the Covenant Lawsuit Text: Jeremiah 6:22-26
Introduction: When the Bill Comes Due
We live in an age that has forgotten the meaning of the word consequence. Our entire culture is a vast, sprawling enterprise dedicated to insulating ourselves from the results of our own foolishness. We want sexual license without consequences, financial profligacy without consequences, and rebellion against God without consequences. We have come to believe that God is a doting, sentimental grandfather in the sky, who might occasionally clear His throat disapprovingly, but would never, ever bring the hammer down. We have tried to domesticate the Lion of Judah and turn Him into a housecat.
The prophet Jeremiah was sent to a people who thought the same way. They were God's covenant people. They had the temple, they had the sacrifices, they had the promises. They assumed their covenant status was a magical amulet that protected them from divine judgment, regardless of how they lived. They thought they could sin with one hand and wave their covenant membership card with the other. But they had forgotten a crucial detail of their covenant relationship with Yahweh. The covenant has blessings for obedience, and it has curses for disobedience. And God is not a man that He should lie. When the terms of the covenant are persistently and flagrantly violated, the bill always comes due.
Jeremiah's task was to be God's prosecuting attorney. His book is a covenant lawsuit, a detailed and heartbreaking indictment of Judah's spiritual adultery. And in our text today, the prophet describes the instrument of God's judgment. God is not speaking in abstract theological terms anymore. The curse is no longer a distant thunder on the horizon. It is a terrifying army, marching from the north. The sentence has been passed, and the executioner is on his way. This is what happens when a people exhaust the patience of a holy God. This is the roar of the covenant lawsuit.
The Text
Thus says Yahweh, “Behold, a people is coming from the land of the north, And a great nation will be aroused from the remote parts of the earth. They take hold of bow and spear; They are cruel and have no compassion; Their voice roars like the sea, And they ride on horses, Arranged as a man for the battle Against you, O daughter of Zion!” We have heard the report of it; Our hands are limp. Distress has taken hold of us, Pain as of a woman in childbirth. Do not go out into the field And do not walk on the road, For the enemy has a sword; Terror is on every side. O daughter of my people, gird yourself with sackcloth And roll in ashes; Mourn as for an only son, A lamentation most bitter. For suddenly the destroyer Will come upon us.
(Jeremiah 6:22-26 LSB)
The Instrument of Wrath (v. 22-23)
Jeremiah begins by announcing the arrival of God's chosen instrument of judgment. Notice who is speaking: "Thus says Yahweh." This is not Jeremiah's political analysis. This is a divine decree.
“Behold, a people is coming from the land of the north, And a great nation will be aroused from the remote parts of the earth. They take hold of bow and spear; They are cruel and have no compassion; Their voice roars like the sea, And they ride on horses, Arranged as a man for the battle Against you, O daughter of Zion!” (Jeremiah 6:22-23)
God says He will "arouse" this great nation. The Babylonians, in their own minds, were marching for reasons of empire, conquest, and plunder. But behind their political ambitions, the hand of God was moving them like a piece on a chessboard. God is sovereign over the nations. He is sovereign over pagan kings and their armies. Nebuchadnezzar thought he was serving his own agenda, but God calls him "my servant" (Jer. 25:9). This is a profound truth that we must grasp. God uses wicked men to accomplish His righteous purposes, and He does so without incurring any of their guilt. The Babylonians were culpable for their cruelty, but God was righteous in using their sinful cruelty to execute His holy judgment on covenant-breaking Judah.
The description of this army is designed to evoke sheer terror. They are not a civilized opponent who will follow the rules of war. They are "cruel and have no compassion." Their voice "roars like the sea." They are an impersonal, overwhelming force of nature, like a tsunami. They are a disciplined, unified killing machine, "arranged as a man for the battle." And who is their target? "Against you, O daughter of Zion!" The very people who believed their special status protected them are the designated target of this overwhelming wrath. Their covenant identity, which they had turned into an idol, was now the very thing that marked them for destruction. When God's own people decide to live like the pagans, God will often use the pagans to discipline them.
The Inescapable Terror (v. 24-25)
The perspective now shifts from the divine announcement to the human reaction. This is what it feels like to be on the receiving end of God's judgment.
"We have heard the report of it; Our hands are limp. Distress has taken hold of us, Pain as of a woman in childbirth. Do not go out into the field And do not walk on the road, For the enemy has a sword; Terror is on every side." (Jeremiah 6:24-25 LSB)
The mere rumor of the approaching army induces paralysis. "Our hands are limp." The strength and confidence of the people evaporate. All their proud boasts and self-assured rebellion melt away in the face of real consequences. The pain is as intense and inescapable as a woman in labor. This is a common biblical metaphor for sudden, agonizing, and unavoidable distress.
The result is a total breakdown of normal life. "Do not go out into the field And do not walk on the road." Commerce stops. Farming stops. Travel stops. The basic functions of society cease because of the overwhelming threat. The reason is stark: "the enemy has a sword; Terror is on every side." The Hebrew for this last phrase is magor-missabib. This becomes a recurring theme in Jeremiah, a summary of the psychological state that God's judgment produces. It is a world where there is no safe place, no escape route. The threat is not in one location; it is everywhere. This is the outworking of the covenant curses of Deuteronomy 28, where God promised that if they disobeyed, they would be filled with "a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and despair of soul" (Deut. 28:65).
The Call to Bitter Mourning (v. 26)
Faced with this inescapable doom, what is the proper response? Jeremiah tells them. It is not to rally the troops or to form a committee. The only appropriate response is deep, gut-wrenching repentance.
"O daughter of my people, gird yourself with sackcloth And roll in ashes; Mourn as for an only son, A lamentation most bitter. For suddenly the destroyer Will come upon us." (Jeremiah 6:26 LSB)
Sackcloth and ashes were the outward signs of utter grief and humiliation. This was not to be a polite, dignified sorrow. Jeremiah calls for the kind of mourning reserved for the most devastating loss imaginable: the death of an only son. This signifies the death of the nation's future, the end of all their hopes. It must be a "lamentation most bitter." Why? Because their sin was most bitter. The depth of the repentance must match the depth of the offense.
A shallow, convenient, "I'm sorry, let's move on" kind of repentance will not do. God requires that they see their sin for what it is: a monstrous betrayal that has led to this catastrophic end. He wants them to hate their sin, to be shattered by it. This is the kind of repentance that precedes true restoration. God does not break us in order to destroy us, but in order to remake us. But first, the breaking must happen.
And it will happen without warning. "For suddenly the destroyer will come upon us." Judgment may be long in coming, but when it arrives, it arrives swiftly. God's patience is not infinite. There is a point of no return, a line that can be crossed, after which judgment is irrevocably set. Judah had crossed that line.
The Destroyer and the Deliverer
This is a terrifying passage. It describes the temporal judgment of God on a rebellious nation. And we should take it as a sober warning. As a nation, and as a church in the West, we have indulged in the same sins as Judah. We have practiced idolatry, we have embraced sexual immorality, we have shed innocent blood through abortion, and we have done it all while claiming the name of Christ. We have presumed upon the grace of God. We must not think that the principles of covenantal cause and effect have been suspended. Judgment begins at the house of God (1 Peter 4:17).
But this is not the final word. The message of Jeremiah is one of short-term pessimism but long-term, glorious optimism. This same prophet who foretold the destruction of Jerusalem also foretold the coming of a New Covenant, where God would write His law on the hearts of His people and forgive their iniquity (Jer. 31:31-34).
The terror of the Destroyer from the north is a shadow. It is a faint echo of the ultimate terror of standing before a holy God on Judgment Day with your sins unforgiven. The pain of a woman in childbirth is a dim picture of the agony of eternal separation from God. The "terror on every side" in ancient Judah is a mere foretaste of the wrath to come for all who reject the Son.
But God, in His mercy, has provided an escape. There is one who faced the ultimate Destroyer for us. There is one who endured the full, undiluted wrath of God on our behalf. On the cross, Jesus Christ was surrounded by the ultimate magor-missabib. He was forsaken by His friends, mocked by His enemies, and, most terrifyingly, abandoned by His Father. He endured the pains of childbirth for us, that we might be born again. He mourned as for an only son, because He was the only Son, given up for us all.
The destroyer came suddenly upon Him, so that the destroyer would not have to come upon us. He took the full force of the covenant lawsuit so that we could be declared righteous. Therefore, the call to us is the same as the call to Judah: repent. Gird yourself with the sackcloth of genuine sorrow for your sin. But do not stop there. Look to the cross, and exchange your sackcloth for the robes of Christ's righteousness. The terror is real, the judgment is coming, but the refuge is Christ. Run to Him, and the roar of the lawsuit will be silenced by the verdict of grace.