Commentary - Jeremiah 7:16-20

Bird's-eye view

In this sobering passage, God slams the door on intercessory prayer. He commands Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, to stop doing the very thing his pastoral heart would naturally do: cry out for his people. This is a terrifying moment in the life of any nation. It signifies that the point of no return has been reached; the cup of iniquity is full, and judgment is no longer pending but imminent. The reason for this drastic measure is the people's flagrant, high-handed, and pervasive idolatry. This was not a secret sin, but a public, family affair. The worship of the "queen of heaven" had become a perverse, cottage industry, with every member of the household participating in the rebellion. God then turns the tables on their motivation, showing that their attempts to provoke Him were ultimately self-destructive. Their idolatry was not just an offense to God, but a profound act of shaming themselves. The passage concludes with an irrevocable promise of fiery, unquenchable wrath upon the entire land, a de-creation that would affect man, beast, and the very fruit of the ground.

This is a covenant lawsuit reaching its final verdict. The people have presumed upon God's grace, thinking they could sin with one hand and offer sacrifices with the other. Here, God tells His own prophet that the time for appeals is over. The sentence has been passed, and the execution of that sentence is now a certainty. It is a stark reminder that while God is merciful and patient, His patience has a limit, and corporate, unrepentant sin has devastating, corporate consequences.

Outline

Context In Jeremiah

This passage is situated within Jeremiah's famous Temple Sermon (Jeremiah 7-10). The prophet has been commanded by God to stand at the gate of the temple and confront the people of Judah as they come to worship. The core of his message is a blistering rebuke of their hypocrisy. They were chanting "The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord" as a kind of magical incantation, believing that the physical presence of the temple guaranteed their safety, regardless of their behavior. Jeremiah dismantles this false security, pointing out that their lives of theft, murder, adultery, and idolatry (7:9) made their worship an abomination. The command to cease praying for the people in verse 16 is therefore a direct consequence of their refusal to heed the call to repentance in the preceding verses. It marks a significant escalation in the prophecy. God is no longer just warning of judgment; He is now sealing it.

Key Issues

The Point of No Return

There are moments in the history of a people when their sin becomes so hard-baked, so defiant, that God closes the case. A prophet's primary job is to call the people to repent, and when they do not, his secondary job is to turn to God and plead for mercy on their behalf. This is what Moses did, and what all true prophets do. But here, God tells Jeremiah to hang up the phone. "Don't call me about this anymore. I am not listening." This is one of the most dreadful sentences in all of Scripture. It means that the sin has reached a terminal stage. The disease of their rebellion is no longer treatable; the patient is going to die. When God tells His own appointed mediator to stand down, it is because the sentence of judgment is no longer conditional. It is fixed. The nation has been weighed in the balances and has been found wanting, and the time for appeals has expired. This is not a sign of God's cruelty, but of His justice. He had sent prophet after prophet, and they had been ignored, mocked, and killed. Now, the consequences stipulated in the covenant from the beginning were going to be enforced.

Verse by Verse Commentary

16 “As for you, do not pray for this people and do not lift up a cry of lamentation or prayer for them and do not intercede with Me, for I am not hearing you.

God addresses Jeremiah directly and issues a threefold prohibition. Do not pray. Do not lift up a cry. Do not intercede. This covers every kind of appeal, from a structured prayer to a spontaneous, heartfelt wail of lament. The prophet, who feels the coming judgment more acutely than anyone, is forbidden from acting on his pastoral instincts. The reason given is stark and absolute: "for I am not hearing you." It is not that Jeremiah's prayer would be inadequate, but that God has determined not to receive it. The lines of communication, on this one subject, have been sovereignly closed. This is a judicial act. God is the judge, and He has declared that the court is no longer in session. The time for mercy has passed, and the time for sentencing has arrived.

17-18 Are you not seeing what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? The children gather wood, and the fathers make the fire burn, and the women knead dough to make cakes for the queen of heaven; and they pour out drink offerings to other gods in order to provoke Me.

God provides Jeremiah with the evidence, the grounds for His severe verdict. He asks a rhetorical question: "Are you not seeing?" The sin is not hidden. It is being committed openly, in the cities and streets, for all to see. And it is a thoroughly corporate and familial sin. The entire household is complicit. The children, the youngest members, are involved in the drudgery of gathering wood. The fathers, the covenant heads of the households, are kindling the fires on the pagan altars. The women are kneading dough for the sacrificial cakes. This is a picture of total societal apostasy, starting in the home. The family, which God designed to be the nursery of faith, has become a factory for idolatry. They are worshipping the "queen of heaven," likely a reference to a Mesopotamian goddess like Ishtar or Astarte, a fertility deity. This was a direct and treasonous violation of the first commandment. And their stated goal was to provoke Yahweh. They were shaking their fists at Heaven.

19 Do they provoke Me?” declares Yahweh. “Is it not themselves they provoke to the shame of their own face?”

Here, God reveals the ultimate folly of their rebellion. He asks another searing rhetorical question. They think their idolatry is an assault on Him, a way to get under His skin. But can the infinite, self-existent God truly be "provoked" in the way a man is? Is His honor dependent on their actions? The answer is no. The real victim of their sin is not God, but themselves. In trying to provoke God, they only succeed in provoking themselves "to the shame of their own face." This is a foundational principle of sin. We become like what we worship. They are worshipping gods that are nothing, empty idols, and so they are making themselves into nothing. Their faces will be covered with the shame and confusion of discovering that their gods are powerless to save them from the wrath of the God they have spurned. Their rebellion is ultimately a suicidal act.

20 Therefore thus says Lord Yahweh, “Behold, My anger and My wrath will be poured out on this place, on man and on beast and on the trees of the field and on the fruit of the ground; and it will burn and not be quenched.”

The conclusion flows with inescapable logic from the premises. Therefore. Because intercession is over, because the idolatry is total, because the sin is self-destructive, the sentence is now pronounced. The Lord Yahweh, the sovereign covenant God, declares that His anger and wrath will be poured out. This is the language of deluge, of overwhelming flood. The judgment will not be selective; it will be comprehensive. It will fall on man and beast, on the trees and the crops. This is a covenantal de-creation. The blessings of the land promised for obedience are being revoked and replaced with the curses of exile and desolation. And this fire of judgment will be unquenchable. No human effort will be able to stop it. The judgment is coming, and it will be total.

Application

This is a hard passage, and it is meant to be. It forces us to confront the reality of God's justice and the terrifying consequences of persistent, high-handed sin. We live in a sentimental age that wants to domesticate God, to turn the consuming fire into a decorative fireplace. This passage will not allow it. It reminds us that there is a point where a nation, a church, or a civilization can cross a line and store up so much wrath that judgment becomes inevitable.

We should also take careful note of where the apostasy was nurtured: in the family. The fathers led the way, the mothers participated, and the children were trained in it from their youth. This is a powerful reminder of the centrality of household faithfulness. If our homes become places where the gods of this age, be they materialism, sexual autonomy, or political power, are served, we are training our children for judgment. The reformation of a nation always begins with the reformation of the family, with fathers taking up their responsibility to lead in true worship and mothers supporting that worship, so that children are gathering wood for the family altar, not for some pagan high place.

Finally, we see the boomerang effect of sin. We think our rebellion is a bold statement against God, but it only brings shame and ruin upon our own heads. The world promises freedom and delivers bondage. It promises honor and delivers shame. The only escape from this self-destructive path is to turn from our idols and flee to the only one who can absorb the unquenchable wrath of God for us. That wrath was poured out in its fullness upon Jesus Christ at the cross. He bore the full curse of our idolatry so that we might be spared. He took our shame so that we might be clothed in His honor. The door of intercession is closed to unrepentant Judah, but through Christ, the door of intercession is always open for those who call upon His name in faith.