Commentary - Jeremiah 7:21-28

Bird's-eye view

In this section of Jeremiah's temple sermon, the Lord confronts the people of Judah with the foundational error of their entire religious system. They had come to believe that the sacrificial system was the central point of their covenant relationship with God. They thought that as long as the smoke was rising from the altar, God was obligated to be pleased with them, regardless of the state of their hearts or the conduct of their lives. God, through Jeremiah, demolishes this vain confidence. He declares with a kind of divine sarcasm that their sacrifices are worthless to Him. He then takes them back to the very foundation of the covenant at Sinai and reminds them what the central command actually was. It was not "offer sacrifices," but rather "listen to My voice." The sacrifices were always meant to be an outward expression of an inward reality of obedient faith. Because Israel had inverted this, making the ritual the substance and obedience an afterthought, their entire religion had become a hollow, God-dishonoring sham. This passage is a powerful covenant lawsuit, indicting the nation for centuries of stiff-necked rebellion and pronouncing them deaf to God's word and destitute of truth.

The logic is devastating. God traces their disobedience from the Exodus right down to Jeremiah's own day, highlighting a consistent, generational pattern of rebellion. They did not just fail to progress; they actively went backward. The sending of the prophets was God's gracious, persistent call to repentance, but the people's response was equally persistent deafness and a hardening of their hearts. The passage concludes with a grim commission for Jeremiah: he is to speak these words, but with the full knowledge that they will not be heeded. The verdict is in. This is a nation that does not listen, does not receive correction, and from whom truth itself has perished. It is a stark reminder that religion without obedience is not just misguided; it is an abomination to God.

Outline

Context In Jeremiah

This passage is a core component of Jeremiah's famous temple gate sermon, which begins in chapter 7 verse 1. Jeremiah is commanded by God to stand in the gate of the Lord's house and preach a message of radical confrontation to the people of Judah. The context is one of deep religious hypocrisy. The people were streaming to the temple, faithfully carrying out the prescribed rituals, all the while chanting "The temple of Yahweh, the temple of Yahweh, the temple of Yahweh" (Jer 7:4) as a kind of magical incantation to ward off disaster. They believed that the mere presence of the temple and their participation in its ceremonies guaranteed their safety. Jeremiah's message is designed to shatter this false security. He has already told them to amend their ways, to execute justice, and to stop oppressing the vulnerable (Jer 7:5-6). He has called them out for stealing, murdering, committing adultery, and worshiping idols, and then coming to stand in God's house as though all were well (Jer 7:9-10). The verses we are considering here (21-28) provide the theological foundation for this rebuke, explaining why their worship is so offensive to God. It is because they have divorced the form of religion from its substance, which is heartfelt obedience to the voice of God.

Key Issues

First Things First

One of the constant temptations for fallen man is to get things backward, to put the cart before the horse. In our relationship with God, this temptation manifests as a desire to substitute ritual for righteousness. We would much rather perform a religious duty that we can check off a list than undertake the hard, heart-work of obedience. We want to manage our relationship with God through external transactions. "If I do X, then God owes me Y." The people of Judah had fallen headlong into this trap. They thought their sacrifices were the X that obligated God to give them the Y of national security and prosperity. They had forgotten that God is not a cosmic vending machine.

What God says here through Jeremiah is what He has been saying through His prophets all along (cf. 1 Sam 15:22; Ps 51:16-17; Isa 1:11-17; Hos 6:6; Mic 6:6-8). The central demand of the covenant is not ritual performance but a listening heart. The entire sacrificial system was given as a gracious provision for a people who would inevitably fail in their obedience. The sacrifices were gospel pictures, pointing to the need for atonement and substitution. They were meant to be offered with a hand of faith and a heart of repentance. But the people of Judah had turned the gospel provision into a meritorious work. They were using the symbols of grace as a cover for their life of sin. God's response is to sweep the whole charade off the table and remind them of the first thing He ever asked of them: "Listen to My voice." Until that is settled, nothing else matters.

Verse by Verse Commentary

21 Thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, “Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices and eat flesh.

The sermon continues with the formal prophetic introduction, "Thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel," reminding them of who is speaking. This is the commander of heaven's armies and their own covenant God. What follows is a statement of profound, holy sarcasm. Burnt offerings were to be wholly consumed on the altar. Other sacrifices, like the peace offering, had portions the worshiper could eat. God is essentially saying, "You are so far off the mark that your distinctions between sacrifices are meaningless to me. Go ahead, lump them all together. Treat the holy burnt offering like a common meal. Eat it all. It makes no difference to Me. It's just dead meat." This is a shocking dismissal of their most sacred religious activities. He is telling them their worship is an empty exercise, so they might as well just have a barbecue.

22 For I did not speak to your fathers or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices.

Now God gives the reason for His contempt for their sacrifices. This is a classic example of what we might call prophetic hyperbole or relative negation. Of course, God did give them commands about burnt offerings and sacrifices in the Torah. The book of Leviticus is full of them. But that was not the first thing He said. It was not the foundational command. When God brought them to Sinai, His primary, central, foundational demand was not about the minutiae of ritual. To say "I did not speak... concerning burnt offerings" is to say "That was not the main point; that was not the thing I emphasized above all else." He is putting first things first. They had elevated a secondary matter to the primary position, and in so doing, had corrupted the whole system.

23 But this is what I commanded them, saying, ‘Listen to My voice, and I will be your God, and you will be My people; and you will walk in the entire way which I command you, that it may be well with you.’

Here is the positive statement of that foundational command. This is the heart of the covenant. "Listen to My voice." The Hebrew word for listen, shema, means more than just auditory reception; it means to hear and to obey. This is the central stipulation of the covenant relationship. And look at the glorious promises attached to it. If they would listen, two things would happen. First, the covenant relationship would be affirmed: "I will be your God, and you will be My people." This is the essence of covenant fellowship. Second, they would experience covenant blessing: "walk in the entire way... that it may be well with you." Obedience is the path to blessing. God's laws are not arbitrary restrictions; they are the manufacturer's instructions for how human life is to be lived to the fullest. The sacrifices were a provision for their failures to walk in this way, but walking in the way was always the main point.

24 Yet they did not listen or incline their ear, but walked in their own counsels and in the stubbornness of their evil heart and went backward and not forward.

The history of Israel is now summarized in this tragic verse. The command was to listen, but "they did not listen or incline their ear." They wouldn't even lean in to try and hear. Instead of walking in God's commanded way, they walked in their own counsels. They became their own gods, their own source of wisdom. The root of this was "the stubbornness of their evil heart." The heart, in biblical terms, is the center of the will, the intellect, the entire inner man. Their hearts were evil and intransigent. The result of this disobedience was not stagnation, but regression. They "went backward and not forward." A refusal to obey God is never a neutral act. It is a deliberate step away from Him, a de-volution.

25 Since the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt until this day, I have sent you all My slaves the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them.

Despite their rebellion, God did not abandon them. This verse highlights the incredible, long-suffering grace of God. For centuries, from the Exodus right up to Jeremiah's present moment, God pursued them. He sent them "all My slaves the prophets." The prophets were God's bondservants, sent with His message. And notice the urgency and persistence of God's action: "daily rising up early and sending them." This is a beautiful anthropomorphism. It pictures God as a diligent master of a household, getting up before dawn every single day to make sure His messengers are on their way. God was not passive in the face of their sin; He was actively, urgently, relentlessly seeking their repentance.

26 Yet they did not listen to Me or incline their ear, but stiffened their neck; they did more evil than their fathers.

This verse parallels verse 24, but with an intensification. The response to God's persistent grace was persistent rebellion. "They did not listen to Me." They "stiffened their neck," which is a metaphor taken from a stubborn ox that refuses to be led by the yoke. It is a picture of proud, defiant rebellion. And then comes the damning conclusion: "they did more evil than their fathers." This is the principle of generational sin. Each successive generation did not simply repeat the sins of their fathers; they built upon them. The rebellion grew worse over time, accumulating guilt, until it reached its peak in Jeremiah's day. They were not just disobedient; they were degenerating.

27 “You shall speak all these words to them, but they will not listen to you; and you shall call to them, but they will not answer you.

Here, God speaks directly to Jeremiah, giving him his grim commission. He is to faithfully proclaim this entire message. But God, in His sovereignty, tells him what the result will be beforehand. They will not listen. You will call, but they will not answer. This is a hard calling for any preacher. It removes any illusion that success is measured by visible results or positive responses. Jeremiah's task was not to be successful, but to be faithful. He was to be a witness, to deliver the covenant lawsuit, so that when the judgment came, no one could say they were not warned. God's word does not return void; it either softens or it hardens. In this case, it would harden.

28 You shall say to them, ‘This is the nation that did not listen to the voice of Yahweh their God or receive discipline; truth has perished and has been cut off from their mouth.

This is the final verdict, the epitaph that Jeremiah is to pronounce over the nation. They are defined by their refusal to listen. They are a people who will not "receive discipline," or correction. They are incorrigible. Because they have refused to listen to God's truth for so long, the consequence is that truth itself has died among them. "Truth has perished." It is gone. It has been "cut off from their mouth." They no longer speak it, and it seems they are no longer capable of speaking it. When a people persistently reject the objective, revealed truth of God, they eventually lose the very category of truth. Their words become empty, their worship becomes a lie, and their society untethers from reality. This was the state of Judah on the brink of exile.

Application

The message of Jeremiah 7 is a perennial one, because the temptation to substitute religion for relationship is a perennial temptation of the fallen human heart. The American church is shot through with this kind of thinking. We have our own rituals, our own burnt offerings. We can pride ourselves on our church attendance, our small group participation, our theological knowledge, our volunteer hours, or our financial giving. And like the people of Judah, we can do all these things while our hearts are far from God and our lives are marked by disobedience to His plain commands.

God's word to us is the same as it was to them: "Listen to My voice." All our religious activity is just so much dead meat if it is not the fruit of a heart that loves God and desires to obey Him. Do we listen to His voice in Scripture? Do we obey what it says about loving our neighbor, about sexual purity, about honesty in our business dealings, about forgiving those who have wronged us? Or do we walk in our own counsels, following the stubbornness of our own evil hearts? Do we strain out the gnat of some minor doctrinal point while swallowing the camel of gossip, envy, or pride?

The good news of the gospel is that there is a solution for our stubborn, stiff-necked hearts. The new covenant, promised in Jeremiah 31, is a covenant where God says, "I will put My law within them, and on their heart I will write it." Jesus Christ is the only one who ever listened to the Father's voice perfectly. He obeyed completely, even to the point of death. And when we are united to Him by faith, His perfect record of obedience is counted as ours. The Holy Spirit is given to us to soften our hard hearts, to incline our ear to listen, and to empower us to walk in God's ways. True Christianity is not adding the sacrifice of Christ to our own religious efforts. It is abandoning our own efforts entirely and trusting in His all-sufficient sacrifice, from which flows a new life of grateful, heartfelt obedience.