Commentary - Jeremiah 10:12-16

Bird's-eye view

In this section of Jeremiah, the prophet is drawing a stark, unbridgeable, and absolute distinction between the living God and the dead idols of the nations. This is not a contrast between two competing religious options. It is a contrast between reality and unreality, between the Creator and the creature, between the source of all power and a powerless lump of metal. Jeremiah first establishes the credentials of the true God as the Maker of all things, the one who actively governs the world He made. Then, with withering scorn, he exposes the utter futility and stupidity of idolatry. The man who makes an idol is a fool, and the idol he makes is a lie. The passage concludes by returning to the glorious truth of God's covenant relationship with His people. He is their portion, their inheritance, and they are His. The foundation for this covenant relationship is the fact that their God is the Maker of all, Yahweh of hosts.

This is not simply a historical critique of ancient paganism. The human heart is an idol factory, and our modern world is littered with sophisticated idols that are just as breathless and foolish as any ancient Baal. The state, technology, wealth, and the self are all candidates for the throne that belongs to God alone. Jeremiah's words are therefore a bucket of cold water in the face of every generation, calling us to turn from vanity and worship the living God.

Outline

Commentary

Verse 12

It is He who made the earth by His power,

The argument begins where all sound theology must begin: with the doctrine of creation ex nihilo. God is not a part of the system; He is the author of the system. The earth exists not as a cosmic accident, but as a direct result of His personal power. This is the fundamental Creator/creature distinction. The idols are part of the created order, fashioned from materials found on the earth. But Yahweh is the one who made the earth itself. His power is not a force within nature; it is the force that brought nature into being. This is the first and greatest reason why He alone is to be worshiped.

Who established the world by His wisdom;

God's creation was not a chaotic explosion. It was an act of profound wisdom. He "established" the world, which means He founded it, set it on a firm foundation, and ordered it. The world is a cosmos, not a chaos, because a wise God designed it. Every law of physics, every biological process, every ecological balance is a testimony to the wisdom of God. The idolater takes a piece of this wisely ordered world, a tree or a lump of gold, and worships it, ignoring the wisdom that made the thing possible in the first place. This is the height of folly.

And by His understanding He has stretched out the heavens.

The imagery of stretching out the heavens like a tent or a canopy is common in Scripture. It speaks of both immense power and intricate skill. Think of a master craftsman working with a delicate fabric. God's understanding, His divine intelligence, is behind the vastness of the cosmos. He did not just make a small room for us; He fashioned a universe that declares His glory. The idol is a small, constricted, man-made thing. The heavens are a vast, expansive, God-made thing. The contrast is meant to be overwhelming.

Verse 13

When He gives forth His voice, there is a tumult of waters in the heavens,

God is not a retired creator. He is an active and reigning king. His involvement with His creation is constant and direct. When He speaks, the creation responds. The "tumult of waters" refers to a mighty rainstorm. This is not a random meteorological event. It is a direct response to the voice of God. The pagans worshiped storm gods, thinking they could appease these chaotic forces. Jeremiah says this is foolishness. You don't worship the storm; you worship the God who commands the storm with a word.

And He causes the clouds to ascend from the end of the earth; He makes lightning for the rain,

Here we see the mechanics of God's sovereignty. He is the one who governs the water cycle. He summons the clouds from the horizon. He orchestrates the lightning that accompanies the downpour. This is a polemic against every form of nature worship and every form of modern materialism that would attribute these things to mindless, impersonal forces. There is a mind behind it all, a personal God who is intimately governing the details of His world.

And brings out the wind from His storehouses.

This is a beautiful and potent metaphor. God has treasuries, storehouses, from which He releases the wind. The wind does not blow randomly. It is sent out on an errand from the King. This speaks of God's complete control and His inexhaustible resources. He is never at a loss. He has everything He needs to accomplish His purposes in the world. The idols have nothing. They must be carried from place to place. God, by contrast, dispatches the very winds from His celestial treasuries.

Verse 14

Every man is senseless, devoid of knowledge;

Having established the majesty of the Creator, Jeremiah now turns his attention to the idolater, and his language is blunt. The man who turns from the living God to an idol is brutish, stupid, senseless. The Hebrew word is related to the idea of a beast. When man, who is made in God's image, worships something less than himself, he becomes less than himself. He forfeits his reason. Idolatry is not just a spiritual error; it is an intellectual catastrophe. It robs a man of true knowledge because he has rejected the source of all knowledge.

Every goldsmith is put to shame by his graven images;

The craftsman who makes the idol is in a particularly shameful position. He knows better than anyone that it is a fraud. He took the raw materials, melted them down, poured the metal into a mold, and polished it. He knows it is the work of his own hands. And yet, he participates in the lie that this object has divine power. His own creation becomes a monument to his shame. He is a key player in a system of organized delusion.

For his molten images are a lie, And there is no breath in them.

Here is the heart of the matter. An idol is a lie. It is a falsehood, a deception. It makes a claim to be a god, but it is nothing. The ultimate test is the test of life. "There is no breath in them." The true God is the living God, the one who breathed the breath of life into Adam. The false gods are breathless. They are inanimate objects, dead matter. To worship them is to embrace a lie and to give your allegiance to death.

Verse 15

They are vanity, a work of mockery;

The word for vanity is hebel, which means vapor, smoke, or a puff of wind. Idols are insubstantial nothings. They have no weight, no reality. They are also a "work of mockery," which can mean they are ridiculous things that invite scorn, or that they are things made for the purpose of deception. Either way, they are a joke. To build your life around an idol is to build your life around a cosmic jest, and the punchline will not be pleasant.

In the time of their punishment they will perish.

Idols have an expiration date. When God visits a nation in judgment, the first things to be exposed as worthless are its idols. When the Babylonians came, the gods of Judah could not save them. When the stock market crashes, the god of mammon is revealed as a fickle protector. When the secular state becomes tyrannical, the god of political salvation shows its teeth. All idols will ultimately perish under the judgment of the one true God. They are temporary vanities, and their time is short.

Verse 16

The portion of Jacob is not like these;

Here is the great turn, the glorious contrast. After demolishing the idols, Jeremiah reminds the faithful remnant of who their God is. He is "the portion of Jacob." This is covenant language. A portion is an inheritance, a share, a treasured possession. For the believer, God Himself is our ultimate treasure. The idolater gets a block of wood. The child of God gets God. It is not a fair comparison.

For the Maker of all is He, And Israel is the tribe of His inheritance;

The covenant relationship is grounded in the reality of creation. The reason God can be Jacob's portion is that He is the "Maker of all." He owns everything, and so He has the right to give Himself to His people. The relationship is also reciprocal. Just as God is their inheritance, so they are His inheritance. He has chosen and redeemed a people for His own possession. This is the central story of the Bible: God creating a world and then calling out a people from that world to be His own treasured tribe.

Yahweh of hosts is His name.

The passage concludes with the personal, covenant name of God, Yahweh, the great "I AM," and His title of ultimate power, "of hosts," meaning of armies. He is the self-existent one, and He is the commander of all the armies of heaven. This is the God of Jacob. He has a name, He has a people, and He has all power. The idols have no name, no people, and no power. The choice, then, is not difficult. It is the choice between everything and nothing.

Application

The fundamental contrast in this passage is between the God who makes things and the "gods" that are made things. This is the enduring temptation for mankind: to worship the creature rather than the Creator. Our modern idols may not be carved from wood or cast from gold, but they are just as breathless and just as much a lie.

We look to the state to be our savior, forgetting that it is an institution made of men, and that Yahweh of hosts is the only King. We look to technology to solve all our problems, forgetting that it is merely a tool fashioned from the raw materials God created. We look to our wealth or our careers to give us security and meaning, forgetting that these things are vanity, a puff of smoke that will perish in the time of punishment. We look to ourselves, to our own feelings and desires, as the ultimate source of authority, making an idol of the self.

The call of Jeremiah is the call of the gospel. It is a call to repentance from dead works and dead idols. It is a call to turn away from the lies that cannot save and to embrace the living God who is the Maker of all. He is not a distant, abstract deity. He is the portion of His people, the one who has bound Himself to us in Christ. Our hope is not in the works of our hands, but in the God who stretched out the heavens and who, for our sake, stretched out His hands upon a cross.