When God Hates His Inheritance Text: Jeremiah 12:7-13
Introduction: The Covenantal Divorce
We live in a sentimental age. Our generation wants a God who is all affirmation and no confrontation, all blessing and no cursing, a celestial grandfather who pats us on the head regardless of what we do. We want the benefits of the covenant without any of the obligations. We want to be God's "beloved" while living like His enemies. But the God of Scripture is not a tame God; He is a consuming fire. And when His own covenant people decide to play the harlot, His love manifests as a holy, jealous, and terrifying wrath.
This passage in Jeremiah is one of the most jarring in all of Scripture. It is a divine lament, a courtroom speech, and a declaration of war all rolled into one. Here, God Almighty, the covenant Lord of Israel, announces that He is forsaking His house, abandoning His inheritance, and giving the "beloved of My soul" into the hands of her enemies. This is the language of a bitter, covenantal divorce. God is suing His people for breach of contract, and the consequences are devastating.
We must not read this as though it were a historical curiosity, a sad story about the ancient Jews. This is a perpetual warning. The principles of covenant are immutable. God chose Israel, lavished His love upon her, made her His own special possession, His vineyard, His inheritance. But when she turned on Him, when she became like a lion in the forest roaring against her Master, His love turned to a holy hatred. Not a capricious, emotional hatred, but a settled, judicial opposition to her treachery. This text forces us to confront the terrible reality of covenantal unfaithfulness and its consequences. It shows us what happens when the very shepherds who are supposed to protect the flock become the ones who ruin the vineyard.
In our day, when the visible church in the West is shot through with compromise, when shepherds fleece the flock for their own gain, and when the land itself seems to groan under the weight of our apostasy, these words from Jeremiah are not just relevant; they are urgent. They are a bucket of ice water in the face of a sleepy, compromised church. Let us therefore attend to them with the gravity they demand.
The Text
“I have forsaken My house; I have abandoned My inheritance; I have given the beloved of My soul Into the hand of her enemies. My inheritance has become to Me Like a lion in the forest; She has given forth its voice against Me; Therefore I have come to hate her. Is My inheritance like a speckled bird of prey to Me? Are the birds of prey against her on every side? Go, gather all the beasts of the field, Bring them to devour! Many shepherds have ruined My vineyard; They have trampled down My portion; They have made My desired portion A desolate wilderness. It has been made a desolation; Desolate, it mourns before Me; The whole land has been made desolate Because no man sets it upon his heart. On all the bare heights in the wilderness Destroyers have come, For a sword of Yahweh is devouring From one end of the land even to the other; There is no peace for any flesh. They have sown wheat and have reaped thorns; They have strained themselves to no profit. But be ashamed of your produce Because of the burning anger of Yahweh.”
(Jeremiah 12:7-13 LSB)
Divine Abandonment (v. 7)
The passage opens with a series of three hammer blows, each more shocking than the last.
"I have forsaken My house; I have abandoned My inheritance; I have given the beloved of My soul Into the hand of her enemies." (Jeremiah 12:7)
First, God says, "I have forsaken My house." This refers to the Temple in Jerusalem, the place where His name dwelt, the symbol of His presence with His people. To forsake His house means to withdraw His protective presence. It is the ultimate act of judgment. When God leaves the building, the glory has departed, and all that is left is an empty shell, ripe for destruction. This is not a flippant departure; it is a heart-wrenching necessity brought on by the people's relentless idolatry within that very house.
Second, "I have abandoned My inheritance." The "inheritance" is the people of Israel themselves. They were the portion God had chosen for Himself out of all the nations of the earth. He was their God, and they were His treasured possession. To abandon them is to cast them off, to leave them unprotected and vulnerable. The covenant bond, from God's side, is being judicially severed because they had already severed it through their spiritual adultery.
Third, and most poignantly, "I have given the beloved of My soul Into the hand of her enemies." This phrase, "the beloved of My soul," drips with the pathos of betrayed love. This is not the language of an indifferent deity. This is the cry of a husband whose beloved wife has become a prostitute. The depth of the love determines the heat of the jealousy. And because His love was so great, His judgment is correspondingly severe. He does not just let her go; He actively hands her over to her enemies. God is sovereign over this judgment. The Babylonians are not an accident; they are an instrument in the hand of Yahweh. He is using the wicked to punish the faithless.
The Beloved Becomes the Beast (v. 8-9)
God then explains the reason for this drastic action. The character of His people has been utterly transformed by their sin.
"My inheritance has become to Me Like a lion in the forest; She has given forth its voice against Me; Therefore I have come to hate her. Is My inheritance like a speckled bird of prey to Me? Are the birds of prey against her on every side? Go, gather all the beasts of the field, Bring them to devour!" (Jeremiah 12:8-9 LSB)
The people who were supposed to be His gentle flock, His fruitful vineyard, have become a roaring lion. Instead of singing His praises, they roar against Him with idolatrous worship and defiant rebellion. Their worship of other gods is not a quiet affair; it is a public, vocal rejection of their covenant Lord. The response is stark: "Therefore I have come to hate her." This is not an emotional outburst. It is a settled, judicial posture. God sets His face against those who set their faces against Him. When we choose to become His enemy, He honors our choice and treats us accordingly.
The imagery then shifts to a "speckled bird of prey." This is a strange, conspicuous bird that attracts the hostile attention of all the other birds. Judah, by mixing her covenant identity with pagan practices, has made herself a bizarre hybrid, an oddity that other nations, the other "birds of prey," now see as a target. She no longer fits in with God's flock, and she is an object of scorn to the pagans. Having made herself strange to God, she is now prey for everyone else. The command that follows is terrifying in its simplicity: "Go, gather all the beasts of the field, Bring them to devour!" God Himself summons the predators. He is calling the Babylonians and their allies to come and feast on the carcass of His faithless people.
The Ruined Vineyard and Corrupt Shepherds (v. 10)
The blame for this devastation is laid squarely at the feet of Israel's leadership.
"Many shepherds have ruined My vineyard; They have trampled down My portion; They have made My desired portion A desolate wilderness." (Jeremiah 12:10 LSB)
The "shepherds" here are the kings, priests, and prophets of Judah. They were entrusted with the care of God's vineyard, His people. Their job was to cultivate, protect, and nurture the flock. Instead, they have done the opposite. They have "ruined" and "trampled" it. Through their wicked policies, their false prophecies, and their idolatrous priesthood, they have led the people astray and laid the nation open to judgment. They have turned a fruitful garden into a desolate wilderness. This is a perennial danger. When the leadership of God's people becomes corrupt, the entire nation suffers. The shepherds feed themselves, not the flock, and the vineyard is destroyed.
The Desolation of Apathy (v. 11-13)
The consequences of this sin and failed leadership are a land utterly ravaged, and a people spiritually oblivious.
"It has been made a desolation; Desolate, it mourns before Me; The whole land has been made desolate Because no man sets it upon his heart." (Jeremiah 12:11 LSB)
The land itself is personified as mourning before God. The covenant curses are not just spiritual; they have tangible, agricultural, and ecological consequences. Sin pollutes the land. But the root cause of this desolation is a spiritual one: "Because no man sets it upon his heart." This means no one cares, no one is paying attention, no one is taking the covenant warnings seriously. They are spiritually asleep, going about their business while the foundations are crumbling. This is the sin of apathy, of spiritual indifference, and it is a damnable sin. The destroyers are coming, the sword of Yahweh is devouring from one end of the land to the other, and there is no peace because no one is seeking the peace of God.
The final verses describe the utter futility of their lives apart from God.
"On all the bare heights in the wilderness Destroyers have come, For a sword of Yahweh is devouring From one end of the land even to the other; There is no peace for any flesh. They have sown wheat and have reaped thorns; They have strained themselves to no profit. But be ashamed of your produce Because of the burning anger of Yahweh." (Jeremiah 12:12-13 LSB)
The "bare heights" were the places of their idolatrous worship. Now, those same places are where the destroyers, the Babylonian armies, will come. The very instruments of their sin become the instruments of their judgment. God's sword is thorough; it devours the whole land. All their efforts are fruitless. "They have sown wheat and have reaped thorns." This is the curse of the covenant in action (Deut. 28). All their labor, all their economic activity, all their political maneuvering comes to nothing. It is all vanity. They have worked hard, they have strained themselves, but for no profit. Their entire civilization, built on a foundation of rebellion, will produce nothing but shame when the burning anger of Yahweh comes.
The Cross as the Ultimate Forsaking
This passage is a dark and terrible portrait of covenant judgment. But it is not God's final word. In the fullness of time, God would again forsake His house and abandon His inheritance, but in a way no one could have expected. On a desolate hill outside Jerusalem, the true Beloved of the Father, the Son of His love, cried out, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" (Matthew 27:46).
In that moment, Jesus Christ became for us what Judah had become. He became the one forsaken by God. He was given into the hands of His enemies. He was surrounded by the beasts of the field, the roaring lions who mocked and crucified Him. The burning anger of Yahweh against our sin, our covenant-breaking, our spiritual adultery, was poured out upon Him. He reaped the thorns that we had sown, wearing them as a crown. He experienced the ultimate desolation so that we might be brought into the ultimate vineyard.
The judgment described in Jeremiah 12 is what every one of us deserves for our rebellion. We have all roared like lions against our Maker. We have all been speckled birds, strange and polluted by the world. We have all followed corrupt shepherds. But on the cross, God forsook His only Son so that He would never have to forsake us. He abandoned His perfect Inheritance so that we, the faithless, could be made His inheritance forever.
Therefore, the warning of this passage remains. If we, who have been grafted into the vine, presume upon His grace, if we turn His vineyard into a wilderness through our apathy and sin, we should expect discipline. Judgment begins at the house of God (1 Peter 4:17). But our ultimate hope is not in our own covenant faithfulness, but in the faithfulness of the One who endured the covenant curse for us. We must set these things upon our hearts, lest our land also become a desolation. We must repent of our apathy, turn from our idols, and cling to the crucified and risen Christ, the Good Shepherd who lays down His life for the sheep, and who alone can turn our desolate wilderness into the garden of God.