The Established Order vs. The Prophetic Word
Introduction: When God's Word is Treason
We live in a time when the established order, both within the broader culture and often within the church, has made its peace with the spirit of the age. It is a comfortable arrangement, a manageable religion that knows its place and doesn't make waves. The sermons are encouraging, the music is uplifting, and the budget is balanced. But what happens when the pure, unvarnished Word of God crashes into this settled arrangement? What happens when a man is sent by God to stand in the middle of the religious machinery and announce that God is about to tear the whole thing down? The answer is that the machinery turns on him. The established order, which claims to represent God, suddenly finds the actual Word of God to be an intolerable, treasonous offense.
This is precisely the situation we find in our text. Jeremiah is not some wild-eyed fanatic preaching on a street corner. He is a priest, commanded by God to stand in the court of the Lord's house, the very center of Israel's religious life, and deliver a message of catastrophic judgment. This was not a message he invented. God had put the words in his mouth and told him, "Do not omit a word" (Jer. 26:2). The message was simple and devastating: repent, or this house, this glorious temple, will become like Shiloh, a byword for desolation, and this city, Jerusalem, will be laid waste.
The reaction is immediate and visceral. It is not, "Let us consider if these words are from the Lord." It is not, "Let us examine our ways and repent." No, the reaction of the religious professionals, the priests and the prophets, is to seize him and sentence him to death. When God's Word directly threatens the institutional security and prestige of the religious establishment, that establishment will often seek to silence the messenger, not in spite of their religious devotion, but precisely because of it. They had come to worship the temple more than the God of the temple. They loved the symbols of God's presence more than God Himself. And so, when the true prophet of God arrived with a word from God that threatened their idol, their immediate, pious, religious reflex was to kill him.
This is a perennial temptation for God's people. We must never assume we are immune. When our traditions, our institutions, our denominations, or our comfortable way of life become more precious to us than the stark and often unsettling commands of Scripture, we are in mortal danger. We are in danger of becoming the very people who cry, "A judgment of death for this man!" when what we are actually judging is the Word of God itself.
The Text
The priests and the prophets and all the people heard Jeremiah speaking these words in the house of Yahweh. Now it happened that when Jeremiah finished speaking all that Yahweh had commanded him to speak to all the people, the priests and the prophets and all the people seized him, saying, “You must surely die! Why have you prophesied in the name of Yahweh saying, ‘This house will be like Shiloh, and this city will be laid waste, without inhabitant’?” And all the people gathered about Jeremiah in the house of Yahweh. When the officials of Judah heard these things, they came up from the king’s house to the house of Yahweh and sat in the entrance of the New Gate of the house of Yahweh. Then the priests and the prophets spoke to the officials and to all the people, saying, “A judgment of death for this man! For he has prophesied against this city as you have heard in your hearing.”
(Jeremiah 26:7-11 LSB)
The Unanimous Rage of the Establishment (v. 7-8)
We begin with the immediate aftermath of Jeremiah's faithful preaching.
"The priests and the prophets and all the people heard Jeremiah speaking these words in the house of Yahweh. Now it happened that when Jeremiah finished speaking all that Yahweh had commanded him to speak to all the people, the priests and the prophets and all the people seized him, saying, 'You must surely die!'" (Jeremiah 26:7-8)
Notice the coalition that forms against Jeremiah. It is the religious leadership, "the priests and the prophets," and they have the popular support of "all the people." This is not a fringe group; this is the mainstream. These are the men who ran the temple, who led the worship, who were supposed to be the spiritual guides of the nation. And their response to a direct word from God is to arrest His messenger. The text is careful to note that Jeremiah had finished speaking "all that Yahweh had commanded him." He was not editing the message to make it more palatable. He was not softening the blow. He was being a faithful mailman, delivering the mail exactly as it was written. And for this, they want to kill him.
Their charge is essentially blasphemy and treason. To prophesy against the temple and the city was, in their minds, to prophesy against God and His chosen nation. They had a half-baked theology that assumed God's unconditional protection of Jerusalem and the temple because of His covenant promises. They remembered the promises but had conveniently forgotten the covenant curses that came with disobedience (Deut. 28). Their theology was a security blanket, not a sharp sword. They had turned God's grace into a guarantee of impunity, a license to sin without consequence. When Jeremiah comes along and says that their sin has, in fact, brought them to the brink of the covenant curses, they cannot hear it. It doesn't fit their system. Their theological grid has no category for a God who would judge His own people so severely.
So they cry, "You must surely die!" This is the cry of a threatened establishment. Jeremiah's words were an attack on their livelihood, their authority, their national pride, and their entire religious framework. If he was right, they were wrong, disastrously wrong. And it is much easier to kill the prophet than to repent of the sins he condemns. This is a profound warning. When the church leadership and the congregation are in unanimous agreement against a hard word from Scripture, it is not always a sign of spiritual unity. It can be the sign of a deeply entrenched and unified rebellion against God.
The Specifics of the Indictment (v. 9)
The charge against Jeremiah is then made more specific. They quote his sermon back to him as evidence for his execution.
"Why have you prophesied in the name of Yahweh saying, ‘This house will be like Shiloh, and this city will be laid waste, without inhabitant’?” And all the people gathered about Jeremiah in the house of Yahweh." (Jeremiah 26:9)
The reference to Shiloh was a particularly sharp and deliberate jab. Shiloh was the place where the Tabernacle had rested for centuries, from the time of Joshua to Samuel. It was the center of Israel's worship. But because of the corruption of the priesthood under Eli's sons and the idolatry of the people, God abandoned Shiloh. The Philistines captured the Ark of the Covenant, and Shiloh was destroyed, never to recover its former glory (Psalm 78:60-64). It was a historical scar, a potent symbol of God's willingness to abandon a place of worship, no matter how sacred, when it was filled with profane worshippers.
For Jeremiah to say, "This house will be like Shiloh," was the ultimate insult. It was to say that the magnificent temple of Solomon, the pride of the nation, was no better in God's eyes than the ruins of Shiloh. It was to say that God was not tied to real estate. His presence was conditional on their covenant faithfulness, which they had utterly abandoned. This was not a threat from Babylon; this was a threat from Yahweh. He was the one who would make His own house a desolation.
The crowd "gathered about Jeremiah." This is not a friendly gathering. This is a mob. They have him surrounded in the very house he has just prophesied against. The irony is thick. They are defending God's house by seeking to murder God's prophet within its very courts. Their zeal for the "house of Yahweh" is directly fueling their rebellion against the Word of Yahweh.
The Trial Moves to the Civil Sphere (v. 10)
The commotion is loud enough that it attracts the attention of the civil authorities, who represent a different sphere of government.
"When the officials of Judah heard these things, they came up from the king’s house to the house of Yahweh and sat in the entrance of the New Gate of the house of Yahweh." (Jeremiah 26:10)
Here we see the proper functioning of distinct governmental spheres. The priests and prophets have made a religious accusation, but they do not, at this point, have the authority to carry out a death sentence. That authority belongs to the civil magistrate, "the officials of Judah." They come from the king's house to the Lord's house to adjudicate the matter. This is a formal legal proceeding. They sit "in the entrance of the New Gate," which was a public place for rendering legal judgments.
It is often the case that when the church becomes corrupted, the state, even a flawed and partially corrupt state, can act as a restraining force. These officials are not necessarily more righteous than the priests, but their interests are different. They are concerned with civil order, due process, and the stability of the kingdom. The priests are inflamed with religious passion and institutional self-preservation. The officials bring a measure of procedural sobriety to the scene. This is a small mercy from God. He has established three basic governments, the family, the church, and the state, and when one goes completely off the rails, the others can sometimes serve to check its overreach. Here, the state is called upon to adjudicate a matter that the church has completely mishandled.
The Formal Accusation (v. 11)
Before the civil magistrates, the religious leaders make their formal charge, and it is a capital one.
"Then the priests and the prophets spoke to the officials and to all the people, saying, 'A judgment of death for this man! For he has prophesied against this city as you have heard in your hearing.'" (Jeremiah 26:11)
The charge is laid out plainly: "A judgment of death for this man!" The Hebrew is stark: "A sentence of death belongs to this man." This is their legal demand. And what is the basis for it? "For he has prophesied against this city." Their argument is simple: anyone who speaks a negative word against Jerusalem is, by definition, a false prophet and a traitor worthy of death. Their ultimate standard is the preservation of the city, not the truth of God's Word.
They appeal to the officials and "to all the people." They are trying to sway public opinion and put pressure on the court. They make the hearers the witnesses: "as you have heard in your hearing." There is no dispute about what Jeremiah said. The only question is whether saying it was a capital crime. The priests and prophets are certain that it is. They have made patriotism their religion. The security of the state has become their ultimate theological axiom. Therefore, any word that threatens that security must be silenced, even if it is a word that God Himself commanded to be spoken.
Conclusion: Whose Side Are You On?
This scene lays out a conflict that echoes down through the history of redemption. It is the conflict between the comfortable, established religion that serves men and the prophetic, disruptive Word of God that demands absolute allegiance to Him.
The priests and prophets of Jeremiah's day were the respectable, mainstream leaders. They had the degrees, the titles, and the popular support. Jeremiah was the outlier, the troublemaker, the one bringing division. And yet, he was the one standing with God. This forces us to ask ourselves some hard questions. Is our ultimate loyalty to God's Word, no matter how uncomfortable, or to our institution, our tradition, or our nation? When the Word of God cuts against the grain of our political or religious tribe, which one do we jettison?
This same conflict came to a head in the life of our Lord Jesus. He stood in the temple courts and prophesied against that very temple, saying, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up" (John 2:19). He was speaking of the temple of His body, but the religious establishment heard it as an attack on their institution. The chief priests and Pharisees, the successors of Jeremiah's accusers, brought this very charge against Him at His trial: "This man stated, 'I am able to destroy the temple of God and to rebuild it in three days'" (Matt. 26:61). They condemned Him to death for prophesying against the city and the temple, just as they tried to do with Jeremiah.
The cross is the ultimate outworking of this principle. At the cross, the entire religious and civil establishment, Jewish and Roman, united to pass a judgment of death on the Word of God made flesh. They did it to preserve their place, their power, and their peace (John 11:48-50). They killed the Prince of Life to protect their corrupt institutions.
Therefore, we must not be surprised when faithfulness to the Word of God brings us into conflict with the powers that be, both religious and secular. The apostle Paul tells us that "all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted" (2 Tim. 3:12). This persecution will often come from the most religious and respectable quarters. When it comes, we must remember Jeremiah. We must remember the Lord Jesus. And we must resolve to speak all that the Lord commands us, omitting not a word, trusting that it is better to be condemned by men for speaking God's truth than to be condemned by God for our silence.