Jeremiah 12: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Jeremiah brings a complaint to God: why do the wicked prosper and the treacherous live at ease? God answers not with an explanation but with a warning that harder trials are coming, and tells Jeremiah that his own family has betrayed him. God then speaks of leaving his house and his inheritance to enemies, with shepherds ruining the vineyard and the land laid waste. The chapter closes with God's word about the neighboring nations: he will uproot them and also uproot Judah from among them, then bring each back with compassion, and any nation that learns to swear by his name will be established among his people, while a nation that will not obey will be uprooted and destroyed.

Claim by Claim

1. 12:1
   • The speaker addresses the LORD as righteous.
   • The speaker says the LORD is righteous even when the speaker brings a case against him.
   • The speaker says he will nevertheless speak with the LORD about matters of judgment.
   • The speaker asks why the way of the wicked prospers.
   • The speaker asks why all who deal treacherously are at ease.
2. 12:2
   • The speaker says the LORD planted them.
   • The speaker says they have taken root.
   • The speaker says they grow.
   • The speaker says they produce fruit.
   • The speaker says the LORD is near in their mouth.
   • The speaker says the LORD is far from their inner being.
3. 12:3
   • The speaker says the LORD knows him.
   • The speaker says the LORD sees him.
   • The speaker says the LORD has tested his heart toward the LORD.
   • The speaker asks the LORD to drag them away like sheep for slaughter.
   • The speaker asks the LORD to set them apart for a day of killing.
4. 12:4
   • The speaker asks how long the land will mourn.
   • The speaker asks how long the vegetation of every field will wither.
   • The withering is because of the wickedness of those who dwell in the land.
   • The beasts and the birds are swept away.
   • The people said that he will not see our latter end.
5. 12:5
   • The LORD says the addressee has run with men on foot and they wore him out.
   • The LORD asks how the addressee can compete with horses.
   • The LORD says the addressee is confident in a land of peace.
   • The LORD asks how the addressee will do in the thickets of the Jordan.
   • The King James says the addressee trusted in the land of peace and that they wearied him there.
6. 12:6
   • Even the addressee's brothers have dealt treacherously with him.
   • Even the addressee's father's household has dealt treacherously with him.
   • They have called out fully after him.
   • The King James says they have called a multitude after him.
   • The addressee is told not to believe them.
   • They speak good words to the addressee.
7. 12:7
   • The LORD says he has forsaken his house.
   • The LORD says he has abandoned his inheritance.
   • The LORD says he has given the beloved of his soul into the hand of her enemies.
8. 12:8
   • The LORD says his inheritance has become to him like a lion in the forest.
   • The LORD says she has raised her voice against him.
   • The LORD says that therefore he has hated her.
9. 12:9
   • The LORD says his inheritance is to him a speckled bird of prey.
   • Birds of prey are around against her.
   • The LORD commands that the beasts of the field be gathered.
   • The LORD commands that they be brought to devour.
   • The Hebrew phrasing may be a question, asking whether his inheritance is a speckled bird of prey to him.
10. 12:10
    • Many shepherds have destroyed the LORD's vineyard.
    • They have trampled the LORD's portion of ground.
    • They have made the LORD's pleasant portion a desolate wilderness.
    • The King James calls the many who destroyed the vineyard pastors.
11. 12:11
    • They have made it a desolation.
    • Being desolate, it mourns before the LORD.
    • The whole land is laid waste.
    • No man takes it to heart.
12. 12:12
    • Destroyers have come upon all the bare heights in the wilderness.
    • The sword of the LORD devours from one end of the land to the other end of the land.
    • No flesh has peace.
13. 12:13
    • They have sown wheat.
    • They have reaped thorns.
    • They have exhausted themselves.
    • They will not profit.
    • They will be ashamed of your harvests.
    • The shame comes because of the fierce anger of the LORD.
14. 12:14
    • The LORD speaks concerning all his evil neighbors.
    • The evil neighbors touch the inheritance that the LORD gave his people Israel to inherit.
    • The LORD says he will uproot them from their land.
    • The LORD says he will uproot the house of Judah from among them.
15. 12:15
    • The LORD says that after he has uprooted them he will return.
    • The LORD says he will have compassion on them.
    • The LORD says he will bring them back, each man to his inheritance.
    • The LORD says he will bring them back, each man to his land.
16. 12:16
    • The condition is that they diligently learn the ways of the LORD's people.
    • The condition includes swearing by the LORD's name with the words 'The LORD lives'.
    • They formerly taught the LORD's people to swear by Baal.
    • If they do so, they will be built up in the midst of the LORD's people.
17. 12:17
    • If they will not obey, the LORD will uproot that nation.
    • The LORD will utterly uproot and destroy that nation.
    • This is declared by the LORD.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

12:1

Jeremiah is using courtroom language. "Plead with thee" does not mean beg; it means to bring a lawsuit. "Righteous art thou" is the verdict a judge hands to the side that wins a case, Jeremiah concedes the verdict to God before he even states his complaint. "The way of the wicked" means the whole course of their lives, not a single act.

12:2

The King James "reins" means the kidneys. Hebrew located a person's deepest feelings and motives in the internal organs, much as modern English locates them in the heart. "Near in their mouth, far from their reins" is the contrast between what they say and what they actually are.

12:3

"Tried" in older English means tested or assayed, the way metal is heated to find out what it really is, not "attempted."

12:4

"He shall not see our last end" is deliberately unclear about who "he" is. It may be a taunt against God (he will not see how we finish) or against Jeremiah, who kept predicting disaster. Some ancient copies read "our ways" rather than "our end." The rendering keeps the ambiguity.

12:5

Two proverbs about escalating difficulty. "Footmen" are men running on foot; if ordinary runners beat you, cavalry horses will destroy you. "The swelling of Jordan" translates a Hebrew phrase literally meaning "the pride of the Jordan": the dense tangle of scrub and trees on the river's flood plain, notoriously hard to cross and known as lion country. The King James takes it as the river in spring flood; either way it names a place of real danger, set against the "land of peace" that already exhausted him.

12:6

Jeremiah came from Anathoth, a priests' village near Jerusalem; the previous chapter reports men of that town plotting to kill him. "They have called a multitude after thee" renders a Hebrew phrase whose sense is disputed: either they shouted at full volume against you, or they gathered a crowd to come after you. "Speak fair words" means speaking pleasantly to your face.

12:7

"Mine house" may mean the temple in Jerusalem or God's household, that is, the nation itself. "Heritage" and "inheritance" translate a Hebrew word for land handed down within a family as its permanent share, the word runs through the rest of this chapter and always carries that sense of allotted property, not of money left in a will. "The dearly beloved of my soul" is a term of endearment; "soul" here means the self, so the phrase is simply "the one I love."

12:8

In Hebrew, to "hate" in a context like this can mean to reject or turn away from, as much as to feel hatred, the opposite of choosing something rather than the opposite of loving it.

12:9

The Hebrew here is genuinely uncertain. The word behind "speckled" can mean colored or dyed, and the phrase is often read as "speckled bird of prey" surrounded by hostile birds. The same consonants can also spell "hyena," which is how the oldest Greek translation read it, giving "a hyena's lair." Either way the picture is of a creature that other scavengers are closing in on.

12:10

"Pastors" in the King James means shepherds. It does not mean clergy; in Hebrew usage "shepherd" is a standard title for a king or ruler, so these are the political leaders who have wrecked the land. "My portion" means the field allotted to God as his share.

12:11

"Layeth it to heart" means takes it seriously, lets it register. The complaint is that the ruin is visible to anyone and nobody is paying attention.

12:12

"High places" here means bare hilltops in open country, the exposed ridges raiders travel along. It is not the technical sense of "high place" as a hilltop shrine found elsewhere in the Old Testament. "No flesh" means no living creature.

12:13

"Revenues" in 1611 English means the yield of a harvest, not cash income. The verse also shifts from "they" to "your" partway through, turning from describing the people to addressing them directly; the Hebrew does this too.

12:14

"Neighbours" means neighboring nations (Edom, Moab, Ammon, Philistia and the rest), not individual people living nearby. "Touch" translates a Hebrew verb used for laying hands on something to seize it, closer to "lay hold of" than to "brush against." "Pluck out" continues the farming image that runs through the chapter: uprooting a plant.

12:15

"I will return" is a Hebrew way of saying "I will do it again", so the sense is that God will show compassion once more. The word for compassion is related to the word for womb and carries the idea of deep, gut-level pity.

12:16

Swearing by a god's name was a public act of allegiance: it named the god you expected to punish you if you lied, so whose name you swore by identified whose authority you lived under. "The LORD liveth", "as surely as the LORD lives", was the standard Israelite oath formula. Baal was the storm and fertility god of Israel's Canaanite neighbors; his name means "lord" or "master." "Built in the midst of my people" uses a construction image the Hebrew often applies to a family or dynasty being established permanently.

12:17

Pulling up by the roots is a picture from farming. A weed pulled up by the roots cannot grow back.