Jeremiah 6: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Jeremiah calls for alarm signals and flight as an army from the north advances on Jerusalem, with the attackers shown planning a siege by day and by night. The LORD says the city is full of oppression and violence, that from the least to the greatest all are greedy, and that prophets and priests treat the people's wound lightly, saying 'Peace, peace' when there is no peace. The people were told to ask for the ancient paths and to listen to the watchmen, and they refused, so their offerings are not accepted and disaster is coming. The chapter ends with Jeremiah set as a tester of the people like metal; the refining fails, and they are called rejected silver.

Claim by Claim

1. 6:1
   • A command is given to the sons of Benjamin to take refuge in flight out of the midst of Jerusalem.
   • A command is given to blow the ram's horn in Tekoa.
   • A command is given to raise a signal over Beth-haccherem.
   • Disaster is looking down from the north.
   • A great shattering is coming.
2. 6:2
   • The daughter of Zion is beautiful and delicate.
   • The LORD's word about the daughter of Zion is ambiguous: he either likens her to such a woman or destroys her.
3. 6:3
   • Shepherds with their flocks will come against her.
   • They will pitch their tents against her all around.
   • Each of them will graze his own portion.
4. 6:4
   • A call is made to consecrate war against her.
   • A call is made to rise up and attack at noon.
   • The attackers cry woe upon themselves because the day is declining.
   • The shadows of evening are stretching out.
5. 6:5
   • A call is made to rise up and attack by night.
   • A call is made to destroy her fortified palaces.
6. 6:6
   • The LORD of hosts has spoken this.
   • The LORD of hosts commands that trees be cut down.
   • The LORD of hosts commands that a siege ramp be poured out against Jerusalem.
   • This is the city that must be punished.
   • All of her is oppression within her.
7. 6:7
   • As a well keeps its water fresh and flowing, so she keeps her evil flowing.
   • Violence and destruction are heard in her.
   • Sickness and wounds are continually before the LORD's face.
8. 6:8
   • Jerusalem is told to be corrected.
   • Otherwise the LORD's soul will be torn away from her.
   • Otherwise the LORD will make her a desolation, a land not inhabited.
9. 6:9
   • The LORD of hosts says this.
   • The remnant of Israel will be thoroughly gleaned like a vine.
   • A command is given to pass the hand back over the branches like a grape gatherer.
10. 6:10
    • The speaker asks to whom he can speak and give warning so that they will hear.
    • Their ear is uncircumcised.
    • They are unable to pay attention.
    • The word of the LORD has become a reproach to them.
    • They take no delight in it.
11. 6:11
    • The speaker is full of the fury of the LORD.
    • The speaker is weary with holding it in.
    • A command is given to pour it out on the child in the street and on the gathering of young men together.
    • Husband and wife alike will be captured.
    • The old man will be taken along with the one full of days.
12. 6:12
    • Their houses will be turned over to others.
    • Their fields and their wives will be turned over as well.
    • The LORD will stretch out his hand against the inhabitants of the land.
    • This is the declaration of the LORD.
13. 6:13
    • From the least of them to the greatest, every one is greedy for unjust gain.
    • From prophet to priest, every one practices falsehood.
14. 6:14
    • They have healed the wound of the daughter of the LORD's people superficially.
    • They say, Peace, peace.
    • There is no peace.
15. 6:15
    • They committed abomination.
    • It is asked whether they were ashamed.
    • They were not ashamed at all.
    • They did not know how to feel humiliation.
    • Therefore they will fall among those who fall.
    • At the time the LORD punishes them they will be brought down.
    • The LORD said this.
16. 6:16
    • The LORD says this.
    • A command is given to stand at the roads and look.
    • A command is given to ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is.
    • A command is given to walk in that way.
    • Those who do so will find rest for their souls.
    • They said, We will not walk in it.
17. 6:17
    • The LORD set watchmen over them.
    • The watchmen said to pay attention to the sound of the ram's horn.
    • They said, We will not pay attention.
18. 6:18
    • The nations are commanded to hear.
    • The congregation is commanded to know what is among them.
19. 6:19
    • The earth is commanded to hear.
    • The LORD is bringing disaster on this people.
    • The disaster is the fruit of their own schemes.
    • They did not pay attention to the LORD's words.
    • They rejected his law.
20. 6:20
    • The LORD asks what purpose frankincense from Sheba serves for him.
    • The LORD asks what purpose the good cane from a distant land serves for him.
    • Their burnt offerings are not acceptable.
    • Their sacrifices are not pleasing to the LORD.
21. 6:21
    • The LORD says this.
    • The LORD is placing stumbling blocks before this people.
    • Fathers and sons together will stumble over them.
    • Neighbor and friend will perish.
22. 6:22
    • The LORD says this.
    • A people is coming from the land of the north.
    • A great nation is being stirred up from the remotest parts of the earth.
23. 6:23
    • They grasp bow and javelin.
    • They are cruel.
    • They show no mercy.
    • Their voice roars like the sea.
    • They ride on horses.
    • They are drawn up like a man for war against the daughter of Zion.
24. 6:24
    • We have heard the report of it.
    • Our hands have gone slack.
    • Distress has seized us.
    • Pain like that of a woman giving birth has seized us.
25. 6:25
    • A command is given not to go out into the field.
    • A command is given not to walk on the road.
    • The enemy has a sword.
    • There is terror on every side.
26. 6:26
    • The daughter of the speaker's people is told to gird herself with sackcloth.
    • She is told to roll in ashes.
    • She is told to make mourning for herself as for an only son.
    • She is told to make bitter lamentation.
    • The destroyer will come upon us suddenly.
27. 6:27
    • The LORD has appointed the one addressed as an assayer among his people.
    • The LORD has appointed him as a fortification.
    • The purpose is that he may know and test their way.
28. 6:28
    • They are all stubborn rebels.
    • They go about as slanderers.
    • They are bronze and iron.
    • They are all corrupters.
29. 6:29
    • The bellows blow fiercely.
    • The lead is consumed by the fire.
    • The refiner refines in vain.
    • The wicked are not separated out.
30. 6:30
    • They are called rejected silver.
    • The LORD has rejected them.

Words Worth Explaining

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

6:1

Benjamin was one of the tribes of Israel, and Jerusalem sat on the edge of its territory, so the city's people could be addressed as Benjaminites. Tekoa and Beth-haccerem were towns a few miles south of Jerusalem, the direction of escape, away from an army coming from the north. The ram's horn (shofar) was the standard alarm signal, and a fire or smoke column on a hilltop passed warnings from town to town faster than a runner could. There is wordplay in the Hebrew that English cannot carry: the name Tekoa sounds like the verb for blowing a horn.

6:2

"Daughter of Zion" is a standard Hebrew way of speaking of a city and its inhabitants as a single woman. Zion was the hill Jerusalem stood on, and the name came to stand for the whole city. This verse is one of the more obscure lines in the book: the Hebrew can be read as "I have likened the daughter of Zion to a lovely woman" or as "I will destroy the daughter of Zion, the lovely and delicate one." Translations divide.

6:3

Enemy kings and their armies are pictured as herdsmen bringing flocks to graze. Shepherds camped where the grass was, ate it down to nothing, and moved on; each commander is imagined staking out his own section of the land around Jerusalem to strip.

6:4

"Prepare for war" is literally "consecrate war", armies opened a campaign with religious rites, so the phrase is a technical term for mobilizing. Noon was an odd hour to attack because of the heat; proposing it signals confidence. The speakers here are the attackers, impatient at losing the daylight.

6:6

"LORD of Armies" (traditionally "LORD of hosts") is a title meaning the LORD who commands armies, both earthly and heavenly. A siege ramp was a packed embankment of earth, timber and rubble built up against a city wall so troops and battering rams could reach the top; the surrounding trees were felled for the timber and to deny the defenders cover.

6:9

Gleaning was going back over a harvested field or vine to pick up whatever was missed; Israelite law reserved those leftovers for the poor. The image is reversed here: instead of leaving something behind, the invaders are told to pass over the vine a second time and take even the last grapes.

6:10

The Hebrew says their ear is "uncircumcised." Circumcision was the physical mark of belonging to Israel's covenant, and the word was extended to mean unfit or unreceptive, an uncircumcised ear is one that cannot take anything in. The same phrase is used elsewhere of lips and of the heart.

6:11

"Him that is full of days" means the very old, someone who has lived out a long life. Notice that the speaker changes partway through the verse: Jeremiah describes the anger he is carrying, and then God's own voice takes over with the command to pour it out.

6:12

Houses, fields and wives passing to other people is the ordinary description of what happened when a city fell. Property was seized and the surviving population, women included, was taken by the conquerors; it is a statement of what defeat looked like, not a separate threat.

6:13

Prophets and priests were the two branches of Israel's religious leadership: priests ran the temple and its sacrifices and taught the law, prophets delivered messages believed to come from God. Naming both is a way of saying the corruption runs through the whole establishment, as "least to greatest" covers the whole society.

6:14

The image is of a doctor putting a dressing over a deep wound without cleaning it. "Peace" translates shalom, which means wholeness and well-being generally, not only the absence of fighting; "Peace, peace" was an ordinary reassurance, roughly "all is well, all is well."

6:15

"Abomination" is the King James word for behavior treated as intolerable, most often worship of other gods. Not being able to blush means they have lost the reflex of shame entirely. "At the time that I visit them" again means the time when God comes to punish them.

6:16

The picture is a traveler stopping where roads fork and asking passers-by which is the right road, "ancient paths" means the long-established route rather than a new one. "Souls" here translates a Hebrew word meaning a person's life or self, not an immaterial part of them; "rest for your souls" is closer to "you will find yourselves at rest."

6:17

Watchmen were sentries posted on city walls or towers who sounded the ram's horn when they saw danger approaching. Prophets were regularly described in those terms, stationed to give warning, with no power to compel anyone to act on it.

6:18

The Hebrew of this verse is difficult and the second line is uncertain; the word rendered "you who are gathered together" may mean an assembly, a community, or possibly something else entirely. Translations vary widely here.

6:19

"Teaching" translates torah, which covers instruction of any kind (a parent's, a teacher's, a priest's) as well as formal law. Rendering it only as "law" narrows it.

6:20

Sheba was a wealthy kingdom in southwest Arabia, the far end of the incense trade route; frankincense and aromatic cane were expensive imports burned in worship and mixed into anointing oil. A burnt offering was an animal sacrifice burned whole on the altar rather than shared as a meal, among the costliest offerings. The point is the expense of what is being brought.

6:21

A stumbling block is literally an obstacle left in a road that a walker trips over. The disturbing part of the image is who does the tripping: whole families, and then friends and neighbors, going down together rather than one guilty individual at a time.

6:22

"The north" is where invading armies always appeared from, whatever their actual homeland: the desert made a direct approach from the east impossible, so forces out of Mesopotamia followed the Euphrates up and came down into Israel from above.

6:23

"Set in array" means drawn up in ordered ranks. Cavalry and chariot horses were the elite, expensive part of an ancient army, and Judah had very little to answer them with, which is why the horses are mentioned as part of the terror.

6:24

Hands going slack or dropping is a stock Hebrew idiom for the loss of strength and nerve, the body giving out before the fight starts.

6:25

"Fear is on every side" translates a short Hebrew phrase, magor missabib, that Jeremiah uses repeatedly. It later becomes a nickname thrown back at him by people sick of hearing him say it.

6:26

Sackcloth was coarse, scratchy goat-hair cloth worn next to the skin in grief, and sitting or rolling in ashes went with it as a public sign of mourning. The death of an only son was the standard comparison for the worst grief imaginable, since it meant not just the loss of a child but the end of the family line.

6:27

The Hebrew word behind "tester" is ambiguous, which is why older translations read "tower." It closely resembles both the word for an assayer, someone who tests metal for purity, and the word for a fortified tower. The metalworking sense fits what follows in the next verses, but the pun is probably deliberate.

6:28

Bronze and iron were the ordinary base metals, useful, but what an assayer finds when there is no silver in the ore. The comparison continues through the end of the chapter.

6:29

This describes refining silver by cupellation: crushed ore was heated with lead in a furnace and bellows drove the fire hot enough for the lead to oxidize and carry off the impurities, leaving pure silver. If nothing pure is left when the lead burns away, the ore was worthless and the whole effort is wasted.

6:30

"Rejected silver" is the assayer's verdict on metal that failed the test in the furnace: it looked like silver but did not come through refining, so it is thrown out.