Jeremiah 6
The storm that has been building since chapter 4 finally breaks. Jeremiah 6 opens in the middle of an air-raid: a trumpet blown in Tekoa, a beacon fire lit on Beth-haccerem, the children of Benjamin told to flee the city, for evil appeareth out of the north, and great destruction (v. 1). We overhear the enemy commanders coordinating the assault as if from inside their own war council - attack at noon, then again by night, hew the trees, raise the siege mound - and we learn that this is no accident of history: the LORD of hosts has named Jerusalem the city to be visited; she is wholly oppression in the midst of her (v. 6). The danger is real, it is near, and it is just.3
But the chapter's heart is not the siege; it is a wound that no one will let be cleaned. From the least of them even unto the greatest, everyone is given to covetousness, and the very prophets and priests who should sound the alarm instead soothe the city to sleep: they have healed… the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace (v. 14). It is the lie of the comforter who skips the wound and goes straight to the reassurance - a bandage slapped over an infection. And it is into exactly this false calm that the LORD speaks the chapter's great invitation: Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls (v. 16).1
That verse is the still center of the whole oracle - a call to stop at the crossroads, look, ask, and walk the tried and proven road that leads to rest. And the answer it receives is one of the saddest lines in the prophets: But they said, We will not walk therein. Offered rest, they refuse it. So the chapter follows the refusal to its end: incense from Sheba and costly burnt offerings that the LORD will not accept (v. 20), an army from the north that is cruel, and… no mercy (vv. 22-23), and finally a refiner's furnace where the bellows roar and the fire blazes and still no pure silver comes out (vv. 29-30). The invitation stays open to the very last; the door is closing, but it has not yet shut.2
Tap any highlighted phrase to jump to the commentary that unpacks it.
Jeremiah 6:1-8Evil Appeareth Out of the North
1O ye children of Benjamin, gather yourselves to flee out of the midst of Jerusalem, and blow the trumpet in Tekoa, and set up a sign of fire in Beth-haccerem: for evil appeareth out of the north, and great destruction. 2I have likened the daughter of Zion to a comely and delicate woman. 3The shepherds with their flocks shall come unto her; they shall pitch their tents against her round about; they shall feed every one in his place. 4Prepare ye war against her; arise, and let us go up at noon. Woe unto us! for the day goeth away, for the shadows of the evening are stretched out. 5Arise, and let us go by night, and let us destroy her palaces. 6For thus hath the LORD of hosts said, Hew ye down trees, and cast a mount against Jerusalem: this is the city to be visited; she is wholly oppression in the midst of her. 7As a fountain casteth out her waters, so she casteth out her wickedness: violence and spoil is heard in her; before me continually is grief and wounds. 8Be thou instructed, O Jerusalem, lest my soul depart from thee; lest I make thee desolate, a land not inhabited.
The chapter opens at full volume, in the middle of an alarm. O ye children of Benjamin, gather yourselves to flee out of the midst of Jerusalem, and blow the trumpet in Tekoa, and set up a sign of fire in Beth-haccerem: for evil appeareth out of the north, and great destruction (v. 1). Every detail is the equipment of a town under threat. The trumpet is the ram's horn, the ancient air-raid siren, blown to scatter the people before the enemy arrives. The sign of fire is a beacon, a signal-fire kindled on a height to flash the warning from town to town across the hill country faster than any runner could carry it. Tekoa and Beth-haccerem lie just south of Jerusalem, so the command to flee toward them shows the danger bearing down from the north. The phrase evil out of the north has been building since chapter 4; here it lands with a place and an hour. And there is a sharp irony in addressing the children of Benjamin - Jeremiah's own tribe, the tribe whose name means “son of the right hand,” here told to run for their lives. The point is not that disaster strikes randomly. The watchman has every instrument of warning in hand; the question the whole chapter will press is whether anyone is listening to the alarm.3
In an unsettling shift, Jeremiah lets us overhear the enemy's own war council, as if we were standing inside their tent. First the picture of shepherds: The shepherds with their flocks shall come unto her; they shall pitch their tents against her round about; they shall feed every one in his place (v. 3). The image is almost pastoral - herdsmen settling their flocks in a field - but the “field” is Jerusalem, and the “flocks” are armies that will graze the city bare and leave nothing standing. Then we hear the commanders themselves, eager and impatient: Prepare ye war against her; arise, and let us go up at noon (v. 4). Noon is the hottest, most punishing hour for an assault, yet they cannot wait; and when the day slips by they only press harder - Woe unto us! for the day goeth away… Arise, and let us go by night, and let us destroy her palaces (vv. 4-5). Here is an army hungry to attack, frustrated by the setting sun, ready to fight in the dark rather than lose a moment. The effect of letting us hear them is chilling: the threat is not vague or distant. It has a voice, an appetite, and a timetable, and it is already discussing how to take the city down.
Then the camera pulls back, and we learn whose word stands behind the marching orders. For thus hath the LORD of hosts said, Hew ye down trees, and cast a mount against Jerusalem: this is the city to be visited; she is wholly oppression in the midst of her (v. 6). The siege-craft is described exactly - cutting timber for ramps and engines, throwing up an earthen mount against the wall - but the startling thing is the speaker. It is not finally the northern general who orders the assault; it is the LORD of hosts. The army is the instrument; the verdict is His. The word visited carries a weight it has lost in modern English: to be “visited” by the LORD is to be called to account, to have one's deeds at last caught up with. And the charge is named without flinching: she is wholly oppression in the midst of her. The reason for the reckoning is moral, not military. Then comes a vivid image of how deep the rot goes: As a fountain casteth out her waters, so she casteth out her wickedness (v. 7). A spring cannot help pouring out what it is; it gushes continually, by its nature. So Jerusalem produces violence and spoil the way a fountain produces water - not as an occasional lapse but as a steady, gushing flow, so that before me continually is grief and wounds. The city built to be a wellspring of life has become a spring that cannot stop bleeding harm.
Jeremiah 6:9-15Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace
9Thus saith the LORD of hosts, They shall throughly glean the remnant of Israel as a vine: turn back thine hand as a grapegatherer into the baskets. 10To whom shall I speak, and give warning, that they may hear? behold, their ear is uncircumcised, and they cannot hearken: behold, the word of the LORD is unto them a reproach; they have no delight in it. 11Therefore I am full of the fury of the LORD; I am weary with holding in: I will pour it out upon the children abroad, and upon the assembly of young men together: for even the husband with the wife shall be taken, the aged with him that is full of days. 12And their houses shall be turned unto others, with their fields and wives together: for I will stretch out my hand upon the inhabitants of the land, saith the LORD. 13For from the least of them even unto the greatest of them every one is given to covetousness; and from the prophet even unto the priest every one dealeth falsely. 14They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace. 15Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore they shall fall among them that fall: at the time that I visit them they shall be cast down, saith the LORD.
The section opens with a harvest image turned ominous. They shall throughly glean the remnant of Israel as a vine: turn back thine hand as a grapegatherer into the baskets (v. 9). To “glean throughly” is to strip a vine completely, going back over it a second time so that not a single grape is left - here a picture of an enemy combing through the land until nothing remains. Then the LORD voices a weariness that is almost personal: To whom shall I speak, and give warning, that they may hear? (v. 10). It is the lament of a messenger who has run out of listeners. The diagnosis follows: their ear is uncircumcised, and they cannot hearken. Circumcision was the covenant sign cut into the flesh; to call the ear uncircumcised is to say it is closed, sealed, unconsecrated - an ear that has never been opened to God and so cannot take His word in. Notice the chilling progression. It is not merely that they will not hear; the text says they cannot hearken - long refusal has hardened into incapacity. And worse, the very word of God has become distasteful to them: it is unto them a reproach; they have no delight in it. The truth that should be their rescue now grates on them like an insult. This is what a heart sounds like after it has said no for years: not defiant anymore, just deaf.
Now the prophet names the disease that runs from top to bottom of the society, and the sweep of it is total: For from the least of them even unto the greatest of them every one is given to covetousness; and from the prophet even unto the priest every one dealeth falsely (v. 13). Two merisms - least to greatest, prophet to priest - close every door of escape. No class is clean; no office is exempt. The driving sin is named as covetousness, the restless craving for more - more money, more land, more advantage - that treats other people as things to be used. And the most damning charge falls on the very people whose whole vocation was to speak truth to God's people: the prophet and the priest, the preacher and the pastor of their day, every one dealeth falsely. Those entrusted to guard the word are the ones counterfeiting it. The judgment that follows is correspondingly comprehensive - the husband with the wife… the aged with him that is full of days (v. 11), whole households swept up together (v. 12). When the watchmen themselves are corrupt, there is no one left to sound a true alarm; the rot at the center spreads unchecked to every edge. A people can survive a few bad actors; it cannot survive shepherds who lie for a living.
Jeremiah 6:16-21Ask for the Old Paths
16Thus saith the LORD, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein. 17Also I set watchmen over you, saying, Hearken to the sound of the trumpet. But they said, We will not hearken. 18Therefore hear, ye nations, and know, O congregation, what is among them. 19Hear, O earth: behold, I will bring evil upon this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not hearkened unto my words, nor to my law, but rejected it. 20To what purpose cometh there to me incense from Sheba, and the sweet cane from a far country? your burnt offerings are not acceptable, nor your sacrifices sweet unto me. 21Therefore thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will lay stumblingblocks before this people, and the fathers and the sons together shall fall upon them; the neighbour and his friend shall perish.
Now, into the very middle of the alarm and the false comfort, comes the chapter's great word - an invitation as quiet as the rest of the chapter is loud. Thus saith the LORD, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls (v. 16). The picture is a traveler at a crossroads where many roads fork away, every one of them inviting. The LORD gives four unhurried imperatives, and their order matters. Stand - stop the headlong rush; come to a halt at the junction. See - look hard at the roads in front of you; do not move on autopilot. Ask for the old paths - inquire after the tried and proven way, the road already walked by those who lived faithfully before you. Walk therein - and then, having found it, actually set out on it. The old paths are not old in the sense of outdated or worn; they are the ancient, well-laid roads of the covenant, the way of life God marked out from the beginning. And the promise attached is the deepest thing a tired human being could be offered: not success, not safety, but rest for your souls. Then comes the line that breaks the heart of the whole oracle. Offered this - offered rest - the people answer in five flat words: But they said, We will not walk therein. Not “we cannot find it,” not “we do not understand,” but a plain refusal. They were shown the good road and the rest at the end of it, and they said no.3
The refusal of the path is immediately matched by a refusal of the warning. Also I set watchmen over you, saying, Hearken to the sound of the trumpet. But they said, We will not hearken (v. 17). The watchmen are the prophets, stationed on the wall of the nation's life to spot danger and sound the alarm - the same trumpet that opened the chapter in verse 1. God did not leave His people without warning; He posted sentinels, raised His messengers, blew the horn. But the answer is the very echo of verse 16: We will not hearken. Twice now, in two verses, the refrain falls - we will not walk… we will not hearken. It is the same closed ear of verse 10, now spoken aloud as a settled policy. So the LORD turns and summons witnesses: Therefore hear, ye nations… Hear, O earth (vv. 18-19). When the covenant people will not listen, the very nations and the earth itself are called to the witness stand, that the verdict may be seen to be just. And the charge is stated with terrible simplicity: I will bring evil upon this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not hearkened unto my words, nor to my law, but rejected it (v. 19). The coming disaster is named the fruit of their thoughts - not an arbitrary blow from outside, but the natural harvest of what they had been cultivating inside all along. They reap what their own refusals planted.
Lest anyone imagine their religion could cover for their refusal, the LORD addresses their worship directly - and rejects it. To what purpose cometh there to me incense from Sheba, and the sweet cane from a far country? your burnt offerings are not acceptable, nor your sacrifices sweet unto me (v. 20). The detail is pointed. Incense from Sheba and aromatic sweet cane from a far country were luxury imports, costly fragrances carried over long trade routes - this was expensive, impressive worship, the very best money could buy. And the LORD asks, in effect, to what purpose? What is it all for? Their offerings are not acceptable; their sacrifices are not sweet unto me. This is not a rejection of sacrifice as such - the LORD Himself had ordained the offerings - but a rejection of sacrifice offered as a substitute for obedience, ritual deployed as a bribe by people who will not walk the old paths. It is the steady refrain of the prophets: that the LORD desires mercy and a turned heart more than the smoke of the altar, and that no amount of incense can sweeten a worship that has divorced itself from the way of life. The judgment that follows is fitting: I will lay stumblingblocks before this people (v. 21). Having refused the smooth and good way of verse 16, they are left to a road strewn with stones, where the fathers and the sons together shall fall. Reject the path that leads to rest, and what remains is the path that trips.
Jeremiah 6:22-30Reprobate Silver
22Thus saith the LORD, Behold, a people cometh from the north country, and a great nation shall be raised from the sides of the earth. 23They shall lay hold on bow and spear; they are cruel, and have no mercy; their voice roareth like the sea; and they ride upon horses, set in array as men for war against thee, O daughter of Zion. 24We have heard the fame thereof: our hands wax feeble: anguish hath taken hold of us, and pain, as of a woman in travail. 25Go not forth into the field, nor walk by the way; for the sword of the enemy and fear is on every side. 26O daughter of my people, gird thee with sackcloth, and wallow thyself in ashes: make thee mourning, as for an only son, most bitter lamentation: for the spoiler shall suddenly come upon us. 27I have set thee for a tower and a fortress among my people, that thou mayest know and try their way. 28They are all grievous revolters, walking with slanders: they are brass and iron; they are all corrupters. 29The bellows are burned, the lead is consumed of the fire; the founder melteth in vain: for the wicked are not plucked away. 30Reprobate silver shall men call them, because the LORD hath rejected them.
The oracle returns to the army it began with, and now describes it in full and terrifying color. Behold, a people cometh from the north country, and a great nation shall be raised from the sides of the earth. They shall lay hold on bow and spear; they are cruel, and have no mercy; their voice roareth like the sea (vv. 22-23). Every line piles dread on dread. The foe comes from the sides of the earth, from its far edges - a force out of the unknown distance. They are armed, disciplined, mounted, set in array like a parade-ground machine. And the moral note is unsparing: they are cruel, and have no mercy. This is no army that can be reasoned with or moved to pity. Their massed voice roareth like the sea - the relentless, faceless thunder of breakers that drown out every cry. The effect on the people is immediate and physical: our hands wax feeble: anguish hath taken hold of us, and pain, as of a woman in travail (v. 24). The hands go limp; the body buckles; the dread is like the helpless, unstoppable pain of childbirth. And the practical counsel is the counsel of a city already trapped: Go not forth into the field, nor walk by the way; for the sword of the enemy and fear is on every side (v. 25). There is nowhere safe to step. The danger the watchman warned of at noon has become an encirclement; the alarm of verse 1 is now the siege of verse 25.
The LORD now turns to the daughter of His people with a summons not to battle but to grief. O daughter of my people, gird thee with sackcloth, and wallow thyself in ashes: make thee mourning, as for an only son, most bitter lamentation: for the spoiler shall suddenly come upon us (v. 26). Sackcloth and ashes are the ancient signs of mourning and repentance, the rough garment and the dust of a soul brought low. But it is the comparison that pierces: as for an only son. In a world where sons carried the family name, its land, its future, the death of an only son was the most total grief imaginable - the loss not just of a child but of every tomorrow bound up in him. To mourn like that is to mourn without consolation. And the blow is sudden: the spoiler shall suddenly come upon us. Notice the small shift in pronoun - upon us. The prophet does not stand outside the grief he announces; he is caught up in it with his people, mourning the city he could not save. There is a quiet foreshadow here that the Gospel will fill out, for the bitterest mourning as for an only son finds its answer in the One whom God did give - his only begotten Son (John 3:16) - not spared from the spoiler, that the daughter of His people might be.
The chapter ends at a furnace, with one of the bleakest images in the book. The LORD has appointed Jeremiah to a task: I have set thee for a tower and a fortress among my people, that thou mayest know and try their way (v. 27). The prophet is to be an assayer, a tester of metals, stationed to examine the people and report what they are truly made of. And his verdict is grim: They are all grievous revolters, walking with slanders: they are brass and iron… they are all corrupters (v. 28). Then the refining metaphor turns tragic. In the ancient process, ore was heated with lead, and the fire was meant to draw off the dross and leave pure silver behind. But here the refining fails: The bellows are burned, the lead is consumed of the fire; the founder melteth in vain: for the wicked are not plucked away (v. 29). The bellows have scorched from the heat; the lead that should have carried off the impurities is used up; the refiner labors and labors - in vain. No matter how hot the fire, no pure metal emerges, because there was no pure metal in the ore to begin with. So comes the final, devastating sentence: Reprobate silver shall men call them, because the LORD hath rejected them (v. 30). “Reprobate” means rejected after testing, failed at the assay, stamped “refuse.” It is a sober end to the chapter - yet even “reprobate” is a verdict reached only after the testing, and the whole chapter has been one long, patient testing, with the road to rest held open the entire time.3
Further study
- The Hebrew text of Jeremiah 6 with Rashi, Radak, and other classical commentators side by side - useful for netivot olam (v. 16, the “old paths,” literally the paths of long ago), for margoa (v. 16, the “rest” God promises the soul), and for the doubled shalom, shalom of the false healers in verse 14.
- Jeremiah 6 ↔ Matthew 11 · John 14 · Hosea 6Intertextual BibleTraces the threads tying Jeremiah 6 to the rest of Scripture - the rest for the soul on the old path (v. 16) read beside ye shall find rest unto your souls (Matt. 11:29), the rejected sacrifices (v. 20) beside I will have mercy, and not sacrifice (Hos. 6:6; Matt. 9:13), and the false Peace, peace (v. 14) beside the peace Christ gives not as the world giveth (John 14:27).
- Jeremiah 6 - Translators' NotesNET BibleThe NET Bible's detailed footnotes on Jeremiah 6 - the geography of the alarm in verses 1-3 (Tekoa, Beth-haccerem, the foe from the north), the imagery of the comely daughter of Zion, the much-quoted crossroads of verse 16, and the refining furnace that closes the chapter in verses 27-30.
Where this echoes in Scripture
Evil Appeareth Out of the North
- Jeremiah 4:5-6Blow ye the trumpet in the land... set up the standard toward Zion... for I will bring evil from the north, and a great destruction.The same alarm and the same foe from the north as verses 1-6 - the storm that has been building since chapter 4.
- Matthew 23:37-38O Jerusalem, Jerusalem... how often would I have gathered thy children together... and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.The longing and the desolation of verse 8 spoken again, with tears, over the same city.
- Ezekiel 33:3-6If... he blow the trumpet, and warn the people... and the sword come, and take any person... his blood will I require at the watchman’s hand.The watchman’s trumpet of verse 1 - the duty to warn, and the peril of a city that will not hear.
- Lamentations 2:13what thing shall I liken to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem?... for thy breach is great like the sea: who can heal thee?The comely daughter of Zion (v. 2) after the siege has fallen - the grief Jeremiah here only foresees.
- Habakkuk 1:6I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, which shall march through the breadth of the land.The same truth as verse 6 - that the LORD Himself stands behind the army He sends as His instrument.
Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace
- Jeremiah 8:11For they have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.The same false cry repeated almost word for word two chapters later - a refrain Jeremiah cannot stop pressing.
- Ezekiel 13:10they have seduced my people, saying, Peace; and there was no peace; and one built up a wall, and... others daubed it with untempered morter.The same false prophets of verse 14 - a flimsy wall whitewashed to look sound.
- John 14:27Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you.The true peace over against the counterfeit of verse 14 - peace that does not skip the wound.
- Acts 7:51Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost.The uncircumcised ear of verse 10 named again - the closed hearing that cannot take the word in.
- 2 Timothy 4:3they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears.The market for false comfort that verses 13-14 expose - hearers who want the soothing word, not the true one.
Ask for the Old Paths
- Matthew 11:28-29Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest... and ye shall find rest unto your souls.The promise of verse 16 spoken again by Christ - the same rest for the soul, now found in coming to Him.
- Matthew 7:13-14narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.The good way of verse 16 - the proven road that few will stop to ask for and walk.
- Hosea 6:6For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.The rejected offerings of verse 20 - costly worship that cannot stand in for a turned heart.
- Isaiah 1:11To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the LORD... I delight not in the blood of bullocks.Almost the exact question of verse 20 - sacrifice refused when it is divorced from obedience.
- Psalm 51:16-17thou desirest not sacrifice... The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.The heart behind verse 20 - what the LORD truly accepts in place of incense and burnt offering.
Reprobate Silver
- Malachi 3:2-3he is like a refiner’s fire... and he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver... that they may offer unto the LORD an offering in righteousness.The refining that succeeds where verse 29 fails - the Refiner who sits until the silver comes out pure.
- 1 Peter 1:7the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire.The furnace of verses 27-30 read forward - fire that proves and purifies a faith more precious than gold.
- Isaiah 53:3He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.The verdict of verse 30 - <em>rejected</em> - borne by the One who took the place of the refuse.
- Jeremiah 4:31I have heard a voice as of a woman in travail... the voice of the daughter of Zion, that bewaileth herself.The travail-pain and bitter mourning of verses 24 and 26 - the daughter of Zion in anguish before the foe.
- Amos 8:10I will make it as the mourning of an only son, and the end thereof as a bitter day.The mourning <em>as for an only son</em> of verse 26 - the deepest grief the prophets knew how to name.