Jeremiah 13
January 20, 2024 3:34 PM
Solitary Man
solitaryman.substack.com
20240120
(Please refer to the Preface and Introduction sections found in the Jeremiah Chapter 1 commentary for some general information about this chapter by chapter study of Jeremiah).
A Special Note
Someone brought to my attention that my introductory comment on the length of Jeremiah’s ministry was incorrect. The comment in question was:
Jeremiah’s ministry spanned the years from 627 BC to 560 BC. When he records his final scene at the end of chapter 52, he may of been 85-90 years old.
This person stated that Jeremiah’s ministry was actually from 627 to 586 BC, due to Jer 1:2-3:
Jer 1:2 To whom the word of the LORD came in the days of Josiah the son of Amon king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign.
Jer 1:3 It came also in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, unto the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah the son of Josiah king of Judah, unto the carrying away of Jerusalem captive in the fifth month.
Jeremiah’s prophetic ministry may of ended in 586 BC, but I chose to define Jeremiah’s ministry as not just prophesying, but recording the word of God. Jeremiah records his final scene in chapter 52, in 560 BC.
Hope that clears that up.
Chapter 13
Jer 13:1 Thus saith the LORD unto me, Go and get thee a linen girdle, and put it upon thy loins, and put it not in water.
Here we find an example of one of the most memorable methods God uses when he speaks through his prophet. He is asking Jeremiah to perform some physical action, which will have great spiritual significance. It’s a pattern of conduct that shows that God will at times inspire us to present the gospel in unorthodox ways. Of course, the key to doing whatever you believe you should do is to ensure that it is the Lord speaking, and not some other voice.
A linen girdle (sash, belt) was part of Jeremiah’s priestly dress (Ex 28:40, Lv 16:4). Israel, represented by the girdle, had been chosen for consecrated use. To perform one’s priestly duties involves frequent and various washings. To be told not to wash this garment was therefore an exceptional command, one that went against the general commands that God would usually give concerning washings. This would represent the fact that God was about to show Israel something that was not of his will. The unwashed girdle was to represent the guilt of the people, unpurified without any real contact with the clean water of repentance (Ez 36:25).
Jer 13:2 So I got a girdle according to the word of the LORD, and put it on my loins.
It did not say Jeremiah hesitated. He simply obeyed. Perhaps it cost him money that he did not have to spend on such things at this time. Perhaps he had to interrupt his busy schedule to go and search for and buy this item. Unlike king Saul, who had every excuse ready as to why he did not completely obey the command of the Lord, Jeremiah did so without question.
Jer 13:3 And the word of the LORD came unto me the second time, saying,
This second word would not of come unless he has instantly and completely obeyed the first. If God has stopped talking to you, go back and see if you have fully obeyed what he had previously told you.
God will not waste words on someone whose obedience is hit and miss.
Jer 13:4 Take the girdle that thou hast got, which is upon thy loins, and arise, go to Euphrates, and hide it there in a hole of the rock.
We see the second word is even more strange than the first. Perhaps Jeremiah had to borrow the money to buy this girdle. Perhaps he had to dig into his savings, which was set aside for other uses. So at some personal cost, whether small or great, Jeremiah had obeyed the initial word of the Lord. If he were anything like us, he probably expected a big blessing in return. Instead, God’s next command is even more distressing. This brand new girdle he is now supposed to effectively bury it in a hole in the ground! What was the point of that? It’s just going to get ruined. Couldn’t God of asked him to use one of his older girdles? Why this unnecessary expense? Doesn’t God care about my personal financial situation? If I go and try and explain this to my friends in my prayer group, the will all try to talk me out of it, saying God never acts that way. That sounds presumptuous. I would ask for at least a couple confirmations before doing this. There is no record that Jeremiah did any of this. Confident in his relationship with the Lord, he did not consult with the elders in the priesthood, he simply obeyed.
A cautionary note here. Before you run off and do something stupid, because you truly believe God told you to do it, make sure you have a confidence in your current relationship with the Lord like Jeremiah had. All of us have heard of absolutely crazy things that other believers have done, claiming God told them to do it. Indeed, for anyone interested, I experienced a case of engaging in severe presumption and humiliation a couple of years ago. For that personal testimony, you can refer to my four part series entitled ‘our journey’ which is posted back in June of last year.
A note about the text. Most commentators do not believe that Jeremiah made 2 trips from Jerusalem to the river Euphrates, as that would be a very long distance to go. Some believe he just performed these tasks in a vision. However, that is not what the text says. The word for Euphrates is per-awth, which may of been another name for Bethlehem, 6 miles south of Jerusalem, a much more manageable task. Usually when the actual Euphrates river is mentioned, the word for ‘river’ precedes the word for Euphrates, which is not found in this verse.
Jer 13:5 So I went, and hid it by Euphrates, as the LORD commanded me.
Again, the text simply states that Jeremiah went. If you want to be used of God in a meaningful way, then your level of obedience must be patterned after people like this.
Jer 13:6 And it came to pass after many days, that the LORD said unto me, Arise, go to Euphrates, and take the girdle from thence, which I commanded thee to hide there.
God is not constrained by our timetable. How long was many days? No one knows. I wonder if Jeremiah kept bugging God in prayer, wondering when was God going to show him what all this nonsense was all about? Somehow I don’t think so. He simply rested in the fact that up until this point, he had done all God had asked him to do. He was confident that at the exact perfect moment, the next step of God’s plan would be revealed.
Do we have such patience when God has given us step one and two, but has stopped speaking since? What a fine line between between knowing that we know that we know we have heard God, and resting in that, versus the immature, unstable believer, who either has conjured up some words out of their own imagination and attributed them to God, or is weak in faith and keeps doubting what God has really said. Here is the great challenge of our daily faith walk. We all want to believe that God speaks to each and every one of us individually. We also want to believe that we can have a meaningful ministry, like the bible characters of old. So when we think we sense and perceive some thing of the spirit, how do we know that we know that we know it really is God speaking, and not just wishful thinking, or a variation of something that we read online? No one can answer this question for you. It all comes down to how well you know the master. How much you have been refined in the fires of experience. Your past track record of success and failures.
Of course, it goes without saying that everything you hear must not contradict the word.
In any event, Jesus calls us to follow him. You must expect that you will make mistakes, like I did in my story referenced above. You must be willing to look foolish before the world. You will then face a fork in the road. Do you get up and keep going, or do you shrink back, and play it safe? Often those crisis moments in your life will determine the course of your life going forward. Don’t be afraid to fail. But be very afraid of turning back, when failure inevitably occurs.
Jer 13:7 Then I went to Euphrates, and digged, and took the girdle from the place where I had hid it: and, behold, the girdle was marred (decayed, ruined, utterly wasted), it was profitable (good) for nothing.
So this was the big result that God wanted to occur after Jeremiah want to all that personal time and expense of searching for and acquiring this girdle, making 2 long trips to hide and retrieve it?
What was in it for him? Obviously Jeremiah did not ask that question, but I wonder how many of us would of had that as our first thought.
Jer 13:8 Then the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
Again, this third word only was made possible due to complete obedience to the first two, even if those words were increasingly confusing and flew against common sense and human understanding. God does not grade on a curve, especially not with leadership ministries like the prophetic. God may make allowances for incomplete execution of his word in the newly redeemed due to ignorance, but his expectations of us are generally much more demanding than most churches teach.
Jer 13:9 Thus saith the LORD, After this manner will I mar (destroy) the pride of Judah, and the great pride of Jerusalem.
God will allow his rebellious people to rot away, stuck in a hole someplace. He will leave the backslidden in a pit of despair, mired in iniquity, a pigsty of uncleanness, unless they turn around and come back to him. The girdle was hidden, forgotten, in a dark, dank place. It was unwashed, therefore unclean. It was untended, therefore not watched over. All this effort just to give a visual example of how God saw his people, and what his response was going to be. Remember God did nothing for the prodigal son until be came to his senses and turned around and began the journey back home.
Jer 13:10 This evil people, which refuse to hear (shama – hear with the implication of obedience) my words, which walk in the imagination (twisted obstinacy, lust) of their heart, and walk after other gods (elohim), to serve them (be in bondage to), and to worship them (prostate yourself to them), shall even be as this girdle, which is good for nothing.
God calls his people as a whole evil people. Would he say the same thing to describe all of us today, the western church as a whole? If we haven’t gone totally Marxist, woke, alphabet loving, sodomy crazy, carbon hating, then we’ve gone name it, claim it, private jet acquiring, golden tv studio building, rolex wearing, rolling on the floor laughing crazy. These are our supposed brothers and sisters. Of course, God is clearly showing that is not the case. Yet this is what the world sees when they see the visible church. How would you characterize it?
What made these people evil? They used their free will to refuse to hear (with the intention of doing what they heard). I thought once saved, always saved? That could be true, if God took away our free wills at the moment of salvation. Why would you need to endure to the end in order to be saved, according to Jesus? I think I’ll go with the words of Jesus, rather than the words of Calvin.
Now when you decide to not fill your life with God’s will, you must fill your life with something else. In case you think your imagination will need a little help, don’t worry, the devil will help fill that void between your ears in case you lack any ideas as to what to do with your future. He will fill it with twisted things, things that resist the will of God, things that cater to your fleshly lusts. The result though, will be bondage and a false worship of someone or some thing. God then declares that you will be as valuable as that ruined girdle. In other words, worthless.
Jer 13:11 For as the girdle cleaveth (clings) to the loins of a man, so have I caused to cleave unto me the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah, saith the LORD; that they might be unto me for a people, and for a name, and for a praise, and for a glory: but they would not hear (shama).
Here is a revelation of God’s purpose in why he chose Israel in the first place. Note that it was not primarily because he felt sorry for them, or that his love compelled him to save them. We have these historically inaccurate ideas about the nature and the ways of God. Rather, the reasons listed were to glorify himself in various ways.
God wanted Israel (and note he specifically mentions both kingdoms, so the 10 tribes are not lost or eternally abandoned) to be set apart for himself. He wanted one tribe in particular out of all the tribes of the earth for a special assignment. That assignment was so that through them, God’s name would become known. All other tribes would praise God for what he did through Israel. God would be glorified with how he worked through, and took care of, his chosen people. But this could only occur if they cooperated. They chose not to.
Jer 13:12 Therefore thou shalt speak unto them this word; Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Every bottle shall be filled with wine: and they shall say unto thee, Do we not certainly know that every bottle shall be filled with wine?
God now resorts to a sort of mockery to get their attention. God has spoken extremely seriously and directly to these people for many years, and they would not shama (hear and obey). So now he speaks something that would certainly get the attention of these reprobates, ie, he will talk to them about alcohol, and the importance of having enough in stock.
Again, God is choosing to speak to Israel in a very unusual way. This does not sound like your regular Sunday sermon. Sometimes God will simply try and jar people out of their spiritual stupor, by speaking outlandish, unexpected things (see Mal 2:3).
Jer 13:13 Then shalt thou say unto them, Thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will fill all the inhabitants of this land, even the kings that sit upon David’s throne, and the priests, and the prophets, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, with drunkenness.
I wonder if they thought God was actually going to do this. It is amazing how some so called believers misinterpret the obvious meaning of God’s word.
I would suggest that God has been performing this verse during the entirety of the Laodicean church age. He has filled us with counterfeit revivals. All you have to do is look at some of the videos captured for eternity on youtube to see just how retarded some of us behaved during the 80’s onward. Preachers dancing over mounds of currency as people threw the contents of their wallet at the false prophet’s feet. People barking like dogs, laughing hysterically, uncontrollably for hours at a time. Seeing plastic golden colored glitter on someone’s shoulders and think God is somehow raining gold dust upon them. Pictures of common crackers found in someone’s bible and thinking God sent some manna from heaven for no apparent reason. Letting people prophesy absolute nonsense. Proving the prophetic words were false by them failing to come to pass, and instead of kicking them out, ignoring the truth and continuing as if nothing happened. Going to meetings where the demon possessed teacher tells us of the 4th or 5th private jet that the lord gave him. Yes, a lord gave him a jet, but it wasn’t the Lord of heaven that we worship. All of us could continue to fill this list with countless examples of this sort of foolishness.
Drunkenness in the bible is not a good thing. Just because the scoffers in Acts chapter 2 mocked the newly spirit filled believers by accusing them of being drunk, we somehow think drunkenness is a positive sign of being filled with the spirit. Yet Peter immediately corrected those mockers, stating it was not so. Paul says be ye not drunk with wine, but rather be filled with the Spirit (Eph 5:18). Note these 2 things are in complete opposition, they are not one and the same – quite the opposite in fact.
So if God says he will fill us with drunkenness, that means he will allow us to lose all sense and reason. Kind of like what happened to us with so many weird manifestations and movements in the church – all bereft of true repentance, holiness, and evangelization (just because a number may of joined that heretical church, does not mean that they were truly evangelized to the true faith). In the same vein, from 2020 onwards a full 98% (or more) of the North American church acted like drunken fools when they took the blood money dished out by the government to keep their churches closed, forever labelling them as non-essential services. To add crime upon crime, they then encouraged the congregations to kill themselves by lining up for the forerunner to the mark of the beast.
All this mishpat has come to pass because we refused to shama.
Jer 13:14 And I will dash (break them in pieces, disperse, scatter) them one against another, even the fathers and the sons together, saith the LORD: I will not pity (commiserate, have compassion, spare), nor spare (cover for them, regard them), nor have mercy, but destroy (corrupt, ruin, utterly spoil) them.
Remember we are still talking about what God is going to do to us, his people, not the evil globalists that have so destroyed our nice, safe, secure, prosperous, way of life. God will break us in pieces and scatter us. How many of us have been forced to leave an apostate church? How many families were ripped apart during covid? I thought God’s mercy endures forever. We love verses like those. Yet here it says that God will not even commiserate with you, let alone have pity or compassion on you. He isn’t even interested in hearing you cry and weep, now that your sin has finally caught up with you. He promises here not to spare you, or to cover for your wickedness. He does promise to destroy you, by corrupting your very blood with snake venom, your dna with nanotech. He promises to ruin your immune system by unleashing a cytokine storm within your body, turning you into a snake venom factory. How so very appropriate! You would not let go of your father the devil’s nature, so God allowed that serpent’s very physical nature to become yours. Enjoy your envenomation. You would not listen when you had the chance, now God laughs at your calamity (Ps 2:4). This is the true fate of the unrepentant soul, that stiffens their neck, and refuses to bow the knee to the almighty.
Jer 13:15 Hear (shama) ye, and give ear (listen); be not proud (lofty, haughty): for the LORD hath spoken.
And yet God refuses to totally give up on his rebellious flock. He chooses to try and reach them one more time. You see how pride and hearing from God do not ever mix.
Jer 13:16 Give glory to the LORD your God, before he cause darkness (before he withholds light), and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains, and, while ye look for light, he turn it into the shadow of death (he ordains the grave for you), and make it gross darkness (and places you in the thick gloom).
God is blinding those who refuse to put aside false theology and not recognize judgment. Note God chooses to blind those who refuse to hear, even as Jesus spoke (Mt 13:15, Mk 8:18, Lk 19:42, Jn 12:40). After a certain point in rejecting the wooing of the Holy Spirit, God may abandon you. Intellectually, you may even realize that you need to get right with God, but God will darken your path. You have chosen your own judgment. Sometimes we become a little too rigid in universally applying a single verse to explain everyone’s situation in life. That is why the bible contains 66 books. There are certain circumstances and situations that seem to go against the common grain of thought and theology, yet they harmonize if we have paid the price and taken the time to absorb the entire counsel of God, not just the bits and pieces our pastors chose to feed us with.
Jer 13:17 But if ye will not hear (shama) it, my soul shall weep in secret places for your pride (arrogance); and mine eye shall weep sore (daw-mah daw-mah – weep sorely, weep sorely), and run down with tears, because the LORD’S flock is carried away captive.
A true man of God is heartbroken over the people’s pride and refusal to repent. Jeremiah would do most of his weeping alone, locked away with his father in heaven. God would note his tears. We all feel the same sense of helplessness, as we see our nations being invaded and on the verge of collapse, and there is not a single thing we can do to stop it.
Jer 13:18 Say unto the king and to the queen, Humble yourselves, sit down: for your principalities (headship, dominion) shall come down, even the crown of your glory.
All you leaders who have so profited living at ease, without a thought for the things of God, your comfort is quickly coming to an end.
Jer 13:19 The cities of the south (negeb) shall be shut up (surrendered, given up), and none shall open them (loosen them, set them free): Judah shall be carried away captive (stripped) all of it, it shall be wholly carried away captive (stripped).
The promise of loss of land, loss of wealth, loss of property. No one is coming to our aid in Canada and America. We are the last bastion of freedom, and all is being thrown away by the traitorous scum that have infested the halls of our governments. Yet it is God who has decreed it so.
Jer 13:20 Lift up your eyes, and behold them that come from the north (dark place): where is the flock that was given thee, thy beautiful flock?
This hints of the depopulation that has only begun. We also are being overrun with alien tribes. Our own tribes are almost a minority already. Our flock, our tribe, is perishing.
Jer 13:21 What wilt thou say when he shall punish thee? for thou hast taught them to be captains, and as chief over thee: shall not sorrows take thee, as a woman in travail?
We’ve voluntary brought in bible hating aliens to come in and given them jobs of authority in our lands in the name of diversity, inclusion, and equity, and now they have become our oppressors, murderers, and tyrants. What now will you say to these aliens? Do you think your objections will be heard anymore? Will you not simply be arrested as a white supremacist, a domestic terrorist, a spreader of hate, or whatever label they choose to slap on you?
Enjoy your wokeness.
Jer 13:22 And if thou say in thine heart, Wherefore come these things upon me? For the greatness (abundance) of thine iniquity (perversities) are thy skirts discovered (revealed, removed), and thy heels made bare.
The imagery here is quite unmistakable. You’ve been stripped naked. All your private parts have been revealed. In other words, the innermost secrets of your wicked hearts have been exposed for all to see. I keep thinking about how covid simply exposed that 98% of all pastors were not real pastors at all. Covid did not turn real pastors into false ones. Covid simply exposed the fact that they were false pastors all along. They were not willing to suffer any personal loss in protecting the sheep. They might of got fined. They might of gotten arrested. They certainly would of gotten negative publicity, and much criticism. Many rich sheep would of left. They were fully exposed as simply hirelings – they were always there just for the wages. When the Canadian government actually gave them money to not do their supposed calling, so much the better, as far as they were concerned. The sad thing was that the decision was a no brainer for these fake shepherds. No moral agonizing needed to take place at all. And even after so much truth has come out about how this was all a scam, an unbelievably wicked plot to enslave and destroy mankind, almost all of them still have no regret or sorrow about the choices they made.
What is so alarming that as in Jeremiah’s day, so it is today. It is amazing how many never seem to understand just how sinful we are. They are asking Jeremiah why such a harsh word? Aren’t we the chosen of God? Are we not his covenant people forever? God thinks not. And neither should you, should you find yourself living the same life as these apostates were living. It still sickens, saddens, and disheartens me to hear of very prominent, world renowned men of God say that the jab was a gift from God. 17 million (probably 5 times that) deaths later, no admittance of the utter wickedness of that statement, lest it damage one’s donor base, of whose a large percentage fully embraced the genocidal narrative. A former president who still brags that his number one accomplishment was the enabling of the unleashing of the world’s most toxic weapon that man has ever created. With too much pride to ever admit that he made the worst mistake of his life, or perhaps it was never a mistake in the first place.
Man always, always, always, underestimates their utter sinfulness.
Jer 13:23 Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed (discipled) to do evil.
This is a very bleak, somewhat hopeless pronouncement over a nation that has gone so far in sin that it becomes virtually impossible for them to repent, which is why judgment has come when it has. It seems to me that God waited until it was a certainty that Judah was beyond repentance before unleashing haram – a decree of total destruction for that which is utterly worthless. God is stating that Judah is no more able to turn their behavior around at this stage of their history than a black skinned Ethiopian could make himself white, or a leopard could remove his spots.
Jer 13:24 Therefore will I scatter them as the stubble (straw) that passeth away by the wind of the wilderness (open field).
Nothing will stop loose chaff being blown about every where when the wind blows. So will his people when God smites them and scatters them far away from their inheritance. Who knows where the backsliding believer will end up when they choose to walk away from Jesus? Certainly they will end far away from their inheritance that should of been theirs in Christ.
Jer 13:25 This is thy lot (destiny), the portion of thy measures from me, saith the LORD; because thou hast forgotten me (has mislaid me, become oblivious to, out of memory, intentionally forgot), and trusted in falsehood (sought refuge in a vain thing).
We love to talk about the wonderful plan God has for our lives. Here we see that God rewards the wicked with a destiny of judgment, just like he rewards the righteous with a destiny of eternal life. The things of God always work both ways. See what God had to say about the Pharaoh of Egypt (Rom 9:27). Those whom God foreknew, he chose to be conformed to the image of his son (Rom 8:29). God foreknows each and every one of our fates. Do not try and solve predestination, foreknowledge and free will. Focus on the truths right in front of you. Jeremiah makes it abundantly clear that those who practice unrighteousness, especially those who claim to be the people of God, have a destiny, just like the just do. You will be scattered far from the inheritance you have so taken for granted.
Do not tempt God by making light of sin.
Jer 13:26 Therefore will I discover (strip off) thy skirts upon thy face (right on front of you), that thy shame may appear (that your disgrace may be seen by all).
Do not think that you can hide your evil heart from everyone else forever. Sooner or later, your true character will be revealed. See how God exposed all the hirelings in the church pulpits in 2020. I recall a recent case where one of the best alternative media personalities was seemingly being used by God to expose the cabal’s deepest and darkest secrets. I was going to his podcast almost daily for the latest interviews. He had marvellous and absolutely truthful exposes on many of the dark deeds being unleashed upon the unsuspecting public. This went on for a couple of years.
Then this last summer I noticed one unsettling trend. He seemed to go out of his way to denounce anyone who supported anything or anyone Jewish. First it was a very occasional thing, so I ignored it. I know that there were many Christians raised in a sort of unspoken (or spoken) anti-Semitic theological framework. Then came October 7. Shortly after that, his show switched to an all out Jew hating, Muslim ignoring format, where almost every show was lies and slanders about anything Jewish. He had been unmasked. Needless to day, that was the end of ever watching his show again. Whether or not he was wicked from the outset as a tare amongst the wheat, or this hidden, unconfessed sin was always there, smouldering away in his heart, waiting for the right circumstance to be revealed, no one knows. I do pray for him occasionally, but shudder in fear at how undealt with, hidden sin can and will find you out. I believe that especially in these last days, no one will be allowed to sit on the fence anymore. God is exposing everything. The covid agenda is simply God’s way to begin the revealing of what our reality really consists of, and it is far darker than anyone had ever imagined.
Jer 13:27 I have seen thine adulteries, and thy neighings (whinnyings – through impatience for battle or lust), the lewdness (criminal planning) of thy whoredom, and thine abominations (idolatrous filth) on the hills in the fields. Woe unto thee, O Jerusalem! wilt thou not be made clean? when shall it once be?
God sees all. He sees our good, and all our bad. Remember how at various times our wicked inner desires caused us to act like beasts in heat? How we couldn’t wait to look at pornography, or to go and spread gossip about those we didn’t like or envied? We intentionally planned to sin. We would engage in unclean thoughts, watch unclean things. We would do these things on the hills, in the fields. In other words, in the most prominent places, as if we were proud of who we were, how we behaved, and what we believed.
The chapter ends with a lament. Not by Jeremiah, but by Yehovah. He asked Judah the same thing he is asking us right now: ‘Will you not come to the foot of my son’s cross and let his blood wash you clean? When shall you come? How long will it be’?
Let us not do as the Judeans did, lest we all end up like the Judeans did.
Solitary Man
https://solitaryman.substack.com/
Photos courtesy Depositphotos
