NOTES for Jer 7:1-34
Jeremiah’s sermon, delivered at the entrance to the Temple (v. 2), raises certain questions. For example, it is not entirely clear which “Baals” (v. 9) he means, given that he is speaking of a time when King Josiah’s religious reform was already an accomplished fact. Of course, the sermon may have been delivered under one of Josiah’s successors, when pagan cults had once again begun to spread through Judah and pagan altars had appeared even in the Temple court. Yet the reference here seems more likely to be to household cults, which even Josiah had been unable to eradicate.
As we know, paganism always penetrates deeply into everyday life, and it is especially difficult to combat there, because everyday life is wholly shaped by the spiritual substance of the lives of those who arrange it. That is why public, official religiosity often differs markedly from domestic, everyday religion. Apparently, many of the newly converted “Yahwists” who appeared in such numbers in the country after Josiah’s reform remained pagans in essence, while never doubting their own orthodoxy for a moment. Spiritually, such a situation was worse than open paganism: pagans at least know who they are and do not deceive themselves, whereas imaginary “Yahwists” like those whom Jeremiah addressed remained in a pleasant delusion about their own religiosity. Yahwism was probably not the foundation of these people’s spiritual life, but merely a kind of national ideology. They saw Yahweh as the Patron of the country and the people, yet He did not touch their hearts, so their everyday life had room both for the Baals and for the cult of the Great Goddess (vv. 17–18).
Such Yahwism, however, became the basis for the rapid growth of a peculiar religious nationalism. The inhabitants of Judah were convinced that nothing threatened them, for Jerusalem now contained the only place on earth where sacrifices were offered to the true God; therefore neither they nor their country had anything to fear (vv. 3–4). Moreover, they were evidently quite certain that deliverance from disaster and the messianic Kingdom were guaranteed to them by definition: they were God’s people, they regularly attended Temple worship and took part in sacrifices, while giving no thought either to keeping the commandments or even to abandoning the pagan cults so dear to their hearts (vv. 9–10). Self-confidence of this kind deprives every cult of spiritual worth, as the prophet reminds his compatriots (vv. 21–24).
Such were the fruits of a religious reform imposed from above: its outward result was achieved comparatively easily and quickly, but the spiritual condition of the people proved worse than before. Paganism had left the streets of Jerusalem only to hide in the homes and hearts of the city’s inhabitants; now it was joined by self-confident nationalism, heavily mixed with a very superficial Yahwistic religiosity. This mixture made repentance impossible and catastrophe inevitable.