NOTES for Jer 17:5-10
Jeremiah's words about the fate of the righteous person and the sinner could be taken as ordinary exhortations to a righteous life. But there is something in his preaching that makes us see them quite differently. It is no accident that the prophet speaks of God, who knows the human heart as no person knows their own.
In the language of the Bible, the heart is the spiritual centre of the human person, their spiritual ‘self’, the very centre where choices are made and decisions taken. It is the heart that determines what a person will be before God and before other people. A person's spiritual path is also determined by the heart. God does not watch over a person in order to punish or reward them.
God looks into a person's heart to understand where they are going. And to discover whether there is room for Him in that heart and on that path. After all, this is the only way to determine whether the person before us is righteous or a sinner. In the Bible, both righteousness and sinfulness are regarded not as a person's properties but as states in which they find themselves. These states are connected with the relationship between God and the human person. Or with its absence.
Righteousness is not, in fact, natural to human beings at all; God alone is righteous, as the Bible says in various words and forms. But a person can become righteous if they trust God and allow Him to shape their life. Day after day. Step by step. It is no accident that the Bible describes righteousness as a path. A person's path of following God. Despite their own sinfulness. And the oasis at the end of the path, where a spring of living water flows, is not a reward as such, but the completion of the journey. Just as life in a barren desert is the consequence of losing one's way. The waywardness that characterises the sinner.
The oasis and the dry, waterless desert symbolise a goal reached or not reached. A life lived with meaning and understanding, or a meaningless life. It is no accident that the Torah speaks of the way of life and the way of death. It is not God who kills a person for their sin. Sin itself kills the person who refuses to follow the path of righteousness. Not always immediately, but always inevitably. For there is only one Kingdom. And only one life. And only one salvation — in this Kingdom and in this life. Because the alternative to the Kingdom and to life is emptiness and death. And it depends on the person alone which path they choose.