Jer 12:1 You are always righteous, LORD, when I bring a case before you. Yet I would speak with you about your justice: Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all the faithless live at ease?
Jer 12:2 You have planted them, and they have taken root; they grow and bear fruit. You are always on their lips but far from their hearts.
Jer 12:3 Yet you know me, LORD; you see me and test my thoughts about you. Drag them off like sheep to be butchered! Set them apart for the day of slaughter!
Jer 12:4 How long will the land lie parched and the grass in every field be withered? Because those who live in it are wicked, the animals and birds have perished. Moreover, the people are saying, “He will not see what happens to us.”
The Lord Answers Jeremiah
Jer 12:5 “If you have raced with men on foot and they have worn you out, how can you compete with horses? If you stumble in safe country, how will you manage in the thickets by the Jordan?
Jer 12:6 Your relatives, members of your own family— even they have betrayed you; they have raised a loud cry against you. Do not trust them, though they speak well of you.
Jer 12:7 “I will forsake my house, abandon my inheritance; I will give the one I love into the hands of her enemies.
Jer 12:8 My inheritance has become to me like a lion in the forest. She roars at me; therefore I hate her.
Jer 12:9 Has not my inheritance become to me like a speckled bird of prey that other birds of prey surround and attack? Go and gather all the wild beasts; bring them to devour.
Jer 12:10 Many shepherds will ruin my vineyard and trample down my field; they will turn my pleasant field into a desolate wasteland.
Jer 12:11 It will be made a wasteland, parched and desolate before me; the whole land will be laid waste because there is no one who cares.
Jer 12:12 Over all the barren heights in the desert destroyers will swarm, for the sword of the LORD will devour from one end of the land to the other; no one will be safe.
Jer 12:13 They will sow wheat but reap thorns; they will wear themselves out but gain nothing. They will bear the shame of their harvest because of the LORD’s fierce anger.”
Jer 12:14 This is what the LORD says: “As for all my wicked neighbors who seize the inheritance I gave my people Israel, I will uproot them from their lands and I will uproot the people of Judah from among them.
Jer 12:15 But after I uproot them, I will again have compassion and will bring each of them back to their own inheritance and their own country.
Jer 12:16 And if they learn well the ways of my people and swear by my name, saying, ‘As surely as the LORD lives’—even as they once taught my people to swear by Baal—then they will be established among my people.
Jer 12:17 But if any nation does not listen, I will completely uproot and destroy it,” declares the LORD.
1 Jeremiah, complaining of the wicked’s prosperity, by faith seeth their ruin. 5 God admonisheth him of his brethren’s treachery against him, 7 and lamenteth his heritage. 14 He promiseth to the penitent return from captivity.
Jeremiah’s Complaint
Jer 12:1 You are always righteous, LORD, when I bring a case before you. Yet I would speak with you about your justice: Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all the faithless live at ease?
Jeremiah appears deeply perplexed over the continued prosperity of the wicked. Though at heart convinced that God is “righteous,” he cannot fully harmonize his concept of God with the facts of human experience.
Other saints had grappled with the same problem, for example, Job (Job 21:7–13) and David (Ps. 73:1–12; see Introduction to Ps. 73). If, as seems likely, Jer. 12 fits chronologically between chs. 11 and 13, Jeremiah may have still been troubled over the hostility and the conspiracy of the men of Anathoth.
Jer 12:2 You have planted them, and they have taken root; they grow and bear fruit. You are always on their lips but far from their hearts.
They have taken root. A figure denoting the prosperous state of the wicked.
Jer 12:3 Yet you know me, LORD; you see me and test my thoughts about you. Drag them off like sheep to be butchered! Set them apart for the day of slaughter!
Confident that God is aware of his sincerity, Jeremiah expects God to vindicate him.
Jeremiah requests for his enemies the punishment they intended to inflict upon him.
Jer 12:4 How long will the land lie parched and the grass in every field be withered? Because those who live in it are wicked, the animals and birds have perished. Moreover, the people are saying, “He will not see what happens to us.”
The Lord Answers Jeremiah
Jer 12:5 “If you have raced with men on foot and they have worn you out, how can you compete with horses? If you stumble in safe country, how will you manage in the thickets by the Jordan?
God asks Jeremiah to compare his small sorrows with the larger troubles of others, or with the larger troubles that would yet come to him.
With the footmen. A figure representing the ordinary vicissitudes of life, as compared with “horses,” or “horsemen,” representing the more difficult experiences. The ordinary man could be expected to “keep up” with his fellow men. If he should become weary when running with the footmen, how could he face the harder task of keeping up with the horses?
The lesson given to the prophet of old may well come home to each one today. If we neglect the minor tasks of life, how can we undertake the greater responsibilities that may come to us? If we succumb to the smaller temptations of everyday life, how can we overcome in the greater crises of life?
If we cannot endure the lesser troubles of life, how can we withstand the terrible tribulations that will yet come upon us? And finally, if we fail to meet the situations of the present day with faith and trust, how will we be able to stand the almost unendurable hardships and almost overmastering delusions that will come upon us during the “time of trouble” (see GC 621, 622)?
Jer 12:6 Your relatives, members of your own family— even they have betrayed you; they have raised a loud cry against you. Do not trust them, though they speak well of you.
Jer 12:7 “I will forsake my house, abandon my inheritance; I will give the one I love into the hands of her enemies
Jer 12:9 Has not my inheritance become to me like a speckled bird of prey that other birds of prey surround and attack? Go and gather all the wild beasts; bring them to devour.
Jer 12:11 It will be made a wasteland, parched and desolate before me; the whole land will be laid waste because there is no one who cares.
No one who cares. The threefold repetition of this idea adds strikingly to the force of the picture.
An expression denoting indifference, a sin that made more grievous the iniquity of the Israelites (see Isa. 42:25; 57:1, 11).
Jer 12:12 Over all the barren heights in the desert destroyers will swarm, for the sword of the LORD will devour from one end of the land to the other; no one will be safe.
Sword of the Lord. So called because the military might of Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar was the instrument used to carry out the divine purpose in punishing God’s people (see on Deut. 32:41; cf.
Jer 12:13 They will sow wheat but reap thorns; they will wear themselves out but gain nothing. They will bear the shame of their harvest because of the LORD’s fierce anger.”
Jer 12:14 This is what the LORD says: “As for all my wicked neighbours who seize the inheritance I gave my people Israel, I will uproot them from their lands and I will uproot the people of Judah from among them.
My evil neighbours. The Edomites, Moabites, Amalekites, Philistines, and the other surrounding nations who rejoiced over Judah’s fall and attacked her when she was weak (see 2 Kings 24:1, 2).
I will uproot them. In their captivity these heathen nations will suffer punishment like that of Judah (see ch. 25:15–29).
Jer 12:16 And if they learn well the ways of my people and swear by my name, saying, ‘As surely as the LORD lives’—even as they once taught my people to swear by Baal—then they will be established among my people.
If a heathen nation would turn to Jehovah, the God of Israel, that nation would “be built in the midst” of His people, that is, be counted as belonging to the Lord. It was God’s purpose that these nations should turn to Him and be added to His people, Israel.
Jer 12:17 But if any nation does not listen, I will completely uproot and destroy it,” declares the LORD. To nations, as well as to individuals, is given a time of probation, and when that time is past, the unrepentant nation will fall under the wrath of God (see PK 364).