Ask for the Old Paths
16 Yahweh says, “Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, ‘Where is the good way?’ and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’ 17 I set watchmen over you, saying, ‘Listen to the sound of the trumpet!’ But they said, ‘We will not listen!’ 18 Therefore hear, you nations, and know, congregation, what is among them. 19 Hear, earth! Behold, I will bring evil on this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not listened to my words; and as for my law, they have rejected it. 20 To what purpose does frankincense from Sheba come to me, and the sweet cane from a far country? Your burnt offerings are not acceptable, and your sacrifices are not pleasing to me.” 21 Therefore Yahweh says, “Behold, I will lay stumbling blocks before this people. The fathers and the sons together will stumble against them. The neighbor and his friend will perish.” 22 Yahweh says, “Behold, a people comes from the north country. A great nation will be stirred up from the uttermost parts of the earth. 23 They take hold of bow and spear. They are cruel, and have no mercy. Their voice roars like the sea, and they ride on horses, everyone set in array, as a man to the battle, against you, daughter of Zion.” 24 We have heard its report. Our hands become feeble. Anguish has taken hold of us, and pains as of a woman in labor. 25 Don’t go out into the field or walk by the way; for the sword of the enemy and terror are on every side. 26 Daughter of my people, clothe yourself with sackcloth, and wallow in ashes! Mourn, as for an only son, most bitter lamentation, for the destroyer will suddenly come on us. 27 “I have made you a tester of metals and a fortress among my people, that you may know and try their way. 28 They are all grievous rebels, going around to slander. They are bronze and iron. All of them deal corruptly. 29 The bellows blow fiercely. The lead is consumed in the fire. In vain they go on refining, for the wicked are not plucked away. 30 Men will call them rejected silver, because Yahweh has rejected them.”
An offer of rest is made in terms so mild that the refusal of it is the shocking thing, and the chapter ends with a refining process that produces nothing.
The instruction is a traveler's, and every verb in it is gentle. Stand at the crossroads, look, ask where the good way is, walk in it. The result promised is rest for the soul. Nothing is demanded that a person could not do standing still. What follows is therefore the harshest sentence in the chapter, precisely because it is so short: But they said, 'We will not walk in it.' The same exchange is repeated with the watchmen and the trumpet, and the answer is the same four words in a different form. Twice the refusal is quoted rather than described, because a refusal stated in the first person cannot be explained away as a misunderstanding.
What the nation offers instead is expensive. Frankincense carried up from Arabia and aromatic cane from a far country are named as imports, and imports of that kind were not casual purchases. The reply does not say the offerings are insincere or badly performed. It says they are not wanted. The burnt offerings are not acceptable and the sacrifices are not pleasing, and the reason lies in the verse before: the law has been rejected. Costly religion is weighed against obedience and found to be no substitute for it. That is the argument the temple sermon will make at length in the next chapter.
The army from the north is described again, and one detail is worth noticing. Their voice roars like the sea. Two chapters earlier the sea was the thing that could not pass its boundary Jeremiah 5:22; now the same sound is coming over the land, because the restraint that held it has been lifted. The response inside Judah is physical rather than military — hands gone feeble, the pains of labor, sackcloth, mourning as for an only son. Nobody in these verses is preparing to fight.
The chapter closes with Jeremiah given an unusual job description: a tester of metals among his people, set there to know and try their way. The assay is then reported, and it fails. The bellows blow fiercely and the lead is consumed, but the process yields nothing: in vain they go on refining, for the wicked are not plucked away. The ore is finally written off as rejected silver. The image concedes something the rest of the chapter has been arguing. God's dealings with Judah are a refining rather than a demolition, an attempt to recover the metal. And the verdict that the fire produced no silver is what makes the coming destruction the last option rather than the first.
settled What this mark means