The broken covenant.

This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: ‘Listen to the terms of this covenant and tell them to the people of Judah and to those who live in Jerusalem. Tell them that this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: “Cursed is the man who does not obey the terms of this covenant – the terms I commanded your forefathers when I brought them out of Egypt, out of the iron-smelting furnace.' (Jeremiah 11:1-4)

This is one of the earliest of Jeremiah’s pronouncements - despite it being in chapter 11 (which illustrates the complexity of dealing with the Book of Jeremiah!).

This word is dealing with the terms of the ‘Book of the Covenant’ that had been discovered during the repairs to the Temple initiated by King Josiah, about the year 621 BC.

The Covenant Renewed

The account of the discovery of the scroll in the Temple is found in 2 Chronicles 34. When it was found, the Prophetess Huldah was consulted. She confirmed that the scroll was genuine and added:

This is what the Lord says: ‘I am going to bring disaster on this place and its people – all the curses written in the book that has been read in the presence of the king of Judah. Because they have forsaken me and burned incense to other gods and provoked me to anger by all their hands have made, my anger will be poured out on this place and will not be quenched.’

Huldah added a lot more, which led the king to call the elders of Judah and Jerusalem to meet him in the Temple, where the words of the Book of the Covenant, (parts of the Book of Deuteronomy) were read aloud. Josiah then renewed the covenant in the presence of the Lord, promising to follow the commands, regulations and decrees with all his heart and soul.

The record in 2 Chronicles 34:32 says “Then he made everyone in Jerusalem and Benjamin pledge themselves to it; the people of Jerusalem did this in accordance with the covenant of God, the God of their fathers.” Josiah went on to remove all the ‘detestable idols’ from right across the land, doing everything in his power to enforce obedience to the covenant.

Josiah renewed the covenant in the presence of the Lord, promising to follow the commands, regulations and decrees with all his heart and soul.

The Price of Disobedience

The covenant, in its simplest form, was the promise of God given to Moses: “I will be your God and you will be my people”. But this was accompanied by a considerable amount of teaching given to Moses that included the Decalogue – with a special emphasis upon the first two of these ten commandments:

You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them. (Deut 5:7-9)

The Book of the Covenant found in the Temple evidently included the blessings and curses recorded in Deuteronomy 28. It was these curses, that would come upon land and people if they were disobedient to the terms of the covenant, which terrified the king and caused him to call together the elders of the people and to make his own solemn promises before the Lord.

But it is noted in 2 Chronicles 34:32 that Josiah made everyone in Jerusalem and Benjamin pledge themselves to the terms of the covenant. That kind of authority in commanding obedience to moral and spiritual regulations simply does not work. You cannot successfully command people to change their heart attitudes. All the historical evidence shows that despite the efforts Josiah made in destroying the idols and commanding obedience to the covenant, the spiritual lives of the people remained unchanged.

It was not long after Josiah’s untimely death that altars to foreign gods appeared on the street corners of Jerusalem and the high places the countryside reappeared. The spiritual life of the nation was unchanged, despite the promises made by the king and the elders of the people.

Despite the efforts Josiah made in destroying the idols and commanding obedience to the covenant, the spiritual lives of the people remained unchanged.

Listen!

Jeremiah evidently perceived the spiritual reality underlying the apparent change in the nation following the formal declaration of obedience to the covenant. The word he received from the Lord was to remind the people of the curses that would come upon them if they disobeyed the terms of the covenant, as their forefathers had done.

He was told to,

Proclaim all these words in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem: listen to the terms of this Covenant and follow them. From the time I brought your forefathers up from Egypt until today, I warned them again and again, saying ‘Obey me’. But they did not listen or pay attention; instead, they followed the stubbornness of their evil hearts. (Jer 11:6-8)

This may have been the first time that Jeremiah called the people to listen and pay attention, but this was to remain his constant theme for the next 40 years, until the time of the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. Here in chapter 11, Jeremiah may already have perceived the future tragedy to befall the stubborn people who had been given the truth, but who blindly turned away and followed their own evil desires.

The tragic history of Israel is summarised in Psalm 81 (vv8-14), where God says:

If you would but listen to me, O Israel! You shall have no foreign God among you…but my people would not listen to me; Israel would not submit to me. So, I gave them over to their stubborn hearts to follow their own devices. If my people would but listen to me, if Israel would follow my ways, how quickly would I subdue their enemies and turn my hand against their foes!

This may have been the first time that Jeremiah called the people to listen and pay attention, but this was to remain his constant theme for the next 40 years.

Peace Like a River

God’s plea to his people, time after time, was to listen to him and to obey his commands. Why is it that even today we have not learned the lessons of history?

When we turn away from the truth and forsake the ways of God it always leads to misery and disaster, both in our individual lives and in the life of the nation. But our loving Father continues to call to us as he did in Jeremiah’s day and in Isaiah’s day: “I am the Lord your God who teaches you what is best for you, who directs you in the way you should go. If only you had paid attention to my commands, your peace would have been like a river” (Isa 48:17-18).

This article is part of a series. Click here to read other instalments.