Search Tools
New Defender's Study Bible Notes
7:4 The temple of the LORD. Pious words and a “form of godliness” (II Timothy 3:5) are meaningless hypocrisy without godliness in faith and life.
7:11 den of robbers. Jeremiah grievously recognized the temple in his day as “a temple of robbers.” The Lord Jesus called it “a den of thieves” in His day (Matthew 21:13).
7:14 I have done to Shiloh. Shiloh had been the first home of the tabernacle in the promised land. Yet the tabernacle there had been destroyed because of sin and the ark of the covenant taken away (I Samuel 4:10-11). Now a similar judgment was ordained for the temple at Jerusalem.
7:22 burnt offerings or sacrifices. When God first delivered His people out of Egypt, He gave them the moral law only, as represented in the ten commandments. After they covenanted to obey this law, under penalty of death, God graciously provided the system of sacrificial offerings by which they could receive forgiveness after breaking the moral law. God knew that, despite their agreement to keep the law, they would not do so, and so provided a way of salvation through substitutionary atonement.
7:31 burn their sons and daughters in the fire. This terrible perversion of the principle of sacrifice was temporarily halted by King Josiah, presumably because of this condemnation by Jeremiah (II Kings 23:10). It became known as “the valley of slaughter” (Jeremiah 7:32), probably because Josiah there slew the idolatrous priests who officiated at these holocausts (II Kings 23:20). Eventually the valley became the continually burning refuse dump for Jerusalem. This “place of Hinnom” became known in the Greek language as gehenna (translated “hell” in the New Testament), because it has the appearance of a “lake of fire.” The name then was adapted to describe the actual future hell, the lake of fire (Revelation 20:15) to which all those who reject Christ will ultimately be consigned.