Jeremiah 7:30

For the children of Judah have done evil in my sight, saith the LORD: they have set their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to pollute it.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(30) In the house which is called by my name.—This had been done by Ahaz (2Chronicles 28:2), and after the Temple had been cleansed by Hezekiah (2Chronicles 29:5) had been repeated by Manasseh (2Kings 21:4-7; 2Chronicles 33:3-7). Josiah’s reformation again checked the tendency to idolatry (2Kings 23:4; 2Chronicles 34:3); but it is quite possible that the pendulum swung back again when his death left the idolatrous party in Judah free to act, and that this special aggravation of the evil, the desecration of the Temple of Jehovah by “abominations” of idol-worship, re-appeared together with the worship of the Queen of Heaven and the sacrifices to Molech.

Benson Commentary

Jeremiah 7:30-31. They have set up their abominations, &c. — They have set up images and altars for idolatrous worship even in my temple, and the courts near it. This seems to be spoken of what was done in the times of Manasseh, or Amon, 2 Kings 21:4; 2 Kings 21:7; 2 Chronicles 33:4. And they have built the high places of Tophet — To burn their sons and their daughters in the fire. Concerning this unnatural and cruel custom of burning their children, by way of sacrifice to Moloch, which was derived from the Canaanites, see notes on Leviticus 18:21; 2 Kings 23:10; Isaiah 30:33. Which I commanded them not — But, on the contrary, expressed the greatest detestation of it, and forbade it under the severest penalties: see Leviticus 20:1-5. The words are spoken by the figure called meiosis, by which a great deal less is expressed than is implied; a way of speaking frequent in Scripture. Thus, Deuteronomy 17:3, God, speaking of the worship of the host of heaven, adds, Which I have not commanded, meaning, which I expressly forbade. So God, reproving the idolatry of the Jews, says, Isaiah 65:12, They choose things wherein I delighted not, that is, which I utterly abhorred. And Jeremiah (Jeremiah 2:8) calls idols, things that do not profit, meaning, that their worship was not only insignificant, but likewise extremely wicked and destructive. Thus St. Paul expresses the vilest sins, by calling them things which are not convenient, Romans 1:28.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

7:29-34 In token both of sorrow and of slavery, Jerusalem must be degraded, and separated from God, as she had been separated to him. The heart is the place in which God has chosen to put his name; but if sin has the innermost and uppermost place there, we pollute the temple of the Lord. The destruction of Jerusalem appears here very terrible. The slain shall be many; they having made it the place of their sin. Evil pursues sinners, even after death. Those who will not, by the grace of God, be cured of vain mirth, shall, by the justice of God, be deprived of all mirth. How many ruin their health and property without complaining, when engaged in Satan's service! May we learn to relish holy joys, and to sit loose to all others though lawful.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

They have set their abominations ... - Probably a reference to the reign of the fanatic Manasseh, in whose time the worship of Astarte and of the heavenly bodies was the established religion of the land 2 Kings 21:3-5, and even the temple was used for idolatrous services. The people had never heartily accepted Josiah's reformation.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

30. set their abominations in the house—(Jer 32:34; 2Ki 21:4, 7; 23:4; Eze 8:5-14).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

The children of Judah; either Judah’s posterity, Joshua 14:6, or Judah’s inhabitants, which are often called their children; so Jeremiah 2 16. In my sight, i.e. though they will not see it, yet I see it, and they shall know that it is in my sight, i.e. that it displeaseth me.

They have set their abominations in the house which is called by my name: here he instanceth in one species of their abominations for all the rest, whereby it appears they were grown to a great height of impiety. It was not enough to have their idols and superstitions abroad in the hills and groves, nor in private in their own houses, Isaiah 57:6-8 Jeremiah 19:13; but they must bring them into God’s house, as Manasseh did, 2 Kings 21:4; God having but one house in the world, as it were, to confront him, 2 Chronicles 36:14 Jeremiah 32:31 Ezekiel 43:8.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

For the children of Judah have done evil in my sight, saith the Lord,.... Meaning not a single action only, but a series, a course of evil actions; and those openly, in a daring manner, not only before men, but in the sight of God, and in contempt of him, like the men of Sodom, Genesis 13:13,

they have set their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to defile it; that is, set their idols in the temple; here Manasseh set up a graven image of the grove, 2 Kings 21:7 which was done, as if it was done on purpose to defile it.

Geneva Study Bible

For the children of Judah have done evil in my sight, saith the LORD: they have set their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to pollute it.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

30. they have set their abominations] as Manasseh had done (2 Kings 21:5; 2 Kings 21:7).

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 30. - They have set their abominations, etc.; alluding, doubtless, to the altars which Manasseh built "for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of Jehovah," and especially to the image of the Canaanitish goddess Asherah, which he set up in the temple itself (2 Kings 21:5, 7). Jeremiah 7:30

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Therefore the Lord has rejected the backsliding people, so that it shall perish shamefully. - Jeremiah 7:29. "Cut off thy diadem (daughter of Zion), and cast it away, and lift up a lamentation on the bald peaked mountains; for the Lord hath rejected and cast out the generation of His wrath. Jeremiah 7:30. For the sons of Judah have done the evil in mine eyes, saith Jahveh, have put their abominations in the house on which my name is named, to pollute it; Jeremiah 7:31. And have built the high places of Tophet, which is in the valley of Benhinnom, to burn their sons and daughters in the fire; which I have not commanded, neither came it into my heart. Jeremiah 7:32. Therefore, behold, the days come, saith Jahveh, that they shall no longer say, Tophet and Valley of Benhinnom, but, The valley of slaughter; and they shall bury in Tophet for want of room. Jeremiah 7:33. And the carcases of this people shall be meat for the fowls of heaven and the beasts of the earth, with no one to fray them away. Jeremiah 7:34. And I make to cease out of the cities of Judah and from the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride; for a waste shall the land become. Jeremiah 8:1. At that time, saith Jahveh, they shall bring out the bones of the kings of Judah and the bones of his princes, the bones of the priests and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, out of their graves. Jeremiah 8:2. And they shall spread them before the sun, and the moon, and all the host of heaven, which they have loved, and which they have served, after which they have walked, and which they have sought and worshipped: they shall not be gathered nor buried; for dung upon the face of the earth shall they be. Jeremiah 8:3. And death shall be chosen rather than life by all the residue which is left of this evil race, in all the places whither I have driven them that are left, saith Jahveh of hosts."

In these verses the judgment of Jeremiah 7:20 is depicted in all its horror, and the description is introduced by a call upon Zion to mourn and lament for the evil awaiting Jerusalem and the whole land. It is not any particular woman that is addressed in Jeremiah 7:29, but the daughter of Zion (cf. Jeremiah 6:23), i.e., the capital city personified as a woman, as the mother of the whole people. Cut off נזרך, thy diadem. There can be no doubt that we are by this to understand the hair of the woman; but the current opinion, that the words simply and directly means the hair, is without foundation. It means crown, originally the diadem of the high priest, Exodus 29:6; and the transference of the same word to the hair of the head is explained by the practice of the Nazarites, to wear the hair uncut as a mark of consecration to the Lord, Numbers 6:5. The hair of the Nazarite is called in Numbers 6:7 the consecration (נזר) of his God upon his head, as was the anointing oil on the head of the high priest, Leviticus 21:12. In this sense the long hair of the daughter of Zion is called her diadem, to mark her out as a virgin consecrated to the Lord. Cutting off this hair is not only in token of mourning, as in Job 1:20; Micah 1:16, but in token of the loss of the consecrated character. The Nazarite, defiled by the sudden occurrence of death near to his person, was bound to cut off his long hair, because by this defilement his consecrated hair had been defiled; and just so must the daughter of Zion cut off her hair and cast it from her, because by her sins she had defiled herself, and must be held as unconsecrate. Venema and Ros. object to this reference of the idea to the consecrated hair of the Nazarite: quod huc non quadrat, nec in faeminis adeo suetum erat; but this objection is grounded on defective apprehension of the meaning of the Nazarite's vow, and on misunderstanding of the figurative style here employed. The allusion to the Nazarite order, for the purpose of representing the daughter of Zion as a virgin consecrated to the Lord, does not imply that the Nazarite vow was very common amongst women. Deprived of her holy ornament, Zion is to set up a lament upon bare hill-tops (cf. Jeremiah 3:21), since the Lord has rejected or cast out (Jeremiah 7:30) the generation that has drawn His wrath down on it, because they have set idols in the temple in which He has revealed His glory, to profane it. The abominations are the image of Asherah which Manasseh set up in the temple, and the altars he had built to the host of heaven in both the courts (2 Kings 21:5, 2 Kings 21:7). Besides the desecration of the temple of the Lord by idolatry, Jeremiah mentions in Jeremiah 7:31, as an especially offensive abomination, the worship of Moloch practised in the valley of Benhinnom. Here children were burnt to this deity, to whom Manasseh had sacrificed his son, 2 Kings 21:6. The expression "high altars of Tophet" is singular. In the parallel passages, where Jeremiah repeats the same subject, Jeremiah 19:5 and Jeremiah 32:35, we find mentioned instead high altars of Baal; and on this ground, Hitz. and Graf hold התפת in our verse to be a contemptuous name for Baal Moloch. תּפת is not derived from the Persian; nor is it true that, as Hitz. asserts, it does not occur till after the beginning of the Assyrian period, since we have it in Job 17:6. It is formed from תּוּף, to spit out, like נפת from נוּף; and means properly a spitting out, then that before or on which one spits (as in Job 17:6), object of deepest abhorrence. It is transferred to the worship of Moloch here and Jeremiah 19:6, Jeremiah 19:13., and in 2 Kings 23:10. In the latter passage the word is unquestionably used for the place in the valley of Benhinnom where children were offered to Moloch. So in Jeremiah 19:6, Jeremiah 19:13 (the place of Tophet), and Jeremiah 19:14; and so also, without a doubt, in Jeremiah 7:32 of the present chapter. There is no valid reason for departing from this well-ascertained local signification; "high altars of the Tophet" may perfectly well be the high altars of the place of abominable sacrifices. With the article the word means the ill-famed seat of the Moloch-worship, situated in the valley of Ben or Bne Hinnom, to the south of Jerusalem. Hinnom is nomen propr. of a man of whom we know nothing else, and בּן( בּני הנּום) is not an appellative: son of sobbing, as Hitz., Graf, Bttcher explain (after Rashi), rendering the phrase by "Valley of the weepers," or "of groaning, sobbing," with reference to the cries of the children slain there for sacrifices. For the name Ben-hinnom is much older than the Moloch-worship, introduced first by Ahaz and Manasseh. We find it in Joshua 15:8; Joshua 18:16, in the topographical account of the boundaries of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin. As to Moloch-worship, see on Leviticus 18:21 and Ezekiel 16:20. At the restoration of the public worship of Jahveh, Josiah had extirpated Moloch-worship, and had caused the place of the sacrifice of abominations in the valley of Ben-hinnom to be defiled (2 Kings 23:20); so that it is hardly probable that it had been again restored immediately after Josiah's death, at the beginning of Jehoiakim's reign. Nor does the present passage imply this; for Jer. is not speaking of the forms of idolatry at that time in favour with the Jews, but of the abominations they had done. That he had Manasseh's doings especially in view, we may gather from Jeremiah 15:4, where the coming calamities are expressly declared to be the punishment for Manasseh's sins. Neither is it come into my heart, i.e., into my mind, goes to strengthen: which I have not commanded.