Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi
Jumping back into the study after the annual women's conference, we are arriving at Jeremiah 5 in our tour through the NIV 84 translation, looking at words translated as 'heart' or 'hearts'.
God is speaking here:
"But these people have stubborn and rebellious hearts; they have turned aside and gone away." -- Jer. 5:23; 'Hearts' is Strong's H3820, leb - inner man, mind will, heart, understanding.
Just for grins, I looked up the words translated 'stubborn' (H5637, sarar) and 'rebellious' (H4784, mara) and found that together they imply stubborn, rebellious, disobedient...examples are an untamed cow or a son who refuses to submit to his father. This is not only how God described the folks in the time leading up to the Babylonian exile, but, pretty much a summation of how the people have acted from the time they came out of Egypt. They had some revivals under kings who feared God, but when left on their own...they 'turned aside and went away.' That was the result of having stubborn and rebellious hearts.
The next verse is from a sermon Jeremiah preached at the temple, with a couple preceding verses for context; he's repeating what God told him to say:
"For when I brought your forefathers out of Egypt and spoke with them, I did not just give them commands about burnt offerings and sacrifices, but I gave them this command: Obey me, and I will be your God and you will be my people. Walk in all the ways I command you, that it may go well with you. But they did not listen or pay attention; instead, they followed the stubborn inclinations of their evil hearts. They went backward and not forward." Jer.7:22-24; 'hearts' is H3820 again.
Literally, the Israelites went backwards; when they were at Kadesh Barnea, on the threshold of the promise, they rebelled and ...instead of going into the land, retreated and wandered around in the wilderness for 40 years. Obedience would have taken them straight to the promise. As I mentioned above, this has been the case right from the birth of the nation. I would also say...right from the earliest days of humanity, if we're being honest...Adam and Eve definitely went backwards and not forwards.
Jeremiah 8:18 is Jeremiah's response to another word from God about judgment to come:
O my Comforter in sorrow, my heart is faint within me. -- 'Heart' is, once more, H 3820.
Jeremiah is know for his grieving over the nation; his message was hard for him to carry, not just because the people rejected it, but because he mourned for the suffering the people endured. Chapter 9 contains a dialogue between the lamenting of Jeremiah and the response of God. I'm listing all the pertinent verses together; all of them come in responses from God:
"Their tongue is a deadly arrow; it speaks with deceit. With his mouth each speaks cordially to his neighbor, but in his heart he sets a trap for him."
The LORD said, "It is because they have forsaken my law, which I set before them; they have not obeyed me or followed my law. Instead, they have followed the stubbornness of their hearts; they have followed the Baals, as their fathers taught them."
"The days are coming," declares the LORD, "when I will punish all who are circumcised only in the flesh --Egypt, Juda, Edom, Ammon, Moab and all who live in the desert in distant places. For all these nations are really uncircumcised, and even the whole house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart." -- Jer. 9:8; 'heart' is Strong's H7130 - qereb - midst, inner part, middle; 9: 14 and 26; 'heart' is H 3820 in both those verses.
Deceit, stubbornness, idolatry...all descriptions of the hearts of the folks who may have gone through the physical act of circumcision but never applied that principle to the heart. And, it's interesting...God pretty much declares that the physical circumcision counts for nothing unless it reflects a circumcised heart.
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