Year 9, Day 70: Jeremiah 17

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Jeremiah 17 gives great opportunity to compare the heart of mankind.  This chapter poses that there are two different kinds of hearts.  There is the heart that trusts in their fellow human beings.  There is different heart that trusts in God.  Each of us has one of these two hearts.

The heart that trusts in other human beings is to be rather pitied.  God compares this heart to that of a shrub in the desert.  It has to struggle just to eek out some sort of pathetic existence.  It fears the heat.  It fears the drought.  It has no stamina, no hope.  It has nothing enduring in which to be rooted.

On the other hand, the heart that trusts in the Lord is to be envied.  It is like a tree planted by fresh water.  It has nearby water in which it can be rooted.  When heat or drought comes its way, it has a means of enduring hardship.  It has both stamina and hope.  It has everything that endures in which to root itself.

The problem with the human heart, God says in Jeremiah 17:9, is that it is incredibly deceitful.  It has no problem convincing the user that it is the rooted heart instead of the heart that is to be pitied.  The problem, though, is that we are human beings.  We prefer to root ourselves in the people around us, the things we can touch and feel, and the materialism we can amass.  We like to claim we are rooted in God, but unless we are exceptionally diligent we become rooted in ourselves and our own life.

As a test case, God offers one simple test as proof.  He tells Jeremiah that if the people will simply honor the Sabbath that He will spare them.  All they have to do is have a single day each week where life is not a burden.  They simply need a single day each week where they remember God and relish in the company of each other instead of becoming a burden to God and each other.  If they can do that, God will relent.

We know the truth.  The Hebrew people don’t.  They either can’t or they won’t.  Either way, God is right.  The human heart is entirely all-too deceptive.  We like to think we know what right and wrong is and where we stand in the spectrum, but our hearts deceive us.  Only the Lord can search our hearts, and only He knows what lies within.

<><