** Reader discretion advised ***
That’s how this should begin, and more so even for the hearers of Jeremiah. It was going to be so awful they had no idea. Their sin was abhorrent and they would pay the price. But first their sins are described:
4 For they have forsaken me and made this a place of foreign gods; they have burned incense in it to gods that neither they nor their ancestors nor the kings of Judah ever knew, and they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent. 5 They have built the high places of Baal to burn their children in the fire as offerings to Baal—something I did not command or mention, nor did it enter my mind. 6 So beware, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when people will no longer call this place Topheth or the Valley of Ben Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter.
They committed adultery with God. The blood of the innocent literally run in the streets. The innocent! They literally burned their children in fire as sacrifice (nothing new under the sun). It was an evil so abhorrent that God says “it did not enter my mind” to even think up such an evil.
Both Topheth and the Valley of Ben Hinnom were places where children were sacrificed and killed. But now those places would be known as the Valley of Slaughter—the slaughter of the people of Jerusalem and Judah.
The LORD tells Jeremiah to give the elders of the people an object lesson. He takes them out to the valley where children were being sacrificed, the place of their evil. Then he takes a clay pot and shatters it demonstrating it is beyond repair. That this will be Judah and Jerusalem for their evil.
Then their judgment is proclaimed and this is where it becomes horrific:
7 “‘In this place I will ruin the plans of Judah and Jerusalem. I will make them fall by the sword before their enemies, at the hands of those who want to kill them, and I will give their carcasses as food to the birds and the wild animals. 8 I will devastate this city and make it an object of horror and scorn; all who pass by will be appalled and will scoff because of all its wounds. 9 I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters, and they will eat one another’s flesh because their enemies will press the siege so hard against them to destroy them.’
It will be so bad that people will eat their own children.
For us we read that and have no sense of that level of desperation or horror. Most of us haven’t lived through something so bad like that and I hope that no one ever has to. But they will be so starved that they will be out of their mind and do the unthinkable.
How could God do this? How could he allow this?
First of all note that he has told them plainly and just a few verses previously he is giving them every possibility to repent so that he doesn’t have to do this (Jer 18:8). God DOES NOT want to bring this level of destruction upon them. He has sent prophet after prophet to warn them including right in this moment. He tells them plainly their sins and their punishment, how awful it will be.
But even in this, they would not repent. They utterly refused. They wanted their sin and believed God would do nothing. After all, they had been doing this quite some time and there had been no repercussions (it was called God’s patience!).
The blood of the innocent still flowed in the streets and the wails of the dying children only provoked his justice. How could he not do anything?
Secondly he said they would experience horror as he would withdraw his love and compassion from them. This is the result when God withdraws himself. Enemies come in and terrible suffering is the result. War, disease and famine always walk together.
Let’s acknowledge though that this is hard words to hear. He says plainly “I will make them ______”. But let’s also acknowledge the context in that the reason he is spelling it out plainly to them is to give them a chance to repent. And acknowledge that they have done so much evil that is far worse than this—killing the innocent and killing children in bulk. Their justice is rightly deserved to a holy and just God.
Of course I can’t help but think of our days and times. Have we not done the same and worse? How many innocent have suffered and died? How many children have died at the hands of convenience? Will God do nothing? No, he won’t. He is just. The screams of the unjustly dying cry out for that justice.
Will we repent? As a nation? As a civilization that spreads beyond these borders? Or will we be like Jerusalem and Judah and hold our hands over our hears. ‘It can’t happen here.’ ‘It can’t be that bad.’ ‘Things will get back to normal.’ We are blinded in spending our energy on who to blame.
