Scripture Daily

Context No. 1538 of 4322 · Jeremiah

Context · Reflection

Jeremiah 17:1-16: in context

1“The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond. It is engraved on the tablet of their heart, and on the horns of your altars. 2Even their children remember their altars and their Asherah poles by the green trees on the high hills. 3My mountain in the field, I will give your substance and all your treasures for a plunder, and your high places, because of sin, throughout all your borders. 4You, even of yourself, will discontinue from your heritage that I gave you. I will cause you to serve your enemies in the land which you don’t know, for you have kindled a fire in my anger which will burn forever.” 5The LORD says: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man, relies on strength of flesh, and whose heart departs from the LORD. 6For he will be like a bush in the desert, and will not see when good comes, but will inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, an uninhabited salt land. 7“Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, and whose confidence is in the LORD. 8For he will be as a tree planted by the waters, who spreads out its roots by the river, and will not fear when heat comes, but its leaf will be green, and will not be concerned in the year of drought. It won’t cease from yielding fruit. 9The heart is deceitful above all things and it is exceedingly corrupt. Who can know it? 10“I, the LORD, search the mind. I try the heart, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings.” 11As the partridge that sits on eggs which she has not laid, so is he who gets riches, and not by right. In the middle of his days, they will leave him. At his end, he will be a fool. 12A glorious throne, set on high from the beginning, is the place of our sanctuary. 13LORD, the hope of Israel, all who forsake you will be disappointed. Those who depart from me will be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the LORD, the spring of living waters. 14Heal me, O LORD, and I will be healed. Save me, and I will be saved; for you are my praise. 15Behold, they ask me, “Where is the LORD’s word? Let it be fulfilled now.” 16As for me, I have not hurried from being a shepherd after you. I haven’t desired the woeful day. You know. That which came out of my lips was before your face.

Jeremiah draws a sharp contrast between two kinds of trust. Cursed is the one who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns from the LORD; he is like a shrub in the desert, in a parched and salt land, who does not see when good comes. But blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD; he is like a tree planted by water, sending its roots by the stream, not fearing when heat comes, its leaves staying green, unworried in the year of drought, never ceasing to bear fruit. And Jeremiah adds a sober word: the heart is deceitful above all things; who can know it? I, the LORD, search the heart.

The image at the center is the tree planted by water. The one who trusts in the LORD, Jeremiah says, is like a tree whose roots reach down to the stream, so that when the heat comes and the drought sets in, when everything around it withers, this tree stays green and goes on bearing fruit, because its roots draw from a source the drought cannot touch. It does not even fear the drought; the dry year comes, and the tree is unworried, because its roots are in the water. The contrast is with the desert shrub, the one who trusts in human strength, rooted in nothing that lasts, who withers when the parched season comes. The whole difference is where the roots go down. There is a picture here of what carries a person through the dry seasons that come to every life, the times of loss, hardship, and drought when the outward sources of life fail. The one whose roots are sunk deep in God, who trusts in the LORD and draws from him, has a source the drought cannot reach, and so stays green and fruitful when others wither. The one whose trust is in human strength, in circumstances, in the flesh, has no such source, and dries up when the heat comes. It is worth asking where our roots actually go down, what we are really rooted in, because that is what will determine whether we survive the dry seasons or wither in them. Roots sunk in God reach water no drought can touch; the tree planted by the stream does not fear the heat.

Where do my roots actually go down, into human strength and circumstances that fail in the drought, or into the LORD, so that when the dry seasons come I draw from a source the heat cannot reach and stay green and fruitful when others wither?

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