Context No. 3105 of 4322 · Jeremiah

Jeremiah 7:27-34: in context

27“You shall speak all these words to them, but they will not listen to you. You shall also call to them, but they will not answer you. 28You shall tell them, ‘This is the nation that has not listened to the LORD their God’s voice, nor received instruction. Truth has perished, and is cut off from their mouth.’ 29Cut off your hair, and throw it away, and take up a lamentation on the bare heights; for the LORD has rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath. 30“For the children of Judah have done that which is evil in my sight,” says the LORD. “They have set their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to defile it. 31They have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I didn’t command, nor did it come into my mind. 32Therefore behold, the days come”, says the LORD, “that it will no more be called ‘Topheth’ or ‘The valley of the son of Hinnom’, but ‘The valley of Slaughter’; for they will bury in Topheth until there is no place to bury. 33The dead bodies of this people will be food for the birds of the sky, and for the animals of the earth. No one will frighten them away. 34Then I will cause to cease from 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 the land will become a waste.”

God tells Jeremiah that the people will not listen; truth has perished and been cut off from their mouths. They have defiled the temple with their idols, and worse, they have built high places at Topheth to burn their sons and daughters in the fire. And God says something that should be heard carefully: this is a thing which I did not command, nor did it come into my mind.

This is among the darkest passages in Jeremiah, and it should be read with grief. The specific horror named is child sacrifice, and God's response is telling: which I did not command, nor did it enter my mind. Whatever twisted religion had led the people to it, it had nothing whatever to do with the God they claimed to serve; such cruelty was utterly foreign to his heart. The passage is a searing reminder that religion can be corrupted into monstrous evil, and that God completely disowns cruelty committed in his name.

Do I test whatever is done in God's name against his true heart, refusing anything cruel that "never entered his mind"?

Sources

Jeremiah 7:31: "To burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I didn't command, nor did it come into my mind."
Micah 6:8: "He has shown you, O man, what is good... to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God."
Jeremiah 19:5: "[They] built the high places of Baal, to burn their sons in the fire... which I didn't command."