Jeremiah’s deep feelings of sorrow for his people make this a most touching book. The Lord even tells him that the people won’t listen to him. What a difficult job he had! He was very sad to see Judah slipping away from the Lord. He was to tell them that punishment was ahead for them. He loved them deeply. It would be like the horror that a person might have as he watched a crowd rushing toward the edge of an unseen precipice, and his being unable to stop them. Some in the crowd even throwing rocks at him as he shouted his warnings. His heart breaks — He finally sobs out as he sees them die. He was so close to the Lord that he was feeling what the Lord felt about His people, so it is really like the reflection of the Lord’s voice that we are hearing in this book.
V.2 Though Josiah was the king and did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, many Israelites went to the temple and gave up their idols, and “outwardly” worshipped the Lord, but their hearts were still the same. And God saw their hearts, and warned them of the punishments that were coming, Jeremiah, a tender-hearted man, didn’t like to do this. He tried to excuse himself from what God asked him to do.
V.6 Jeremiah knows the people won’t listen to the message.
V.9-12 But the Lord tells him that He will put the very words into Jeremiah’s mouth. The Lord shows him a “rod of an almond tree” and “a seething pot,” (like a frying pan). The almond tree was the first to blossom. In Numbers 17:88And it came to pass, that on the morrow Moses went into the tabernacle of witness; and, behold, the rod of Aaron for the house of Levi was budded, and brought forth buds, and bloomed blossoms, and yielded almonds. (Numbers 17:8) it bore fruit in one night. This tells us that the Lord would hasten to use His rod to bring to pass what He was saying would happen.
V.14 “Out of the north an evil shall break forth.” This danger that was to come from the north, was the power of the country called “Babylon.”