Approaching studies within Jeremiah, instead of trying to follow chronologically, which is difficult with this book, for roughly the first half of the book, the first 29 chapters, we will instead only produce studies within their appropriate chapters, theming them as follows:

• Jeremiah’s Calling                     Ch.1
• Jeremiah’s Main Message        Ch.2,3,5,7,21,22
• Jeremiah’s Action Parables      Ch.13,18,19,27
• Jeremiah’s Opposition              Ch.11,12, 14,18,20,26,28
• Jeremiah’s Message of Hope   Ch.3,23,24,25,29

For those who may wish to ‘study’ this chapter, and the particular theme, as with studies elsewhere, each passage has a four-Part approach to help you take in and think further about what you have read on the main Bible page.

Jeremiah’s Opposition: 2. Jeremiah’s Complaint

Jer 12:1-13

1 You are always righteous, Lord,
    when I bring a case before you.
Yet I would speak with you about your justice:
    Why does the way of the wicked prosper?
    Why do all the faithless live at ease?
² You have planted them, and they have taken root;
    they grow and bear fruit.
You are always on their lips
    but far from their hearts.
³ Yet you know me, Lord;
    you see me and test my thoughts about you.
Drag them off like sheep to be butchered!
    Set them apart for the day of slaughter!
⁴ How long will the land lie parched
    and the grass in every field be withered?
Because those who live in it are wicked,
    the animals and birds have perished.
Moreover, the people are saying,
    “He will not see what happens to us.”

⁵ “If you have raced with men on foot
    and they have worn you out,
    how can you compete with horses?
If you stumble in safe country,
    how will you manage in the thickets by^[b] the Jordan?
⁶ Your relatives, members of your own family—
    even they have betrayed you;
    they have raised a loud cry against you.
Do not trust them,
    though they speak well of you.

⁷ “I will forsake my house,
    abandon my inheritance;
I will give the one I love
    into the hands of her enemies.
⁸ My inheritance has become to me
    like a lion in the forest.
She roars at me;
    therefore I hate her.
⁹ Has not my inheritance become to me
    like a speckled bird of prey
    that other birds of prey surround and attack?
Go and gather all the wild beasts;
    bring them to devour.
¹⁰ Many shepherds will ruin my vineyard
    and trample down my field;
they will turn my pleasant field
    into a desolate wasteland.
¹¹ It will be made a wasteland,
    parched and desolate before me;
the whole land will be laid waste
    because there is no one who cares.
¹² Over all the barren heights in the desert
    destroyers will swarm,
for the sword of the Lord will devour
    from one end of the land to the other;
    no one will be safe.
¹³ They will sow wheat but reap thorns;
    they will wear themselves out but gain nothing.
They will bear the shame of their harvest
    because of the Lord’s fierce anger.”

A. Find Out:

1. What is Jeremiah’s concern? v.1
2. What does he see them doing? v.2
3. What else does he complain about? v.4
4. What about Jeremiah does the Lord highlight? v.5
5. What does He then point out about him? v.6
6. What does the Lord say He will do? v.7-13

B. Think:

1. Look up Habakkuk 1:3   How is that prophet’s lament the same as Jeremiah’s?
2. What is the Lord trying to get Jeremiah to realise about himself?
3. How the does the Lord then go on to answer Jeremiah’s complaint?

C. Comment:

In the face of opposition, Jeremiah reaches a point that many of us reach at some time or other, to wonder why God allows the unrighteous to get away with it!  Why does the Lord allow His land to be spoiled by these people who are ungodly, faithless and wicked?  Why, today, does the Lord allow the wicked to prevail?

In answering him, the Lord reminds Jeremiah of his own smallness and his own frailty, rather in the same way that He had had to deal with Job (see Job 38 to 40). He also reminds Jeremiah of his loneliness, for even his family have turned against him.  The Lord is basically saying, “Don’t trust yourself, don’t trust your family (and certainly don’t trust the rest of the people). You can ONLY trust me!”

The Lord then goes on to say that He WILL be dealing with this people and this land, they will not escape His corrective hand upon them, it IS coming, the ungodly and unrighteous will NOT get away with it! We may not see it but the Lord WILL deal with the wicked.

D. Application?

1. Can we rest in the fact that the Lord HAS a time of judgement for the ungodly / unrighteous, so that we do not have to act against them?
2. Release all feelings of hostility towards such enemies, to the Lord (see Matthew 5:44).  Put such people in His hands today.