EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)
(24)
Imagination.—Better,
stubbornness,as in
Jeremiah 3:17.
Went backward and not forward.—The whole sacrificial system, even at its best, to say nothing of its idolatrous corruptions, was accordingly, from Jeremiah’s point of view, a retrograde movement. The apostasy of the people in the worship of the golden calf involved a like deflection, necessary and inevitable though it might be as a process of education, from the first ideal polity, based upon the covenant made with Abraham,i.e.,upon a pure and spiritual theism, the emblems and ordinances of which, though “shadows of good things to come,” were in themselves “weak and beggarly elements” (Hebrews 10:1;Galatians 4:9).
7:21-28 God shows that obedience was required of them. That which God commanded was, Hearken diligently to the voice of the Lord thy God. The promise is very encouraging. Let God's will be your rule, and his favour shall be your happiness. God was displeased with disobedience. We understand the gospel as little as the Jews understood the law, if we think that even the sacrifice of Christ lessens our obligation to obey.
Imagination - Better, as in the margin.
And went backward - literally, as in the margin; i. e., they turned their back upon Me to follow their own devices.
24. hearkened not—They did not give even a partial hearing to Me (Ps 81:11, 12).
imagination—rather, as Margin, "the stubbornness."
backward, &c.—(Jer 2:27; 32:33; Ho 4:16).
Nor inclined their ear: it notes something of a higher degree of non-attention than bare not hearkening, viz. their not listening that they might obey what they hear,
Jeremiah 7:26 11:8, noting not only their slightness, but their stiffness.
The imagination, or
stubbornness. See
Jeremiah 3:17.
Went backward, and not forward, like restive beasts; see
Jeremiah 2:27; a sign of their contempt; implying either,
1. They were worse by their admonitions and corrections, and so nothing did thrive with them. Or,
2. From the very first they have gone further and further from me, as
Jeremiah 7:25,26.
3. Or else depending upon their outward services, they set not my commands before their eyes, but cast my true worship behind their backs,
Matthew 23:23.
But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear,.... Neither to the law that was given them, nor to the promises that were made unto them, this was the case of the Jewish fathers, and also of their posterity, to whom belonged the law, and the promises, and the service of God:
but walked in the counsels and in the imagination of their evil heart; what their evil heart imagined, advised and directed to, that they attended to, walked in, and pursued after. The heart of man is evil; it is desperately wicked, even wickedness itself; and so is every thought and every imagination of the thoughts of it and all its counsels, machinations and contrivances; and therefore the consequence of walking in these, or steering the course of life according to them, must be bad:
and went backward, and not forward; they went backwards from the ways of God, and walked not in them. The Targum is,
"they turned the back in my worship, and did not put my fear before their face;''
or else this may design, not their sin, but their punishment, as Kimchi interprets it; they did not prosper, but suffered adversity; a curse, and not a blessing, attended the works of their hands.
But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, but walked in the counsels and in the imagination of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward.
