The Heart in Jeremiah

Valentine’s Day is full of hearts and so is the book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah, however, does not have good things to say about the human heart. In fact, his words are disturbing.

Jeremiah was called by God to be a prophet when he was a youth in 627 BC. During his four decades of prophesying, he repeatedly exhorted the people of Judah to turn away from their idols and turn back to the true God. Through Jeremiah, the LORD says,

My people have committed two sins:
They have forsaken me,
the spring of living water,
and have dug their own cisterns,
broken cisterns that cannot hold water. (2:13)

Broken cisterns is a reference to Israel’s false gods. Although Jeremiah urged the people to repent, they refused to listen so God threatened to punish them. He said the Babylonians would besiege Jerusalem, burn it, and take the people into exile. This occurred in waves ending in 587 BC.

A Heart Problem

What was the problem with the people of Judah? Their hearts. Instead of following the LORD, they followed “the stubbornness of their evil hearts” (3:17), which involved worshiping the Baals, the gods of the land (9:14). And this was not a new thing. The generation that was delivered from bondage in Egypt eight centuries earlier “did not listen or pay attention; instead, they followed the stubborn inclinations of their evil hearts. They went backward and not forward” (7:24). For example, when Moses came down the mountain with the Ten Commandments, he found the people dancing around the golden calf they had made (Exod 32).

Even when threatened with divine judgment, Jeremiah’s audience was unwilling to change:

“Now therefore say to the people of Judah and those living in Jerusalem, ‘This is what the LORD says: Look! I am preparing a disaster for you and devising a plan against you. So turn from your evil ways, each one of you, and reform your ways and your actions.’ But they will reply, ‘It’s no use. We will continue with our own plans; we will all follow the stubbornness of our evil hearts.’” (18:11-12)

I think apathy can be detected in this obstinacy: “It’s no use. We will continue with our own plans.” Not only do they refuse to change, they’re not even interested in changing.

In addition to obstinacy, Jeremiah sees deceit entrenched in the human heart. The people lie to God and their neighbors. “Their tongue is a deadly arrow; it speaks deceitfully. With their mouths they all speak cordially to their neighbors, but in their hearts they set traps for them” (9:8). And speaking to God, Jeremiah says, “You are always on their lips but far from their hearts” (12:2). When they return to God it’s only an act: “In spite of all this, her unfaithful sister Judah did not return to me with all her heart, but only in pretense,’ declares the LORD” (3:10). Following these statements about Israel, Jeremiah makes a bold declaration about the human heart in general:

The heart is deceitful above all things
and beyond cure.
Who can understand it?

“I the LORD search the heart
and examine the mind,
to reward each person according to their conduct,
according to what their deeds deserve.” (17:9-10)

According to Jeremiah, the human heart is the most deceitful thing. Just think of how we justify ourselves when we have clearly been wrong. Like Jeremiah, Jesus also pointed to our heart problem:

For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and defile a person. (Mk 7:21-23)

An Illustration

The obstinancy and deceitfulness of the human heart is illustrated in Jeremiah 42 and 43. For decades Jeremiah had preached that divine judgment was coming in the form of the Babylonian invaders so he urged the people of Judah to repent before it was too late. But they refused to listen. In chapter 39 the Babylonians come and conquered the capital city of Jerusalem. King Zedekiah was blinded, bound in chains, and taken to Babylon. The Babylonians appointed Gedaliah to govern the people who remained in the land. When Gedaliah was murdered, the Judeans were terrified that Nebuchadnezzar would return and destroy them so they planned to seek refuge in Egypt. In chapter 42 they beg Jeremiah to pray for them:

Please hear our petition and pray to the LORD your God for this entire remnant. For as you now see, though we were once many, now only a few are left. Pray that the LORD your God will tell us where we should go and what we should do. (vv. 2-3)

Then they promised to do whatever the LORD said:

May the LORD be a true and faithful witness against us if we do not act in accordance with everything the LORD your God sends you to tell us. Whether it is favorable or unfavorable, we will obey the LORD our God, to whom we are sending you, so that it will go well with us, for we will obey the LORD our God. (vv. 5-6)

Ten days later the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah telling the people to stay in the land. If they go to Egypt, the sword, famine, and plague would overtake them in Egypt.

How did the people respond to Jeremiah’s words?

The leaders said, “You are lying! The LORD our God has not sent you to say, ‘You must not go to Egypt to settle there’” (43:2). Then they forced Jeremiah to go with them to Egypt.

The Solution

What’s the remedy for our stubborn and deceitful hearts?

Listen to these divine promises in light of all that has been said about the human heart:

“I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the LORD. They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me with all their heart.” (24:7)

“I will give them singleness of heart and action, so that they will always fear me.” (32:39)

“This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time,” declares the LORD. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.” (31:33)

The first covenant was written on tablets of stone. Exodus 32 says, “Moses turned and went down the mountain with the two tablets of the covenant law in his hands. They were inscribed on both sides, front and back. The tablets were the work of God; the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets” (Exod 32:15-16). The new covenant is written on the heart. In other words, it will be internalized or it will be a part of us. 

These promises in Jeremiah are similar to what we find in Ezekiel:

I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. Then they will follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. They will be my people, and I will be their God. (11:19-20)

The human heart is not naturally pure, honest, and upright. It is stubborn, deceitful, and pointed toward false gods. But God is willing and able to change our heart. He can give us a heart to know him, replacing our heart of stone with a heart of flesh. He can write his law on our heart and give us singleness of heart so that we are not going back and forth from the true God to false gods. David calls this “an undivided heart” (Ps 86:11).

The New Covenant

Before Jesus died he told his disciples, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you” (Lk 22:20). This shows that Jesus established the new covenant with his blood. Does this mean that God’s laws are now written on the hearts of Jesus’s followers?

Yes and no.

The process of being transformed into Christ’s image has begun, but we still struggle. We have the deposit, God’s Spirit, as a guarantee of our future inheritance, but our bodies have not yet been transformed. This means we can still turn away from God and run after idols. As Martin Luther said, we are simultaneously saint and sinner. This is why John had to tell Christians, “Dear children, keep yourselves from idols” (1 Jn 5:21). But when our transformation is complete—body and soul—I don’t think we will have any desire to go astray from the true God.

Until then, we ask God to deliver us from evil and we rejoice in God’s heart of love for us:

“Is not Ephraim my dear son, the child in whom I delight? Though I often speak against him, I still remember him. Therefore my heart yearns for him; I have great compassion for him,” declares the LORD. (31:20)

“I will surely gather them from all the lands where I banish them in my furious anger and great wrath; I will bring them back to this place and let them live in safety. They will be my people, and I will be their God. I will give them singleness of heart and action, so that they will always fear me and that all will then go well for them and for their children after them. I will make an everlasting covenant with them: I will never stop doing good to them, and I will inspire them to fear me, so that they will never turn away from me. I will rejoice in doing them good and will assuredly plant them in this land with all my heart and soul.” (32:37-41)