Jeremiah 17:2

Whilst their children remember their altars and their groves by the green trees upon the high hills. WHILST THEIR CHILDREN REMEMBER THEIR ALTARS AND THEIR GROVES - instead of forsaking the idolatries of their fathers they keep them up (Jeremiah 7:18). This is given as proof that their sin is "graven upon ... altars" (Jeremiah 17:1), i.e., is not merely temporary. They corrupt their posterity, after them Castalio, less probably translates, 'They remember their altars as (fondly as) they do their children.' GROVES - rather, images of Astarte, the goddess of the heavenly hosts, represented as a sacred tree, such as is seen in the Assyrian sculptures ...

Interpreters seem not to me to have perceived the design of the Prophet here, at least they have not clearly explained the subject. He proceeds, as I think, with what he said at the end of the last verse, — that the iniquity of Judah was graven on the altars, or on the horns of the altars: how was this? even because they transmitted to posterity whatever they devised as to their ungodly forms of worship. How then was iniquity graven on the horns of the altars? even because it was not a temporary wickedness only, when the Jews cast aside the Law and followed their corrupt superstitions; but, on the contrary, their iniquity flowed down, as it were, by a hereditary right, to their posterity. Justly then does Jeremiah accuse them, that they were not only led away into evil through the whole course of their own lives, but that they also corrupted their children, for they left to them memorial...

1-4 The sins which men commit make little impression on their minds, yet every sin is marked in the book of God; they are all so graven upon the table of the heart, that they will all be remembered by the conscience. That which is graven in the heart will become plain in the life; men's actions show the desires and purposes of their hearts. What need we have to humble ourselves before God, who are so vile in his sight! How should we depend on his mercy and grace, begging of God to search and prove us; not to suffer us to be deceived by our own hearts, but to create in us a clean and holy nature by his Spirit!...

Verse Jeremiah 17:2. _WHILST THEIR CHILDREN REMEMBER_] Even the rising generation have their _imagination_ stocked with _idol images_, and their _memories_ with the frantic rites and ceremonies which they saw their parents observe in this abominable worship....

WHILE THEIR CHILDREN REMEMBER THEIR ALTARS - Perhaps an allusion to their sacrifices of children to Moloch. Present perhaps at some such blood-stained rite, its horrors would be engraven forever upon the memory. GROVES - “Asherahs,” i. e., wooden images of Astarte (see Exodus 34:13 note)....

EXPOSITION Jeremiah 17:1 are closely connected with the preceding chapter. We have just been pointed to the striking contrast between the conduct of the heathen and that of the backsliding men of Judah. The inspired orator's indignation swells as he thinks of the inveterateness and indelibleness of Judah's sin. Then he passes to a subject immediately suggested by the policy of the court, viz. the true source of safety in dangerous times. Trust in man brings a curse; trust in Jehovah a blessing (Jeremiah 17:5). From this portion of the prophecy we can venture to fix the date of the whole. Jeremiah 17:11 is, in fact, a shorter form of the denunciation in...

WHILST THEIR CHILDREN REMEMBER THEIR ALTARS,.... Which is a further proof of their long continuance in idolatrous practices, and a fresh witness against them; they trained up their children in them; who, when grown up, could not forget them, but imitated them, and went on in the same evil ways. Some render the words, "as they remember their children, so they remember their altars i, and their groves, by the green trees upon the high hills"; they had the same love to their idols, and the worship of them, as they had to their children. This sense is received by Kimchi k; yea, they had a greater affection for their idols than for their children; since they made their children pass through the fire to Moloch, and burnt their sons and their daughters to Baal. The Targum renders it, "their groves under every green tree": see Jeremiah 2:20. Kimchi and Ben Melech connect green trees not with gro...

Jeremiah 17:1. _The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond:_ It is so ingrained in their very nature that you might as well try to erase an inscription that is written upon steel with the point of a diamond as hope to get this perversity out of the nation; it is graven upon the tablets of their heart. What is mere habit can be altered, but what is ingrained in the heart cannot be taken away except by a, miracle of grace. It was the heart that was wrong; the fountain-head was polluted, so what could the streams be but foul. Jeremiah 17:1. _It is graven upon the table of their heart, and upon the horns of your altars;_ Their holiest things were defiled. They wrote up the names of their idol gods even upon God's altar, and so the

CHAPTER 17 _ 1. Judah's sin (Jeremiah 17:1) _ 2. The curse and the blessing (Jeremiah 17:5) 3. The worship of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 17:12) 4. Concerning the Sabbath (Jeremiah 17:19) Jeremiah 17:1. The sin of Judah was idolatry, engraven with a pen of iron, the point of a diamond, upon their heart (from whence it proceeded) and upon the horns of their altars. They had destroyed but a few years before the asherim (translated groves, a kind of sacred post), and now their children turned back to t

JEREMIAH 16:1 TO JEREMIAH 17:18. THE COMING DISTRESS A PENALTY FOR SIN. The prophet is forbidden to found a family, because of the coming sorrows (_cf._ 1 Corinthians 7:29 ff.), in which death will be too common even for due mourning and burial. He is to stand aloof from the ordinary expressions of grief (Jeremiah 16:5) or social joy (Jeremiah 16:8 f.; _cf._ Jeremiah 7:34), as a sign that Yahweh will make both to cease in the universal dis