Jeremiah 7:17-20 · Bible study
Jeremiah 7:17-20 Commentary: The Open Wound of Idolatry
Hebrew · 11 what the commentators say
Meaning in one sentence
Jeremiah 7:17-20 exposes the people's public idolatry and the self-destructive nature of sin that cuts off intercession.
Research Summary
- Meaning: Judah's open, family-wide idolatry provokes God's settled judgment, but the real harm falls on the sinners themselves.
- Key words: kavvanim (cakes, an Assyrian loanword), makh'isim (provoking, Hiphil participle, deliberate, continuous action), boshet (shame, the outcome of self-destructive sin).
- Main debate: Whether the queen of heaven is the moon goddess, Ishtar, or a general planetary deity, the text leaves it ambiguous, though the foreign loanword points to Babylon.
- Theological theme: Sin's recoil effect, every act of rebellion against God returns to wound the rebel.
- Best use: A caution against treating sin as private or harmless; a prompt to examine whether family life is oriented toward God or toward substitute gods.
Translation Comparison
BSB Berean Standard Bible 2020
17Do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?
18The sons gather wood, the fathers light the fire, and the women knead the dough to make cakes for the Queen of Heaven; they pour out drink offerings to other gods to provoke Me to anger.
19But am I the One they are provoking? declares the LORD. Is it not themselves they spite, to their own shame?
20Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: Behold, My anger and My fury will be poured out on this place, on man and beast, on the trees of the field and the produce of the land, and it will burn and not be extinguished.
WEB World English Bible 2000
17Don’t you see what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?
18The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead the dough, to make cakes to the queen of the sky, and to pour out drink offerings to other gods, that they may provoke me to anger.
19Do they provoke me to anger?” says Yahweh. “Don’t they provoke themselves, to the confusion of their own faces?”
20Therefore the Lord Yahweh says: “Behold, my anger and my wrath will be poured out on this place, on man, on animal, on the trees of the field, and on the fruit of the ground; and it will burn and will not be quenched.”
KJV King James Version 1769
17Seest thou not what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?
18The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger.
19Do they provoke me to anger? saith the Lord: do they not provoke themselves to the confusion of their own faces?
20Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Behold, mine anger and my fury shall be poured out upon this place, upon man, and upon beast, and upon the trees of the field, and upon the fruit of the ground; and it shall burn, and shall not be quenched.
ASV American Standard Version 1901
17Seest thou not what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?
18The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead the dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink-offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger.
19Do they provoke me to anger? saith Jehovah; do they not provoke themselves, to the confusion of their own faces?
20Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, mine anger and my wrath shall be poured out upon this place, upon man, and upon beast, and upon the trees of the field, and upon the fruit of the ground; and it shall burn, and shall not be quenched.
YLT Young's Literal Translation 1898
17Art thou not seeing what they are doing In cities of Judah, and in streets of Jerusalem?
18The sons are gathering wood, And the fathers are causing the fire to burn, And the women are kneading dough, To make cakes to the queen of the heavens, And to pour out libations to other gods, So as to provoke Me to anger.
19Me are they provoking to anger? an affirmation of Jehovah, Is it not themselves, For the shame of their own faces?
20Therefore, thus said the Lord Jehovah, Lo, Mine anger and My fury is poured out on this place, On man, and beast, and on tree of the field, And on fruit of the ground, And it hath burned, and it is not quenched.
Darby Darby Bible 1890
17Seest thou not what they do in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem?
18The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink-offerings unto othergods, that they may provoke me to anger.
19Is it I whom they provoke to anger? saith Jehovah; is it not themselves, to the shame of their own face?
20Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, mine anger and my fury shall be poured out upon this place; upon man, and upon beast, and upon the trees of the field, and upon the fruit of the ground; and it shall burn, and shall not be quenched.
Douay-Rheims Douay-Rheims Bible 1899
17Seest thou not what they do in the cities of Juda, and in the streets of Jerusalem?
18The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead the dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to offer libations to strange gods, and to provoke me to anger.
19Do they provoke me to anger, saith the Lord? is it not themselves, to the confusion of their own countenance?
20Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Behold my wrath and my indignation is enkindled against this place, upon men and upon beasts, and upon the trees of the field, and upon the fruits of the land, and it shall burn, and shall not be quenched.
Verse in Context
Original Language (Biblical Hebrew)
Old Testament · Biblical Hebrew · Jeremiah 7:17
Source: STEPBible TAGNT/TEHB (CC-BY 4.0). Click or tap a morphology code to see the full parsing.
Scholars' Consensus
Commentators agree this passage functions as God's justification for forbidding Jeremiah to pray for Judah. Calvin and Matthew Henry read the opening rhetorical question, “Don’t you see what they do?”, as God calling Jeremiah as witness: the prophet cannot plead ignorance of the people's guilt. The description of whole families joining in idolatry (children gathering wood, fathers kindling fire, women kneading dough) shows the corruption is universal, not isolated to a few. Gill, Clarke and Jamieson-Fausset-Brown all note that every age and sex participates, which makes the nation “ripe for ruin.”
The hinge of the passage is verse 19. Calvin and Keil-Delitzsch stress the reflexive force of the Hebrew: the people are not truly provoking God (who cannot be harmed) but provoking themselves "to the shame of their own faces." The judgment in verse 20 flows directly from this, because sin is self-destructive, God's wrath simply brings the natural consequences to completion. The comprehensive scope (on man, beast, trees, fruit) mirrors the comprehensive sin.
How settled is the interpretation?
Interpretive difficulty: Medium
Main views:
- Historical-critical reading: The queen of heaven is Ishtar/Venus, imported from Assyrian religion during Manasseh's reign, practiced by poorer families who could not afford temple sacrifice.
- Typological reading: The family's united worship of a false god prefigures the New Testament warning that whole households can be led astray by false teaching.
- Pastoral reading: The prayer prohibition serves as a warning that unrepentant sin can close the ear of God, but does not mean God rejects genuine repentance.
What is clear: The people of Judah are openly, publicly and as families engaged in worshipping a foreign goddess, and God declares this sin will bring comprehensive judgment upon them.
What Scholars Agree and Debate
| Topic | Agreed | Debated |
|---|---|---|
| Identity of the queen of heaven | All traditions identify this as a foreign, pagan deity worshipped in Judah through household rites involving cakes and drink offerings. | Some identify her as the moon goddess (Wesley, Lange), others as the planet Venus (Ishtar, per Cambridge Bible), and others as a general symbol of the productive power of the heavens (Barnes). |
| Nature of the prayer prohibition | God commands Jeremiah not to intercede because judgment is determined and the people's sin is unrepentant and public. | Protestant commentators (Matthew Henry, Calvin) see this as a decree that cannot be revoked; Catholic interpreters read it as a warning that persistent sin can close the ear of God, but not that repentance would be rejected. Orthodox tradition emphasizes that God sometimes withholds intercession to test the prophet's obedience. |
| Whether God's anger is anthropomorphic | God speaks in terms of anger, jealousy and wrath throughout the passage, using human language to describe divine response. | Gill argues that there is no literal passion in God, the anger language accommodates human understanding. Keil-Delitzsch and Calvin treat the wrath as a real expression of God's holy opposition to sin, not merely a figure of speech. |
| The scope of judgment on animals and land | The judgment extends beyond humans to animals, trees and the ground, showing sin's cosmic effects. | Gill views animals as suffering for man's sake since they are his property; Jamieson-Fausset-Brown adds that the spectacle of suffering creation is meant to terrify humans into repentance. Some see a connection to the curse in Genesis 3, where the ground itself is affected by human sin. |
Historical & Cultural Context
The worship described here took place openly in Jerusalem's streets, not in secret. Barnes notes that such public idolatry could only have occurred under a king like Jehoiakim, who reversed his father Josiah's reforms. The “queen of heaven” (Hebrew malkat hashamayim) is a foreign import, likely the Assyrian-Babylonian goddess Ishtar (the planet Venus) or, as Wesley and Lange suggest, the moon as feminine counterpart to Baal the sun god. The Cambridge Bible notes the word kavvanim (“cakes”) is itself of Babylonian origin, suggesting the cult came directly from Mesopotamia, likely during Manasseh's long reign when Assyrian religious practices were imposed on Judah.
This was not elite worship in a temple but household religion: families making round cakes shaped or stamped to represent the goddess, then offering them along with drink libations. Adam Clarke observes ruefully that these apostate Israelites showed more zeal for false gods than most families show for the true God. The domestic scene, children gathering wood, fathers starting the fire, women kneading dough, deliberately perverts the family unit. Every natural bond of obedience and care is reoriented toward a pagan deity.
Jeremiah was commanded not to pray for these people (v.16), a stunning prohibition. Since Abraham interceded for Sodom and Moses for Israel, prophetic intercession was assumed. But here God closes that door. Lange cites Jerome's observation that even the prayers of the saints can be resisted by God's settled wrath when sin reaches a certain threshold. The allusion to Shiloh (v.14) would have been chilling: the sanctuary where the ark once rested was destroyed by the Philistines. The same fate now awaited Jerusalem.
Textual Notes
The consulted sources note no significant textual variants in Jeremiah 7:17-20. The main discussion concerns the phrase "queen of heaven" (Hebrew malkat hashamayim), which the Cambridge Bible notes is unique in form and points to a foreign origin. The Septuagint renders the phrase differently in some passages, but for Jeremiah 7 the textual tradition is stable across manuscripts and translations.
Reception History
This passage has been read across traditions as a sobering example of the limits of intercessory prayer. Jerome commented on verse 16 that the prayers of the saints can be resisted by God's settled wrath, a point taken up by medieval commentators to discuss when God may refuse to hear. The Reformers (Calvin, Luther) emphasized the passage to argue that persistent, unrepentant sin can exhaust God's patience. In Anglican tradition, the rhetorical question of verse 19, "Do they not provoke themselves?", has been used in homilies on the self-destructive nature of sin. The imagery of fire that "will not be quenched" (v.20) has been sung in hymns of judgment and repentance across Protestant and Catholic traditions.
Preaching This Verse
Three-point outline
- The family united in sin (vv.17-18). Children, fathers and women each have a role, the corruption touches every generation and gender. The household, meant to be the first place of worship, becomes the engine of idolatry.
- The delusion of harm (v.19). The people think they are hurting God by their rebellion. The rhetorical question exposes the irony: they can only hurt themselves. God is untouched; they bear the shame.
- The fire that will not go out (v.20). Judgment covers every part of creation, people, animals, trees, ground. Sin's consequences are never contained to one sphere.
Five-point outline
- Open sin (v.17). “In the streets of Jerusalem”, not hidden, but public. The people have lost all sense of shame.
- Organized sin (v.18). Every family member contributes. Idolatry is a team effort, which makes it harder to resist.
- Provocative sin (v.18). The stated goal: “to provoke me to anger.” Calvin notes that the people knew God forbade these practices and did them anyway as a kind of defiance.
- Self-destructive sin (v.19). Gill puts it plainly: there is no such passion in God as there is in men. Their anger rebounds on their own heads.
- Unquenchable judgment (v.20). The Niphal participle nittekhet (“is being poured out”) gives the sense of an action already underway, not merely threatened.
Illustration hooks
- A family that runs a small business together, everyone has a job, and the business runs smoothly. But the business is built on something dishonest. The family's efficiency makes the corruption harder to stop, not easier.
- Someone who stays angry at a person who does not know they exist. The anger burns the one holding it, not the target. That is the picture in verse 19: Israel's defiance harms Israel, not God.
Questions your congregation is asking
- Does God ever reach a point where He refuses to hear prayer?
- If my sin does not hurt God, why does He punish it?
- How do I know when my religious habits have become empty routines like the temple worship Jeremiah condemned?
Leading a Discussion
This passage shows what happens when a whole community normalizes what God forbids. The family, the basic unit of society, is turned toward false worship. And the consequences are not limited to the spiritual realm; they touch animals, trees and the ground itself. As you discuss these verses, notice how God uses a rhetorical question to force Jeremiah (and us) to look honestly at what is happening.
Discussion questions
- What does it mean that the idolatry happens “in the streets of Jerusalem” (v.17)? Why does the public nature of the sin matter?
- How does the division of labor in verse 18, children, fathers, women, show that the whole community is implicated? What would it look like for a family today to be united in something destructive?
- The Hebrew word for “cakes” (kavvanim) is borrowed from Assyrian. What does a borrowed word tell us about where this worship came from and how deeply it had penetrated Judah's culture?
- Why does God ask in verse 19 whether they are provoking Him or themselves? What is the difference between anger that hurts God and sin that hurts the sinner?
- Verse 20 includes animals, trees and fruit in the judgment. Why would God include non-human creation in the punishment? How does Romans 8:19-22 (cited by Barnes) help explain this?
- Jeremiah was told not to pray for the people (v.16). How does this shape our understanding of when intercession is appropriate and when it may be refused?
- If this passage shows the severity of sin, what hope does it leave for change? Where do you see a thread of grace in the surrounding chapters?
Word Study
The key original-language words in this verse. Select any word for its full lexicon entry — meaning, every occurrence in Scripture, and related words.
Cross-References
Source: Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (TSK, public domain)
| Jeremiah 6:27 | “I have made you a tester of metals and a fortress among my people, that you may know and try their way. |
| Ezekiel 8:6 | He said to me, “Son of man, do you see what they do? Even the great abominations that the house of Israel commit here, that I should go far off from my sanctuary? But you will again see yet other great abominations.” |
| Ezekiel 8:18 | Therefore I will also deal in wrath. My eye won’t spare, neither will I have pity. Though they cry in my ears with a loud voice, yet I will not hear them.” |
| Ezekiel 14:23 | They will comfort you, when you see their way and their doings; then you will know that I have not done all that I have done in it without cause,” says the Lord Yahweh. |
| Deuteronomy 4:19 | and lest you lift up your eyes to the sky, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, even all the army of the sky, you are drawn away and worship them, and serve them, which Yahweh your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole sky. |
| Deuteronomy 32:16 | They moved him to jealousy with strange gods. They provoked him to anger with abominations. |
| Deuteronomy 32:21 | They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God. They have provoked me to anger with their vanities. I will move them to jealousy with those who are not a people. I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation. |
| Deuteronomy 32:37 | He will say, “Where are their gods, the rock in which they took refuge, |
Interlinear and lexical data from STEPBible (CC BY 4.0). Cross-reference data from OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0). Commentaries are public domain.
For personal reflection
Read the devotional page — prayer, application, and "for families"
What the Commentators Say
10 public-domain commentaries, condensed into plain language.
Adam Clarke's Commentary Methodist/Wesleyan 1826
Clarke points out that this entire family worked together with remarkable zeal to worship an idol, each member taking a specific role. He finds it deeply saddening that these apostate Israelites showed more energy and unity in false worship than most families ever show in the true worship of God.
Barnes' Notes on the Bible Protestant 1832
Barnes highlights how openly and shamelessly idolatry spread through every level of society in Jerusalem. Entire families, including children and women, participated in the degrading rites of the queen of heaven, a moon goddess whose worship involved compulsory immoral acts. This public corruption, he argues, could only have flourished under a king as wicked as Jehoiakim.
Calvin's Commentaries Reformed 1564
Calvin emphasizes that God describes the whole people as corrupt by their own deliberate conspiracy—children gather wood, fathers kindle the fire, and women knead dough to make cakes for a pagan queen. No part of the family is innocent. He also notes that their sin does not harm God; it only shames themselves.
Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges Anglican 1880
The cakes offered to the queen of heaven have an Assyrio-Babylonian name and were shaped or stamped to represent the planet Venus, or Ishtar. This cult was introduced under Manasseh and appears to have been common among the poorer classes, who gathered wood and performed the work themselves.
Geneva Bible Notes Reformed 1599
The Geneva Notes emphasize that the whole family is united in idolatry: children gather wood, fathers kindle fire, and women knead dough for cakes to the Queen of Heaven. Their actions not only provoke God’s anger but bring confusion and shame upon themselves as His wrath will burn unquenched.
Gill's Exposition of the Bible Baptist 1748
Gill highlights the universal corruption: every age and sex—children, fathers, women—openly joined in idolatry, showing the whole nation ripe for judgment. He also notes the phrase "provoke me to anger" is anthropopathic; God's judgment is simply the natural consequence of their sin, bringing ruin upon themselves.
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Commentary Protestant 1871
JFB highlights that idolatry involved entire families and all ages, not just isolated individuals. The cakes baked for the queen of heaven imitated the moon's shape, linking to the Phoenician goddess Ashtoreth. This widespread worship was not ignorant but a deliberate provocation of Jehovah.
Keil & Delitzsch OT Commentary Protestant 1876
Keil and Delitzsch observe that idolatry does not actually trouble God but brings trouble back on the idolaters themselves. The Hebrew construction shows they cause their own shame and suffering. God's judgment, like a consuming fire, destroys everything in the land because of their actions.
Matthew Henry's Commentary Reformed/Presbyterian 1710
Henry's point is that the people's worst loss is not the temple's failure to protect them but the withdrawal of the prophet's intercession, which would have helped them more than their own pleas. God forbids Jeremiah to pray that the judgment be prevented, though he may still pray for the life of their souls.
Wesley's Explanatory Notes Methodist/Wesleyan 1754
Wesley stresses that idolatry involves everyone, from the youngest children to the oldest adults. He notes the pagan view of the sun as king and the moon as queen of heaven. Above all, he declares the judgment pronounced here is final and will not be revoked.