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Daily Devotionals
Day by Day Devotional - Year 3 of 5
Jeremiah 17:12-27
Should we try to write our name in sand (v. 13), it will soon become illegible. How many senseless people there are who, without thinking of the future, seek to inscribe for themselves a name on this earth . . . which is going to pass away! Dear friend, it is in the book of life that your name must be written.
Again we find the sad declaration of Jeremiah 2:13 : "they have forsaken the LORD, the fountain of living waters." (v. 13). In John 6:66 many of the disciples of the Lord Jesus go back and walk no more with Him, the One who in the very next chapter will reveal Himself as this fountain of living waters (John 7:37).
The prayer in v. 14 recognises that God alone can change the evil heart of man. "Heal me . . . and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved". In Jeremiah 31:18 Ephraim will ask in his turn: "Turn thou me, and I shall be turned." "For thou art the LORD my God", the prophet adds. In the work of our salvation everything is to the glory of God.
In the remainder of this chapter the LORD recalls His instructions on the subject of the sabbath. The law had been broken on this point, just as it had been on others (Jeremiah 7:9). A century later, after the return from Babylon, the faithful Nehemiah will take this teaching of vv. 21, 22 to heart (Nehemiah 13:15 . . .). He will remind the nobles of Judah that the evil which had come upon the people had been the consequence of the unfaithfulness of their fathers in this matter.
