Commentary on this chapter could go in several directions, the heart is wicked, man can't be trusted to save himself, healing and salvation are closely aligned, Israel has cursed themselves and they are reaping their own undoing, and on it goes. As you read the chapter, you will find a wealth of topics to ponder.

I want to focus on the last part of the chapter for today. It's about the Sabbath.

Let's start by saying that God is not against wealth and prosperity. Listen to Deu. 8:17,18. You may say to yourself, "My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me."  But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your forefathers, as it is today.

God gives us the ability to produce wealth. If that is the case, then wealth itself must not be bad.  It may be very good actually, even if it is not God's plan for everyone. The question of what wealth is can be profitable itself. Most people didn't have monetary wealth or a big retirement account in those days. What they could gain was land, a home and food and family. This could be called the Good Life or Shalom.

But Shalom could be destroyed by one thing, Greed. The idea that one could work seven days a week, 18 hours a day is not new. It has been around since Jeremiah 17 at least. And underneath this commandment to honor the Sabbath is God's concern for his people and their spiritual, physical and emotional welfare.

The Sabbath is not the cure for distress. We are so used to going to the medicine cabinet for cures, doctors for treatments, hospitals for surgeries, but most of the time we live in relative health. So it would be easy to look at the Sabbath as the cure here for their troubles. It is true that if you look at vs 24 and following, you see that there is a cause and effect element to the Sabbath. If they honor the Sabbath, God will prosper their population and their kingdom.

But I tend to look at it more like preventative medicine if there is such a thing. The Sabbath won't cure you once you have the disease, but it is a major preventative to avoid the disease. The disease is self accommodation and greed. The prevention is a seventh of my life returned to God in focus, love, devotion and trust. The Sabbath is a rest from self and then an engagement with God. To live in the rest of the Sabbath is to be whole and healthy. To live without it is to be on fire with self engulfing flames of destruction. The flames seem to comfort us at first but they will eventually consume us.

As medicine, the Sabbath is more like Sunshine and fresh air than blood pressure drugs or artery drugs which help to lower your cholesterol. I'm glad for those drugs I suppose. They must be helping some folks. But how much healthier many would be if they would take in the great gift of the Sabbath in the first place.

We will find that Israel did not take this spectacularly simple guidance about the Sabbath and they went into captivity as a result. Their abuse of God's gift did allow them to prosper. When they start coming back from captivity in the following centuries, they will once again return to the Sabbath, but even there they will use it as medicine more than lifestyle. They will abuse it in another way entirely.

All this confusion is alarming, how hard can it be to get the Sabbath gift right? God meant it for good, of that I am sure. We must avoid turning it into something else. We must learn to enjoy it as the great gift it is meant to be. It is filled with blessing and nutrition for our thirsty souls. We are fortunate enough to have it every week. What better reminder than the Sabbath that God wants us to prosper and be wealthy. Rest that day and the work week will go well is the promise. Rest that day and life will be more rewarding is the lesson. Israel as a people struggled with these ideas, so do we. But the struggle is worth it. Shabbat Shalom.

Jeremiah 17

 ¹ "Judah's sin is engraved with an iron tool,
       inscribed with a flint point,
       on the tablets of their hearts
       and on the horns of their altars.

 ² Even their children remember
       their altars and Asherah poles ^[a]
       beside the spreading trees
       and on the high hills.

 ³ My mountain in the land
       and your ^[b] wealth and all your treasures
       I will give away as plunder,
       together with your high places,
       because of sin throughout your country.

 ⁴ Through your own fault you will lose
       the inheritance I gave you.
       I will enslave you to your enemies
       in a land you do not know,
       for you have kindled my anger,
       and it will burn forever."

 ⁵ This is what the LORD says:
       "Cursed is the one who trusts in man,
       who depends on flesh for his strength
       and whose heart turns away from the LORD.

 ⁶ He will be like a bush in the wastelands;
       he will not see prosperity when it comes.
       He will dwell in the parched places of the desert,
       in a salt land where no one lives.

 ⁷ "But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,
       whose confidence is in him.

 ⁸ He will be like a tree planted by the water
       that sends out its roots by the stream.
       It does not fear when heat comes;
       its leaves are always green.
       It has no worries in a year of drought
       and never fails to bear fruit."

 ⁹ The heart is deceitful above all things
       and beyond cure.
       Who can understand it?

 ¹⁰ "I the LORD search the heart
       and examine the mind,
       to reward a man according to his conduct,
       according to what his deeds deserve."

 ¹¹ Like a partridge that hatches eggs it did not lay
       is the man who gains riches by unjust means.
       When his life is half gone, they will desert him,
       and in the end he will prove to be a fool.

 ¹² A glorious throne, exalted from the beginning,
       is the place of our sanctuary.

 ¹³ O LORD, the hope of Israel,
       all who forsake you will be put to shame.
       Those who turn away from you will be written in the dust
       because they have forsaken the LORD,
       the spring of living water.

 ¹⁴ Heal me, O LORD, and I will be healed;
       save me and I will be saved,
       for you are the one I praise.

 ¹⁵ They keep saying to me,
       "Where is the word of the LORD ?
       Let it now be fulfilled!"

 ¹⁶ I have not run away from being your shepherd;
       you know I have not desired the day of despair.
       What passes my lips is open before you.

 ¹⁷ Do not be a terror to me;
       you are my refuge in the day of disaster.

 ¹⁸ Let my persecutors be put to shame,
       but keep me from shame;
       let them be terrified,
       but keep me from terror.
       Bring on them the day of disaster;
       destroy them with double destruction.

Keeping the Sabbath Holy

 ¹⁹ This is what the LORD said to me: "Go and stand at the gate of the people, through which the kings of Judah go in and out; stand also at all the other gates of Jerusalem. ²⁰ Say to them, 'Hear the word of the LORD, O kings of Judah and all people of Judah and everyone living in Jerusalem who come through these gates. ²¹ This is what the LORD says: Be careful not to carry a load on the Sabbath day or bring it through the gates of Jerusalem. ²² Do not bring a load out of your houses or do any work on the Sabbath, but keep the Sabbath day holy, as I commanded your forefathers. ²³ Yet they did not listen or pay attention; they were stiff-necked and would not listen or respond to discipline. ²⁴ But if you are careful to obey me, declares the LORD, and bring no load through the gates of this city on the Sabbath, but keep the Sabbath day holy by not doing any work on it, ²⁵ then kings who sit on David's throne will come through the gates of this city with their officials. They and their officials will come riding in chariots and on horses, accompanied by the men of Judah and those living in Jerusalem, and this city will be inhabited forever. ²⁶ People will come from the towns of Judah and the villages around Jerusalem, from the territory of Benjamin and the western foothills, from the hill country and the Negev, bringing burnt offerings and sacrifices, grain offerings, incense and thank offerings to the house of the LORD. ²⁷ But if you do not obey me to keep the Sabbath day holy by not carrying any load as you come through the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day, then I will kindle an unquenchable fire in the gates of Jerusalem that will consume her fortresses.' "