Jeremiah 6:19 says that Yahweh is bringing disaster upon the people, but Jeremiah is quick to add that this is the fruit of the people’s own schemes (פְּרִי מַחְשְׁבוֹתָם).

Hear, oh land! Look! I am bringing disaster to this people, the fruit of their thoughts! For they have not paid attention to my words and my Torah; they rejected it. (Jeremiah 6:19)

Jeremiah 6 and God’s Active Judgment

This is yet another text that makes an organic connection between people’s actions and their experience of decreative consequences. So often people view divine judgment as though it is an arbitrary imposition from the outside, disconnected from the actual things people do: People “break the rules” and then God hits them as punishment. That is not how the biblical authors think.

Jeremiah emphasizes that the way God brings judgment upon people is by allowing the fruit of their own thoughts (פְּרִי מַחְשְׁבוֹתָם) to play out. God designed creation, and he superintends it. He is active, and he has control. He intervenes, and he can save from decreation (See After Decreation in Joel). But Jeremiah 6:19 shows us that people’s experience of God’s judgment is organically connected to what they have done. It’s the fruit of their thoughts and schemes.

Jeremiah 6 and The Flood

The way Jeremiah talks about judgment is directly connected to the language of Genesis 6:5.

And Yahweh saw that the wickedness of humanity was abundant on the land and that every formation of the thoughts of their heart was only evil every day. (Genesis 6:5)

Genesis 3 is the archetypical explanation of how judgment works, but the same dynamic plays out in the flood story of Genesis 6. In a previous post, I made a connection between judgment in Genesis 6 and Jeremiah 4. Jeremiah 6:19 is yet another passage that indicates divine judgment is not an arbitrary imposition of “punishment.”

One final link to highlight between Jeremiah 6 and the flood story of Genesis 6. In Jeremiah 6:28, the prophet says that all the people “bring corruption” (מַשְׁחִיתִים). This is the key verb Genesis 6 repeatedly uses to describe the cause of the flood:

The land was corrupt (וַתִּשָּׁחֵת) before God, and it was full of violence. And God saw the land, and look! It was corrupt (נִשְׁחָתָה) because all flesh had corrupted (הִשְׁחִית) their way on the land. And God said to Noah, “An end of all flesh has come before me because the land is full of violence because of them. Look, I am corrupting them (מַשְׁחִיתָם) along with the land. (Genesis 6:11–13)

Jeremiah 6 and Breaking

Creation is designed in such a way that when people move away from God and his life-giving words, they move into decreation and brokenness. In fact, “brokenness” or “breaking” (שֶׁבֶר) is one of Jeremiah’s favorite words to describe both (a) the condition of people living in unrepentant sin (Jer 6:14; 8:11) and (b) judgment itself (Jer 4:6, 20; 6:1). The connection between disobedience and judgment is highlighted in Jeremiah’s choice of one word to describe both.

In addition to the previous posts linked above, I’ve written more on God’s judgment in terms of allowing people’s actions to lead them into decreation in these posts:

• The Rhythm of Scripture in Deuteronomy 9–10
• The Judges Autopsy