Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Jeremiah 6:20

To what purpose cometh there to me incense from Sheba, and the sweet cane from a far country? your burnt offerings [are] not acceptable, nor your sacrifices sweet unto me.

20. For the uselessness of ceremonial without obedience, cp. Isa 1:11; Hos 6:6; Amo 5:21 ff.; Mic 6:6; Psa 50:13 f.

frankincense from Sheba ] Cp. Isa 60:6, and “Centumque Sabaeo Ture calent arae” ( Aen. I. 416 7). The word occurs only in the later portions of O.T., viz. Jer 17:26, Jer 41:5 (in Jer 7:9 and Jer 44:21 the word is different); Exo 30:34; Lev 2:1 and six times besides; Num 5:15 (all P), Isa 43:23; Isa 60:6; Isa 66:3 ; 1Ch 9:29; Ca. Jer 3:6, Jer 4:6; Jer 4:14.

cane ] mg. calamus (Exo 30:23; Eze 27:19; Ca. Jer 4:14). It was used as an ingredient in the making of incense, and probably the “far country” was India. Du. and Co. think that Jeremiah is not attacking the sacrificial system, but the new-fangled ritual fashions. But this involves the precarious assumption that the latter part of the v. is the work of a supplementer.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

The sweet cane – The same as the scented cane of Exo 30:23 (see the note).

Your burnt offerings – The rejection of ritual observances is proclaimed by the two prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah, who chiefly assisted the two pious kings, Hezekiah and Josiah, in restoring the temple-service. God rejects not the ceremonial service, but the substitution of it for personal holiness and morality. Compare 1Sa 15:22; Isa 1:11; Mic 6:6-8.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Jer 6:20

Your burnt offerings are not acceptable.

Waste worship

I. The manifest failure of these Jewish offerings.

1. By these their consecration was to be furthered. But they were foul.

2. By these their repentance was to be awakened. But they sinned shamefully.

3. By these their minds were to be directed to the Messiah. But, in their arrogance and care for mere externals, they lost sight of spiritual lessons.

4. By these God was to be pleased and propitiated. The text indicates their complete miscarriage in this respect.

II. The indignant question and repudiation.

1. God thrusts from Himself the offensive temple offerings. He demands the heart. Nothing is sweet to God without love.

2. God stigmatises them as purposeless and waste.

3. Worship that offends God is waste, but also something more. Heart hardening. Judgment. Punishment.

Lessons–

1. The most important matter about our spiritual things is their acceptableness with God.

2. Our best energies are needed, not for externals, but internals. (W. B. Haynes.)

Ostentatiousness of hypocrisy

Drones make more noise than bees, though they make neither honey nor wax. (J. Trapp.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 20. Incense frown Sheba] Sheba was in Arabia, famous for the best incense. It was situated towards the southern extremity of the peninsula of Arabia; and was, in respect of Judea, a far country.

And the sweet cane from a far country] The calamus aromaticus, which, when dried and pulverized, yields a very fine aromatic smell; see on Isa 43:24. This was employed in making the holy anointing oil. See Ex 30:23.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

To what purpose? an interrogation of expostulation and contempt, wherein God by the prophet meets with their hypocrisy, who pleased themselves with their outward oblations and sacrifices, and thought God would be pleased with them too; but he tells them plainly they are to no purpose; as he speaks particularly in the close of the verse, Jer 7:21,22; Eze 20:39.

Incense from Sheba: that this was the product of Sheba, a country in Arabia Felix, to which country frankincense was peculiar, See Poole “Isa 60:6“. The sweet cane, or, cane, i.e. good, or the best cane; the article hath the force of a superlative, for cane that is good; the Hebrews have no degrees of comparison; the same that is mentioned as an ingredient in the holy oil, Exo 30:23. See Isa 43:24.

From a far country; not that it was brought from the remotest parts of the world, as from India, as some; for it was known to the Jews in Mosess time, Exo 30:23; but because it grew not in their own land, but was fetched or brought to them from Sheba, Isa 60:6, where it did grow, as Diodorus testifies, lib. 3. p. 125, and Strabo, lib. 16; 1Ki 10:2, compared with Joe 3:8; who is called the queen of the south, and to come from the uttermost parts of the earth, Mat 12:42, because the South Sea did bound the country. To what purpose art thou at this trouble and charge to fetch these ingredients for thy incense?

Are not acceptable; not likely to atone me; they will not be for acceptance; I cannot take delight in them, Hos 9:4, as the next expression: q.d. Away with these childish trifles, whereby you think to pacify me. By these species he understands the whole legal worship.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

To what purpose cometh there to me incense from Sheba,…. In Persia or Arabia, from whence incense was brought, and perhaps the best; see Isa 60:6, and yet the offering of this was of no esteem with God, when the words of the prophet, and the law of his mouth, were despised; see Isa 1:13:

and the sweet cane from a far country? either from the same place, Sheba, which was a country afar off, Joe 3:8, or from India, as Jerom interprets it; this was one of the spices in the anointing oil,

Ex 30:23 and though this was of divine appointment, and an omission of it is complained of, Isa 43:24 yet when this was brought with a hypocritical heart, and to atone for neglects of the moral law, and sins committed against that, it was rejected by the Lord:

your burnt, offerings are not acceptable, nor your sacrifices sweet unto me: being offered up with a wicked mind, and without faith in Christ, and in order to expiate the guilt of black crimes unrepented of, and continued in; they were not grateful to God, nor could he smell a sweet savour in them, but loathed and abhorred them; see Isa 1:11.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

The Prophet here replies to those hypocrites, who thought that they made an expiation when they had offered incense and sacrifices, as though that was all that was necessary in serving God: and hence we shall hereafter see, that the Temple had become the den of thieves; for when they sedulously offered incense every day and performed other ceremonies, they thought that God was pacified. Thus hypocrites ever mock God with their fopperies and regard God as extremely cruel, when not satisfied with external display. This was a perpetual evil, with which the prophets had to contend: and hence the notion is often found referred to by our Prophet,

“

I desired not sacrifices; I commanded not your fathers, when I stretched forth my hand to bring them out of Egypt, to offer burnt — offerings to me, but only to obey my voice,” (Jer 7:21)

So we find in other prophets: the Psalmist says,

“

If I hunger, I will not tell thee,” (Psa 50:12)

It is said also by Micah,

“

What does God require of thee, but to humble thyself before him? He seeks not thousands of rams nor thousands of oxen from thy herds,” (Mic 6:7)

And we see at this day, that men cannot be rightly taught, except we carry on war against that external splendor with which they will have God to be satisfied. As then men deceive themselves with such trifles, it is necessary to shew that all those things which hypocrites obtrude on God, without sincerity of heart, are frivolous trumperies. This is the import of what is here taught.

There is, then, no doubt but that the Jews punctually offered their sacrifices, and observed the legal rites. All this might have appeared very commendable; but God gives this answer, To what purpose does frankincense come to me from the Sabeans, and a sweet cane (180) (that is, odoriferous) from a far country? Thus the Prophet here anticipates hypocrites, that he might not leave them — what they might have objected: for while they spent a large sum of money on their forms of worship, they thought that God was as it were bound to them: and where they also bestowed much labor, they supposed that their’ toil could not be superfluous or useless. And under the Papacy we observe the same thing: when any one builds a splendid church, and adorns it with gold and silver and supplies it with rich furniture, and then provides a revenue for saying masses, he thinks that lie holds in his hands all the keys of the kingdom of heaven, so that he can push in even against the will of God. Similar is the madness of the Papists, when they undertake pilgrimages: when they labor and toil, they think that every step they take must be numbered before God, and that God would be unjust, were he not to approve of what is offered to him with so much trouble. Such was also the conceit of the Jews. As their incense, brought from the Sa-beans, that is, from the east, even from Persia, was precious, and cost a considerable sum of money, they wished that this should be deemed a satisfaction for all their sins; and they looked for the same benefit from the cane: as the most odoriferous cane was bought at, a high price, they expected that it would be of account before God, and that it would avail to compensate for their punishment. This is the folly which God here treats with contempt. “What are they to me, “he says, “your expenses? I indeed count as nothing all that ye spend in buying incense and sweet cane.” And then he speaks of the Sabeans and of a far country.

He afterwards adds, Please me do not your burnt — offerings, and your sacrifices are not acceptable Under one kind Jeremiah includes the whole worship according to the law; and yet it had been divinely appointed: this is indeed true, but for another purpose. Fasting does not of itself displease God; but it becomes an abomination to him, when it is thought to be a meritorious work, or when some holiness is connected with it. The same is true as to sacrifices; for they who sought to pacify God by victims robbed Christ of his honor: it was to transfer the favor, which comes from Christ, to a calf or to a goat: and what a sacrilege was this, and how abominable? When, therefore, the Jews set such a high value on their sacrifices, they sought first childishly to trifle with God, as though these were expiations to pacify him; and then to offer burnt — offerings, to slay an animal, for pacifying God, was to change his nature; and lastly, it was, as I have said, to rob Christ of his honor: for expiation is to be sought by no other means than through his blood, by which we are cleansed from every stain through the Holy Spirit, who sprinkles it on our hearts. But when this was attributed to sacrifices, they substituted the victim, or the ram, for Christ, according to what has been stated.

Now there ought to have been in sacrifices the exercise of the duty of repentance: but when they became more and more hardened, and thought that by their ceremonies they obtained a greater license to sin, and that God required no more from them, as though they had settled matters with him, they completely neutralized the design of God: for sacrifices, as it has been already said, had been enjoined for this end, — that they might exercise penitence.

We now then see that this answer given by Jeremiah was not in vain, — that their sacrifices did not please God. There is a severer language used elsewhere, — that God nauseated them, that he was wearied in bearing them, that he was constrained to be troubled with them, while they thus profaned his name. (Isa 1:14.) The meaning here is the same, — that God never required sacrifices for their own sake, but for another end; and also, that all external rites are of themselves mere trumperies and mockeries, nay, a profanation of God’s name; so that they could not pacify him, but, on the contrary, provoke his wrath. It follows —

(180) It is rendered “cinnamon” by the Septuagint and Arabic, “a sweet smelling reed” by the Vulgate, and “an aromatic reed” or cane by the Syriac and Targum. The literal rendering of the verse is as follows, —

20. For what purpose is this done to me? Incense, from Sheba it comes, And the precious reed, from a distant land: Your burnt-offerings, they are not acceptable, And your sacrifices, they are not pleasing to me.

The reed or cane was dried and powdered, and formed a part of the incense. The latter is mentioned first, and then one of its ingredients. Sheba and the distant land are the same. The same order is to be observed in the burnt-offerings and sacrifices; the finished act first, and then the previous act of presenting a sacrifice. — Ed.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

(20) Incense from Sheba.The land that had a proverbial fame both for gold and frankincense (Isa. 60:6; Eze. 27:22), the thus Sabum of Virg., n. i. 416, 417. So Milton, Par. Lost, 4

Saban odours from the spicy shores

Of Araby the blest.

So the Queen of Sheba brought spices and gold (1Ki. 10:10).

The sweet cane.Literally, the good cane, or, as in Exo. 30:23, sweet calamus (comp. Isa. 43:24; Son. 4:14), numbered among the ingredients of the Temple incense. The LXX. renders it by cinnamon. It came from the far country of India The whole passage is a reproduction of the thought of Isa. 1:11-13.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

20. To what purpose, etc “It is remarkable that this rejection of ritual observances is made by the two prophets (Isaiah and Jeremiah) who chiefly assisted the two pious kings (Hezekiah and Josiah) in restoring the temple service. God rejects not the ceremonial service, but the substitution of it for personal holiness and morality. If it be the expression of love and piety present in the heart, it is the beauty of holiness; if it take the place of love and duty, it is an abomination.” DEAN SMITH, in loc.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments