Bible Strands
Jeremiah 18:15
Yet My people have forgotten Me. They burn incense to worthless idols that make them stumble in their ways, leaving the ancient roads to walk on rutted bypaths instead of on the highway.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Yahweh speaks through Jeremiah to the rebellious house of Israel, contrasting His reliable covenant with their sudden abandonment of Him. The declaration follows a rhetorical question about the unchanging nature of Lebanon’s snow and waters, framing their spiritual apostasy as a violation of natural and moral order.
The words — שְׁכֵחֻ֥נִי (she.khe.Chu./ni) literally renders "they have forgotten me," while שָׁוְא (shav') denotes "worthlessness" or "falsehood" attached to the idols receiving their incense. These terms establish the act of idolatry not as a mere ritual error but as a deliberate cognitive and relational rupture.
The thread — The motif of abandoning the "ancient roads" for rutted bypaths echoes Jeremiah 6:16, which commands the people to seek the old path and the good way. The charge of forgetting God recurs in Jeremiah 2:32, where the prophet notes the people have neglected Him for countless days.
Why it lands — The text demands recognition that substituting divine instruction with culturally familiar but empty practices produces predictable moral and communal collapse. It requires the reader to audit their own commitments against the stated standard rather than rationalize deviation as tradition.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Because my people hath forgotten me, they have burned incense to vanity, and they have caused them to stumble in their ways from the ancient paths, to walk in paths, in a way not cast up;
Cross-references
- Jeremiah 6:16 This is what the LORD says: “Stand at the crossroads and look. Ask for the ancient paths: ‘Where is the good way?’ Then walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. But they said, ‘We will not walk in it!’
- Jeremiah 2:32 Does a maiden forget her jewelry or a bride her wedding sash? Yet My people have forgotten Me for days without number.
- Isaiah 57:14 And it will be said, “Build it up, build it up, prepare the way, take every obstacle out of the way of My people.”
- Hosea 11:2 But the more I called Israel, the farther they departed from Me. They sacrificed to the Baals and burned incense to carved images.
- Jeremiah 2:13 “For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living water, and they have dug their own cisterns—broken cisterns that cannot hold water.
- Malachi 2:8 But you have departed from the way, and your instruction has caused many to stumble. You have violated the covenant of Levi,” says the LORD of Hosts.
- Isaiah 41:29 See, they are all a delusion; their works amount to nothing; their images are as empty as the wind.
- Jeremiah 10:15 They are worthless, a work to be mocked. In the time of their punishment they will perish.
- Jeremiah 17:13 O LORD, the hope of Israel, all who abandon You will be put to shame. All who turn away will be written in the dust, for they have abandoned the LORD, the fountain of living water.
- Jeremiah 3:21 A voice is heard on the barren heights, the children of Israel weeping and begging for mercy, because they have perverted their ways and forgotten the LORD their God.