Bible Strands
Jeremiah 7:19
But am I the One they are provoking? declares the LORD. Is it not themselves they spite, to their own shame?
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The LORD speaks through Jeremiah to Judah’s populace during their active worship of the Queen of Heaven and other deities.
The words — The Hebrew מַכְעִסִ֖ים (makh.'i.Sim) translates to provoking, while אֹתָ֔ם ('o.Ta/m) means themselves, forming a rhetorical structure that locates the target of their actions on the worshippers rather than on God.
The thread — This pattern of self-directed consequence appears in Job 35:6, which questions what sin accomplishes against God, and Jeremiah 2:19, which declares that a person’s own evil will discipline them.
Why it lands — The text requires the reader to acknowledge that rebellion and idolatry inflict damage exclusively upon the sinner, culminating in personal shame and unquenchable judgment.
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
Do they provoke me to anger? saith the Lord: do they not provoke themselves to the confusion of their own faces?
Cross-references
- Job 35:6 If you sin, what do you accomplish against Him? If you multiply your transgressions, what do you do to Him?
- Jeremiah 2:19 Your own evil will discipline you; your own apostasies will reprimand you. Consider and realize how evil and bitter it is for you to forsake the LORD your God and to have no fear of Me,” declares the Lord GOD of Hosts.
- Jeremiah 9:19 For the sound of wailing is heard from Zion: ‘How devastated we are! How great is our shame! For we have abandoned the land because our dwellings have been torn down.’”
- Jeremiah 20:11 But the LORD is with me like a fearsome warrior. Therefore, my persecutors will stumble and will not prevail. Since they have not succeeded, they will be utterly put to shame, with an everlasting disgrace that will never be forgotten.
- Ezekiel 8:17 “Son of man,” He said to me, “do you see this? Is it not enough for the house of Judah to commit the abominations they are practicing here, that they must also fill the land with violence and continually provoke Me to anger? Look, they are even putting the branch to their nose!
- Daniel 9:7 To You, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but this day we are covered with shame—the men of Judah, the people of Jerusalem, and all Israel near and far, in all the countries to which You have driven us because of our unfaithfulness to You.
- 1 Corinthians 10:22 Are we trying to provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than He?
- Deuteronomy 32:16 They provoked His jealousy with foreign gods; they enraged Him with abominations.
- Deuteronomy 32:21 They have provoked My jealousy by that which is not God; they have enraged Me with their worthless idols. So I will make them jealous by those who are not a people; I will make them angry by a nation without understanding.
- Ezra 9:7 From the days of our fathers to this day, our guilt has been great. Because of our iniquities, we and our kings and priests have been delivered into the hands of the kings of the earth and subjected to the sword and to captivity, to pillage and humiliation, as we are this day.