Cost of idolatry

Toward the end of a polemic against Judah’s idolatry, which occupies every hill and mountain and leafy tree, Jeremiah makes this comment: “the shameful thing has consumed the labor of our fathers since our youth, their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters” (Jeremiah 3:24). “Shameful thing” is bosheth , which could mean, abstractly, “shame.” Jeremiah follows with an exhortation to “lie down in our shame, and let our humiliation cover us” (v. 25). Shame is clearly an effect of idolatry. But in Jeremiah 11:3, the same word refers to an idol for which Judah sets up altars and to which they burn incense. In 3:24, the context supports the NASB translation as “shameful thing,” the shameful idol that causes shame.

Devotion to the shameful thing not only causes shame, but impoverishment. Quite literally, idols eat ( ‘akal ) our labor and its products. All the time invested in raising sheep, oxen, goats literally goes up in flames when offered to a nothing. Sons and daughters pass through the fire, and all the invested hopes and energies are consumed. For Scripture, the same things offered to Yahweh are glorified and multiplied; not shame but glory is the product of sacrificing our labor to Him.

Our idols are as insatiable as ancient ones: Addictions, for instance, consume money, time, energy, life, children, marriages – and for what? The only product is humiliation.