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The sin of Judah - Idolatry.
Is written with a pen of iron - It is deeply and indelibly written in their heart, and shall be as indelibly written in their punishment. Writing with the point of a diamond must refer to glass, or some vitrified substance, as it is distinguished here from engraving with a steel burine, or graver. Their altars show what the deities are which they worship. There may be reference here to the different methods of recording events in those days: -
In several parts of India, and all through Ceylon, an iron or steel pen is used universally; with these the natives form the letters by incisions on the outer rind of the palm leaf. Books written in this way are very durable. This pen is broad at the top, has a very fine sharp point, and is sharp at one side as a knife, to shave and prepare the palm leaf. A pen of this description now lies before me.
This section Jeremiah 17:1-4 is inseparably connected with the preceding. Judah‘s sin had been described Jeremiah 16:19 as one of which the very Gentiles will become ashamed. and for which she will shortly be punished by, an intervention of God‘s hand more marked than anything in her previous history. Jeremiah now dwells upon the indelible nature of her sin.
A pen of iron - i. e., an iron chisel for cutting inscriptions upon tables of stone.
The point of a diamond - The ancients were well acquainted with the cutting powers of the diamond.
Altars - Not Yahweh‘s one altar, but the many altars which the Jews had set up to Baalim Jeremiah 11:13. Though Josiah had purged the land of these, yet in the eleven years of Jehoiakim‘s reign they had multiplied again, and were the external proofs of Judah‘s idolatry, as the table of her heart was the internal witness.
It should be written on the conscience, as with a pen of iron upon a rock, that no man can achieve true success while violating the eternal principles of right.—Letter 4, 1895. (Selections from the Testimonies Setting forth Important Principles Relating to Our Work in General, 13-15.) PM 134.2
Read in context »In His prayer for His disciples shortly before His ascension, Christ said, “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; that they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me” (John 17:20, 21). Oh, that these blessed words may be written by the finger of God upon every heart.—Manuscript 7, June 10, 1891, “Christian Service in the Living Church.” TDG 170.5
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