This morning, I’m chewing on a phrase in Jeremiah. A descriptor for sin.

A big part of what the prophets do is call out God’s people for their sin. Thus, it’s not surprising that they come up with (or, are given by the Spirit) a lot of different ways to put their finger on the essence of what they’re talking about.

For example, just in the first few chapters of Jeremiah, sin is described as forsaking God (1:16), and it is equated to going after “worthlessness” (2:5) and turning “degenerate” (2:21). It is having “turned their back” to God “and “not their face” (2:27). Bluntly and directly, sin is having “played the whore”, refusing shame, and doing all the evil they could (3:1, 3, 5). It’s playing the religious game, being half-hearted, and “returning” to God “in pretense” only (3:10). The list can — and does — go on and on. Not only in Jeremiah, but throughout the writings of those who God sent to call His people to repentance.

It’s one of those types of phrases that has me thinking.

Then I said, “These are only the poor; they have no sense; for they do not know the way of the LORD, the justice of their God. I will go to the great and will speak to them, for they know the way of the LORD, the justice of their God.” But they all alike had broken the yoke; they had burst the bonds.

(Jeremiah 5:4-5 ESV)

Broken the yoke . . . burst the bonds . . . How’s that for a way to talk about what transgression against God looks like?

Whether they were the poor, the uninstructed rank and file, just ordinary Joes and Josephines who were dull-witted and understood very little of the way of the LORD, or they were the great — the well-informed princes, the nobles, the judges, the elders, and the priests of the people — who knew the way of the LORD, the justice of their God, the indictment is the same. Their sin is that they all alike had broken the yoke, they had burst the bonds.

Hmm . . . so chew on that. If breaking the yoke is sin, then what is righteousness? It’s gotta be bearing the yoke, doesn’t it? How does that play with hearts culturally conditioned for freedom and independence? How about the opposite of bursting the bonds? Bridled? Harnessed? Checked or controlled? I’m thinkin . . . And that’s the opposite of sin too? Apparently.

Like I said, “Hmm . . .”

Dumb oxen are yoked. Things forced into submission are bound. And yet, one of the ways that God indicts His people, who were on the precipice of His judgment for transgressing His ways, is that they had broken the yoke and had burst the bonds. Thus, bearing the yoke and sporting the bonds is evidently a good thing in God’s economy.

But us New Testament readers know that to be true. Don’t we?

Jesus Himself invited us to take on a yoke (Matt. 11:29-30). The issue isn’t with the yoke, it’s with what the yoke is attached to (Gal. 5:1). And when it comes being in bonds? Same thing. It depends on what type of bond we’re talking about. A bond of iniquity (Acts 8:23) or a bond of peace (Eph. 4:3)? It depends on whose slave we consent to be. Slaves of sin, or slaves of righteousness? Slaves of sin, or slaves of God? (Rom. 6:16-22). It’s not the yoke or the bonds that matter, it’s what we’re yoked or bound to that counts. Or, in the case of these ancient Israelites, what yoke they refused and what bondage they rejected.

When they broke the yoke and burst the bonds they sinned unbridled sin. When they refused to be tethered to God’s word and God’s ways, when they ripped to shreds His call to be their Master, then — quite literally — all hell eventually broke loose among God’s holy people.

One more time . . . Hmm . . .

Bring on the yoke that graciously and gently ties me to Jesus. Wrap my heart in the Word that binds me in the Way — the way of submission, the way of serving, the way of flourishing.

Oh, that I would remain bridled.

By His grace. For His glory.