So a question confronts the survivors of Ishmael's rebellion—the "remnant," as they call themselves—whether to remain in Israelite territory and try to rebuild their lives there or whether to flee to Egypt to escape the wrath of the king of Babylon for the death of his governor. Safety seems to lie in the direction of Egypt, but they approach the prophet Jeremiah to use his influence with the LORD and get an answer to the question--What should we do? (42:3). If you ask a prophet he will never give you an easy answer. Nevertheless, Jeremiah promises to pray on behalf of the remnant and hold back nothing of what the LORD tells him. (Look out now!) And the straggling band of survivors from the fall of Jerusalem promises that whatever the reply they will "obey the voice of the LORD . . . in order that it may go well with [them]" (42:6).
So the prophet prays and in ten days the LORD sends this message—Stay in the land and I will bless you. And do not be afraid of the wrath of the king of Babylon over the murder of his governor—"I am with you, to save you and rescue you from his hand" (42:11). But if you go to the Land of Egypt in search of safety and peace, it will be a sign that you lack faith in the LORD, who says—"All the people who have determined to go to Egypt to settle there shall die by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence; they shall have no remnant or survivor from the disaster that I am bringing upon you" (42:17).
But when Jeremiah relays this message to the people, the young, hot-headed officers--escapees from the defeated Judean army—say—"You are telling a lie. The LORD our God did not send you to say, 'Do not go to Egypt and settle there'; but Baruch son of Neriah"—he is Jeremiah's secretary remember—"is inciting you against us, to hand us over to the Chaldeans, in order that they may kill us or take us into exile in Babylon" (43:2-3). And these officers, headed by on Johanan, force the survivors of the governor Gedaliah's guard and the civilians who had been left under his charge--including Jeremiah and Baruch—to go to the land of Egypt.
But Jeremiah goes under protest, and once there God orders him to bury some stones outside the entrance of Pharaoh's palace at Tahpanhes—a city in extreme northern Egypt—with the prophecy that Nebuchadrezzar will pitch his tent there. There will be no peace for the refugees of Judah; the war will come to them. The king of Babylon, who destroyed Jerusalem, will soon invade Egypt, bringing disaster with him. "He shall break the obelisks of Heliopolis"—those four-sided pointed stone columns erected in honor of the Egyptian sun-god Horus-Re—"which is in the land of Egypt; and the temples of the gods of Egypt he shall burn with fire" (43:13), the prophet says.
Yet these magnificent temples represented a constant temptation to the Judean exiles. The prophet warns them not to be seduced by the cults of the gods of Egypt. The destruction of Jerusalem came, he reminds them, because the people "went to make offerings and serve other gods that they had not known" (44:3). Now the refugees are again "making offerings to other gods in the land of Egypt where [they] have come to settle" (44:8). And because they have done this, the LORD threatens to destroy the whole remnant of Jews who "have come to settle in the land of Egypt" so that none of them "shall escape or survive or return to the land of Judah. Although they long to go back to live there, they shall not go back, except some fugitives" (44:14).
But the refugees—especially the women-- remain intransigent, vowing to continue make "offerings to the queen of heaven and pouring out libations to her." Ever since they stopped doing so, they say, every bad imaginable thing has happened to them. But through his prophet God replies that as for the people of Judah who have come to the land of Egypt, "I am going to watch over [you] for harm and not for good; all the people of Judah who are in the land of Egypt shall perish by the sword and by famine, until not one is left" (44:27). And as a sign that this is going to happen, the LORD is going to give the Pharaoh of Egypt into the hands of his enemies as he gave King Zedekiah into the hands of the king of Babylon (44:30).
Now as a sort of reminder that it is Jeremiah's secretary Baruch who is writing all this, we get one of his reflections—perhaps to explain why he himself has survived. We go back to the reign of Jeoiakim, eighteen years before the flight of the refugees to Egypt, when the king burned the scroll of the prophecies of Jeremiah, which he had dictated to Baruch. The secretary remembers how he lamented his situation back then, his endless and futile labors. In reply, the LORD again announced his decision to "pluck up what [he had] planted" in the land of Judah. Baruch had expected great things for himself—like all of us, he had hopes and ambitions. But the LORD tells him not to seek goals that are beyond him, because he is "going to bring disaster upon all flesh" (45:5). But the LORD says—"I will give your life as a prize of war in every place to which you may go." He will not be great, but God does promise the prophet's faithful
secretary that for his infinite pains he will survive siege and exile to see how his story ends.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Day 231. Jeremiah 38-41
In our reading for today the bitter fruit finally ripens and falls.
These chapters about the last days of the Judean kingdom are filled with strange names, and it is sometimes difficult to keep all those names straight. The three persons mentioned in 38:1 are officials in the court of King Zedekiah, the last king of Judah. The city of Jerusalem is hemmed in and besieged. The prophet Jeremiah has been telling the people that if they remain in the city they will die "by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence," but those who go out to the Babylonian besiegers will "have their lives as a prize of war, and live" (38:3). These three officials go to King Zedekiah with the accusation—true as far as it goes—that the prophet is destroying the morale of the soldiers and undermining the confidence of the people in those who are undertaking their defense. "This man is not seeking the welfare of his people, but their harm"—it is an accusation that is leveled at prophets who speak the word of God in every time. So,
apparently on their own authority, they put Jeremiah with ropes into a cistern; there is no water in it, but the text says that he "[sinks] in the mud" (38:6).
An unlikely rescuer appears-- as Ethiopian eunuch attached to the royal household named Ebed-melech hears what has happened and goes to the king to inform him that his officials have thrown the prophet into a cistern to die of hunger. King Zedekiah—who is often painted in dark colors, but who has his humane moments-- sends three men to pull the prophet Jeremiah out of the cistern. The eunuch—a practical as well as a kind person-- even thinks to bring rags to put under the prophet's armpits so that he could be hauled up with ropes. He remains isolated and under close guard—a dangerous prisoner--his condition we can only imagine.
But he remains a force that cannot be ignored or forgotten. King Zedekiah summons Jeremiah to a secret meeting "at the third entrance of the temple." They talk alone and in confidence, the king revealing his secret fears, the prophet counseling him to "obey the voice of the LORD" and surrender to the king of Babylon, so that his life may be spared, and the city not be burned with fire" (38:17). But the humiliation is too great for one who has been a king, and Zedekiah does not obey. Instead he tells Jeremiah to keep their meeting secret and say, if he is asked, that they met so that he might present his plea to be released from prison. The prophet allows himself to be party to this little deception and he keeps their conversation a secret, remaining confined in the court of the guard until the city is taken.
And it is finally taken in a last assault. We are spared the details of the butchery, looting, and rape. Seeing that all is lost King Zedekiah and his remaining soldiers try to flee but are overtaken in the plains of Jericho. The king is brought before Nebuchadressar as a rebel. The retribution the king of Babylon exacts upon poor Zedekiah is truly terrible. His sons are slaughtered before him, and then he blinded. He is hauled off to prison in Babylon to die there. The city is burned and its walls are leveled. The remaining persons of status are rounded up to be taken into exile in Babylon. The poor who remain, "who owned nothing," are given vineyards and fields (39:10) by Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, who appears not to have been a bad sort—their descendents will still be there when the exiles return, the Palestinians of their day. Jeremiah is spared and treated kindly by the Babylonian king, who through Nebuzaradan, is given his
freedom. And Jeremiah in his turn remembers with kindness the Ethiopian eunuch who had had him pulled from the muddy cistern. He sends Ebed-melech assurance that because he trusted in the LORD, his life will be spared as a prize of war (39:18).
The Babylonian captain of the guard then offers Jeremiah a choice—to go with him to Babylon where he will be well cared for or to "go wherever [he thinks] it good and right to go" (40:4). Jeremiah chooses to remain with Gedaliah, a Jew who has been appointed governor of the land, "among the people who were left in the land" (40:6). Gedaliah sets up his headquarters at the ancient tribal meeting place of Mizpah, and other Judeans who had been scattered in neighboring lands come back to the land at his invitation, and from the depopulated land they gather "wine and summer fruits in great abundance" (40:12).
Then there is an insurrection led by one Ishmael "of the royal family, one of the officers of the king," assassinates Gedaliah and kills "all the Judeans who were with Gedaliah at Mizpah, and the Chaldean soldiers who happened to be there" (41:3)—this is an open act of rebellion against the king of Babylon. Then he goes on to massacre a group of eighty men from the north who had come to worship "at the temple of the LORD" (41:5)—apparently uninformed regarding its destruction. Ishmael filled a cistern that King Asa had dug many years before with the bodies of those he had slaughtered. But his rebellion is short-lived. He is confronted by another officer, Johanan son of Kareah, who had been an official of the governor Gedaliah. Ishmael flees, and Johanan gathers the people who had been taken captive by Ishmael, "the king's daughters and all the people who were left at Mizpah," and sets out, "intending to go to Egypt," because
everyone was afraid of what would happen when the Chaldeans heard that Ishmael had killed Gedaliah, "whom the king of Babylon had made governor over the land" (41:17).
These chapters about the last days of the Judean kingdom are filled with strange names, and it is sometimes difficult to keep all those names straight. The three persons mentioned in 38:1 are officials in the court of King Zedekiah, the last king of Judah. The city of Jerusalem is hemmed in and besieged. The prophet Jeremiah has been telling the people that if they remain in the city they will die "by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence," but those who go out to the Babylonian besiegers will "have their lives as a prize of war, and live" (38:3). These three officials go to King Zedekiah with the accusation—true as far as it goes—that the prophet is destroying the morale of the soldiers and undermining the confidence of the people in those who are undertaking their defense. "This man is not seeking the welfare of his people, but their harm"—it is an accusation that is leveled at prophets who speak the word of God in every time. So,
apparently on their own authority, they put Jeremiah with ropes into a cistern; there is no water in it, but the text says that he "[sinks] in the mud" (38:6).
An unlikely rescuer appears-- as Ethiopian eunuch attached to the royal household named Ebed-melech hears what has happened and goes to the king to inform him that his officials have thrown the prophet into a cistern to die of hunger. King Zedekiah—who is often painted in dark colors, but who has his humane moments-- sends three men to pull the prophet Jeremiah out of the cistern. The eunuch—a practical as well as a kind person-- even thinks to bring rags to put under the prophet's armpits so that he could be hauled up with ropes. He remains isolated and under close guard—a dangerous prisoner--his condition we can only imagine.
But he remains a force that cannot be ignored or forgotten. King Zedekiah summons Jeremiah to a secret meeting "at the third entrance of the temple." They talk alone and in confidence, the king revealing his secret fears, the prophet counseling him to "obey the voice of the LORD" and surrender to the king of Babylon, so that his life may be spared, and the city not be burned with fire" (38:17). But the humiliation is too great for one who has been a king, and Zedekiah does not obey. Instead he tells Jeremiah to keep their meeting secret and say, if he is asked, that they met so that he might present his plea to be released from prison. The prophet allows himself to be party to this little deception and he keeps their conversation a secret, remaining confined in the court of the guard until the city is taken.
And it is finally taken in a last assault. We are spared the details of the butchery, looting, and rape. Seeing that all is lost King Zedekiah and his remaining soldiers try to flee but are overtaken in the plains of Jericho. The king is brought before Nebuchadressar as a rebel. The retribution the king of Babylon exacts upon poor Zedekiah is truly terrible. His sons are slaughtered before him, and then he blinded. He is hauled off to prison in Babylon to die there. The city is burned and its walls are leveled. The remaining persons of status are rounded up to be taken into exile in Babylon. The poor who remain, "who owned nothing," are given vineyards and fields (39:10) by Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, who appears not to have been a bad sort—their descendents will still be there when the exiles return, the Palestinians of their day. Jeremiah is spared and treated kindly by the Babylonian king, who through Nebuzaradan, is given his
freedom. And Jeremiah in his turn remembers with kindness the Ethiopian eunuch who had had him pulled from the muddy cistern. He sends Ebed-melech assurance that because he trusted in the LORD, his life will be spared as a prize of war (39:18).
The Babylonian captain of the guard then offers Jeremiah a choice—to go with him to Babylon where he will be well cared for or to "go wherever [he thinks] it good and right to go" (40:4). Jeremiah chooses to remain with Gedaliah, a Jew who has been appointed governor of the land, "among the people who were left in the land" (40:6). Gedaliah sets up his headquarters at the ancient tribal meeting place of Mizpah, and other Judeans who had been scattered in neighboring lands come back to the land at his invitation, and from the depopulated land they gather "wine and summer fruits in great abundance" (40:12).
Then there is an insurrection led by one Ishmael "of the royal family, one of the officers of the king," assassinates Gedaliah and kills "all the Judeans who were with Gedaliah at Mizpah, and the Chaldean soldiers who happened to be there" (41:3)—this is an open act of rebellion against the king of Babylon. Then he goes on to massacre a group of eighty men from the north who had come to worship "at the temple of the LORD" (41:5)—apparently uninformed regarding its destruction. Ishmael filled a cistern that King Asa had dug many years before with the bodies of those he had slaughtered. But his rebellion is short-lived. He is confronted by another officer, Johanan son of Kareah, who had been an official of the governor Gedaliah. Ishmael flees, and Johanan gathers the people who had been taken captive by Ishmael, "the king's daughters and all the people who were left at Mizpah," and sets out, "intending to go to Egypt," because
everyone was afraid of what would happen when the Chaldeans heard that Ishmael had killed Gedaliah, "whom the king of Babylon had made governor over the land" (41:17).
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Day 230. Jeremiah 35-37
Here are some more adventures of the prophet Jeremiah and his side-kick Baruch from the last years of the southern kingdom of Judah.
The first—related in chapter 35-- takes place during the reign of King Jehoiakim—ten years of so before the final fall and destruction of the southern kingdom. The king of Babylon is already menacing the land and country people are taking refuge behind the walls of Jerusalem. Jeremiah invites some members of a tribe called the Rechabites for wine in one of the chambers in the temple. They come, but they do not partake of proffered spirits—the whole tribe, following the command of their patriarch Jonadab, son of Rechab, abstains from strong drink. Also at his command they do not build houses or sow seed, but instead live a nomadic life, dwelling in tents. They have always obeyed all that their ancestor Jonadab commanded them and never lived under roof. Only when King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon came up against the land and menaced the area where they pitched their tents, did the Rechabites temporarily give up their nomadic ways and become refugees in
Jerusalem.
Jeremiah is obviously impressed by these austere nomads, and the LORD commends their faithfulness because of the way "the command has been carried out that Jonadab son of Rechab gave to his descendents to drink no wine." Compliant to that injunction, "they drink none to this day, for they have obeyed their ancestor's command." They obey the command of a human ancestor, while the LORD has spoken to his people persistently, and they have not listened to him (35:14). And it is because they have not obeyed his commands he sent by the prophets that the LORD is determined "to bring on Judah and on all the inhabitants of Jerusalem every disaster [that he has] pronounced against them" (35:17). But upon the Rechabites, who obey their ancestor Jonadab so faithfully and keep "all his precepts" the Lord confers a blessing-- Jonabad "shall not lack a descendent to stand before [him] for all time" (35:19).
Then we are told that the LORD commands Jeremiah to dictate to his secretary Baruch "all the words of the LORD that he had spoken to him." (Probably large portions of the present Book of Jeremiah.) But Jeremiah has been forbidden to publish-- he had been forbidden entry to the temple and told not to spread his dangerous ideas. So he tells Baruch to take the scroll he has produced and read it to all those gathered in the temple for a fast day. This he does. The king's council then asks him for a private reading of the scroll. They ask him if this is a dictation or his own work, and he answers that it is a dictation. They know then where it comes from, and they then tell him—Go and hide, you and Jeremiah, and let no one know where you are" (36:19).
That is how the scroll comes to be read to King Jehoiakim by Jehudi his secretary. We are given a vivid picture of the circumstances--"Now the king was sitting in his winter apartment (it was the ninth month), and there was a fire burning in the brazier before him. As Jehudi read three or four columns, the king would cut them off with a penknife and throw them into the fire in the brazier, until the entire scroll was consumed" (36:22-23). None of the royal servants stopped him from doing the impious thing. Then the king orders his guard to be sent to arrest Jeremiah and Baruch—probably with something very unpleasant in mind--"but the LORD [hides] them" (36:26)
Such flagrant contempt for the word of the LORD cannot go unpunished. The LORD commands Baruch to write another scroll at Jeremiah's dictation containing all that was in the first. But to it he adds a message for King Jehoiahim—because he has dared to burn this scroll, he will have 'no one to sit on the throne of David, and his dead body shall be cast out to the heat by day and the frost by night." The LORD declares—"I will punish him and his offspring and his servants for their iniquity; I will bring on them, and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and on the people of Judah, all the disaster with which I have threatened them—but they would not listen" (36:30-31).
Now we jump ahead ten years in time to the reign of King Zedekiah. The Babylonians are besieging Jerusalem. Jeremiah has not yet been put in prison for his seditions. He even enjoys a measure of royal favor-- through the priest Zephaniah King Zedekiah asks a favor of Jeremiah—"Please pray for us to the LORD our God" (37:3). Then it is reported that the army of Pharaoh has come out of Egypt. When the Babylonians hear of the approach of this force, they make a strategic withdrawal from Jerusalem. The siege is lifted. But the LORD sends word through his prophet—"Do not deceive yourselves"; they will return. The city is fated for destruction. The LORD proclaims--"Even if you defeated the whole army of Chaldeans who are fighting against you, and there remained of them only wounded men in their tents, they would rise up and burn this city with fire" (37:10).
Now in the lull, Jeremiah tried to leave the city to take care of some family business, and he is arrested by an over-zealous sentinel on the suspicion that he is deserting and going over to the Chaldeans. The prophet denies this vehemently, but he is nevertheless beaten-up and imprisoned in a cistern—a very nasty place indeed. Eventually the king calls him back into his presence to discover whether he has any message from the LORD. King Zedekiah finds the prophet—understandably—in a grumpy mood. He relays this message from the LORD—"You shall be handed over to the king of Babylon" (37:17). Then protesting that he has done no wrong, he pleads—demands actually--not to be sent back to the cistern. An angry prophet is a force to be reckoned with. And Zedekiah—to his credit—confines him instead to the "court of the guard"—above ground, at least—and orders that he be given a loaf of bread a day "from the bakers' street." This
daily ration continues until there was no bread remaining in the city, but Jeremiah remains confined in the court of the guard until further notice.
The first—related in chapter 35-- takes place during the reign of King Jehoiakim—ten years of so before the final fall and destruction of the southern kingdom. The king of Babylon is already menacing the land and country people are taking refuge behind the walls of Jerusalem. Jeremiah invites some members of a tribe called the Rechabites for wine in one of the chambers in the temple. They come, but they do not partake of proffered spirits—the whole tribe, following the command of their patriarch Jonadab, son of Rechab, abstains from strong drink. Also at his command they do not build houses or sow seed, but instead live a nomadic life, dwelling in tents. They have always obeyed all that their ancestor Jonadab commanded them and never lived under roof. Only when King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon came up against the land and menaced the area where they pitched their tents, did the Rechabites temporarily give up their nomadic ways and become refugees in
Jerusalem.
Jeremiah is obviously impressed by these austere nomads, and the LORD commends their faithfulness because of the way "the command has been carried out that Jonadab son of Rechab gave to his descendents to drink no wine." Compliant to that injunction, "they drink none to this day, for they have obeyed their ancestor's command." They obey the command of a human ancestor, while the LORD has spoken to his people persistently, and they have not listened to him (35:14). And it is because they have not obeyed his commands he sent by the prophets that the LORD is determined "to bring on Judah and on all the inhabitants of Jerusalem every disaster [that he has] pronounced against them" (35:17). But upon the Rechabites, who obey their ancestor Jonadab so faithfully and keep "all his precepts" the Lord confers a blessing-- Jonabad "shall not lack a descendent to stand before [him] for all time" (35:19).
Then we are told that the LORD commands Jeremiah to dictate to his secretary Baruch "all the words of the LORD that he had spoken to him." (Probably large portions of the present Book of Jeremiah.) But Jeremiah has been forbidden to publish-- he had been forbidden entry to the temple and told not to spread his dangerous ideas. So he tells Baruch to take the scroll he has produced and read it to all those gathered in the temple for a fast day. This he does. The king's council then asks him for a private reading of the scroll. They ask him if this is a dictation or his own work, and he answers that it is a dictation. They know then where it comes from, and they then tell him—Go and hide, you and Jeremiah, and let no one know where you are" (36:19).
That is how the scroll comes to be read to King Jehoiakim by Jehudi his secretary. We are given a vivid picture of the circumstances--"Now the king was sitting in his winter apartment (it was the ninth month), and there was a fire burning in the brazier before him. As Jehudi read three or four columns, the king would cut them off with a penknife and throw them into the fire in the brazier, until the entire scroll was consumed" (36:22-23). None of the royal servants stopped him from doing the impious thing. Then the king orders his guard to be sent to arrest Jeremiah and Baruch—probably with something very unpleasant in mind--"but the LORD [hides] them" (36:26)
Such flagrant contempt for the word of the LORD cannot go unpunished. The LORD commands Baruch to write another scroll at Jeremiah's dictation containing all that was in the first. But to it he adds a message for King Jehoiahim—because he has dared to burn this scroll, he will have 'no one to sit on the throne of David, and his dead body shall be cast out to the heat by day and the frost by night." The LORD declares—"I will punish him and his offspring and his servants for their iniquity; I will bring on them, and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and on the people of Judah, all the disaster with which I have threatened them—but they would not listen" (36:30-31).
Now we jump ahead ten years in time to the reign of King Zedekiah. The Babylonians are besieging Jerusalem. Jeremiah has not yet been put in prison for his seditions. He even enjoys a measure of royal favor-- through the priest Zephaniah King Zedekiah asks a favor of Jeremiah—"Please pray for us to the LORD our God" (37:3). Then it is reported that the army of Pharaoh has come out of Egypt. When the Babylonians hear of the approach of this force, they make a strategic withdrawal from Jerusalem. The siege is lifted. But the LORD sends word through his prophet—"Do not deceive yourselves"; they will return. The city is fated for destruction. The LORD proclaims--"Even if you defeated the whole army of Chaldeans who are fighting against you, and there remained of them only wounded men in their tents, they would rise up and burn this city with fire" (37:10).
Now in the lull, Jeremiah tried to leave the city to take care of some family business, and he is arrested by an over-zealous sentinel on the suspicion that he is deserting and going over to the Chaldeans. The prophet denies this vehemently, but he is nevertheless beaten-up and imprisoned in a cistern—a very nasty place indeed. Eventually the king calls him back into his presence to discover whether he has any message from the LORD. King Zedekiah finds the prophet—understandably—in a grumpy mood. He relays this message from the LORD—"You shall be handed over to the king of Babylon" (37:17). Then protesting that he has done no wrong, he pleads—demands actually--not to be sent back to the cistern. An angry prophet is a force to be reckoned with. And Zedekiah—to his credit—confines him instead to the "court of the guard"—above ground, at least—and orders that he be given a loaf of bread a day "from the bakers' street." This
daily ration continues until there was no bread remaining in the city, but Jeremiah remains confined in the court of the guard until further notice.
Friday, January 28, 2011
Day 229. Jeremiah 32-34
We have already noted that there is a difference in these passages from those in earlier parts of the Book of Jeremiah. After Jeremiah's death in 586 B.C. his secretary Baruch, who is mentioned in our text in connection with Jeremiah's purchase of land during the siege of Jerusalem, recounted some of Jeremiah's sermons and added various biographical material—chapters 26-45. Baruch's style is less emphatic and poetical than his master's, but he was an eye-witness to these happenings and therefore quite reliable.
This is the situation in our reading for today. Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon is besieging the city of Jerusalem. King Zedekiah has confined Jeremiah to the "court of the guard" because he has been prophesying that the city will fall, that Zedekiah himself will "be given to the hands of the king of Babylon" and that the citizens will perish or be deported—in other words for just generally being a drag on morale. In the midst of chaos and imminent disaster, a cousin of Jeremiah's named Hanamel comes to him in prison inquiring whether he would buy a field in his native Anathoth in the land of Benjamin. It is an odd request, to say the least, but Jeremiah recognizes this as the LORD's doing—a sign—and immediately buys the land for a large sum and has it signed over legally, before witnesses—including Baruch. He then orders that the deeds be put in a earthenware jar "in order that they may last a long time." (32:14). "For thus
says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Houses and fields and vineyard shall again be bought in this land" (32:15).
But Jeremiah is himself still puzzled about what the sign means. With siege ramps cast up against a city faced with sword, famine, and pestilence, when the city and the land of Judah "has been given into the hands of the Chaldeans," why, he asks, would God bid him buy property. And the LORD replies—the city will indeed be destroyed "because of all the evil of the people of Israel and the people of Judah that they did to provoke me to anger" (32:32). But when the memory of Jerusalem's sins has been wiped away by fire and sword and the passage of time, then the LORD will gather his scattered people, and he "will bring them back to this place, and [he] will settle them in safety. They shall be [his] people, and [he] will be their God" (32:28). It may seem impossible now with the city under siege, but when God plants "them in this land in faithfulness" (32:41), life will return to normality. "Fields shall be bought for money, and deeds
shall be signed and sealed and witnessed" through the whole land, says the LORD (32:43).
The word of the LORD again comes to Jeremiah while he is in custody. Even as the city is about to fall and gloom and despair pervades, God promises that in time to come "this city shall be to me a name of joy, a praise and a glory before all the nations of the earth" (33:9). God is control of history, and he has decreed that there will be again peace in the land and "in the towns of Judah, flocks shall again pass under the hands of the one who counts them, says the LORD" (33:13). The legitimate monarchy will be restored--God will cause "a righteous Branch to spring up for David, and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land" (33:15).
Now through his prophet he reaffirms those two covenants which are the foundation of his relationship to the people. First, he promises that "David shall never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel" (33:17). Furthermore The LORD promises that the temple worship shall continue and that " the levitical priests shall never lack a man in my presence to offer burnt offerings, to make grain offerings, and to make sacrifices for all time" (33:18). When they city is restored after the exile, the Davidic kingship and temple worship shall continue without end—only if his "covenant with the day and [his] covenant with the night were broken," would the LORD break his covenant with David and with the Levites.
But the present king is another matter. Armed with the word of the LORD, Jeremiah goes to confront King Zedekiah to tell him that the city, which is under siege, will be taken, and he will "see the king of Babylon eye to eye and speak with him face to face"—not a meeting that Zedekiah would anticipate with any pleasure. But Jeremiah adds a note of comfort to the besieged king--"You shall not die by the sword; you shall die in peace" (34:4-5), he promises. (This consolation turns out to be empty—according to 2 Kings 25:6-7 as punishment for his rebellion the king sees his sons a killed in his presence before his eyes are put out; then he is taken to Babylon where he dies in prison, a savage example to others of what happens to those who play fast and loose with the mighty Nebuchadrezzar.)
This next section of the narrative goes back in time to when Nebuchadrezzar was menacing the city, but had not yet besieged it. In hopes of enlisting the LORD's support, Zedekiah made a proclamation that all Hebrew slaves, both male and female, should be set at liberty. This was done in fulfillment of the Law of Moses which said that after "seven weeks of years"—at the end of fifty years—all Hebrew slaves should be freed (Exodus 21:2). This command had for a long time been ignored, but now in fear of the approaching Babylonians it was done. The slaves were indeed freed. But once the Babylonians withdrew and the people felt that danger had passed, they took their slaves back. For this treachery the LORD, through his prophet, offers them release—release to the sword, to pestilence, and famine. "I am going to command, says the LORD, and will bring [the Babylonians] back to this city; and they will fight against it, and take it, and burn it
with fire. The towns of Judah I will make a desolation without inhabitant" (34:22), an example to others of what happens to those who try to play fast and loose with the LORD.
This is the situation in our reading for today. Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon is besieging the city of Jerusalem. King Zedekiah has confined Jeremiah to the "court of the guard" because he has been prophesying that the city will fall, that Zedekiah himself will "be given to the hands of the king of Babylon" and that the citizens will perish or be deported—in other words for just generally being a drag on morale. In the midst of chaos and imminent disaster, a cousin of Jeremiah's named Hanamel comes to him in prison inquiring whether he would buy a field in his native Anathoth in the land of Benjamin. It is an odd request, to say the least, but Jeremiah recognizes this as the LORD's doing—a sign—and immediately buys the land for a large sum and has it signed over legally, before witnesses—including Baruch. He then orders that the deeds be put in a earthenware jar "in order that they may last a long time." (32:14). "For thus
says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Houses and fields and vineyard shall again be bought in this land" (32:15).
But Jeremiah is himself still puzzled about what the sign means. With siege ramps cast up against a city faced with sword, famine, and pestilence, when the city and the land of Judah "has been given into the hands of the Chaldeans," why, he asks, would God bid him buy property. And the LORD replies—the city will indeed be destroyed "because of all the evil of the people of Israel and the people of Judah that they did to provoke me to anger" (32:32). But when the memory of Jerusalem's sins has been wiped away by fire and sword and the passage of time, then the LORD will gather his scattered people, and he "will bring them back to this place, and [he] will settle them in safety. They shall be [his] people, and [he] will be their God" (32:28). It may seem impossible now with the city under siege, but when God plants "them in this land in faithfulness" (32:41), life will return to normality. "Fields shall be bought for money, and deeds
shall be signed and sealed and witnessed" through the whole land, says the LORD (32:43).
The word of the LORD again comes to Jeremiah while he is in custody. Even as the city is about to fall and gloom and despair pervades, God promises that in time to come "this city shall be to me a name of joy, a praise and a glory before all the nations of the earth" (33:9). God is control of history, and he has decreed that there will be again peace in the land and "in the towns of Judah, flocks shall again pass under the hands of the one who counts them, says the LORD" (33:13). The legitimate monarchy will be restored--God will cause "a righteous Branch to spring up for David, and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land" (33:15).
Now through his prophet he reaffirms those two covenants which are the foundation of his relationship to the people. First, he promises that "David shall never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel" (33:17). Furthermore The LORD promises that the temple worship shall continue and that " the levitical priests shall never lack a man in my presence to offer burnt offerings, to make grain offerings, and to make sacrifices for all time" (33:18). When they city is restored after the exile, the Davidic kingship and temple worship shall continue without end—only if his "covenant with the day and [his] covenant with the night were broken," would the LORD break his covenant with David and with the Levites.
But the present king is another matter. Armed with the word of the LORD, Jeremiah goes to confront King Zedekiah to tell him that the city, which is under siege, will be taken, and he will "see the king of Babylon eye to eye and speak with him face to face"—not a meeting that Zedekiah would anticipate with any pleasure. But Jeremiah adds a note of comfort to the besieged king--"You shall not die by the sword; you shall die in peace" (34:4-5), he promises. (This consolation turns out to be empty—according to 2 Kings 25:6-7 as punishment for his rebellion the king sees his sons a killed in his presence before his eyes are put out; then he is taken to Babylon where he dies in prison, a savage example to others of what happens to those who play fast and loose with the mighty Nebuchadrezzar.)
This next section of the narrative goes back in time to when Nebuchadrezzar was menacing the city, but had not yet besieged it. In hopes of enlisting the LORD's support, Zedekiah made a proclamation that all Hebrew slaves, both male and female, should be set at liberty. This was done in fulfillment of the Law of Moses which said that after "seven weeks of years"—at the end of fifty years—all Hebrew slaves should be freed (Exodus 21:2). This command had for a long time been ignored, but now in fear of the approaching Babylonians it was done. The slaves were indeed freed. But once the Babylonians withdrew and the people felt that danger had passed, they took their slaves back. For this treachery the LORD, through his prophet, offers them release—release to the sword, to pestilence, and famine. "I am going to command, says the LORD, and will bring [the Babylonians] back to this city; and they will fight against it, and take it, and burn it
with fire. The towns of Judah I will make a desolation without inhabitant" (34:22), an example to others of what happens to those who try to play fast and loose with the LORD.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Day 228. Jeremiah 30-31
This section of the Book of Jeremiah is sometimes called "The Book of Comfort," and it is so radically different from the rest of Jeremiah's oracles that scholars have speculated that it belongs to the work of another prophet anxious to introduce a note of hope. Whoever the author, the "Book of Comfort" does provide a relief from the drumbeat of doom that has marked prophet's writing here-to-fore.
Chapter 30 gives assurance that beyond of despondence of exile there will be a return to the Land of Promise and a restoration of the Davidic monarchy. In his good time, the LORD "will break the yoke off [Israel's] neck, and strangers shall no more make a servant of him." In their own land the people "shall serve the LORD their God and David their king, whom [the LORD] will raise up for them" (30:8-9). In the meantime the people are told not to fear or be uneasy about the future—"I am with you, says the LORD, to save you" (30:11). He will not crush the people with unjust retribution; the LORD is just and his punishments are proportionate. "Because your guilt is great, because your sins are so numerous," he says, "I have done these things to you" (30:15)—not from spite or cruelty. In the Bible sin is often seen as a disease, of which physical illness is a symptom. Sin has made Israel sick; some will indeed die, but the remnant
will recover--"I will restore your health to you, and your wounds I will heal," says the LORD (30:17).
The LORD's relationship to Israel is not dependent on their faithfulness, but upon his unconditional promise--"I have loved you with an everlasting love," says the LORD (31:3). History cannot alter that promise, nor can circumstances cancel it. Therefore, God will bring back his scattered people and reestablish them in the land, not only from Babylon, but from the places where Ephraim—the northern kingdom--has been scattered. The LORD, acting as their next of kin, will ransom and redeem them—buy them back from debt and slavery and bring them home (31:11). They shall be once more a single kingdom, ruled by a Davidic king and reunited--"they shall come and sing aloud on the height of Zion" (31:12). Therefore the people are called upon to "consider well the highway, the road by which you went" in order that they find their way back "to these [their] cities" (31:21). The land shall be repopulated and prosperous, restored and transformed
by the "new thing" that the LORD will create (31:22). The prophet sees all this in a dream—"I awoke and looked, and my sleep was pleasant to me" (31:26).
But the greatest change in this new creation will be in God's way of dealing with the people. In that coming day there shall be an end of inherited guilt. Each individual person shall be responsible for his or her own sins, not the sins of parents and grandparents (31:30). The weight of the past will be lifted. Furthermore, the LORD will "make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah" (31:31). This will not be like the previous covenant made at Sinai—which they broke. This new covenant will be based upon inward knowledge of the Law—God "will write it on their hearts" (31:33). The people's obedience will be spontaneous and instinctual, not grudging, based not upon self-interest but upon knowledge of the LORD—upon an intimate acquaintance based on love.
We Christians see this new covenant established through God's unconditional love revealed through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. His Holy Spirit establishes in us an immediate relationship with the LORD which transcends commandments and laws. In that intimate and loving relationship, God indeed lifts the weight of the past once and for all—"I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more" (31:34), says the LORD. God utterly wipes away all memory of sins committed or guilt inherited for the sake of Jesus Christ.
In that new world, Jeremiah prophesies, there will be no more clean and unclean, no more profane and holy. The boundaries of Jerusalem will be extended to include "the whole valley of the dead bodies and the ashes" where pagan sacrifices had been performed. "All that shall be sacred to the LORD" (31:40), says the prophet—the boundaries of the sacred will be extended to include every place that is now cursed and unclean because of sin and disobedience.
We might say that since the cross of Jesus Christ has been planted in it, the whole earth is holy.
Chapter 30 gives assurance that beyond of despondence of exile there will be a return to the Land of Promise and a restoration of the Davidic monarchy. In his good time, the LORD "will break the yoke off [Israel's] neck, and strangers shall no more make a servant of him." In their own land the people "shall serve the LORD their God and David their king, whom [the LORD] will raise up for them" (30:8-9). In the meantime the people are told not to fear or be uneasy about the future—"I am with you, says the LORD, to save you" (30:11). He will not crush the people with unjust retribution; the LORD is just and his punishments are proportionate. "Because your guilt is great, because your sins are so numerous," he says, "I have done these things to you" (30:15)—not from spite or cruelty. In the Bible sin is often seen as a disease, of which physical illness is a symptom. Sin has made Israel sick; some will indeed die, but the remnant
will recover--"I will restore your health to you, and your wounds I will heal," says the LORD (30:17).
The LORD's relationship to Israel is not dependent on their faithfulness, but upon his unconditional promise--"I have loved you with an everlasting love," says the LORD (31:3). History cannot alter that promise, nor can circumstances cancel it. Therefore, God will bring back his scattered people and reestablish them in the land, not only from Babylon, but from the places where Ephraim—the northern kingdom--has been scattered. The LORD, acting as their next of kin, will ransom and redeem them—buy them back from debt and slavery and bring them home (31:11). They shall be once more a single kingdom, ruled by a Davidic king and reunited--"they shall come and sing aloud on the height of Zion" (31:12). Therefore the people are called upon to "consider well the highway, the road by which you went" in order that they find their way back "to these [their] cities" (31:21). The land shall be repopulated and prosperous, restored and transformed
by the "new thing" that the LORD will create (31:22). The prophet sees all this in a dream—"I awoke and looked, and my sleep was pleasant to me" (31:26).
But the greatest change in this new creation will be in God's way of dealing with the people. In that coming day there shall be an end of inherited guilt. Each individual person shall be responsible for his or her own sins, not the sins of parents and grandparents (31:30). The weight of the past will be lifted. Furthermore, the LORD will "make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah" (31:31). This will not be like the previous covenant made at Sinai—which they broke. This new covenant will be based upon inward knowledge of the Law—God "will write it on their hearts" (31:33). The people's obedience will be spontaneous and instinctual, not grudging, based not upon self-interest but upon knowledge of the LORD—upon an intimate acquaintance based on love.
We Christians see this new covenant established through God's unconditional love revealed through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. His Holy Spirit establishes in us an immediate relationship with the LORD which transcends commandments and laws. In that intimate and loving relationship, God indeed lifts the weight of the past once and for all—"I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more" (31:34), says the LORD. God utterly wipes away all memory of sins committed or guilt inherited for the sake of Jesus Christ.
In that new world, Jeremiah prophesies, there will be no more clean and unclean, no more profane and holy. The boundaries of Jerusalem will be extended to include "the whole valley of the dead bodies and the ashes" where pagan sacrifices had been performed. "All that shall be sacred to the LORD" (31:40), says the prophet—the boundaries of the sacred will be extended to include every place that is now cursed and unclean because of sin and disobedience.
We might say that since the cross of Jesus Christ has been planted in it, the whole earth is holy.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Day 227. Jeremiah 27-29
Now we are again back in the reign of the Zedekiah, Jerusalem has been sacked but not destroyed, and a large number of its citizens, including King Jehoiachin, deported as hostages. The besieging army is gone, but the shadow of Babylon falls very darkly upon the little kingdom of Judah. The LORD instructs Jeremiah construct another visual parable—"Make yourself a yoke of straps and bars"—such as are used for controlling oxen—"and put them on your neck" (27:2), he says. Apparently there was a high-level summit going at the time, the neighboring kings having sent envoys to Jerusalem to form an alliance to throw off the power of Babylon. Jeremiah, wearing his yoke, is instructed to give these envoys a message from the LORD: "I have given all these lands into the hand of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, my servant, and I have given him even the wild animals of the field to serve him" (27:6). His power, however, will not last forever—he
too will become a slave to other nations and other great kings. But for the time being, anyone who revolts again him, rebels against the will of God. "Serve him and his people, and live," God tells the nations. Prophets and soothsayers have counseled resistance and revolt, but they are prophesying a delusion. If the nations resist the king of Babylon and refuse to wear his yoke, they will perish.
Jeremiah gives King Zedekiah the same message from the LORD—"Bring your necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and serve him and his people, and live" (27:12). Do not refuse to do so, the prophet says, or you and your city will perish. Some of the precious vessels from the LORD's house had been taken away as plunder together with that first group of exiles. The loss of those sacred vessels was a sore point, as we can imagine. Other prophets had been saying that that the vessels would "soon be brought back from Babylon" (27:16). This is a lie, Jeremiah tells the king, and he must not listen to it or act upon it, lest the rest of the furnishings of the temple go the same way. As for what remains of the temple furnishings--"They shall be carried to Babylon, and there they shall stay, until the day when I give attention to them, says the LORD. Then I will bring them up and restore them to this place" (27:22)—but in my own time.
Jeremiah was not without prophetic rivals. One was a certain Hananiah who, in the first years of Zedekiah's reign, prophesied that "within two years" the Davidic king, Jehoiachin, and the rest of the exiles, together with the vessels taken from the temple would be restored, for the LORD had revealed to him that he was about to "break the yoke of the king of Babylon" (28:4). Jeremiah knows this is a falsehood, that God had told Hananiah no such thing. But he does not argue—wisely. All Jeremiah will say is this—"The prophets who preceded you and me from ancient times prophesied war, famine, and pestilence against many countries and great kingdoms." He continues—"As for the prophet who prophesies peace, when the word of that prophet comes true, then it will be known that the LORD has truly sent that prophet" (28:9). The proof of the porridge is in the tasting, in other words.
But in a dramatic gesture, Hananiah seizes the yoke that Jeremiah has been wearing and breaks it, proclaiming that this is how the LORD will break the yoke of the king of Babylon "within two years" (29:11). Jeremiah goes his way without comment. But later the LORD send this message through Jeremiah to Hananiah—"You have broken wooden bars only to forge iron bars in place of them!" (28:13). Your posturing has made the situation worse, because as a result people have come to share your delusion. "You made this people believe a lie," Jeremiah tells him. And now the LORD says to you: "Within this year you will be dead, because you have spoken rebellion against the LORD" (28:16). And sure enough, in a few months Hananiah is dead, and the truth is again driven home—it is fatally dangerous to ridicule or otherwise trifle with God's prophets.
Now Jeremiah undertakes to write a letter on the LORD's behalf to the exiles in Babylon. The essence of the letter is this—settle in for a long haul. "Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile," God tells them, "and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare" (29:7). And do not listen to those prophets who tell you that you will return home soon, he cautions—it is a lie. "I did not send them," says the LORD (29:9). Only after seventy years have passed will the LORD visit the exiles and bring them back to Jerusalem, as he has promised. Until then, sit tight.
The letter also says that the LORD is intent upon the destruction of King Zedekiah and those who remained behind in Jerusalem because they believed the words of false prophets—he "will make them like rotten figs that are so bad they cannot be eaten" (29:17). Especially nasty treatment will be meted out to a certain Zedekiah and Ahab, false prophets, who, because they spoke "lying words" in the name of the LORD, the king of Babylon will roast in the fire.
A certain Shemaiah, one of the exiles in Babylon writes back to Jerusalem reprimanding the priest Zephaniah for not doing enough to control a certain "madman who plays the prophet"(29:26). This Jeremiah of Anathoth has had the presumption to actually send a letter to the exiles in Babylon telling them—"It will be a long time; build houses and live in them, and plant gardens and eat what they produce" (29:28). It was not a message the exiles wanted to hear, but it is the truth. (Humankind cannot stand very much truth, as we said before.)
The priest Zephaniah reads this letter to Jeremiah, and the LORD gave his prophet this reply—"Because Shemaiah has prophesied to you, though I did not send him, and has led you to trust in a lie, therefore thus says the LORD: I am going to punish Shemaiah of Nehelam, and his descendents; he shall not have anyone living among his people see the good that I am going to do to my people, says the LORD, for he has spoken rebellion against the LORD" (29:32-33). Shemaiah and his family will not survive to return to the Land of Promise. They will all perish in Babylon. More evidence, if more were still required, that playing fast and loose with God's special people can get you into deep trouble. God may at times treat his prophets roughly, but God help anyone else who does.
too will become a slave to other nations and other great kings. But for the time being, anyone who revolts again him, rebels against the will of God. "Serve him and his people, and live," God tells the nations. Prophets and soothsayers have counseled resistance and revolt, but they are prophesying a delusion. If the nations resist the king of Babylon and refuse to wear his yoke, they will perish.
Jeremiah gives King Zedekiah the same message from the LORD—"Bring your necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and serve him and his people, and live" (27:12). Do not refuse to do so, the prophet says, or you and your city will perish. Some of the precious vessels from the LORD's house had been taken away as plunder together with that first group of exiles. The loss of those sacred vessels was a sore point, as we can imagine. Other prophets had been saying that that the vessels would "soon be brought back from Babylon" (27:16). This is a lie, Jeremiah tells the king, and he must not listen to it or act upon it, lest the rest of the furnishings of the temple go the same way. As for what remains of the temple furnishings--"They shall be carried to Babylon, and there they shall stay, until the day when I give attention to them, says the LORD. Then I will bring them up and restore them to this place" (27:22)—but in my own time.
Jeremiah was not without prophetic rivals. One was a certain Hananiah who, in the first years of Zedekiah's reign, prophesied that "within two years" the Davidic king, Jehoiachin, and the rest of the exiles, together with the vessels taken from the temple would be restored, for the LORD had revealed to him that he was about to "break the yoke of the king of Babylon" (28:4). Jeremiah knows this is a falsehood, that God had told Hananiah no such thing. But he does not argue—wisely. All Jeremiah will say is this—"The prophets who preceded you and me from ancient times prophesied war, famine, and pestilence against many countries and great kingdoms." He continues—"As for the prophet who prophesies peace, when the word of that prophet comes true, then it will be known that the LORD has truly sent that prophet" (28:9). The proof of the porridge is in the tasting, in other words.
But in a dramatic gesture, Hananiah seizes the yoke that Jeremiah has been wearing and breaks it, proclaiming that this is how the LORD will break the yoke of the king of Babylon "within two years" (29:11). Jeremiah goes his way without comment. But later the LORD send this message through Jeremiah to Hananiah—"You have broken wooden bars only to forge iron bars in place of them!" (28:13). Your posturing has made the situation worse, because as a result people have come to share your delusion. "You made this people believe a lie," Jeremiah tells him. And now the LORD says to you: "Within this year you will be dead, because you have spoken rebellion against the LORD" (28:16). And sure enough, in a few months Hananiah is dead, and the truth is again driven home—it is fatally dangerous to ridicule or otherwise trifle with God's prophets.
Now Jeremiah undertakes to write a letter on the LORD's behalf to the exiles in Babylon. The essence of the letter is this—settle in for a long haul. "Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile," God tells them, "and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare" (29:7). And do not listen to those prophets who tell you that you will return home soon, he cautions—it is a lie. "I did not send them," says the LORD (29:9). Only after seventy years have passed will the LORD visit the exiles and bring them back to Jerusalem, as he has promised. Until then, sit tight.
The letter also says that the LORD is intent upon the destruction of King Zedekiah and those who remained behind in Jerusalem because they believed the words of false prophets—he "will make them like rotten figs that are so bad they cannot be eaten" (29:17). Especially nasty treatment will be meted out to a certain Zedekiah and Ahab, false prophets, who, because they spoke "lying words" in the name of the LORD, the king of Babylon will roast in the fire.
A certain Shemaiah, one of the exiles in Babylon writes back to Jerusalem reprimanding the priest Zephaniah for not doing enough to control a certain "madman who plays the prophet"(29:26). This Jeremiah of Anathoth has had the presumption to actually send a letter to the exiles in Babylon telling them—"It will be a long time; build houses and live in them, and plant gardens and eat what they produce" (29:28). It was not a message the exiles wanted to hear, but it is the truth. (Humankind cannot stand very much truth, as we said before.)
The priest Zephaniah reads this letter to Jeremiah, and the LORD gave his prophet this reply—"Because Shemaiah has prophesied to you, though I did not send him, and has led you to trust in a lie, therefore thus says the LORD: I am going to punish Shemaiah of Nehelam, and his descendents; he shall not have anyone living among his people see the good that I am going to do to my people, says the LORD, for he has spoken rebellion against the LORD" (29:32-33). Shemaiah and his family will not survive to return to the Land of Promise. They will all perish in Babylon. More evidence, if more were still required, that playing fast and loose with God's special people can get you into deep trouble. God may at times treat his prophets roughly, but God help anyone else who does.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Day 226. Jeremiah 24-26
The historical background isn't always crucial to understanding a text—some scripture speaks to the heart and mind timelessly. This time, however, it is.
At the beginning of our reading for today, young king Jehoiachin (called King Jeconiah in our text) and his mother had been forcibly taken away into exile by King Nebuchadrezzar. Jehoiachin was the last of the unbroken royal line going back, father succeeding son, to King David. A number of court officials, together with artisans and smiths, who were considered valuable human assets, had also been deported to Babylon. Zedekiah, the uncle of the exiled king, was placed on the throne--though a member of the royal family, he was not in the Davidic succession—a fact not lost on the prophet. Zedekiah was an upstart, a pretender, in spite of his having been sponsored by the king of Babylon.
God presents his prophet with this visual parable involving two baskets of figs--one of excellent quality, the other vastly inferior and inedible. The good figs, he is told, represent the Davidic king and the first group of exiles, considered the best in Jerusalem—the cream of society--and a worthy remnant from which God can rebuild the nation. And the LORD promises to bring these exiles back to their homeland when they have been rehabilitated by the experience of exile; he will "give them a heart to know that [he] is the LORD, and [the LORD] will be their God, for they shall return to [him] with their whole heart" (24:7).
The bad figs are "King Zedekiah of Judah, his officials, and the remnant of Jerusalem who remain in [the] land, and those who live in the land of Egypt" (24:8). The LORD intends to make of them "a horror" to the kingdoms of the earth, and "a disgrace, a byword, a taunt, and a curse in all the places where I shall drive them" (24:9). By sword, famine, and pestilence they will be utterly destroyed. They are utterly irredeemable and corrupt, like the basket of rotten figs—they must be disposed of before the foundation of the new Israel can be laid.
In chapter 25 we go back in time to the reign of Jehoiakim, King Josiah's son, and the father of the exiled ruler. This gives a window into Jeremiah's earlier career and his prophecy about the exile to come. He speaks to the people of Judah and Jerusalem, recounting the twenty-three years he has faithfully warned them to leave behind their idols and worship the LORD alone, or face the terrible consequences of breaking his covenant. They did not listen to him then, so now "the whole land shall become a ruin, and these nations"—Israel and the lands that surround her—"shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years" (25:11). After that time Babylon shall fall to other kings and other nations, who "shall make slaves of them also" (25:14).
Then in a vision the LORD gives Jeremiah the "cup of the wine of wrath" and tells him to make all the nations to whom he is sent drink it (25:15). The cup is a metaphor representing God's judgment, and the list of the nations to which he offers it is a catalogue of the then-know world. Each ruler and nation must drink of the bitter cup, until at last it becomes the turn of "the king of Sheshach"--this is cryptogram for Babylon. And the message is this: The LORD of history is "entering into judgment with all flesh" (25:31)—if the "city that is called by his name," Jerusalem, does not escape, no one else will escape. The kings of the earth—the "shepherds," the "lords of the flock" (25:35)—shall wail because "the LORD is despoiling their pasture" (25:36). The LORD is like "a lion [that] has left his covert" (25:38); the whole earth is his prey.
Now we get another earlier chapter in Jeremiah's life--his sermon in Jerusalem and his clash with the priests and sanctuary prophets that almost costs him his life. This also takes place during the reign of Jehoiakim, before he is taken prisoner by Pharaoh. The LORD commands Jeremiah to go to the courts of the temple and preach repentance to the people. He gives the prophet this message to speak: "If you will not listen to me, to walk in my law that I have set before you, and to heed the words of my servants the prophets whom I sent to you urgently—though you have not heeded—then I will make this house like Shiloh, and I will make this city a curse for all the nations of the earth" (26:6). This prophecy which seems to threaten the temple within its very precincts stirred the anger of the priests and the prophets attached to the sanctuary, and for this audacious impiety they tell Jereimiah—"You shall die!" (26:9). "All the people
gathered around Jeremiah in the house of the LORD" (26:9)—it looks like a lynching is about to take place. (The scene recalls the trial of Jesus.) The officials of Judah hear of these things and take their seats in the gate to judge whether Jeremiah is in fact guilty of accused of treason for speaking against the city and blasphemy for saying that the temple will become like Shiloh, the desolated sanctuary of the northern kingdom of Israel.
The prophet's only plea is that the LORD has sent him to speak "all these words" in their ears. These words are God's responsibility, not his own. Some still want to put him to death because "he has spoken in the name of the LORD our God" (26:16). Others recall a prophet named Micah who had prophesied doom to the city of Jerusalem during the reign of King Hezekiah. That time the people had repented as a result of his preaching and the city was saved. They said—"We are about to bring great disaster on ourselves" (26:19) by trifling with the LORD's prophet. Apparently another prophet named Uriah also prophesied against the city at the same time as Jeremiah. King Jehoiakim had sought to kill him, and when he fled for his life to Egypt, the king sent his troops to bring him back, whereupon he was summarily executed.
But Jeremiah had influential friends at court, notably one Ahikam, who, together with his father Shaphan, had been influential during the reign of King Josiah. Ahikam was "with Jeremiah so that he was not given over into the hands of the people to be put to death" (26:24). It was a true then as now—it is who you know that counts. Jeremiah is spared because of his connections.
At the beginning of our reading for today, young king Jehoiachin (called King Jeconiah in our text) and his mother had been forcibly taken away into exile by King Nebuchadrezzar. Jehoiachin was the last of the unbroken royal line going back, father succeeding son, to King David. A number of court officials, together with artisans and smiths, who were considered valuable human assets, had also been deported to Babylon. Zedekiah, the uncle of the exiled king, was placed on the throne--though a member of the royal family, he was not in the Davidic succession—a fact not lost on the prophet. Zedekiah was an upstart, a pretender, in spite of his having been sponsored by the king of Babylon.
God presents his prophet with this visual parable involving two baskets of figs--one of excellent quality, the other vastly inferior and inedible. The good figs, he is told, represent the Davidic king and the first group of exiles, considered the best in Jerusalem—the cream of society--and a worthy remnant from which God can rebuild the nation. And the LORD promises to bring these exiles back to their homeland when they have been rehabilitated by the experience of exile; he will "give them a heart to know that [he] is the LORD, and [the LORD] will be their God, for they shall return to [him] with their whole heart" (24:7).
The bad figs are "King Zedekiah of Judah, his officials, and the remnant of Jerusalem who remain in [the] land, and those who live in the land of Egypt" (24:8). The LORD intends to make of them "a horror" to the kingdoms of the earth, and "a disgrace, a byword, a taunt, and a curse in all the places where I shall drive them" (24:9). By sword, famine, and pestilence they will be utterly destroyed. They are utterly irredeemable and corrupt, like the basket of rotten figs—they must be disposed of before the foundation of the new Israel can be laid.
In chapter 25 we go back in time to the reign of Jehoiakim, King Josiah's son, and the father of the exiled ruler. This gives a window into Jeremiah's earlier career and his prophecy about the exile to come. He speaks to the people of Judah and Jerusalem, recounting the twenty-three years he has faithfully warned them to leave behind their idols and worship the LORD alone, or face the terrible consequences of breaking his covenant. They did not listen to him then, so now "the whole land shall become a ruin, and these nations"—Israel and the lands that surround her—"shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years" (25:11). After that time Babylon shall fall to other kings and other nations, who "shall make slaves of them also" (25:14).
Then in a vision the LORD gives Jeremiah the "cup of the wine of wrath" and tells him to make all the nations to whom he is sent drink it (25:15). The cup is a metaphor representing God's judgment, and the list of the nations to which he offers it is a catalogue of the then-know world. Each ruler and nation must drink of the bitter cup, until at last it becomes the turn of "the king of Sheshach"--this is cryptogram for Babylon. And the message is this: The LORD of history is "entering into judgment with all flesh" (25:31)—if the "city that is called by his name," Jerusalem, does not escape, no one else will escape. The kings of the earth—the "shepherds," the "lords of the flock" (25:35)—shall wail because "the LORD is despoiling their pasture" (25:36). The LORD is like "a lion [that] has left his covert" (25:38); the whole earth is his prey.
Now we get another earlier chapter in Jeremiah's life--his sermon in Jerusalem and his clash with the priests and sanctuary prophets that almost costs him his life. This also takes place during the reign of Jehoiakim, before he is taken prisoner by Pharaoh. The LORD commands Jeremiah to go to the courts of the temple and preach repentance to the people. He gives the prophet this message to speak: "If you will not listen to me, to walk in my law that I have set before you, and to heed the words of my servants the prophets whom I sent to you urgently—though you have not heeded—then I will make this house like Shiloh, and I will make this city a curse for all the nations of the earth" (26:6). This prophecy which seems to threaten the temple within its very precincts stirred the anger of the priests and the prophets attached to the sanctuary, and for this audacious impiety they tell Jereimiah—"You shall die!" (26:9). "All the people
gathered around Jeremiah in the house of the LORD" (26:9)—it looks like a lynching is about to take place. (The scene recalls the trial of Jesus.) The officials of Judah hear of these things and take their seats in the gate to judge whether Jeremiah is in fact guilty of accused of treason for speaking against the city and blasphemy for saying that the temple will become like Shiloh, the desolated sanctuary of the northern kingdom of Israel.
The prophet's only plea is that the LORD has sent him to speak "all these words" in their ears. These words are God's responsibility, not his own. Some still want to put him to death because "he has spoken in the name of the LORD our God" (26:16). Others recall a prophet named Micah who had prophesied doom to the city of Jerusalem during the reign of King Hezekiah. That time the people had repented as a result of his preaching and the city was saved. They said—"We are about to bring great disaster on ourselves" (26:19) by trifling with the LORD's prophet. Apparently another prophet named Uriah also prophesied against the city at the same time as Jeremiah. King Jehoiakim had sought to kill him, and when he fled for his life to Egypt, the king sent his troops to bring him back, whereupon he was summarily executed.
But Jeremiah had influential friends at court, notably one Ahikam, who, together with his father Shaphan, had been influential during the reign of King Josiah. Ahikam was "with Jeremiah so that he was not given over into the hands of the people to be put to death" (26:24). It was a true then as now—it is who you know that counts. Jeremiah is spared because of his connections.
Monday, January 24, 2011
Day 225. Jeremiah 22-23
It is well to remember that the oracles of Jeremiah are not arranged in strict chronological order. This exhortation (22:1-10) should be addressed to King Zedekiah, successor to Jehoichin and the last of the house of David to rule in Jerusalem before the Babylonian Exile—or it may well have been addressed to an earlier king of Judah. It is probably located here to explain exactly why God allowed to city of Jerusalem to be destroyed and the house of David to be deposed. In any case it is addressed to a "King of Judah sitting on the throne of David" (22:2) and it lays out the conditions of the covenant the LORD had made with David and renewed with each successive king of his house afterward. God promised to "establish" the house of David so long as the successors of David obeyed his commands and acted as his anointed representatives. As well as establishing and providing for the sole worship of the LORD and at the same time repressing the worship
of idols, the king is made directly responsible for the establishment of justice in his kingdom to "deliver from the hand of the oppressor anyone who has been robbed" (20:3). He is to "do no wrong of violence to the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood" in Jerusalem." The LORD has revealed himself as a God who loves justice, and doing justice and repressing violence is a necessary part of establishing right worship of the sole and only God.
If the kings did this, ruled justly, they were assured that the succession would continue presumably forever (22:4). But if they failed to heed the stipulations of the covenant and worshiped other gods, abandoning the command to do justice, the covenant would be voided and the most terrible results would follow. Their "house shall become a desolation" (22:5), Jeremiah says, and their holy city of Jerusalem desolate and uninhabited (22:6). In the future when passers-by ask why God has allowed this to happen, the answer will be—"because [the kings] abandoned the covenant of the LORD their God, and worshiped other gods and served them" (22:9). The responsibility ultimately fell upon the king as the head of state. An unfaithful king endangered the life of the whole nation.
The next passage in our reading refers to one of those unfaithful kings--the unfortunate son of King Josiah, Shallum—his throne name was Jehoahaz. We read his story in 2 Kings 23. After reigning only three short months he was carried off as a hostage to Egypt by the Pharaoh Neco, and he died an exile there and never saw his homeland again (22:12). Jeremiah tells us why he met this sad fate as an object lesson; it was because he cared more for ostentatious building projects (22:14) than for his true calling as an anointed king, to establish justice and provide for the most vulnerable (22:17). He was proud and indifferent to the welfare of his people. His father Josiah had been a good king, seeking to do justice, but in this his son was a failure. He broke the covenant, and was carried off into captivity, never to return.
In the place of Jehoahaz, the Pharaoh set his eighteen-year old son Coniah—his royal name was Jehoiachin—on the throne in Jerusalem. He also met an unhappy end. He also fell short of the ideal, and again after three months on the throne, he and the queen mother were carried off by King Nebuchadrezzar to Babylon, from whither "they shall not return to the land to which they long to return" (22:27). Jeremiah prophesies the two shall die in exile, "and none of his offspring shall succeed in sitting on the throne of David, and ruling again in Judah" (22:30).
Jeremiah pronounced the LORD's judgment on these last feeble and venal kings of Judah. "Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! says the LORD. It is you who have scattered my flock, and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them" (23:1-2). Kings of the ancient Near East--not just the kings of Israel, but the kings of other nations as well—were often called and styled themselves as "shepherds" because they led their people and protected them against their enemies. The LORD blames the bad shepherds of the House of David for the destruction of the nation and the exile in Babylon—he says ominously that he "will attend to [them] for [their] evil doings" (23:2).
But since the kings of David's house have failed to keep his covenant, God will now take matters directly in hand, replacing the Davidic king as the shepherd of Israel—he himself "will gather the remnant of [his] flock out of all the lands where [he] has driven them, and [he] will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. [He] will raise up shepherds over them who will shepherd them, and they shall not fear any longer, or be dismayed, no shall any be missing, says the LORD" (23:4). God intends to serve as a sort of interim king until he can gather the scattered remnant of his people and place them under the reformed monarchy, headed by a new kind of king, "a righteous branch" from the house of David. This Messiah—this "anointed one"—will be a great military leader who will save and unite both kingdoms Israel and Judah (23:5) and establish them again "in their own land" (23:8).
We Christians are bound to associate this messianic prophecy with Jesus of Nazareth, born of the house of David, to whom we look for life and salvation. But viewed objectively, our LORD's mission was nothing like that Davidic king that Jeremiah describes. Jeremiah's Messiah was expected to liberate militarily and rule politically; Jesus explicitly rejected the role of a military leader. But through his death and resurrection, Jesus does establish the "kingdom of God," liberating the hearts and minds of his followers and uniting them into a new Israel, the Church. Therefore, though in quite a different way from that which the Old Testament prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah expected, God does indeed anoint Jesus as Messiah (Christ) and Lord.
In the final section of our reading, the prophet describes in very human terms the anger and dismay he feels at the false prophets who pretend to bring the word of God to the people, but instead only tell them what they want to hear. They are strong and popular, but "their might is not right" (23:10). God finds even in his own house the wickedness of prophets and priests, which he will root out and destroy. The prophets of Samaria prophesied the name of the false god Baal—that was bad enough. The prophets of Jerusalem do what is even worse—they pretend to prophesy in the name of the true God, falsely. At the same time they set bad examples by leading wicked lives and tell lies that "strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that no one turns from wickedness" (23:14)
So Jeremiah warns the people--Do not believe these deluded prophets who "speak visions of their minds, not from the mouth of LORD" (23:16). They prophesy that all is well, but all is not well. Judgment is coming—a true prophet will know and proclaim it without fear. Human dreams are not the word of God. "Let the prophet who has a dream, tell the dream," says the LORD, "but let the one who has my word speak my word faithfully" (23:28). And how do you discern the word of God from human dream. The word of God is not easy to speak or hear; it is hot like fire—it is 'like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces" (23:29). It speaks judgment to sin. It calls from painful repentance. False prophets speak their own wishes and "lying dreams" and call them "the burden of the LORD"—and the LORD forbids that these words—"the burden of the LORD"—be used again. There shall be no more volunteer prophets—only authentic ones who
carry God's word, not a basket of their own eggs.
of idols, the king is made directly responsible for the establishment of justice in his kingdom to "deliver from the hand of the oppressor anyone who has been robbed" (20:3). He is to "do no wrong of violence to the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood" in Jerusalem." The LORD has revealed himself as a God who loves justice, and doing justice and repressing violence is a necessary part of establishing right worship of the sole and only God.
If the kings did this, ruled justly, they were assured that the succession would continue presumably forever (22:4). But if they failed to heed the stipulations of the covenant and worshiped other gods, abandoning the command to do justice, the covenant would be voided and the most terrible results would follow. Their "house shall become a desolation" (22:5), Jeremiah says, and their holy city of Jerusalem desolate and uninhabited (22:6). In the future when passers-by ask why God has allowed this to happen, the answer will be—"because [the kings] abandoned the covenant of the LORD their God, and worshiped other gods and served them" (22:9). The responsibility ultimately fell upon the king as the head of state. An unfaithful king endangered the life of the whole nation.
The next passage in our reading refers to one of those unfaithful kings--the unfortunate son of King Josiah, Shallum—his throne name was Jehoahaz. We read his story in 2 Kings 23. After reigning only three short months he was carried off as a hostage to Egypt by the Pharaoh Neco, and he died an exile there and never saw his homeland again (22:12). Jeremiah tells us why he met this sad fate as an object lesson; it was because he cared more for ostentatious building projects (22:14) than for his true calling as an anointed king, to establish justice and provide for the most vulnerable (22:17). He was proud and indifferent to the welfare of his people. His father Josiah had been a good king, seeking to do justice, but in this his son was a failure. He broke the covenant, and was carried off into captivity, never to return.
In the place of Jehoahaz, the Pharaoh set his eighteen-year old son Coniah—his royal name was Jehoiachin—on the throne in Jerusalem. He also met an unhappy end. He also fell short of the ideal, and again after three months on the throne, he and the queen mother were carried off by King Nebuchadrezzar to Babylon, from whither "they shall not return to the land to which they long to return" (22:27). Jeremiah prophesies the two shall die in exile, "and none of his offspring shall succeed in sitting on the throne of David, and ruling again in Judah" (22:30).
Jeremiah pronounced the LORD's judgment on these last feeble and venal kings of Judah. "Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! says the LORD. It is you who have scattered my flock, and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them" (23:1-2). Kings of the ancient Near East--not just the kings of Israel, but the kings of other nations as well—were often called and styled themselves as "shepherds" because they led their people and protected them against their enemies. The LORD blames the bad shepherds of the House of David for the destruction of the nation and the exile in Babylon—he says ominously that he "will attend to [them] for [their] evil doings" (23:2).
But since the kings of David's house have failed to keep his covenant, God will now take matters directly in hand, replacing the Davidic king as the shepherd of Israel—he himself "will gather the remnant of [his] flock out of all the lands where [he] has driven them, and [he] will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. [He] will raise up shepherds over them who will shepherd them, and they shall not fear any longer, or be dismayed, no shall any be missing, says the LORD" (23:4). God intends to serve as a sort of interim king until he can gather the scattered remnant of his people and place them under the reformed monarchy, headed by a new kind of king, "a righteous branch" from the house of David. This Messiah—this "anointed one"—will be a great military leader who will save and unite both kingdoms Israel and Judah (23:5) and establish them again "in their own land" (23:8).
We Christians are bound to associate this messianic prophecy with Jesus of Nazareth, born of the house of David, to whom we look for life and salvation. But viewed objectively, our LORD's mission was nothing like that Davidic king that Jeremiah describes. Jeremiah's Messiah was expected to liberate militarily and rule politically; Jesus explicitly rejected the role of a military leader. But through his death and resurrection, Jesus does establish the "kingdom of God," liberating the hearts and minds of his followers and uniting them into a new Israel, the Church. Therefore, though in quite a different way from that which the Old Testament prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah expected, God does indeed anoint Jesus as Messiah (Christ) and Lord.
In the final section of our reading, the prophet describes in very human terms the anger and dismay he feels at the false prophets who pretend to bring the word of God to the people, but instead only tell them what they want to hear. They are strong and popular, but "their might is not right" (23:10). God finds even in his own house the wickedness of prophets and priests, which he will root out and destroy. The prophets of Samaria prophesied the name of the false god Baal—that was bad enough. The prophets of Jerusalem do what is even worse—they pretend to prophesy in the name of the true God, falsely. At the same time they set bad examples by leading wicked lives and tell lies that "strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that no one turns from wickedness" (23:14)
So Jeremiah warns the people--Do not believe these deluded prophets who "speak visions of their minds, not from the mouth of LORD" (23:16). They prophesy that all is well, but all is not well. Judgment is coming—a true prophet will know and proclaim it without fear. Human dreams are not the word of God. "Let the prophet who has a dream, tell the dream," says the LORD, "but let the one who has my word speak my word faithfully" (23:28). And how do you discern the word of God from human dream. The word of God is not easy to speak or hear; it is hot like fire—it is 'like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces" (23:29). It speaks judgment to sin. It calls from painful repentance. False prophets speak their own wishes and "lying dreams" and call them "the burden of the LORD"—and the LORD forbids that these words—"the burden of the LORD"—be used again. There shall be no more volunteer prophets—only authentic ones who
carry God's word, not a basket of their own eggs.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Day 224. Jeremiah 18-21
We have talked earlier about the tensions in the writings of the prophet Jeremiah between his devotion to the LORD and the repulsions he feels at the message of unrelenting doom he is given to deliver. That tension at times pushes him into profound depression and to the edge of hysteria, as we will see in today's reading.
The LORD sends Jeremiah on assignment to "the potter's house" where he witnesses a revealing series of events—"The vessel [the potter] was making of clay was spoiled in the potter's hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as seemed good to him" (18:4).This sequence, repeated again and again, becomes a simile for the way that the LORD deals with his people Israel. God is like the potter in that he is able to change his mind as seems good to him. Many futures are possible. He may shape a devastation to come for them. But if they were to repent he might change his mind about that evil he had intended and shape a different future altogether. But if their repentance turns out to be insincere, he might again change his mind and shape destruction for them as he intended. God in his sovereign freedom creates the future he chooses—he can be merciful, but he cannot be unjust. But he must always act according to his nature, punishing evil and
nourishing good.
In this way his freedom differs from the stubbornness of his people, who act out of their "evil will" (18:12). God is free; Israel is wayward. They wander, pursuing their own plots and ignoring the plans the LORD has made. They forget the LORD, they act unjustly and mercilessly, they "burn offerings to a delusion" (18:15), they will not repent. Therefore, God in his sovereign freedom will pursue his plan for their destruction. "Like a wind from the east, I will scatter them before the enemy" he tells the prophet. "I will show them my back, not my face, in the day of their calamity" (18:17).
Our text is filled with planning and plotting. Now the leaders of the people plot against Jeremiah to silence him. Hearing that they plan "to bring charges against him" (18:18), that "they have dug a pit to catch [him], and laid snares for [his] feet" (18:22), the prophet gives full vent to his anger, which had hitherto been restrained. He now regrets pleading for them before the LORD to try "to turn away [his] wrath from them" (18:20). Now in his anger the prophet does not want the LORD to deal with them mercifully, but rather to punish them in the white heat of his anger (18:23).
Now the LORD gives him another assignment. He tells Jeremiah to "buy a potter's earthenware jug" (19:1). Then taking it to the Potsherd Gate over against the Valley of Hinnon, there pagan sacrifices are often enacted, and there he is told to confront the leaders of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem with this message. Because they have continued to make offerings to other gods, notably to give their children as burnt offerings to Baal, The LORD is determined to "make void the plans of Judah and Jerusalem and . . . make them fall by the sword before their enemies" (19:7). Bodies will be heaped upon bodies until the Valley of Hinnon is called the Valley of Slaughter. They themselves will be sacrificed to their false gods. When the siege comes, the LORD will "make them eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and all shall eat the flesh of their neighbors" (19:9).Now in a sort of visual parable Jeremiah is commanded
break the jug in the sight of all of them and say: "Thus says to LORD of hosts: So will I break this people and this city, as one breaks a potter's vessel, so that so that it can never be mended" (19:10).
But Jeremiah never gets to fully deliver his message from the LORD. He had only begun to speak, when Pashur, the administrative head of the temple organization, in an act of misguided patriotism, first strikes the prophet and then has him put in the stocks. This is a large mistake. You should not trifle with prophets. In the morning when Pashur comes to release him, the prophet is ready. He gives the proud official a new name—"Terror-all-around" (20:3—and then tells him that when the city is taken and looted he and his whole household will go into captivity in Babylon where he will die.
His night in the stocks pushes Jeremiah to an hysterical outburst. His lament is so violent that we might consider him unhinged, if we did not know that he is possessed by the spirit of God. He cannot help himself. He is constrained to cry out—"Violence and destruction" (20:8). The message is "like a fire shut up in [his] bones; [he] is weary with holding it in, and [he] cannot" (20:9). His isolation makes his hypersensitive to hostility and criticism. He hears the whispering of plots against him "all around" (20:10). But in the face of conspiracy and plots against his life he is unmoved; he is assured of the LORD's protecting presence "like a dread warrior" (20:11). His words compose a psalm of help that degenerates into a cry of utter despair—"Cursed be the day on which I was born!" the prophet laments (20:14). He wishes that the messenger who brought his father news of his birth had instead killed him in the womb, "so that
[his] mother would have been [his] grave." (20:17). No right-thinking person can be anything but shocked by such an outburst, but to the prophet's question--"Why did I come forth from the womb to see toil and sorrow, and spend my days in shame" (20:18)—no answer comes--only another message of doom.
Time has passed. Jehoiachin, the last true descendent of the house of David, has been taken to Babylon and his uncle Zedekiah (597-586 B.C.) installed on the throne. Judah is on the razor's edge. Its last king foolishly plots against his overlord in Babylon, then sends a priestly contingent to the prophet with this request: "Please inquire of the LORD on our behalf, for King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon is making war against us; perhaps the LORD will perform some wonderful deed for us, as he has often done, and will make him withdraw from us" (21:2). Jeremiah does not mince words. The LORD intends not to fight for Israel but against it "with an outstretched hand and a mighty arm, in anger, in fury, and in great wrath" (21:5). He gives the king and his people only this advice—"Go out and surrender to the Chaldeans who are besieging you [and] you shall live and shall have your lives as a prize of war" (21:9), otherwise stay in the city and die
"by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence."
Not much of a choice. The House of David, with whom God had made a covenant, will never reign over Judah again. God gives the king one last command to "execute justice." But the command is ignored. The LORD will punish the House of David "according to the fruit of [its] doings" (21:14). The fire is already kindled that will destroy the old order of things and give birth to the new.
The LORD sends Jeremiah on assignment to "the potter's house" where he witnesses a revealing series of events—"The vessel [the potter] was making of clay was spoiled in the potter's hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as seemed good to him" (18:4).This sequence, repeated again and again, becomes a simile for the way that the LORD deals with his people Israel. God is like the potter in that he is able to change his mind as seems good to him. Many futures are possible. He may shape a devastation to come for them. But if they were to repent he might change his mind about that evil he had intended and shape a different future altogether. But if their repentance turns out to be insincere, he might again change his mind and shape destruction for them as he intended. God in his sovereign freedom creates the future he chooses—he can be merciful, but he cannot be unjust. But he must always act according to his nature, punishing evil and
nourishing good.
In this way his freedom differs from the stubbornness of his people, who act out of their "evil will" (18:12). God is free; Israel is wayward. They wander, pursuing their own plots and ignoring the plans the LORD has made. They forget the LORD, they act unjustly and mercilessly, they "burn offerings to a delusion" (18:15), they will not repent. Therefore, God in his sovereign freedom will pursue his plan for their destruction. "Like a wind from the east, I will scatter them before the enemy" he tells the prophet. "I will show them my back, not my face, in the day of their calamity" (18:17).
Our text is filled with planning and plotting. Now the leaders of the people plot against Jeremiah to silence him. Hearing that they plan "to bring charges against him" (18:18), that "they have dug a pit to catch [him], and laid snares for [his] feet" (18:22), the prophet gives full vent to his anger, which had hitherto been restrained. He now regrets pleading for them before the LORD to try "to turn away [his] wrath from them" (18:20). Now in his anger the prophet does not want the LORD to deal with them mercifully, but rather to punish them in the white heat of his anger (18:23).
Now the LORD gives him another assignment. He tells Jeremiah to "buy a potter's earthenware jug" (19:1). Then taking it to the Potsherd Gate over against the Valley of Hinnon, there pagan sacrifices are often enacted, and there he is told to confront the leaders of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem with this message. Because they have continued to make offerings to other gods, notably to give their children as burnt offerings to Baal, The LORD is determined to "make void the plans of Judah and Jerusalem and . . . make them fall by the sword before their enemies" (19:7). Bodies will be heaped upon bodies until the Valley of Hinnon is called the Valley of Slaughter. They themselves will be sacrificed to their false gods. When the siege comes, the LORD will "make them eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and all shall eat the flesh of their neighbors" (19:9).Now in a sort of visual parable Jeremiah is commanded
break the jug in the sight of all of them and say: "Thus says to LORD of hosts: So will I break this people and this city, as one breaks a potter's vessel, so that so that it can never be mended" (19:10).
But Jeremiah never gets to fully deliver his message from the LORD. He had only begun to speak, when Pashur, the administrative head of the temple organization, in an act of misguided patriotism, first strikes the prophet and then has him put in the stocks. This is a large mistake. You should not trifle with prophets. In the morning when Pashur comes to release him, the prophet is ready. He gives the proud official a new name—"Terror-all-around" (20:3—and then tells him that when the city is taken and looted he and his whole household will go into captivity in Babylon where he will die.
His night in the stocks pushes Jeremiah to an hysterical outburst. His lament is so violent that we might consider him unhinged, if we did not know that he is possessed by the spirit of God. He cannot help himself. He is constrained to cry out—"Violence and destruction" (20:8). The message is "like a fire shut up in [his] bones; [he] is weary with holding it in, and [he] cannot" (20:9). His isolation makes his hypersensitive to hostility and criticism. He hears the whispering of plots against him "all around" (20:10). But in the face of conspiracy and plots against his life he is unmoved; he is assured of the LORD's protecting presence "like a dread warrior" (20:11). His words compose a psalm of help that degenerates into a cry of utter despair—"Cursed be the day on which I was born!" the prophet laments (20:14). He wishes that the messenger who brought his father news of his birth had instead killed him in the womb, "so that
[his] mother would have been [his] grave." (20:17). No right-thinking person can be anything but shocked by such an outburst, but to the prophet's question--"Why did I come forth from the womb to see toil and sorrow, and spend my days in shame" (20:18)—no answer comes--only another message of doom.
Time has passed. Jehoiachin, the last true descendent of the house of David, has been taken to Babylon and his uncle Zedekiah (597-586 B.C.) installed on the throne. Judah is on the razor's edge. Its last king foolishly plots against his overlord in Babylon, then sends a priestly contingent to the prophet with this request: "Please inquire of the LORD on our behalf, for King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon is making war against us; perhaps the LORD will perform some wonderful deed for us, as he has often done, and will make him withdraw from us" (21:2). Jeremiah does not mince words. The LORD intends not to fight for Israel but against it "with an outstretched hand and a mighty arm, in anger, in fury, and in great wrath" (21:5). He gives the king and his people only this advice—"Go out and surrender to the Chaldeans who are besieging you [and] you shall live and shall have your lives as a prize of war" (21:9), otherwise stay in the city and die
"by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence."
Not much of a choice. The House of David, with whom God had made a covenant, will never reign over Judah again. God gives the king one last command to "execute justice." But the command is ignored. The LORD will punish the House of David "according to the fruit of [its] doings" (21:14). The fire is already kindled that will destroy the old order of things and give birth to the new.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Day 223. Jeremiah 15-17
There is deep ambiguity in Jeremiah's attitude toward his calling and the One who has called him to it. From the beginning he had expressed his feeling of insufficiency for the task, and again and again throughout the book that bears his name we sense the tension in him between love for God and revulsion at the message he is called to deliver. By turns he expresses both pride in being a Chosen One, God's friend and confidante and humiliation and pain in being separated from ordinary life. He is a young man, and he resents his unnatural isolation. He is divided by his loyalty to God and his affection for the people of Israel, of which he is part. He engages in an extended, uneven argument with the LORD, in which he gallantly takes the part of Israel against God's anger.
We step into the midst of this argument as we begin today's reading. Jeremiah had sought to mediate between God and his people, and extract a promise of mercy. But now the LORD tells him: "Though Moses and Samuel"—the greatest of the prophets Israel produced—"stood before me, yet my heart would not turn toward the people. Send them out of my sight and let them go!" (15:1). Having seen the northern kingdom of Israel vanish into exile, the LORD is now determined to destroy the southern kingdom as well. He tells the prophet that he has "appointed over them four kinds of destroyers . . . . : the sword to kill, the dogs to drag away, the birds of the air and the wild animals of the earth to devour and destroy" (15:3). And for his immutable fury, he blames what King Manasseh son of Hezekiah did in Jerusalem (15:4).
This seems curious in that King Manasseh had by this time been dead for forty years. But his attempts to establish idolatry in the kingdom of Judah were not forgotten. We remember him from our previous readings as a very wicked king. The writer of 2 Chronicles makes a colorful list of his sins which concludes thus—"Manasseh misled Judah and the inhabitants, so that they did more evil than the nations whom the LORD had destroyed before the people of Israel" (2 Chronicles 33:9). But the Chronicler also tells us that while he was a hostage of the King of Assyria Manasseh prayed for forgiveness and "humbled himself greatly before the God of his ancestors," and as a consequence the LORD restored him to Jerusalem and to his throne, where he did various pious and useful things before he died. Here Manasseh serves as a symbol of apostasy and unfaithfulness. The people have continued to follow his bad example and now no offer of repentance is to be
given to them—the people of Jerusalem and their kings have rejected the LORD, and he is "weary of relenting" (16:6).
Because of his unrelenting message of doom, Jeremiah is greatly hated, and he is fully aware of his own unpopularity—and pained by it. "Woe is me, my mother," he laments, "that you ever bore me, a man of strife and contention to the whole land! I have not lent, nor have I borrowed, yet all of them curse me" (15:10). But the LORD replies: "Surely I have intervened in your life for good. . . ." How is this so? To be noticed by God and called to a special task is its own reward. And Jeremiah admits to the joy his calling has at times given him. "Your words were found, and I ate them, and your words became to be a joy and the delight of my heart; for I am called by your name, O LORD, God of hosts" (15:16).
But his calling as a prophet and truth-sayer has also made him unfit for human companionship. His message has isolated him from his family and his community, and it fills him with indignation against them (15:17). His pain and tension are unceasing (15:18); he both loves and abhors his calling. And what makes the situation even worse—God's voice comes intermittently. He is often left alone and in silence. The LORD is to him "like a deceitful brook, like waters that fail" (15:18).
But without denying the truth of all this, God makes Jeremiah a promise: "It is they"—those ruthless people who persecute him—"who will turn to you, not you who will turn to them" (15:19). You will not be overcome. You will not fail. The LORD promises to give the prophet the strength of will to withstand his enemies—"I will make you to this people a fortified wall of bronze; they will fight against you, but they shall not prevail over you, for I am with you to save you and deliver you, says the LORD" (15:20).
Has the prophet been considering marriage? We don't know--probably. Israelite men—and women too—married at what we would consider a very early age. Not to marry in that society would have been a very strange decision indeed, paramount to renouncing any hope of achieving any meaningful existence after death. Children were immortality in ancient Israel. But the LORD tells Jeremiah to dismiss the thought of having a family. "You shall not take a wife, nor shall you have sons or daughters in this place" (16:2). It is a harsh command, which leaves him quite alone with his terrible job. But by his celibacy Jeremiah's life becomes a parable—a living symbol of the brutal times ahead when not having the encumbrance of wife or children will be regarded as a mercy. So God tells the prophet—"I am going to banish from this place, in your days and before your eyes, the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the
voice of the bride" (16:9).
But life will go on, that is the assurance Jeremiah receives, together with his message of doom. Death will not triumph utterly--God will not allow it. He cannot. He must keep his covenant promise. "The days are surely coming," the prophet is told, when the LORD will gather the people of Israel "out of the land of the north and out of all the lands where he has driven them," and he "will bring them back to their own land that [he] gave to the ancestors" (16:14-15). And in "this time," the LORD promises that he is "going to teach them [his] power and [his] might, and they shall know that [his] name is the LORD" (16:21).
But in the present time "the sin of Judah" is written "on their hearts" and smeared "on the horns of their altar" like the blood of their sacrifices. Only their suffering and their exile "in a land [they] do not know" will make atonement for those sins. This is the punishment the LORD demands as the price of his forgiveness. In the "wisdom psalm" found in 17:5-13 the LORD celebrates his own justice. The wicked who turn away from the LORD wither and die, and their names "shall be recorded in the underworld" (17:13). But "those who trust in the LORD . . . are like a tree planted by water" . . . which "in a year of drought . . . is not anxious, and . . . does not cease to bear fruit (17:8). It is God's nature to be just, punishing the evil and rewarding the good.
But when the prophet, seeking only to be a truth messenger, trusts in the LORD and delivers his message faithfully, he is only rewarded with ridicule. He complains to the Lord and demands justice. He protests his faithfulness—that he "did not run away from being a shepherd in [the] service" of the LORD (17:16). In spite of their taunts, he has not spitefully "desired the fatal day." And at the same time, he begs God not to become "a terror" to him or abandon him, but to be his "refuge in the day of disaster" (17:17).
And the LORD rewards him with another message to deliver. This time Jeremiah preaches to the people, both high and low, at the gates of Jerusalem, denouncing their flagrant misuse of the Sabbath. The restates the commandment of Moses—"Keep the Sabbath day holy and do not work in it" (17:24). If they obey that commandment, their "city shall be inhabited forever" (17:25) and worshippers will flock there to offer sacrifices in the temple. But if they "do not listen" and refuse to keep the Sabbath holy, the LORD "will kindle a fire in its gates . . . [that] shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem and shall not be quenched" (17:27).
We step into the midst of this argument as we begin today's reading. Jeremiah had sought to mediate between God and his people, and extract a promise of mercy. But now the LORD tells him: "Though Moses and Samuel"—the greatest of the prophets Israel produced—"stood before me, yet my heart would not turn toward the people. Send them out of my sight and let them go!" (15:1). Having seen the northern kingdom of Israel vanish into exile, the LORD is now determined to destroy the southern kingdom as well. He tells the prophet that he has "appointed over them four kinds of destroyers . . . . : the sword to kill, the dogs to drag away, the birds of the air and the wild animals of the earth to devour and destroy" (15:3). And for his immutable fury, he blames what King Manasseh son of Hezekiah did in Jerusalem (15:4).
This seems curious in that King Manasseh had by this time been dead for forty years. But his attempts to establish idolatry in the kingdom of Judah were not forgotten. We remember him from our previous readings as a very wicked king. The writer of 2 Chronicles makes a colorful list of his sins which concludes thus—"Manasseh misled Judah and the inhabitants, so that they did more evil than the nations whom the LORD had destroyed before the people of Israel" (2 Chronicles 33:9). But the Chronicler also tells us that while he was a hostage of the King of Assyria Manasseh prayed for forgiveness and "humbled himself greatly before the God of his ancestors," and as a consequence the LORD restored him to Jerusalem and to his throne, where he did various pious and useful things before he died. Here Manasseh serves as a symbol of apostasy and unfaithfulness. The people have continued to follow his bad example and now no offer of repentance is to be
given to them—the people of Jerusalem and their kings have rejected the LORD, and he is "weary of relenting" (16:6).
Because of his unrelenting message of doom, Jeremiah is greatly hated, and he is fully aware of his own unpopularity—and pained by it. "Woe is me, my mother," he laments, "that you ever bore me, a man of strife and contention to the whole land! I have not lent, nor have I borrowed, yet all of them curse me" (15:10). But the LORD replies: "Surely I have intervened in your life for good. . . ." How is this so? To be noticed by God and called to a special task is its own reward. And Jeremiah admits to the joy his calling has at times given him. "Your words were found, and I ate them, and your words became to be a joy and the delight of my heart; for I am called by your name, O LORD, God of hosts" (15:16).
But his calling as a prophet and truth-sayer has also made him unfit for human companionship. His message has isolated him from his family and his community, and it fills him with indignation against them (15:17). His pain and tension are unceasing (15:18); he both loves and abhors his calling. And what makes the situation even worse—God's voice comes intermittently. He is often left alone and in silence. The LORD is to him "like a deceitful brook, like waters that fail" (15:18).
But without denying the truth of all this, God makes Jeremiah a promise: "It is they"—those ruthless people who persecute him—"who will turn to you, not you who will turn to them" (15:19). You will not be overcome. You will not fail. The LORD promises to give the prophet the strength of will to withstand his enemies—"I will make you to this people a fortified wall of bronze; they will fight against you, but they shall not prevail over you, for I am with you to save you and deliver you, says the LORD" (15:20).
Has the prophet been considering marriage? We don't know--probably. Israelite men—and women too—married at what we would consider a very early age. Not to marry in that society would have been a very strange decision indeed, paramount to renouncing any hope of achieving any meaningful existence after death. Children were immortality in ancient Israel. But the LORD tells Jeremiah to dismiss the thought of having a family. "You shall not take a wife, nor shall you have sons or daughters in this place" (16:2). It is a harsh command, which leaves him quite alone with his terrible job. But by his celibacy Jeremiah's life becomes a parable—a living symbol of the brutal times ahead when not having the encumbrance of wife or children will be regarded as a mercy. So God tells the prophet—"I am going to banish from this place, in your days and before your eyes, the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the
voice of the bride" (16:9).
But life will go on, that is the assurance Jeremiah receives, together with his message of doom. Death will not triumph utterly--God will not allow it. He cannot. He must keep his covenant promise. "The days are surely coming," the prophet is told, when the LORD will gather the people of Israel "out of the land of the north and out of all the lands where he has driven them," and he "will bring them back to their own land that [he] gave to the ancestors" (16:14-15). And in "this time," the LORD promises that he is "going to teach them [his] power and [his] might, and they shall know that [his] name is the LORD" (16:21).
But in the present time "the sin of Judah" is written "on their hearts" and smeared "on the horns of their altar" like the blood of their sacrifices. Only their suffering and their exile "in a land [they] do not know" will make atonement for those sins. This is the punishment the LORD demands as the price of his forgiveness. In the "wisdom psalm" found in 17:5-13 the LORD celebrates his own justice. The wicked who turn away from the LORD wither and die, and their names "shall be recorded in the underworld" (17:13). But "those who trust in the LORD . . . are like a tree planted by water" . . . which "in a year of drought . . . is not anxious, and . . . does not cease to bear fruit (17:8). It is God's nature to be just, punishing the evil and rewarding the good.
But when the prophet, seeking only to be a truth messenger, trusts in the LORD and delivers his message faithfully, he is only rewarded with ridicule. He complains to the Lord and demands justice. He protests his faithfulness—that he "did not run away from being a shepherd in [the] service" of the LORD (17:16). In spite of their taunts, he has not spitefully "desired the fatal day." And at the same time, he begs God not to become "a terror" to him or abandon him, but to be his "refuge in the day of disaster" (17:17).
And the LORD rewards him with another message to deliver. This time Jeremiah preaches to the people, both high and low, at the gates of Jerusalem, denouncing their flagrant misuse of the Sabbath. The restates the commandment of Moses—"Keep the Sabbath day holy and do not work in it" (17:24). If they obey that commandment, their "city shall be inhabited forever" (17:25) and worshippers will flock there to offer sacrifices in the temple. But if they "do not listen" and refuse to keep the Sabbath holy, the LORD "will kindle a fire in its gates . . . [that] shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem and shall not be quenched" (17:27).
Friday, January 21, 2011
Day 222. Jeremiah 12-14
As you have probably noticed, The Book of Jeremiah is rather like an overheard conversation in which the prophet and the LORD speak to each other on intimate terms. That dialogue at times spills over into public utterances—something like sermons—in which the prophet addresses the people on behalf of God. At times it is hard to know exactly who is speaking—sometimes it is the prophet—sometimes it is the prophet conveying the word of the LORD. Most of the time it doesn't matter--the prophet is so over-filled with the word of the LORD that the two become a single voice.
At other times the prophet disputes with God—that happens in today's reading where, very much in the spirit of Job, Jeremiah complains of a world in which "the guilty prosper" and "the treacherous thrive" (12:1). Where is the God of justice in such a world? (It is a question you and I have asked at times.) Has the Creator abandoned his creation entirely?
But God replies that it is the world that has abandoned him. And he reminds Jeremiah what treachery and abandonment feel like. The prophet should remember that "even [his own] kinsfolk and [his] own family, even they have dealt treacherously with [him]; they are in full cry after [him like hounds]." And he warns Jeremiah—as one who knows-- not [to] believe them, [even] though they speak friendly words" (12:6). He should know what betrayal is like first-hand, because he is experiencing it from his own family.
Then God concedes that he has indeed abandoned his family, the people of Israel—and with good cause. Now they and their land will be devoured from one end to the other. But there is always hope of the "eternal return." After the LORD has plucked them up and taken them into exile, he "will again have compassion on them. . . . and bring them again to their heritage and to their land, every one of them" (12:15). Even those nations who have devoured and destroyed Israel will be redeemed; if they swear by the LORD's name "they shall be built up in the midst of my people" (12:16). The LORD assures the prophet that he will at last forgive the treachery of Israel—but that forgiveness is in the world of the "not yet.'
Then Jeremiah is given a dramatic parable—a sort of children's sermon for adults. He commands the prophet to take a fresh loincloth—we might for modern listeners substitute a clean pair of underwear—and bury it in a cleft of the rock by the river Euphrates. "After many days" the prophet is told to uncover it. Of course, the loincloth is ruined—"good for nothing" (13:7). The people of Israel—who have refused to hear the words of the LORD and worshipped other gods—have made themselves like the ruined loincloth. They were as close to the LORD as loincloth might be—his underwear. They should have been his people—"a name, a praise, and a glory. But they would not listen" to him. (13:11). They rejected his plea for an intimate friendship of love and faithfulness.
And because they will not listen to him, the LORD says that he is "about to fill all the inhabitants of this land—the kings who sit on David's throne, the priests, the prophets, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem—with drunkenness. There will be utter disorder and drunken chaos in society. The Lord " will dash them one against another, parents and children together," says the LORD. " I will not pity or spare or have compassion when I destroy them" (13:13-14). They will wander befuddled in the growing darkness, seeking guidance; while they "look for light" the LORD will turn "it into gloom" (13:16). Their king—it is Jehoiachin at this time—and the queen mother—King Josiah's wife—will lose their crowns, and "all Judah [will be] taken into exile" (13:19).
And when they ask—Why is this happening to us?—the answer is that "for the greatness of [their] iniquity that [their] skirts are lifted up, and [they] are violated" (13:22). Rape has always been one of the heinous consequences of war, but this time it is not just the soldiers of a foreign army—it is the LORD himself who "will lift up [their] skirts over [their] face[s]" so that "[their] shame will be seen" (13:26). And all these terrible things will happen to Israel because the LORD has seen the shameless "prostitutions"—the orgies that were part of pagan worship—that they performed "on the hills of the countryside" (13:27).
And as the first act of destruction of Judah, a terrible drought comes upon the land; the prophet describes it in vivid detail (14:1-11). All who live in on land—animals and human beings alike—are in agony for lack of water. The earth withers, human beings and animals perish of hunger, and the prophet asks the LORD—"Why should you be like a stranger in the land, like a traveler turning aside for the night" (14:8). Why are you so detached from the suffering my people, the prophet wants to know, seeing that "we are called by your name?" And he begs the "hope of Israel" not to forsake them and send relief (14:9).
In reply the LORD commands the prophet not to pray for his "wandering" people—he is past listening to prayer. He is adamant—utterly determined that "by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence" he will "consume them" (14:11-12). Jeremiah complains that there are other prophets around who are contradicting his message of doom. They are telling the people that all is well, that they will not see the sword or famine, but that instead the LORD "will give you true peace in this place" (14:13). But the LORD denies that he ever spoke to these so-called prophets--they are prophesying lies in his name and palming off their own delusions as the word of God. These false prophets will be consumed by the very sword they said would not come, and together with their families their bodies "shall be thrown out into the streets of Jerusalem," where there will be "no one to bury them" (14:16).
This terrible future is already present. It is as certain as if it had already happened. So the prophet uses the present tense to describe what will be. "If I go into the field, look—those killed by the sword. If I go into the city, look—those sick with famine" (14:18). And the religious authorities go about their trade without any understanding of what is happening—that this is but the beginning of the birth-pangs. Jeremiah cannot help it—ignoring the LORD's command he begs mercy for his starving people. On their behalf, he does what they will not do—he acknowledges their wickedness and the iniquity of their ancestors. And he implores the LORD "not to spurn" them, to instead to "remember and . . . not break [his] covenant" with his people (14:21). He beseeches the LORD to send relief. Idols cannot do this; they cannot bring rain—or withhold it. The people "set their hope on you" [LORD]; gods and men are helpless. "It is
[only] you who do this" (14:22).
At other times the prophet disputes with God—that happens in today's reading where, very much in the spirit of Job, Jeremiah complains of a world in which "the guilty prosper" and "the treacherous thrive" (12:1). Where is the God of justice in such a world? (It is a question you and I have asked at times.) Has the Creator abandoned his creation entirely?
But God replies that it is the world that has abandoned him. And he reminds Jeremiah what treachery and abandonment feel like. The prophet should remember that "even [his own] kinsfolk and [his] own family, even they have dealt treacherously with [him]; they are in full cry after [him like hounds]." And he warns Jeremiah—as one who knows-- not [to] believe them, [even] though they speak friendly words" (12:6). He should know what betrayal is like first-hand, because he is experiencing it from his own family.
Then God concedes that he has indeed abandoned his family, the people of Israel—and with good cause. Now they and their land will be devoured from one end to the other. But there is always hope of the "eternal return." After the LORD has plucked them up and taken them into exile, he "will again have compassion on them. . . . and bring them again to their heritage and to their land, every one of them" (12:15). Even those nations who have devoured and destroyed Israel will be redeemed; if they swear by the LORD's name "they shall be built up in the midst of my people" (12:16). The LORD assures the prophet that he will at last forgive the treachery of Israel—but that forgiveness is in the world of the "not yet.'
Then Jeremiah is given a dramatic parable—a sort of children's sermon for adults. He commands the prophet to take a fresh loincloth—we might for modern listeners substitute a clean pair of underwear—and bury it in a cleft of the rock by the river Euphrates. "After many days" the prophet is told to uncover it. Of course, the loincloth is ruined—"good for nothing" (13:7). The people of Israel—who have refused to hear the words of the LORD and worshipped other gods—have made themselves like the ruined loincloth. They were as close to the LORD as loincloth might be—his underwear. They should have been his people—"a name, a praise, and a glory. But they would not listen" to him. (13:11). They rejected his plea for an intimate friendship of love and faithfulness.
And because they will not listen to him, the LORD says that he is "about to fill all the inhabitants of this land—the kings who sit on David's throne, the priests, the prophets, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem—with drunkenness. There will be utter disorder and drunken chaos in society. The Lord " will dash them one against another, parents and children together," says the LORD. " I will not pity or spare or have compassion when I destroy them" (13:13-14). They will wander befuddled in the growing darkness, seeking guidance; while they "look for light" the LORD will turn "it into gloom" (13:16). Their king—it is Jehoiachin at this time—and the queen mother—King Josiah's wife—will lose their crowns, and "all Judah [will be] taken into exile" (13:19).
And when they ask—Why is this happening to us?—the answer is that "for the greatness of [their] iniquity that [their] skirts are lifted up, and [they] are violated" (13:22). Rape has always been one of the heinous consequences of war, but this time it is not just the soldiers of a foreign army—it is the LORD himself who "will lift up [their] skirts over [their] face[s]" so that "[their] shame will be seen" (13:26). And all these terrible things will happen to Israel because the LORD has seen the shameless "prostitutions"—the orgies that were part of pagan worship—that they performed "on the hills of the countryside" (13:27).
And as the first act of destruction of Judah, a terrible drought comes upon the land; the prophet describes it in vivid detail (14:1-11). All who live in on land—animals and human beings alike—are in agony for lack of water. The earth withers, human beings and animals perish of hunger, and the prophet asks the LORD—"Why should you be like a stranger in the land, like a traveler turning aside for the night" (14:8). Why are you so detached from the suffering my people, the prophet wants to know, seeing that "we are called by your name?" And he begs the "hope of Israel" not to forsake them and send relief (14:9).
In reply the LORD commands the prophet not to pray for his "wandering" people—he is past listening to prayer. He is adamant—utterly determined that "by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence" he will "consume them" (14:11-12). Jeremiah complains that there are other prophets around who are contradicting his message of doom. They are telling the people that all is well, that they will not see the sword or famine, but that instead the LORD "will give you true peace in this place" (14:13). But the LORD denies that he ever spoke to these so-called prophets--they are prophesying lies in his name and palming off their own delusions as the word of God. These false prophets will be consumed by the very sword they said would not come, and together with their families their bodies "shall be thrown out into the streets of Jerusalem," where there will be "no one to bury them" (14:16).
This terrible future is already present. It is as certain as if it had already happened. So the prophet uses the present tense to describe what will be. "If I go into the field, look—those killed by the sword. If I go into the city, look—those sick with famine" (14:18). And the religious authorities go about their trade without any understanding of what is happening—that this is but the beginning of the birth-pangs. Jeremiah cannot help it—ignoring the LORD's command he begs mercy for his starving people. On their behalf, he does what they will not do—he acknowledges their wickedness and the iniquity of their ancestors. And he implores the LORD "not to spurn" them, to instead to "remember and . . . not break [his] covenant" with his people (14:21). He beseeches the LORD to send relief. Idols cannot do this; they cannot bring rain—or withhold it. The people "set their hope on you" [LORD]; gods and men are helpless. "It is
[only] you who do this" (14:22).
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Day 221. Jeremiah 9-11
T. S. Eliot wrote—"Humankind cannot stand very much truth," and the prophet Jeremiah knew the meaning of that. Speaking the truth as well as hearing the truth is a painful experience, and people will do just about anything to avoid that pain, as the prophet Jeremiah discovered.
The book that bears his name is not only a collection of the oracles he spoke in Jerusalem during the last years of the kingdom of Judah, it is a chronicle of his own suffering in seeing his whole world crumble—once in vision and then again in actuality. "O that my head were a spring of water, and my eyes [were] a fountain of tears, so that I might weep day and night for the slain of my poor people," he cries out. And in a natural desire to escape his calling and find the peace of solitude, he continues—"O that I had in the desert a travelers' lodging place, that I might leave my people and go far away from them" (9:1-2). It is passages like this one that justify Jeremiah's epithet—the weeping prophet. But if their judgment moves the prophet to sorrow, their easygoing immorality and dishonesty move the LORD to fury—"They have taught their tongues to speak lies; they commit iniquity and are too weary to repent" (9:5).
The LORD has no choice, he tells the prophet, but to "refine and test them [with fire], for what else can [he] do with my sinful people." But it is not just the human world that will be devastated, the land itself will suffer with them—"Take up wailing for the mountains, and a lamentation for the pastures of the wilderness, because they are laid waste so that no one passes through, and the lowing of cattle is not heard; both the birds of the air and the animals have fled and are gone" (9:10). Why is the land ruined, empty, and silent? Because the people "have stubbornly followed their own hearts and have gone after the Baals," the pagan gods their ancestors learned to worship from the Canaanites they found living in the Land of Promise (9:14). And it is because of the apostasy and disobedience of generations, that the land will be emptied and the people scattered "among nations that neither they nor their ancestors have heard" (9:16).
According to his nature, God has been faithful to the promises —"I act with steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth, for in these things I delight, says the LORD" (9:24). But his people, generation after generation, have proved unfaithful to the covenant—"uncircumcised in heart" (9:26). They follow the "customs of the peoples" and worship idols of their own making—helpless things that "cannot move" (10:4). The LORD ridicules these absurd rivals to his power that human beings set up in his place --"Their idols are like scarecrows in a cucumber field, and they cannot speak; they have to be carried, for they cannot walk. Do not be afraid of them, for they cannot do evil, nor is it in them to do good" (10:5). But the LORD is "the living God and the everlasting King" who made the heaven and the earth (10:10), and his is worth both of fear and trust. He is not like the other gods, those "works of delusion," for
his power is at work in human history, to save and to punish.
And it is in history that the people of Israel must feel the weight of his punishment; his power works through ruthless kings and devouring empires. The prophet hears "a great commotion from the land of the north" (10:22). The enemy—Babylon the Great—is coming. The LORD is about to "sling out the inhabitants of the land" (10:18). The people are told to get ready and "gather up their bundle from the ground" because they are going into exile (10:17). The professional mourners are told to take up a lament—"Death has come up into our windows, it has entered our palaces, to cut off the children from the street, and the young men from the squares" (9:21).
The prophet begs for mercy for his people, seeking to find some mitigating excuse. The LORD himself knows that "the way of human beings is not in their control" (10:23). They cannot help being wayward. On behalf of his people, he begs for a proportionate punishment—"Correct me, O LORD, but in just measure; not in your anger, or you will bring me to nothing" (10:24).
But the LORD brushes aside the prophet's excuses and instead commands him to say to the people—"Cursed be anyone who does not heed the words of this covenant, which I commanded your ancestors when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, [out of] the iron-smelter" (11:3). At Mount Sinai God bound himself to the people of this promise and gave them his Law to guide their lives "yet they did not obey or incline their ear" (11:8). From the beginning they broke the covenant, and went after other gods. Now "assuredly I am going to bring disaster upon them that they cannot escape," says the LORD. "Though they cry out to me, I will not listen" (11:11). And to the prophet Jeremiah, who weeps for his people and seeks to make some allowance for their behavior, the LORD says—"Do not pray for this people, or lift up a cry or prayer on their behalf, for I [am determined]--I will not listen when they cry out to me in their time of trouble"
(11:14). They have provoked "me to anger by making offerings to Baal" (11:17); they are altogether treacherous.
And Jeremiah himself gets taste of their treachery as our reading ends. He has become aware of a scheme among the "people of Anathoth," his own hometown where his father is a priest, to kill him and "destroy the tree with its fruit" (11:19). Apparently they are sick of hearing his somber prophecies. They warn him –"You shall not prophesy in the name of the LORD [any more], or you will die by our hand" (11:21). He cries out to God for help and retribution, and the LORD promises a terrible retribution against those who have tried to silence his messenger. In "the year of their punishment," he announces, the citizens of Anathoth shall be utterly annihilated—"not even a remnant shall be left of them" (11:23).
It is a bad idea to trifle with prophets—history is filled with examples to prove it.
The book that bears his name is not only a collection of the oracles he spoke in Jerusalem during the last years of the kingdom of Judah, it is a chronicle of his own suffering in seeing his whole world crumble—once in vision and then again in actuality. "O that my head were a spring of water, and my eyes [were] a fountain of tears, so that I might weep day and night for the slain of my poor people," he cries out. And in a natural desire to escape his calling and find the peace of solitude, he continues—"O that I had in the desert a travelers' lodging place, that I might leave my people and go far away from them" (9:1-2). It is passages like this one that justify Jeremiah's epithet—the weeping prophet. But if their judgment moves the prophet to sorrow, their easygoing immorality and dishonesty move the LORD to fury—"They have taught their tongues to speak lies; they commit iniquity and are too weary to repent" (9:5).
The LORD has no choice, he tells the prophet, but to "refine and test them [with fire], for what else can [he] do with my sinful people." But it is not just the human world that will be devastated, the land itself will suffer with them—"Take up wailing for the mountains, and a lamentation for the pastures of the wilderness, because they are laid waste so that no one passes through, and the lowing of cattle is not heard; both the birds of the air and the animals have fled and are gone" (9:10). Why is the land ruined, empty, and silent? Because the people "have stubbornly followed their own hearts and have gone after the Baals," the pagan gods their ancestors learned to worship from the Canaanites they found living in the Land of Promise (9:14). And it is because of the apostasy and disobedience of generations, that the land will be emptied and the people scattered "among nations that neither they nor their ancestors have heard" (9:16).
According to his nature, God has been faithful to the promises —"I act with steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth, for in these things I delight, says the LORD" (9:24). But his people, generation after generation, have proved unfaithful to the covenant—"uncircumcised in heart" (9:26). They follow the "customs of the peoples" and worship idols of their own making—helpless things that "cannot move" (10:4). The LORD ridicules these absurd rivals to his power that human beings set up in his place --"Their idols are like scarecrows in a cucumber field, and they cannot speak; they have to be carried, for they cannot walk. Do not be afraid of them, for they cannot do evil, nor is it in them to do good" (10:5). But the LORD is "the living God and the everlasting King" who made the heaven and the earth (10:10), and his is worth both of fear and trust. He is not like the other gods, those "works of delusion," for
his power is at work in human history, to save and to punish.
And it is in history that the people of Israel must feel the weight of his punishment; his power works through ruthless kings and devouring empires. The prophet hears "a great commotion from the land of the north" (10:22). The enemy—Babylon the Great—is coming. The LORD is about to "sling out the inhabitants of the land" (10:18). The people are told to get ready and "gather up their bundle from the ground" because they are going into exile (10:17). The professional mourners are told to take up a lament—"Death has come up into our windows, it has entered our palaces, to cut off the children from the street, and the young men from the squares" (9:21).
The prophet begs for mercy for his people, seeking to find some mitigating excuse. The LORD himself knows that "the way of human beings is not in their control" (10:23). They cannot help being wayward. On behalf of his people, he begs for a proportionate punishment—"Correct me, O LORD, but in just measure; not in your anger, or you will bring me to nothing" (10:24).
But the LORD brushes aside the prophet's excuses and instead commands him to say to the people—"Cursed be anyone who does not heed the words of this covenant, which I commanded your ancestors when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, [out of] the iron-smelter" (11:3). At Mount Sinai God bound himself to the people of this promise and gave them his Law to guide their lives "yet they did not obey or incline their ear" (11:8). From the beginning they broke the covenant, and went after other gods. Now "assuredly I am going to bring disaster upon them that they cannot escape," says the LORD. "Though they cry out to me, I will not listen" (11:11). And to the prophet Jeremiah, who weeps for his people and seeks to make some allowance for their behavior, the LORD says—"Do not pray for this people, or lift up a cry or prayer on their behalf, for I [am determined]--I will not listen when they cry out to me in their time of trouble"
(11:14). They have provoked "me to anger by making offerings to Baal" (11:17); they are altogether treacherous.
And Jeremiah himself gets taste of their treachery as our reading ends. He has become aware of a scheme among the "people of Anathoth," his own hometown where his father is a priest, to kill him and "destroy the tree with its fruit" (11:19). Apparently they are sick of hearing his somber prophecies. They warn him –"You shall not prophesy in the name of the LORD [any more], or you will die by our hand" (11:21). He cries out to God for help and retribution, and the LORD promises a terrible retribution against those who have tried to silence his messenger. In "the year of their punishment," he announces, the citizens of Anathoth shall be utterly annihilated—"not even a remnant shall be left of them" (11:23).
It is a bad idea to trifle with prophets—history is filled with examples to prove it.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Day 220. Jeremiah 6-8
The writings of Jeremiah continually drive home the fact that knowing the future—or at least strongly guessing what it may be—is an agony, not a blessing. Human beings are not constituted to know more than they can see going right now or remember as having happened. It is a curse to see what God sees.
The prophet is forced to behold in his mind's eye the city of Jerusalem under siege. He sees the "great destruction" from the north bearing down on the little kingdom of Judah, a visible darkness like the shadow of a terrible storm being driven on by the fury an angry God. Then the city is surrounded, cut off. "Thus says the LORD of hosts; Cut down her trees; cast up a siege ramp against Jerusalem. This is a city that must be punished; there is nothing but oppression in her" (6:6). Ancient warfare was ecological—the countryside for miles around was skinned of vegetation. Trees were cut down for firewood sapping the walls. Earthen ramps were constructed to breach them. It is God himself who makes war on his city and his land, as he says "my wrath shall be poured out on this place, on human beings and animals, on the trees of the field and fruit of ground; it will burn and not be quenched" (7:20). Jeremiah tells this vision to the people,
but they remain "stubbornly rebellious, going about with slanders; they are bronze and iron, all of them act corruptly" (6:28).
At the time the prophet seems overwhelmed by the force of the message he is given—"I am full of the wrath of the LORD," he says at one point. "I am weary of holding it in" (6:11). He looks around him with eyes sharpened by his vision of impending disaster and sees nothing but thoroughgoing corruption of society. Everyone is false, caring for nothing but money. Yet the prophet's special condemnation is reserved for the blind, lackadaisical religious leaders—"From the least to the greatest of them, everyone is greedy for unjust gain; and from prophet to priest, everyone deals falsely. They have treated the wound of my people carelessly, saying, 'Peace, peace,' when there is no peace" (6:13-14). They comfort the people with a sense of false security, when around them the prophet can see only terror and danger. So he asks the priest and teachers—"How can you say, 'We are wise, and the law of the LORD is with us,' when, in fact,
the false pen of the scribes has made it into a lie?" (8:8)
They go on deluding themselves into believing that nothing is amiss, and yet behind the sounds of everyday life the prophet can hear the thunder of an approaching army—"See, a people is coming from the land of the north, a great nation is stirring from the farthest parts of the earth. They grasp the bow and javelin, they are cruel and have no mercy, their sound is like the roaring sea; they ride on horses, equipped like a warrior for battle, against you, O daughter Zion!" (6:22-23).
The temple of Solomon stands in the midst of the city, a symbol of the presence of God with them. But the LORD, through his prophet, viciously attacks this illusion of security. The people practice abominations and then delude themselves into believing that having the temple will assure them of the LORD's protection in the face of their enemies. But the LORD himself says to them—"I will do to the house that is called by my name, in which you trust, and to the place that I gave to you and to your ancestors, just what I did to Shiloh" (7:14). Shiloh was the old sanctuary in which the LORD had been worshipped in the territory of the northern kingdom of Israel; when that kingdom was destroyed by the Assyrians, the sanctuary there was utterly destroyed. The temple is not a shield to those who honor the LORD and then turn around and make sacrifices to the fertility goddess Astarte, "the queen of heaven," on the side (7:18).
The people make sacrifices in the temple and trust that that will save them, but they do no listen to the words of God's prophets. So the LORD warns Jeremiah that they will not listen to him either (7:27). Instead they practice the most absurdly self-destructive idolatry. They "burn their sons and their daughters in the fire" as sacrifices to the fierce Canaanite God Molech in the valley of Topheth or Hinnon outside the walls of Jerusalem to the south. But the LORD assures Jeremiah that soon that valley will be called the valley of Slaughter, because of the heaps of corpses that will lie there unburied. (By New Testament times the Valley of Hinnon was called "Gehenna"—the garbage dump of Jerusalem, a cursed place of continual burning and a synonym for hell.)
"In that time" that is coming bones of kings of Judah, officials, priests and prophets will be emptied out of their tombs and spread before the astral deities which "they have loved and served" (8:1-2). They themselves will sacrificed to their false gods. When that time comes there will be the end of joy and gladness—"the whole land shall become a waste" (7:34), and the "remnant that remains" shall prefer death for life (8:3).
The people may look hopefully for a break, for a "time of healing, but there is terror instead" says the prophet. He hears the "snorting of [of the invaders'] horses . . . in Dan on the far northern border of Israel, "at the sound of the neighing of their stallions the whole land quakes. They come and devour the land and all that fills it, the city and those who live in it. See, I am letting snakes loose among you, adders that cannot be charmed, and they shall bite you, says the LORD" (8:16-17).
And the prophet, far from feeling any satisfaction in his foreknowledge, is crushed and appalled by his own prophecy—"My joy is gone, grief is upon me, my heart is sick" (8:18), he says. Jeremiah pities the people he is forced to condemn—he suffers with them, but he is constrained to tell them the terrible truth. "Is there no balm in Gilead?" he asks. Is there no comfort? Yes, there is comfort and healing, but not for Judah—not yet. Their sickness is their idolatry and greed. Healing can only come with repentance and justice in society. But those things are manifestly absent in Jerusalem, and "the health of [his] poor people" the prophet laments, has "not been restored" (8:22).
The prophet is forced to behold in his mind's eye the city of Jerusalem under siege. He sees the "great destruction" from the north bearing down on the little kingdom of Judah, a visible darkness like the shadow of a terrible storm being driven on by the fury an angry God. Then the city is surrounded, cut off. "Thus says the LORD of hosts; Cut down her trees; cast up a siege ramp against Jerusalem. This is a city that must be punished; there is nothing but oppression in her" (6:6). Ancient warfare was ecological—the countryside for miles around was skinned of vegetation. Trees were cut down for firewood sapping the walls. Earthen ramps were constructed to breach them. It is God himself who makes war on his city and his land, as he says "my wrath shall be poured out on this place, on human beings and animals, on the trees of the field and fruit of ground; it will burn and not be quenched" (7:20). Jeremiah tells this vision to the people,
but they remain "stubbornly rebellious, going about with slanders; they are bronze and iron, all of them act corruptly" (6:28).
At the time the prophet seems overwhelmed by the force of the message he is given—"I am full of the wrath of the LORD," he says at one point. "I am weary of holding it in" (6:11). He looks around him with eyes sharpened by his vision of impending disaster and sees nothing but thoroughgoing corruption of society. Everyone is false, caring for nothing but money. Yet the prophet's special condemnation is reserved for the blind, lackadaisical religious leaders—"From the least to the greatest of them, everyone is greedy for unjust gain; and from prophet to priest, everyone deals falsely. They have treated the wound of my people carelessly, saying, 'Peace, peace,' when there is no peace" (6:13-14). They comfort the people with a sense of false security, when around them the prophet can see only terror and danger. So he asks the priest and teachers—"How can you say, 'We are wise, and the law of the LORD is with us,' when, in fact,
the false pen of the scribes has made it into a lie?" (8:8)
They go on deluding themselves into believing that nothing is amiss, and yet behind the sounds of everyday life the prophet can hear the thunder of an approaching army—"See, a people is coming from the land of the north, a great nation is stirring from the farthest parts of the earth. They grasp the bow and javelin, they are cruel and have no mercy, their sound is like the roaring sea; they ride on horses, equipped like a warrior for battle, against you, O daughter Zion!" (6:22-23).
The temple of Solomon stands in the midst of the city, a symbol of the presence of God with them. But the LORD, through his prophet, viciously attacks this illusion of security. The people practice abominations and then delude themselves into believing that having the temple will assure them of the LORD's protection in the face of their enemies. But the LORD himself says to them—"I will do to the house that is called by my name, in which you trust, and to the place that I gave to you and to your ancestors, just what I did to Shiloh" (7:14). Shiloh was the old sanctuary in which the LORD had been worshipped in the territory of the northern kingdom of Israel; when that kingdom was destroyed by the Assyrians, the sanctuary there was utterly destroyed. The temple is not a shield to those who honor the LORD and then turn around and make sacrifices to the fertility goddess Astarte, "the queen of heaven," on the side (7:18).
The people make sacrifices in the temple and trust that that will save them, but they do no listen to the words of God's prophets. So the LORD warns Jeremiah that they will not listen to him either (7:27). Instead they practice the most absurdly self-destructive idolatry. They "burn their sons and their daughters in the fire" as sacrifices to the fierce Canaanite God Molech in the valley of Topheth or Hinnon outside the walls of Jerusalem to the south. But the LORD assures Jeremiah that soon that valley will be called the valley of Slaughter, because of the heaps of corpses that will lie there unburied. (By New Testament times the Valley of Hinnon was called "Gehenna"—the garbage dump of Jerusalem, a cursed place of continual burning and a synonym for hell.)
"In that time" that is coming bones of kings of Judah, officials, priests and prophets will be emptied out of their tombs and spread before the astral deities which "they have loved and served" (8:1-2). They themselves will sacrificed to their false gods. When that time comes there will be the end of joy and gladness—"the whole land shall become a waste" (7:34), and the "remnant that remains" shall prefer death for life (8:3).
The people may look hopefully for a break, for a "time of healing, but there is terror instead" says the prophet. He hears the "snorting of [of the invaders'] horses . . . in Dan on the far northern border of Israel, "at the sound of the neighing of their stallions the whole land quakes. They come and devour the land and all that fills it, the city and those who live in it. See, I am letting snakes loose among you, adders that cannot be charmed, and they shall bite you, says the LORD" (8:16-17).
And the prophet, far from feeling any satisfaction in his foreknowledge, is crushed and appalled by his own prophecy—"My joy is gone, grief is upon me, my heart is sick" (8:18), he says. Jeremiah pities the people he is forced to condemn—he suffers with them, but he is constrained to tell them the terrible truth. "Is there no balm in Gilead?" he asks. Is there no comfort? Yes, there is comfort and healing, but not for Judah—not yet. Their sickness is their idolatry and greed. Healing can only come with repentance and justice in society. But those things are manifestly absent in Jerusalem, and "the health of [his] poor people" the prophet laments, has "not been restored" (8:22).
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Day 219. Jeremiah 4-5
Our reading for today begins with a series of "if" clauses, beginning with "if you return, O Israel. . . ." (4:1). Forgiveness is contingent upon repentance and concrete signs of a changed life—"if you remove your abominations from my presence," says the LORD. But the very fact that the dialog is opened at all is an act of unmitigated mercy on God's part—it is he who initiates forgiveness. It is he who offers it. It is not we who seek him, he seeks us out and finds us in whatever desperate circumstances our sin has landed us. Then he calls us to change our bearings and live "in truth, in justice, and in righteousness" (4:2)—but the mercy is found in that he finds us and calls us to repentance. That is the lesson we see acted out again and again in his dealings with the people of Israel.
And the circumstances of the people are indeed desperate. The prophet issues a call for them to "flee for safety," because the LORD is bringing a "great destruction" from the north, "a lion," "a destroyer of nations has set out," and is coming , one who will make their land " a waste" and their cities "ruins without inhabitant" (4:6-7). The responsibility for what is about to happen belongs to the people themselves—"Your ways and your doings have brought this upon you" the LORD tells them through his prophet. "This is your doom; how bitter it is! It has reached your very heart" (4:18).
In chapter 4:19-31 Jeremiah expresses his own deep anguish and distress over the terrible suffering he sees about to happen and cannot stop. He is given a window into a terrible future, and he is forced to watch while the land returns to the waste and formless void that it was before the creation of the world (4:23). The forces of chaos are loosed upon creation--"I looked, and lo, there was no one at all," the prophet laments, "and all the birds of the air had fled. I looked, and lo, the fruitful land was a desert, and all its cities were laid in ruins before the LORD, before his fierce anger" (4:26). In his vision he sees the people flee like frightened animals to hide in holes before the approaching host. He hears the city of Jerusalem cry out like "a woman in labor"; she stretches out her hands in desperate supplication and shrieks, "Woe is me! I am fainting before killers!" (4:31)
Jeremiah harkens back to the story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah to explain what is about to happen. Genesis 18 tells the story of how Abraham seeks to prevent the destruction of those evil cities by bargaining with the LORD. And he secures the promise not to destroy them if ten righteous persons can be found there. But his efforts are in vain—no ten could be found. And now God defies Jeremiah "to find one person who acts justly and seeks truth" in the city of Jerusalem, so that he may have an excuse to spare it (5:1). But a search reveals that not one of them knows the "way of the LORD"—the rich are as ignorant as the poor. The people are all equally utterly corrupted. The rich know no boundaries in deeds of wickedness; they do not judge with justice the cause of the orphan, to make it prosper, and they do not defend the rights of the needy" (5:28). The religious establishment is also crooked root and branch—"An appalling
and horrible thing has happened in the land; the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule as the prophets direct; my people love to have it so" (5:30-31). And as a result of their willful ignorance and voracious greed, because "their transgressions are many" and "their apostasies are great" the LORD has loosed a "wolf of the desert shall destroy them" (4:6). An "ancient nation"—Babylon-- whose language [the people of Judah] do not understand shall devour [their] harvest, [their] children, [their] flocks and herds, [their] fortified cities (5:17).
But an assurance of mercy and survival is hidden in Jeremiah's prophecy of doom. The LORD will not "make a full end" of this people. This promise is repeated three times in our reading (4:27; 5:10; 5:18)—hidden in God's judgment there is always the covenant promise that a remnant will survive. And the LORD is always faithful to the covenant he has made with his chosen people—that is the consistent message of the Old Testament. The people God chose long ago shall not be utterly destroyed, but because they have forsaken the LORD and served foreign gods in their own land, they "shall serve strangers in a land that is not" their own (5:19). They will surely go into exile, but they will not be utterly destroyed—much as they might deserve to be –there will be mercy for a few and the promise of an eternal return.
And the circumstances of the people are indeed desperate. The prophet issues a call for them to "flee for safety," because the LORD is bringing a "great destruction" from the north, "a lion," "a destroyer of nations has set out," and is coming , one who will make their land " a waste" and their cities "ruins without inhabitant" (4:6-7). The responsibility for what is about to happen belongs to the people themselves—"Your ways and your doings have brought this upon you" the LORD tells them through his prophet. "This is your doom; how bitter it is! It has reached your very heart" (4:18).
In chapter 4:19-31 Jeremiah expresses his own deep anguish and distress over the terrible suffering he sees about to happen and cannot stop. He is given a window into a terrible future, and he is forced to watch while the land returns to the waste and formless void that it was before the creation of the world (4:23). The forces of chaos are loosed upon creation--"I looked, and lo, there was no one at all," the prophet laments, "and all the birds of the air had fled. I looked, and lo, the fruitful land was a desert, and all its cities were laid in ruins before the LORD, before his fierce anger" (4:26). In his vision he sees the people flee like frightened animals to hide in holes before the approaching host. He hears the city of Jerusalem cry out like "a woman in labor"; she stretches out her hands in desperate supplication and shrieks, "Woe is me! I am fainting before killers!" (4:31)
Jeremiah harkens back to the story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah to explain what is about to happen. Genesis 18 tells the story of how Abraham seeks to prevent the destruction of those evil cities by bargaining with the LORD. And he secures the promise not to destroy them if ten righteous persons can be found there. But his efforts are in vain—no ten could be found. And now God defies Jeremiah "to find one person who acts justly and seeks truth" in the city of Jerusalem, so that he may have an excuse to spare it (5:1). But a search reveals that not one of them knows the "way of the LORD"—the rich are as ignorant as the poor. The people are all equally utterly corrupted. The rich know no boundaries in deeds of wickedness; they do not judge with justice the cause of the orphan, to make it prosper, and they do not defend the rights of the needy" (5:28). The religious establishment is also crooked root and branch—"An appalling
and horrible thing has happened in the land; the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule as the prophets direct; my people love to have it so" (5:30-31). And as a result of their willful ignorance and voracious greed, because "their transgressions are many" and "their apostasies are great" the LORD has loosed a "wolf of the desert shall destroy them" (4:6). An "ancient nation"—Babylon-- whose language [the people of Judah] do not understand shall devour [their] harvest, [their] children, [their] flocks and herds, [their] fortified cities (5:17).
But an assurance of mercy and survival is hidden in Jeremiah's prophecy of doom. The LORD will not "make a full end" of this people. This promise is repeated three times in our reading (4:27; 5:10; 5:18)—hidden in God's judgment there is always the covenant promise that a remnant will survive. And the LORD is always faithful to the covenant he has made with his chosen people—that is the consistent message of the Old Testament. The people God chose long ago shall not be utterly destroyed, but because they have forsaken the LORD and served foreign gods in their own land, they "shall serve strangers in a land that is not" their own (5:19). They will surely go into exile, but they will not be utterly destroyed—much as they might deserve to be –there will be mercy for a few and the promise of an eternal return.
Monday, January 17, 2011
Day 218. Jeremiah 1-3
Jeremiah has been called "the weeping prophet," and his message is at times a somber one. But the very fact that the LORD continues to speak to his people through prophets is always a hopeful sign. After Jerusalem's destruction—about chapter 30—the weight of Jeremiah's message shifts from the coming destruction to the coming redemption in which the exiles will return and the city will be rebuilt. But these earlier chapters have more tears in them than shouts of joy.
Every prophet is given the task of speaking to a particular situation in the life of the people of God—that is as true of the prophets today as it was in Jeremiah's time. Jeremiah began to deliver his sermons—they have come to be called "jeremiads," sermons whose content is primarily judgment and doom—during the reign of King Josiah of Judah. Josiah had come to throne at the age of eight as a result of a palace coup in which his wicked grandmother Athaliah was deposed. Under the influence of the high priest, he ruled well and sought to reform the religious life of the nation and centralize its worship in Jerusalem.
But his reign ended in tragedy. Josiah was killed in an aborted attempt to delay the Pharaoh Neco, who was hurrying north through Israelite territory to reinforce the armies of waning Assyria and keep them from being overwhelmed by the rising power of Babylon. The Pharaoh was trying to maintain the balance of power in the region. What Josiah was doing, we are not certain, but he was wounded in the battle and carried back to Jerusalem to die. The Pharaoh retaliated by sacking Jerusalem and taking Josiah's older son Jehoahaz, who reigned only three months, away to Egypt as a hostage. He was never heard of again; the pharaoh then placed another son, Jehoiakim, on the throne as a puppet-king. While Jehoiakim was king, Babylon destroyed the combined power of Assyria and Egypt at the Battle of Carchemish in modern Syria (the year was 605 B.C.) Now the little kingdom of Judah (the northern kingdom of Israel had long since vanished) passed from the power of
Egyptians into the hands of the Babylonians—a very dangerous place to be. Everything stood on a razor's edge,
This chaotic period is the background of the call of Jeremiah, who says that "the word of the LORD came" to him to tell him that even before he had been born he had been "consecrated" and "appointed a prophet to the nations" (1:4). The word for "prophet" in Hebrew means "one who has been appointed to a task"—Jeremiah's task was to deliver the uncompromising word of judgment he had been given not just to the people of Judah and Jerusalem, but to the whole world of the time. Like Isaiah, he has an international vision of God's will, a revelation which embraces all of human history, not just the history of the Jews.
But Jeremiah did not take on this enormous task without reservations. He already had an assured place in society. We are told that he came from a relatively high status background—he comes from a priestly family "in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin" (1:1). When the call of the LORD comes to him the prophet protests "Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy" (1:6). It was an excuse, of course. Certainly Jeremiah was young at the time, but hardly a boy, and the plea based upon his youth is not accepted. The LORD replies that he must not say that he is boy, because he is to speak what he is commanded. "Do not be afraid of them," God tells him, "for I am with you to deliver you" (1:8). Then in a gesture that recalls the experience of Isaiah, the LORD touches the prophet's mouth and gives him his commission "to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant" (1:10).
Then he is delivers his first revelation--the LORD shows him a vision of "a boiling pot, tilted away from the north" (1:13). Then he is given its interpretation. The boiling pot is the disaster "out of the north" that is about to boil over upon the inhabitants of Judah. The LORD is stirring up "all the tribes of the kingdoms of the north" (1:14), and they will besiege Jerusalem. God is doing this because the people "have made offerings to other gods, and worshipped the work of their own hands" (1:16). Now the prophet is to set aside his fear and "stand up and tell them everything" that God has commanded them, and he is not to be afraid because the LORD will make him a "fortified city" that can endure a besieging army of kings, princes, priests and the people of the land. "They will fight against you; but they shall not prevail against you, for I am with you, says the LORD, to deliver you" (1:19).
So now we hear the first of Jeremiah's sermons—the first of his "jeremiads"-- proclaimed "in the hearing of Jerusalem" (2:1). Jeremiah himself apparently wrote these early sermons down some twenty years after he spoke them, but they are such lively writing that we can vividly hear in them his voice addressing a crowd of listeners.
The substance of the sermon is this: the LORD first asks the people to recall their sacred history, especially exodus from Egypt and the gift of the Promised Land. But the people repaid the gift with unfaithfulness to the giver. God makes his accusation against the whole of society--"The priests did not say, 'Where is the LORD?' Those who handle the law (the scholars and scribes) did not know [its giver]; the rulers transgressed against [him]; the prophets prophesied by Baal, and went after things that do not profit" (2:8). And because of the failure of their leaders, the people have turned from the LORD to other gods. They have committed two evils, according the LORD--"They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and dug out cisterns for themselves cracked cisterns that can hold no water" (2:13),
They have chosen empty idols over the living God and played the whore with foreign deities and with foreign alliances--with Egypt (2:16) and with Assyria (2:18)--rather than putting their trust in the Lord. They have said—"It is hopeless, for I have loved strangers, and after them I will go" (2:25). The voice of prophet becomes the conduit through which the words of the LORD pour--"You have as many gods as you have towns, O Judah." Now in the coming time of trouble let all those gods save you (2:28). So the people shall be tragically disappointed-- "put to shame by Egypt, as [they] were put to shame by Assyria," because those nations will prove as useless as their idols, and "the LORD has rejected those in whom [they] trust" (2:36-37).
Because of its people's whoring after other gods and nations, the northern kingdom of Israel was destroyed—divorced by God. The unfaithful northerners "went up on every high wall and under every green tree, and played the whore there" (3:6). Her "false sister" Judah saw all this, but has done the same thing. She pretends to repent, but she does not return to Lord "with her whole heart, but only in pretense" (3:10). Judah only pretends remorse, and then shows herself worse than "faithless Israel" (3:11).
But to the "false sister" the prophet offers mercy. If Judah will repent and turnaround the LORD promises to "give [the people] shepherds after [his] own heart, who will feed [them] with knowledge and understanding" (3:15). If they repent he will call all the nations "to the presence of the LORD in Jerusalem" (3:17). They will not need the ark of the covenant of the LORD there any more—they would not even miss it if were gone, because "the throne of the LORD" himself will be with them (3:16).
The constant refrain of Jeremiah's preaching is this—"Return, O faithless children, I will heal your faithlessness" (3:22). The LORD calls upon his willful people to his past faithfulness and come back to him and let him heal their relationship. All they need to do is repent and acknowledge the truth—"We have sinned against the LORD our God, we and our ancestors, from our youth even to this day; and we have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God" (3:25). If they only do that, repent and return, the LORD will heal and restore them. Otherwise "the boiling pot tilted away from the north" will boil over and destroy them.
Every prophet is given the task of speaking to a particular situation in the life of the people of God—that is as true of the prophets today as it was in Jeremiah's time. Jeremiah began to deliver his sermons—they have come to be called "jeremiads," sermons whose content is primarily judgment and doom—during the reign of King Josiah of Judah. Josiah had come to throne at the age of eight as a result of a palace coup in which his wicked grandmother Athaliah was deposed. Under the influence of the high priest, he ruled well and sought to reform the religious life of the nation and centralize its worship in Jerusalem.
But his reign ended in tragedy. Josiah was killed in an aborted attempt to delay the Pharaoh Neco, who was hurrying north through Israelite territory to reinforce the armies of waning Assyria and keep them from being overwhelmed by the rising power of Babylon. The Pharaoh was trying to maintain the balance of power in the region. What Josiah was doing, we are not certain, but he was wounded in the battle and carried back to Jerusalem to die. The Pharaoh retaliated by sacking Jerusalem and taking Josiah's older son Jehoahaz, who reigned only three months, away to Egypt as a hostage. He was never heard of again; the pharaoh then placed another son, Jehoiakim, on the throne as a puppet-king. While Jehoiakim was king, Babylon destroyed the combined power of Assyria and Egypt at the Battle of Carchemish in modern Syria (the year was 605 B.C.) Now the little kingdom of Judah (the northern kingdom of Israel had long since vanished) passed from the power of
Egyptians into the hands of the Babylonians—a very dangerous place to be. Everything stood on a razor's edge,
This chaotic period is the background of the call of Jeremiah, who says that "the word of the LORD came" to him to tell him that even before he had been born he had been "consecrated" and "appointed a prophet to the nations" (1:4). The word for "prophet" in Hebrew means "one who has been appointed to a task"—Jeremiah's task was to deliver the uncompromising word of judgment he had been given not just to the people of Judah and Jerusalem, but to the whole world of the time. Like Isaiah, he has an international vision of God's will, a revelation which embraces all of human history, not just the history of the Jews.
But Jeremiah did not take on this enormous task without reservations. He already had an assured place in society. We are told that he came from a relatively high status background—he comes from a priestly family "in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin" (1:1). When the call of the LORD comes to him the prophet protests "Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy" (1:6). It was an excuse, of course. Certainly Jeremiah was young at the time, but hardly a boy, and the plea based upon his youth is not accepted. The LORD replies that he must not say that he is boy, because he is to speak what he is commanded. "Do not be afraid of them," God tells him, "for I am with you to deliver you" (1:8). Then in a gesture that recalls the experience of Isaiah, the LORD touches the prophet's mouth and gives him his commission "to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant" (1:10).
Then he is delivers his first revelation--the LORD shows him a vision of "a boiling pot, tilted away from the north" (1:13). Then he is given its interpretation. The boiling pot is the disaster "out of the north" that is about to boil over upon the inhabitants of Judah. The LORD is stirring up "all the tribes of the kingdoms of the north" (1:14), and they will besiege Jerusalem. God is doing this because the people "have made offerings to other gods, and worshipped the work of their own hands" (1:16). Now the prophet is to set aside his fear and "stand up and tell them everything" that God has commanded them, and he is not to be afraid because the LORD will make him a "fortified city" that can endure a besieging army of kings, princes, priests and the people of the land. "They will fight against you; but they shall not prevail against you, for I am with you, says the LORD, to deliver you" (1:19).
So now we hear the first of Jeremiah's sermons—the first of his "jeremiads"-- proclaimed "in the hearing of Jerusalem" (2:1). Jeremiah himself apparently wrote these early sermons down some twenty years after he spoke them, but they are such lively writing that we can vividly hear in them his voice addressing a crowd of listeners.
The substance of the sermon is this: the LORD first asks the people to recall their sacred history, especially exodus from Egypt and the gift of the Promised Land. But the people repaid the gift with unfaithfulness to the giver. God makes his accusation against the whole of society--"The priests did not say, 'Where is the LORD?' Those who handle the law (the scholars and scribes) did not know [its giver]; the rulers transgressed against [him]; the prophets prophesied by Baal, and went after things that do not profit" (2:8). And because of the failure of their leaders, the people have turned from the LORD to other gods. They have committed two evils, according the LORD--"They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and dug out cisterns for themselves cracked cisterns that can hold no water" (2:13),
They have chosen empty idols over the living God and played the whore with foreign deities and with foreign alliances--with Egypt (2:16) and with Assyria (2:18)--rather than putting their trust in the Lord. They have said—"It is hopeless, for I have loved strangers, and after them I will go" (2:25). The voice of prophet becomes the conduit through which the words of the LORD pour--"You have as many gods as you have towns, O Judah." Now in the coming time of trouble let all those gods save you (2:28). So the people shall be tragically disappointed-- "put to shame by Egypt, as [they] were put to shame by Assyria," because those nations will prove as useless as their idols, and "the LORD has rejected those in whom [they] trust" (2:36-37).
Because of its people's whoring after other gods and nations, the northern kingdom of Israel was destroyed—divorced by God. The unfaithful northerners "went up on every high wall and under every green tree, and played the whore there" (3:6). Her "false sister" Judah saw all this, but has done the same thing. She pretends to repent, but she does not return to Lord "with her whole heart, but only in pretense" (3:10). Judah only pretends remorse, and then shows herself worse than "faithless Israel" (3:11).
But to the "false sister" the prophet offers mercy. If Judah will repent and turnaround the LORD promises to "give [the people] shepherds after [his] own heart, who will feed [them] with knowledge and understanding" (3:15). If they repent he will call all the nations "to the presence of the LORD in Jerusalem" (3:17). They will not need the ark of the covenant of the LORD there any more—they would not even miss it if were gone, because "the throne of the LORD" himself will be with them (3:16).
The constant refrain of Jeremiah's preaching is this—"Return, O faithless children, I will heal your faithlessness" (3:22). The LORD calls upon his willful people to his past faithfulness and come back to him and let him heal their relationship. All they need to do is repent and acknowledge the truth—"We have sinned against the LORD our God, we and our ancestors, from our youth even to this day; and we have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God" (3:25). If they only do that, repent and return, the LORD will heal and restore them. Otherwise "the boiling pot tilted away from the north" will boil over and destroy them.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Day 217. Isaiah 65-66
Apparently after the exile some of the people provoked God by slipping back into idolatry, practicing witchcraft and sorcery and fortunetelling. Others sought to do his will and were persecuted for it. The LORD swears vengeance upon those who "offer incense on the mountains" to other gods (65:7), but he promises that his "servants shall eat" while the wicked are hungry, his "servants shall drink" while the wicked at thirsty. Those who worship other gods shall perish, and God will leave their "name to my chosen to use as a curse" (65:15). And when they are finally annihilated, then whoever among the remnant who blesses will "bless by the God of faithfulness" and the "the former troubles [will be] forgotten" (65:16).
Then the LORD will "create new heavens and a new earth" (65:17). A new Jerusalem will appear in which "no more shall the sound of weeping be heard"; life will be both rich and long--the "one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth" (65:2) and "like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be" (65:22). Hostile nature shall be reconciled and no longer dangerous—"The wolf and lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox . . . They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the LORD" (65:25).
Now the text turns back to present somber reality. The temple has been rebuilt and sacrifices are being offered there again. But the people are not living sacrificial lives of obedience. The religion is being practiced only as a form. The focus of this last chapter of Isaiah returns to an earlier theme—God cares less for the sacrifices than for "a humble and contrite spirit" (66:2). The people offer sacrifices but they do not listen. They do what is evil in God's sight, and choose what does not please him" (66:4).
Things seem as hopeless as ever, but then something remarkable happens. There is "an uproar from the city" (66:6). A child is delivered without the pains of labor. It is an answer to the question people are asking—"Shall a nation be delivered in one moment?" (66:8) The rebirth of Jerusalem will happen like that—suddenly and totally unexpectedly. And when it does it will reverse the ancient curse that accompanied the fall of mankind in the garden (Genesis 3:16)—there will be no pain in childbirth. God will cause this miraculous birth to happen, and the people will be comforted by a nursing and caring God "as a mother comforts her child" (66:13).
He is the same God who like a warrior will 'pay back his anger in fury" (66:15). But when that tribulation is over, he will "gather all nations and tongues" to Jerusalem, and they shall come bringing back the scattered children of Israel "as an offering to the LORD" (66:20). In that day people will go out to look "at the dead bodies of those who have rebelled against" the LORD, but in a new Jerusalem "from new moon to new moon, and from sabbath to sabbath , all flesh shall come to worship before me, says the Lord"
Then the LORD will "create new heavens and a new earth" (65:17). A new Jerusalem will appear in which "no more shall the sound of weeping be heard"; life will be both rich and long--the "one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth" (65:2) and "like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be" (65:22). Hostile nature shall be reconciled and no longer dangerous—"The wolf and lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox . . . They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the LORD" (65:25).
Now the text turns back to present somber reality. The temple has been rebuilt and sacrifices are being offered there again. But the people are not living sacrificial lives of obedience. The religion is being practiced only as a form. The focus of this last chapter of Isaiah returns to an earlier theme—God cares less for the sacrifices than for "a humble and contrite spirit" (66:2). The people offer sacrifices but they do not listen. They do what is evil in God's sight, and choose what does not please him" (66:4).
Things seem as hopeless as ever, but then something remarkable happens. There is "an uproar from the city" (66:6). A child is delivered without the pains of labor. It is an answer to the question people are asking—"Shall a nation be delivered in one moment?" (66:8) The rebirth of Jerusalem will happen like that—suddenly and totally unexpectedly. And when it does it will reverse the ancient curse that accompanied the fall of mankind in the garden (Genesis 3:16)—there will be no pain in childbirth. God will cause this miraculous birth to happen, and the people will be comforted by a nursing and caring God "as a mother comforts her child" (66:13).
He is the same God who like a warrior will 'pay back his anger in fury" (66:15). But when that tribulation is over, he will "gather all nations and tongues" to Jerusalem, and they shall come bringing back the scattered children of Israel "as an offering to the LORD" (66:20). In that day people will go out to look "at the dead bodies of those who have rebelled against" the LORD, but in a new Jerusalem "from new moon to new moon, and from sabbath to sabbath , all flesh shall come to worship before me, says the Lord"
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