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.