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.