Day 232. Jeremiah 42-45

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.