Jeremiah 25 - The year is about 605 BC, the year of Nebuchadnezzar’s victory over Egypt at Carchemish.  Babylon became the dominant power in the region, and Jeremiah saw them as the “enemy to come out of the North” that his prophecies had foretold.  It is 23 years since Jeremiah was called to preach his message. Jeremiah’s message has been, “Turn back. . .from your evil behavior and your evil actions and you will stay on the soil Yahweh long ago gave to you. . .” (JB 25:5-6), but you…

Jeremiah 23 - Jeremiah’s harangue against the people’s shepherds very similar to the words of Ezekiel. “Woe to the shepherds who mislead and scatter the flock of my pasture, says the Lord” (23:1).

Early Friends took passages such as these for prophesies that God would never trust his people to human shepherds under the new covenant, but that Christ Himself would be their shepherd.  “I myself will gather the remnant of my flock from all the lands to which I have…

Jeremiah 22 - In 588 BC, Jeremiah goes to the King of Judah and says, “Practice honesty and integrity – rescue the man who’s been wronged from oppressor.”  If you do, the monarchy will prosper; but if not, the palace shall become a ruin. Again, as in Jeremiah 7, God’s promise is seen as conditional. Nothing God establishes can continue in power unless the inward spirit continues.  There are no eternally sacred outward things (!!!)  “You were like a Gilead to me, like a peak…

Introduction and Context: The next chapters of Jeremiah can be confusing because they make continual references to historical events and people that the earlier chapters seem to ignore. I may have already said something about the historical context, but here it is again:

Josiah, the reformer-king, died on the battlefield of Megiddo in 609, trying to stop the northward march of Pharaoh Neco, who was at that time allied with the Assyrians.  After Josiah’s death, his son…

Jeremiah 20 – Jeremiah enters the court of the Temple to prophesy his message of disaster, and he is taken into custody, scourged and chained near the northernmost gate, the Benjamin Gate.  On his release the next morning, he prophesies against the chief officer responsible for his sufferings. Jeremiah is anxious about the hate closing in on him—as perhaps Jesus was too. “Whenever I speak, I have to cry out and shout, ‘Violence! Destruction!’ Lord, I am ridicules and scorned all…

Jeremiah 15 – The Lord tells Jeremiah that things have gotten so bad, even Moses and Samuel would not be able to convince Him to take these people back.  “I will make them an object of horror to all the kingdoms of the earth because of what Manasseh, son of Hezekiah, king of Judah, did in Jerusalem” (15:4).

In 2 Kings 21, Manasseh was 12 when he become king and reigned 55 years.  He rebuilt the high places his father had destroyed; he erected altars to Baal and…

Jeremiah 14 – Judah suffers a terrible drought: “The wild asses stand on the bare heights, gasping for breath like jackals; Their eyes grow dim, because there is no vegetation to be seen” (14:6).  Jeremiah tries the same kind of intercession Moses successfully used with the Lord, trying to get His help by pointing out that Judah’s difficulties involve YHWH’s honor and reputation in some way. 

There is a poignant sense here of God’s very real…

Jeremiah 13 - The Lord compares the linen loincloth, which he instructs Jeremiah to get, with his people. He is to get it, then hide and neglect it, then fetch it again—it is close to him, then distant, then spoiled and useless to him. This is definitely a very curious image—sexual to a degree, like the spouse-image in some ways, very personal.  A last warning is given.  It is hard to tell if the words are meant to be Jeremiah’s or the Lord’s: “Give glory to the Lord,…

Jeremiah 12 - Jeremiah puts on the hat of an attorney here and argues his case at the dock, even knowing that he cannot win: “Yet I must question you about matters of justice. Why are the wicked so prosperous? Why do dishonest people succeed? You plant them, and they take root; they grow and bear fruit. They always speak well of you, yet they do not really care about you. But, Lord, you know me; you see what I do and how I love you” (12:1-3). Jeremiah doesn’t berate God…

Jeremiah 11 – A curse lies over the heads of those who do not observe the terms of God’s covenant, the Lord says to Jeremiah.  “Urgently and constantly I warned your fathers to obey my voice, from the day I brought them up out of the land of Egypt even to this day” (11: 7). He tells Jeremiah not to try to intercede for them.  It is too late.  Outward observance alone is not enough: “Can vows and sacred meat turn away your misfortune from you?” (11:15). Jeremiah then learns that…

Jeremiah 10 - People’s idols are not worth worshipping. The natural phenomena they are fascinated with, “unusual sights in the sky” and such-like things, these are not things they should fear or worship. The idols they craft are “like scarecrows.”  They cannot speak; they must be carried about. They “can do no harm, neither is it in their power to do good” (10:5).  “The Lord is true God, he is the living God, the eternal King. . .He who made the earth by his power,…

Jeremiah 7:21-34 - Jeremiah tells them that God’s message to him is that when He brought them out of Egypt, He did not give them any commands concerning “holocausts or sacrifices” (7:22). But what about Leviticus? There were incredibly detailed rules there for the various offerings and sacrifices they were instructed to make. I think what Jeremiah is trying to convey is that at the HEART of all God laid out for them was the command to…

Jeremiah 7:1-20 - Jeremiah goes to the Temple to urge the people entering to truly reform and not to put their trust in ancient mantras of God’s favor: “Stop believing those deceitful words, ‘We are safe! This is the Lord’s Temple, this is the Lord’s Temple, this is the Lord’s Temple’” (7:4) The promises of the Lord are not meant to make the people feel that their behavior doesn’t matter, that they can always be sure of the Lord’s favor no matter what they do. The…

Jeremiah 6 - Destruction threatens immediately from the North, and the Lord encourages it; for Jerusalem has become full of violence and oppression.  There is no one in her to whom the Lord can appeal.  “[T]heir ears are uncircumcised, they cannot give heed; See, the word of the Lord has become for them an object of scorn, which they will not have. Therefore my wrath brims up within me, I am weary of holding it in” (6:10-11). It will be poured out on…

Jeremiah 5 - We are dealing here with what the writer insists is universal corruption. God just looks for one righteous man.  It isn’t a matter of not “knowing” what they are supposed to do—God could forgive not knowing.  But even those you expect to know, “the great ones”—they too have “[broken] the yoke, torn off the harness” (5:5) Their faithlessness leaves them prey to the wolf, the lion and the leopard (5:6--images Dante uses in the Divine Comedy).…

Jeremiah 4 – If Israel wants to return to the Lord, she has but to do it.  But they must “remove the foreskins of [their] hearts [take the tough cover off their hearts” (4:4). Today’s English Version, which I like for the simplicity of its language, has nothing like this in its translation – I don’t understand why. It says, “Keep your covenant with my, your Lord, and dedicate yourselves to me, you people of Judah and Jerusalem.”

The Lord is going to bring…

Jeremiah 3 - The terrible unfaithfulness of Israel (the northern part of the ancient Davidic kingdom) is recounted as if the relationship between God and the two sister kingdoms of Israel and Judah were akin to marriages. If a wife is unfaithful and the husband divorced her; and if the divorced wife ten married another (or others – other gods), then no reconciliation was possible under Jewish law (see Deut 24:1). And, not learning from the “divorce” the Lord dealt out to Israel, Judah…

Historical Information: To review very briefly the history of the people Moses and Josiah established in the “Promised Land” – we have, after all, just flipped from the end of Deuteronomy where Moses had brought the people of the Exodus to the borders of that promised land – to the very end of the monarchical period, some 600+ years later - VERY BRIEF:

Joshua, who received his appointment as leader from Moses, led the people into the land Moses had led them to. Under his…

Deuteronomy 33 – Moses addresses all the tribes and grants them each a special thought or blessing along with a portion of the land into which they will be going.  For some reason Simeon is not mentioned and the sons (tribes) of Joseph are given shares.  The Levites, the ones who helped execute the Lord’s vengeance over the golden calf incident, receive praise for putting God ahead of family (33: 9). The Schocken version points out that this blessing differs somewhat from what is…

Deuteronomy 32 – The Song of Moses [the number of verses equals the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet – 23 - times 3. It concludes the teaching books of the Old Testament: “my teaching will fall like drops of rain and form on the earth like dew. My words will fall like showers on young plants, like gentle rain on tender grass” (32:2). From the beginning, the Judeo-Christian vision has been that we humans are here on earth as creations of a “mighty,” “just” and “perfect”…