Jeremiah 30:1-24.  As we read through Jeremiah we need to keep in mind what a Prophet is and what their writings are generally about.  For a more detailed description of this you can read “What Profit” in the “Did You Know” section.  We want to remember though that a prophet of Yahweh (the personal name of the God of Israel, the one true God) was a messenger.  In Israel the priest talked to God for the people and performed symbolic acts that were reminders to the people of their situation; we all have failed to live up to God’s standards and have a broken relationship with him.  We need help in healing this relationship.  Ultimately in the Bible we find out that Jesus is that help.  One important thing in fixing anything is realizing that it is broke.  The actions of the priest in ancient Israel, as they performed sacrifices and rituals about sin (our disobedience and rebellion toward God) the people were constantly reminded that we don’t measure up and that we need to approach God and confess our failure to Him.  But in ancient Israel, because of our offensiveness, only the priests could approach God.  On the other hand the prophet’s job was to speak from God to the people.  They were God’s messengers.  One clear picture we get from this situation is that there was a wall between God and mankind.

Most of the prophet’s messages were directly to the Jewish nation either in whole or in part. Some times to individuals in the nation (like the messages we have just read to the various false prophets).  Some of the messages were to people and nations outside of Israel.  We have seen that to in Jeremiah when he delivered messages to the representatives of foreign kings.  God’s choosing and dealing with the Israelite people was and is a lesson for al mankind; God loves and is concerned that all of us understand our broken relationship with him and how it can be fixed.

The writings in the Bible that we identify with certain prophets (like Jeremiah, Isaiah, or others) contain specific messages to specific people or groups of people given at a specific time.  That is why I try to help you remember what is going on as we read each part.  On the other hand the messages were gathered together to help all of us see and understand more about God and his plan to “fix” us.  Sometimes the writings were collected together by the prophet and sometimes (like on what we are reading now) by someone else, or a mixture of the two.  The writings were not usually collected in order of when they were written but they weren’t just thrown in a book either.  The writings are usually put into some sort of order; grouped together for some purpose.  Bible experts don’t always agree on that purpose or order and work hard at understanding it.  Even if we don’t understand the overall reason or order of a book, we can often see reasons for smaller sections and certainly should be able to understand the reason for individual messages (see 2 Timothy 3:16).  We just finished reading a section in Jeremiah in which he dealt with false prophets who were opposing him (chapters 26-29).  Chapter 26 also began a larger section of Jeremiah that was “written” by one or more other people.  Baruch, Jeremiah’s scribe or secretary was at least one of these.  In chapters 1-25 the story is in the first person, written by Jeremiah about himself.  In chapters 26-45 most of the writing that holds the story together is in the third person; someone else describing the events.  The information is still about Jeremiah and contains his messages from God to various people and groups but is was put together by Baruch and possible others.  But remember God was still in control of this whole process, he wants us to know and understand.

So far a lot of Jeremiah has been about trouble; the brokenness of the peoples relationship with God, their unfaithfulness, and the trouble that was coming as a result.  Clearly the priests had failed in Israel and the people were not realizing how broken their relationship with God was.  Jeremiah informed them that God was going to get their attention and in fact we have already seen a lot of that with the exile of many to Babylon and the death of several false prophets.  Jeremiah has predicted more destruction and trials.  His book has been quite very depressing, especially for the Jewish people who were living through it.  Last night I was watching a police show and a couple of the detectives were discussing the death penalty (a cop had just been killed in the story).  One of the men was all gung ho for the death penalty while the other was not.  The one who was not told a story of trying to arrest a man who had committed a murder.   The bad guy got the drop on him and the officer had a pistol up his nose.  He told his partner that if that criminal knew he was going to be executed for the murder he had already committed he might have pulled the trigger on this officer too.  His point was that if the guy didn’t have any hope he might kill more; figuring he didn’t have anything to lose.  Now I don’t necessarily agree with all of the idea that that character presented (in the Bible we find the death penalty prescribed and are also told that for a society to work that people need to see consequences for their actions fairly quickly (Ecclesiastes 8:11)) but I do think it is important to give people hope where it is available.  So far there have been little glimpses of hope in Jeremiah.  Today we start a section (Chapters 30-33) that is mostly about hope.

In verse 1 we see that this is about Jeremiah not by Jeremiah.  But we also see that Jeremiah is getting a message from the LORD, Yahweh.  And remember that Yahweh is the creator of the universe, that certainly makes him big enough to make sure his message is protected and delivered.  In fact that was a big part of the last section, false prophets being dealt with, 4 of them dead.

In verse 3 we see that God is going to “restore the fortunes” of the Israelites.  It is interesting that he says Israel and Judah.  Israel is the name of the ancestor that all of the Israelites descended from (also known as Judah, see “What’s in a Name”).  There were twelve brothers, sons of Israel, whose descendants were together called Israel.  The nation that they formed was called Israel.  Israel was united under three kings and then divided into two kingdoms.  The Northern Kingdom was composed of ten of the tribes and the Southern Kingdom had two tribes.  Each tribe had been given certain land when they took over the entire territory.  Jerusalem was in the territory of Judah (one of the 12 brothers) and was also the capital of the nation.  When the ten tribes broke away they set up a new capital in Samaria and also an alternate place to worship God.  That didn’t work out very well for them and they quickly defected from honoring God.  Their downward spiritual spiral let to their eventual conquest by the Assyrians in 722 BC.  The Assyrian policy was to “mix up” the people they conquered by scattering them through out the empire and getting them to marry outside of their group.  The Northern Kingdom is usually called Israel in the Bible.  The Southern Kingdom, as we are seeing here in Jeremiah, also defected from God.  It took a little longer and the outcome is a little different.  Nebuchadnezzar’s policy was to relocate people he conquered as a group and allow them to maintain their distinct tribal identities.  The Southern Kingdom is usually called Judah after the larger tribe in it.  The people came to be called Jews.  Some of the people of the Northern Kingdom were left behind when the Assyrians conquered them by others were brought in to intermarry with them.  Their descendants are called Samaritan in the Bible.  The Jews saw them as “half-breeds” and religious defectors and hated them.  It is interesting that in the restoration in this verse that God is going to restore all of the tribes of the original nation of Israel, both Israel (the smaller kingdom) and Judah will have a part.  This is because God made a promise to their ancestors and intended on keeping his word.

In verses 4-11 we see the people of Israel (all of the tribes) are very upset.  In verse 7 we see that they are in the middle of a time of great trouble.  Remember that Jacob is another name for Israel (all twelve tribes).  Jacob is in great distress in “that day”.  The word translated “day” in Hebrew (the language that most of the Old Testament is written in) is “Yom”.  The word can mean a 24 hour day and can sometimes mean a longer time period.  Here in verse 7 it is talking about a longer time period called “the Day of Jacob’s Trouble”.  WE learn at the end of verse 7 that Jacob (the twelve tribes) will survive this time of trouble.  Remember that often prophets would talk give a prediction that would be fulfilled more than once.  This time of Jacob’s Trouble is probably referring to the Babylonian Captivity in the short run but in the bigger picture Jeremiah was also seeing and predicting events that we sometimes call “The Great Tribulation” (most of “Revelation” is about this time period, see also Daniel 9:24-27.  “Week” is a generic term like “dozen” and in the context it is talking about “weeks” of years.  The last week in the prediction is the “great tribulation”).  We know that this prediction cannot be completely fulfilled  by the return from the Babylonian Captivity because of things like “nations” (plural) and “scattered” in verse 11.  Also only Judah was involved in that captivity.

At the end of verse 11 we see that the time of trouble is being used as punishment by God.  The other word used to describe what God is doing is “chasten” (at least in my translation).  That word means “to instruct” or ‘discipline”.  We see here that God wants them to learn and change.  Verse 12-15 do not give much hope though, their “wound is incurable” and it is because of their disobedience and rebellion toward God (sin, iniquity).

In verse 16 a little light comes back into this dark picture.   The people that have been oppressing the Israelites will now be the ones who are devoured and go into captivity.  And in verse 17 we see that God will do what they could not do for themselves, he will heal and restore them.  They can be sure because the LORD (Yahweh, you know the guy who created everything) has said so.  We also see part of God’s reason at the end of verse 17; the people around them are mocking the Jewish people, it’s like those people were saying that the Jewish God had no power, they would see though.

In verse 18-22 God returns to a description of what he is going to do for the descendants of “Jacob”; cities and the city (Jerusalem) will be rebuilt, the tents will be filled, there will be a palace again, the people will give thanks to God and will celebrate, and probably most important of all, the group (congregation) will be “established before Me (Yahweh)”.  We also learn that God will punish the people who had oppressed them and that the Israelites will have a new king who will be “one of them”.  That second part probably would make them think of the promised “messiah” or chosen one who was to be a king forever from the descendants of David (see Jeremiah 30:9; 2 Samuel 7).  Also the phrase” from among you” or “from their midst” many experts think may mean that the “messiah” would be a common person, not seen as royalty (though he would be a descendant of David).  Jesus fits this description (Matthew 8:20, 13:55, Luke 2:7).  Verse 22 ends on a very bright note with God assuring that they would be his people and he would be their God; the relationship would be restored.

Verses 23-24 give us the full picture of God’s actions though.  While he would restore Israel to himself he is not a push over.  God is holy (pure) and just or fair or right.  He will strongly punish wickedness (a word that can mean guilty or ungodly).  God is passionate about us and will not stop until he has accomplished what is in his heart.  The last statement, “in the latter days you will understand this” seems cryptic to many.  I think it is just a reference to that multiple fulfillment part of a some prophecies.  Sure the exiles in Babylon would see a partial fulfillment but the whole story will not play out until the “latter days”; the days in Revelation, the seventieth week of Daniel 9.

I like God’s passion.  I like God’s faithfulness.  God’s holiness is scary; he will not ignore sin.  But he does have a solution and he will apply it to us; Jesus is that solution, available to all who will accept him (John 1:12).  It is good to know God is doing all the “heavy lifting”.  He will break the yoke off or our necks.  Jesus did that at the cross.  That is so cool.  And in the end we get to be restored forever back to life (1 Corinthians 15) to have a place in God’s forever kingdom.  Way cool.

Thank you God for your faithfulness, love, mercy.  Help me honor your love for me with my actions each day.  Let me prepare now for that wonderful eternity.  Help me help others see you so they can avoid that wrath.  Taking our own punishment for sin would be awful.  Thank you for applying your power to my problem.  Thank you for loving me. 

Jeremiah 29:15-32.  In today’s reading we start off with the rest the letter that Jeremiah sent to the exiles in Babylon.  We started reading what God had to say to them yesterday.  If you haven’t read that post you should go back and read it first.  Yesterday’s reading ended with God telling the exiles that, if they really truly wanted him back in their lives that he would be there for them.  We already have seen that their exile was part of his plan.  God is always active in our world and affecting the lives we live, but if we want to have a serious personal relationship with him we need to be “all in” with him.  God also confirmed that he had not forgotten all of his promises to the Jewish people about their future and their land.  But for a while the people in exile needed to accept it as part of God’s plan and settle down where they were.  The needed to be close to him not necessarily close to Jerusalem.

In verse 15 God moves to the issue of the “prophets” that were with the exiles.  Remember the false prophets back in Jerusalem were challenging Jeremiah’s messages.  They were so wrapped up in the “where”, Jerusalem and the Temple”, that they couldn’t even hear God and were confusing their own word, idea, and dreams with words from God.  The “prophets” in Babylon were in the same boat; it was all about getting back to Jerusalem and the Temple (Jeremiah 29:8-10).  In verse 16 God brings up the people back home; the “lucky” ones, and says, “Let me tell you about these guys…”.  In verses 17-19 we find out that the people back in Jerusalem were going to suffer further invasions.  Along with the invasions would come famine, death, and disease.  Eventually the people back in Jerusalem would leave Judah and wind up elsewhere.  We know from later in the book of Jeremiah (and from history) that a lot of them ran away to Egypt.

It is interesting that God uses the plural for where they are scattered (“nations”), from what we know the people in Judah basically all went to Egypt, one nation.  It is of course possible that a few went elsewhere and that is why it says “nations” in verse 18, but this could also be a case where Jeremiah is talking about his day but the prediction also applies to the future.  Back in verse 14 when God is telling the exiles that he will one day take them back to Jerusalem he also says “nations” even though they were all together in Babylon (and basically stayed that way for the whole 70 years).   At the end of the 70 years a new king conquered the Babylonian Empire and allowed the Jewish people to return to Jerusalem and Judea.  So God’s promise was fulfilled to the people of Jeremiah’s day.  We know from history, though, that that didn’t last forever.  Judah was ruled by three more nations between then and the time of Jesus.  In 70 AD Jerusalem and the new Temple (we’ll get to that) were destroyed by the Roman army.  At that time the Jewish people were scattered and wound up all over the world.   In the last 100 or so years they have been returning to the land.  Many believe that this return is setting the stage for the final and ultimate fulfillment of the promise of a forever kingdom with a descendant of David on the throne.  God may have been hinting at this by using plural nouns in this passage.

In verses 15-16 we learned that what was going to happen in Jerusalem was supposed to be a lesson to the exiles.  We also see that idea in verse 17 when Jeremiah brings up the rotten fig idea again.  Remember in Jeremiah 24 the two baskets of figs.  The exiles were the good figs and the people left home the bad figs.  The idea was that the exiles were the ones where God wanted them and the people left behind were the ones who were not really where God wanted them.   In verse 18 we learn that the whole world was also going to learn from the people in Judah.  The people left behind would become a sort of warning about the power and purity or jealousness of Yahweh.  In verse 19 we see that what happened to the people left behind was directly related to their disobedience to God.

The end of verse 19 and verse 20 have two interesting facts in them.  First we are reminded that the people had been warned over and over again.  God works hard to keep us out of trouble but we always seem to find it when we are controlling our own lives.  The second thing we don’t want to miss is the very last part of verse 19, “but you did not listen”.  God brings the message full circle to the exile who are reading this letter.  Remember, back in verse 15, when God brought up the people left behind that he was doing it because the people in exile were sort of envious and wanting to return right away, even though God decided they needed to be in Babylon for 70 years.  Here in vv. 19-20 he reminds them that the people left behind are not where he wants them and they will suffer for that, so the exiles better listen and learn.

Back in Jerusalem, Jeremiah was being challenged by false prophets, in chapter 28 we saw what happened to one of them in particular, Hananiah.  He made some very specific predictions that contradicted what God had told Jeremiah.  God made an example out of him by predicting his death within a year and them following through 2 months later.  In verse 21-23 we have a similar story about two false prophets in Babylon.  Not only were they saying that the captivity would end quickly they were disobedient in other ways as well.  God chose to use them as an example and predicted that Nebuchadnezzar would execute them.  We don’t have any confirmation that they were, but the track record of Jeremiah and the other true prophets in the Old Testament makes me certain that they were.  I like the end of verse 23 when Yahweh says, “I am the one who sees and knows, I am the witness.”

Verse 24 shifts to another letter Jeremiah is to send, this one to another false prophet in Babylon, Shemaiah.  In verse 25 God starts the letter by identifying himself as Yahweh (LORD, the one true God).  Through Jeremiah, God is responding to a letter that Shemaiah had sent to one of the leading priests back in Jerusalem; a letter he was to share with the other priests and the people back home.  We also learn from verse 25 that the letter contained Shemaiah’s own personal words.  That is a contrast to the fact that the “word of Yahweh came to Jeremiah”.

In verse 26-28 we learn what the letter from Shemaiah said.   In the letter he tells Zephaniah (not the Zephaniah who is one of the minor prophets) the leading priest that Yahweh has put him in charge there in Jerusalem and that part of his job is to chain up any wild and crazy prophets that are there.  In verse 27 Shemaiah wants to know why Zephaniah hasn’t locked up Jeremiah.  In verse 28 he lists his complaint against Jeremiah.  He didn’t like it that Jeremiah had sent a letter to the exiles telling them to settle down and that Yahweh was going to keep them in Babylon a long time.  In verse 29 we see that Zephaniah showed the letter to Jeremiah.  Zephaniah was probably a faithful priest because he didn’t lock Jeremiah up like the letter asked.

In verses 30-32 we see Jeremiah’s response to the letter from Shemaiah.  Actually it’s God’s response since we are told “the word of Yahweh came to Jeremiah”, again the contrast with the source of Shemaiah’s message.  You want to notice that Jeremiah (or really God) didn’t answer Shemaiah he sent a letter back to the people in exile.  In that letter God makes it very clear that Shemaiah wasn’t speaking for him and also that Shemaiah’s message was a lie.  Yomight want to notice that the people were believing Shemaiah’s lies, too.  In verse 32 God informs the people that Shemaiah will die because of misleading the people and even worse his family line will end with him.  God also makes it clear that contradicting what he has said is considered rebellion.  One bright point in the whole response to the exiles is that God is planning to do some good for the Jewish people.  This promise, at least in the near future, would be for the exiles in Babylon.  Remember from yesterday that the Jewish people who had remained in Jerusalem would eventually be scattered among “nations”.   We see that it will be soon since God says he is about to do this good thing and that it would be something that Shemaiah would miss out on.  When the Jewish people returned at the end of the 70 years of captivity there were some alive who had lived in Jerusalem before the captivity and remembered the old Temple.

I think it is important to notice that false prophets, wherever they are, are subject to God’s discipline.  Hananiah in Jerusalem and Ahab, Zedekiah, and Shemaiah in Babylon all suffered death because contradicted God and were misleading the people.  God loves people and he wants our relationship with him fixed, he has been working out the details of that for thousands of years now.  But people will perish for eternity, because they reject Jesus, God’s “fix”.  In this story we see that God is very serious about his message getting to the people.  It is also important to note that the first three guys all died because they were saying that God told them something that he didn’t, but the last guy died for using his own ideas to contradict God.  We need to be careful about contradicting God , ever.

God help my words be true to you and your plan.  Help them be words that bring spiritual renewal; eternal life; a forever relationship with you into peoples lives.  Let me be a true and faithful spokesperson for you. Thank you for a hope and a future.  Let me help other have the same.