Jeremiah 3:11-25.  Today’s reading starts out by telling us that Israel (the Northern Kingdom which was scattered in 722 BC) was better than Judah (the Southern Kingdom that Jeremiah was prophesying to, and remember that they were in Josiah’s reign when he made the people stop honoring false gods).  So you might wonder how Judah was worse than Israel.  The problem is that the people of Judah were only doing what the king was forcing them to do but in their hearts they still loved their false gods.  Both Israel and Judah were guilty of the same thing.  The difference is that Israel didn’t have the same example that Judah did.  Both kingdoms had evil kings at the time that Israel was scattered by the Assyrians.  But now 80-90 years later Judah has the opportunity to look back and see what happens when Gods people cheat on him.

The next part of this prophecy is awesome.  The Assyrians had a policy of transplanting the people that they conquered, not all of them just some of them; they would scatter them throughout their empire.  They would also bring others into a land that they had conquered and have them intermarry with the people that they left there.  It idea was to get the people to forget their old lives, culture, and loyalties.  The hope was that the next generation would be loyal to Assyria and not to some old tribe. So the people of the Northern Kingdom, Israel, were scattered and intermarried.  The ones who remained in the land also intermarried with “foreigners”.   The children of those left in the north came to be known as Samaritans, and the people of the Southern Kingdom came to hate them.  But God did not hate them and he didn’t care that they were “intermarried”.  In verses 12-15 we see God promising to bring them back, but not all of them.  Allowing them to return was not something God was obligated to do it was a gift or act of kindness on his part and it was based on their response to him; they needed to confess that they had been faithless cheaters, and they also needed to respond to his offer of forgiveness.  Finally they needed to let him be their master .  The word “master” is “baal” in the Hebrew language (the language that the Old Testament was mostly written in).  You might think, “Wait a minute, isn’t that the name of the Canaanite god that they were not supposed to worship?”  The answer is yes, Baal is the name of the false god that they all were not to honor, but the word also means master.  God is making a play on words here; he wants to be their true master.

Also notice where he is going to bring the people from the Northern Kingdom back to.  Their place of worship was in Shechem but he is bringing them back to Zion.  Zion is another name for the hill that Jerusalem and the true Temple sat on.  Verse 17 make it clear that Jerusalem was, is, and always will be the capital of God’s kingdom on earth.  The end of verse 16 though make it clear that honoring God in that forever kingdom wont be based on the old way of doing things; all the ruled of Moses.  The Ark of the Covenant represented the Law of Moses (the rules God gave to Moses for the Israelites) to the people.  But now with God on their throne people will have a different kind of relationship with God.  According to verse 15 it will be one based on knowledge and understanding.

Verse 15 reminds me of the time Jesus was passing through Samaria (the name Jewish people of his day gave to the area around the capital of the old Northern Kingdom).  He stopped and talked to a Samaritan woman at a well.  He ultimately led her to faith in him as the promised coming king of all Israel.  In that conversation the question of the proper place to honor God came up.  Jesus told her that it wasn’t there on the hill in Samaria and it wasn’t in Jerusalem but that the proper place to honor god was in our personal lives based on the truth about him and God.  Clearly Jesus was the first of these “shepherds after my own heart”; the first “good shepherd”.  And his message to that Samaritan woman was very similar as he fed her on “knowledge and understanding” (John 4:4-26).

But it is still clear from verse 17 that Jerusalem will be the capital of the kingdom.  But it is also clear that those who live in that new and forever kingdom will be those who have given their hearts and lives to God.  And it will be people from Israel, Judah, and all the nations.  Verse 18 makes it clear that the nation will be reunited and it also hints at the fact that this is based on the promises God had made to the children of Israel.

Verses 19-21 seem to be referring to this reunited nation of Israel when they talk about Israel (rather than just the northern kingdom).  This newly restored nation will be an example among the “sons” of God, probably a reference to the rest of the people of the earth (the nations of verse 17, also verse 19, remember the parallel or repeated ideas in Hebrew poetry).  This new Israel will call God father and will be faithful to him, not like the old days when they were “cheaters”.  Verse 22 is sort of like a little mini song or like what some churches do when they do “liturgical” dialogs (in some churches the pastor will read a line from a reading and the people will read the response).  Here God calls the people of Israel to come back to him and let him heal their faithlessness; fix their cheating heart, and then the people respond that they will return because he is Yahweh their God.  Verses 23-25 may be a continuation of the response to God’s invitation by the people or it may be additional comments by Jeremiah.  These verses contain additional confessions of the guilt of the people of the nation of Israel.  They admit that worshipping anything anywhere was stupid waste of time and effort.  They had wasted a lot of stuff on dead objects and ideas that could not solve their problem with God.  In verse 25 the people fall down before God, admit that their ancestors should have dome the same thing, and ask their children to honor God too.  The reading ends with an admission that they have not listened.

It’s kind of interesting how the section begins and ends with a similar idea, not responding to the information that they had.  The people of Judah were not responding to the fact that God deals with faithlessness (cheating) and in the end the people admit that they don’t listen.  It’s important to see in this reading that God is fair, that God does deal with cheating , that God wants us to know the truth about our situation, that God wants us with him, and that we need to admit we are cheaters and respond to his mercy.  The way to have a new relationship with God is by confessing our disobedience and rebellion (sin), the turn back to God with our lives (repent) and let his free gift of forever with him (eternal life) flow down over our souls and lives.  We need to let God be our master and let him control the throne of our lives as we live with him in that forever kingdom with Jerusalem as his capital.

God thank you for your mercy.  Thank you for forgiving me. Help me see and understand and respond to you.  Let my life be a pleasing sacrifice to you.  Thank you for extending the kingdom beyond the Israelites to all the nations.  You truly are a good and loving God, help me be God honoring son.  Thank you father for your love.