Jeremiah 22:13-30.  Yesterday’s reading ended with Jeremiah telling us to feel sorry for Shallum (Jehoahaz).  He was going to be exiled and never get to return to Jerusalem again.  He was king for only three months when it happened, pretty sad.  We also saw that God reputation and character were on the line; since Yahweh (the personal name of the one true God) was identified with the Jewish people their actions reflected on him, that is part of the reason God had certain standards for them found in the Law of Moses (see “The Old Testament Connection” for more about this).  The first part of today’s reading gives us peek at God’s character.

Verse 13 starts our as a warning, “Woe” means something like, “Look out!”  That is what you need to do when you live in ways that are contrary to God.  For the Jewish people is was about their example, but it’s also about how God made our world work.  A lot of people run around predicting doom, “Too many greenhouse gasses, the ice is going to melt and the world flood!” (See Genesis 9:11, but of course that would be a total flood).  Over the years there have been a lot of ideas about the world falling apart because we were violating it in one way or another, in fact the recent movie “Avatar” was about just that idea.  Most, if not all, of those ideas are just a lot of speculation.  But God did make the world and life with rules and when we break them there are consequences, jump off of a high enough object and splat you’re dead, cheat on your spouse (or just live with someone without marrying them) and lives get messed up; God’s laws, both physical and spiritual, are not speculation.  So we need to “look out!”

Verse 13 gives us two big boxes to put God’s rule in, one is called “righteousness” and the other is called “justice”.  Righteousness means what is right, and guess who gets to tell us what is right?  God!  He made the world and he decides what is right, it’s like a current advertisement for parents helping their kids live healthy lives.  Mom wants the kids to be more active and shuts off the TV, “MY house, my rules” is the slogan.  “God’s universe, God’s rules”, but like the mom the rules are good for us, the best for us.  The word “justice” means to make a decision, like a judge, but the idea is that the decision is fair or right.  Righteousness means that we are doing what God says is right in his eyes, justice is doing right (again in God’s eyes) in how we treat others.  Justice is actually a part of righteousness and verse 13 may be using a common form of communicating ideas called “parallelism”.  The two ideas may really be one idea that is repeated.

In verses 13-14 Jeremiah uses the idea of building a house to help us understand the ideas of righteousness and justice.  He says you better look out if you build yourself a big nice house but take advantage of the people who built it for you.  In the example the person even went so far as to not pay the person who worked on the house.

In verse 14 it mentions that the house has cedar paneling inside.  Most of the houses in that part of the world at that time (actually in most of the world, even today) were made out of masonry (stones, bricks, concrete blocks stacked on each other.  Wood is more rare in a lot of the world than rocks, stone, or dirt and is usually used just for beams to hold up the roof or sometimes doors and windows.  There was some wood in eastern Israel (remember verse 6 where God used the region of Gilead and the forested mountains of Lebanon as an example of beauty) but not tons and tons of it, and it would take a lot of word to haul it all the way to Jerusalem.  But this house, in our reading today, does not have just any wood it has cedar paneling.  The cedar came from the extreme north from the mountains of Lebanon, it was very good wood.  And notice that this is being used as paneling.  Don’t think cheap thin plywood here, this paneling would have been thick, probably an inch or more.  There were no machines in those days either, it would have to have been sawn out of the log by hand or maybe carefully split and then had scraped until it was smooth.  And paneling isn’t even necessary, this was to decorate or cover the stone walls.    This was an expensive house and would have shown that the person had lots and lots of money.

In verse 15 Jeremiah addresses a king and asks if a person becomes king by showing how rich he is, by having the prettiest palace.  Jeremiah then brings up the person’s “father” who was also a king.  From the following verses we learn that this “father” was a good king.  Remember in yesterday’s reading we saw Shallum (Jehoahaz) exiled after only three months as king because he was wicked or bad.  It would seem like today’s reading is a continuation of yeaterday’s story about Shallum (Jehoahaz) and that the “father” is Josiah.  From verse 18, though, we learn that this section is about Jehoaikim.  Jehoiakim was Jehoahaz’ older brother and he became king when Necho exiled his brother, so he was a son of Josiah too.

Josiah was a good king who cried when the people in charge of the temple found a part of the Old Testament and brought it to him.  Evidently they had lost most or all of the scrolls they had and found one while remodeling the building.  He cried because he actually got to read God’s word.  He was having the temple fixed up so that they could start using it again to honor God.  Josiah was clearly interested in what God thought about life, he was interested in righteousness.  In verses 15-16 Jehoiakim is reminded that his father, Josiah, showed his respect for God by treating others right; Josiah was interested in justice.  It is interesting in verse 15 that it mentions that Josiah ate and drank.  I think the point is that Josiah lived for God and treated other right but that he also had an ok life.  He ate and he drank but not while those around him suffered.  At the end of verse 16 God asks Jehoiakim (through Jeremiah), “Isn’t that what it really means to know me?”  If we really know and understand who God is it should affect how we live.  Of course a person could know God and live in fear of him, a lot of people live that way I think.  But remember the point that Josaih’s life was ok in verse 15.  Here in verse 16 we are told that Josiah’s life was “well”, that is the Hebrew word “tobe” and it means “pleasant”.  Knowing who God is and what he expects isn’t about living in fear of punishment but it is about living for God because it is right and good, sure it makes God happy but it is pleasant for us too.  Sin (disobedience and disrespect toward God; sort of the opposite of righteousness) brings a lot of pain and hurt in our lives and our world and that is without God throwing one lighting bolt or one hail stone from heaven.  There will be a day when some of that sort of thing happens, and it has happened in the past, but we were made to live righteous lives and when we don’t people get hurt.

In verse 17 we are told that Jehoiakim wasn’t like Josiah, he wasn’t interested in treating others right; he wasn’t interested in justice or righteousness.  IN verse 18-19 the man who had feeling for no one but himself would die without any one caring at all; he would be dragged off and buried like a dead farm animal, thrown in the city dump (The people of Jerusalem used a valley next to the city (Ben-hinnom, remember?) as the  city dump where they burned the trash from town).  The person who competed to have the pest palace around and cheated his works would die with no honor or recognition at all.

Upon his death Jehoiakim’s 18 year old son Jehoaichin took over the kingdom, three months later he faced a siege by Nebuchadnezzar who came to stop a rebellion started by Jehoiachin’s now dead father.  According to 2 Kings 23:8 we learn that Jehoiachin followed in his father’s footsteps in dishonoring God.  He and his family were quickly captured by Nebuchadnezzar and taken to Babylon.

In verses 20-23 we see God scolding the people of Judah.  Lebanon was a neighboring kingdom who’s capital was Damascus.  Bashan was another region to the north of Israel and Abarim was to the east.  When the region was threatened by invasion, either from Egypt to the south or Babylon or Assyria to the east, the people of the area would sometimes make alliances with each other.  God was not in favor of these alliances because they showed distrust in his ability to take care of the Jewish people and often the Jewish people would start to worship the false gods of the people they were allies with.  In verse 20 these surrounding kingdoms are called “lovers”.  In the Old Testament God sometimes uses the relationship of a husband and wife to describe his relationship with the Jewish (Israelite) people.  The idea of “lovers” here has the idea of cheating behind it.  The Jewish people are being inforemed that there are no more allies left, since they relied on these people, instead of God, their response is to cry.  Verses 21-22 support the idea that they had been unfaithful to God.  God had shown himself to them in the good stuff he had provided (prosperity) but they didn’t give him credit for it.  We see in verse 21 that this was not some one time thing either, “since your youth” tells us that the people had a habit of not giving God the credit from the early days of the nation.  Anyone who knows a little of the ancient history of Israel knows this is true (The people complained against God almost the first day out of Egypt.  Then there was the period of the Judges with cycle after cycle of rebellion.  Many of the kings were wicked.  And at the time of Jeremiah the northern half of the nation, the kingdom of Israel, had been completely removed from the land because of their history of rebellion.)  While God had shown his love and care in the goodness they had enjoyed now he was going to show his purity and holiness (separateness) to them by removing the things he had provided (the Shepherds represent food and provision) and by giving them no where else to turn (their “lovers” would already be in captivity to the Babylonian invaders).  The reference to Lebanon in verse 23 is probably another example of parallelism (stating the same thing twice in different ways).  In this case the reference to Lebanon is no to the country but to the cedar trees from Lebanon.  Remember Jehoaikim’s palace in verses 14-15.  Now his son, Jehoiachin, living in that same palace will groan and cry when Nebuchadnezzar arrives to take over the city.

In verses 24-30 Jeremiah returns to his messages about the kings (remember in verses 20-23 he was talking to the people in general).  Conaih is another name for Jehoiachin.  God tells is in verse 24 tht even if he were a beautiful ring God would throw him away.  It is interesting that he calls the ring a signet ring.  Yesterday I was working on a job and the engineer who designed the work had to come out and inspect a part of it.  The Building Department requires him to give them a report on what he sees.  Not only dies he have to sign the report (to prove he write it) but he has a special stamp he has to put on it too.  In ancient times kings had special rings with emblems on them.   When there was something important they would wrap it up and put wax or clay on the edge (of a rolled up document) or other closure (like the crack between the rock “door” and the cave wall where Jesus was buried).   The ring would then be pressed into the wax or clay proving that the king had a part in this.  The ring (and the impression from it) were proof of the king’s existence, power, and involvement.  In this case the nation of Israel was supposed to be that “ring” showing the people around them the existence and power of God.  Unfortunately they were giving the world the wrong message about God.  They were a useless “signet ring” and so God was going to get rid of them (the king, as the leader, represented the people).

In verses 25-27 God is very specific about what is going to happen to Jehoaichin, he and his mother are going to be taken captive to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar and will never return to the land of Israel.

In verse 28-30 Jeremiah applies what is going on to the lives of the people.  He asks the people if Jehoiachin is despised by God.  Is he completely broken?  Why is God sending him into exile?  The answer to the first question is “yes”; Jehoiachin was completely useless.  Although God allows people to repent (come back to him) he also knows when we are past a point where we will not ever come back.  He alone knows this sort of thing, others do not, and we don’t either.  That is why it is so dangerous for people to ignore God.  In the life of Israel there were lots and lots of times when their cheating resulted in trouble.  But the worst trouble of all is getting to the point where we could care less about God.  That kind of attitude can result in an eternity without God, not just a little trouble in this life.  Jehoiachin would not come back to Jerusalem, never again would he be king, but he also would never have any children, his family name would end with him.

If we don’t listen from our youth (v. 21) to the voice of God we too run the risk of being cast out.  It is very serious to ignore God because if it becomes a habit it may last for eternity.  The good news is that these verse are a warning to the people.  In verse 29 God uses the word “land” to refer to the people as a group.  The repetition tells me that he is serious about getting their attention.  God wants his people to learn the lesson from Jehoiachin and turn back to him.  The invasion was coming and that would not change at this point, but the people individually could turn their hearts back to God.  In the book of Revelation when God deals with the disobedience and rebellion of everyone, those who did not take advantage of the mercy he offered in Jesus will be cast out of his presence forever.  The place where they go is called the lake of fire or the second death (separation)(Revelation 20).  In Matthew 25:41 we are told that this place was originally prepared for the Devil and the angles who followed him in rebellion, not for people.  That shows me that God doesn’t want us to be away from him but it is where we go, for ever, if we reject him.  God loves us and want us to come back to him but he will not force us.  Turning away though has serious consequences and if we reject God for too long it may become a habit we won’t break.  Don’t ignore God, respond to his love for you today.

God thank you for your patience.  Thank you for repeatedly calling to me, to us.  Help people listen.  And let me never be a useless symbol of your existence and power.  Let me make a good impression on the world around me.