Jeremiah 48:1-17. Today’s message is to the nation of Moab. Moab was a nation or kingdom in the east side of the Dead Sea from about the middle to the bottom. It was between the Arnon River which empties into the Dead Sea about the middle and the Zered Stream which empties into the Dead Sea at the southern tip. The geography of the area is important to understand. The Jordan River flows through a cut in the earth’s surface called a rift. You might think of it as a canyon but canyons are usually low areas between hills or mountain. There are hills or mountains on both sides of the Jordan River rift but they do not define it. The Dead Sea is at the southern end of the rift and is the lowest elevation on earth that is not under water. The surface of the Dead Sea is about 1400 feet below sea level (while the sea itself is another 1000 feet deep).

On the west side of this gash in the earth are mountain ranges (although we might consider them more like hills).   Jerusalem is on one of the mountains in these ranges. Further west is a plain that leads to the Mediterranean coast. You might think of the area kind of like where we live. The mountains are the Santa Ana Mountans (where Saddleback is) and the plain is where most of us live in Orange County. In the Judan Hills the highest elevation is about 3000 feet or one half the height of Saddleback. Earlier in our reading we read of two mountains further north one was Hermon and the other Carmel. Both were used as examples of something obvious and impressive. Mount Hermon is pretty impressive at a little over 9000 feet (not quite as high as Mount Baldy in the San Gabriel Mountains). Mount Carmel at 1700 feet is only about 1/3 the height of Saddleback. It is still impressive because the area around it is quite flat.

On the east side of the Jordan River rift is another mountain range that runs basically north and south parallel to the river and rift. These mountains, the Jordanian Highlands, are slightly higher that the mountains on the west side of the Jordan River. The mountains sit on a plateau that ranges in elevations from 2300-3900 feet. The climate is arid, like Southern California. The Jordanian Highlands receive about 11 inches of rain per year with the average in the surrounding region much lower. It is in these hills east of the Dead Sea that the kingdom of Moab existed.

Today’s reading is another in the messages to the “nations”. This one is to a “nation” called Moab. It is the second longest message at 47 verses after the message in chapters 50-51 To Babylon which is 110 verses. If you have read the “Old Testament Connection” you know that the Old Testament is a history of God using specific descendants of one man, Abraham, to help the world understand the problem between us and God and the only solution, Jesus. Abraham had a nephew who traveled with him when he started his adventure with God. That nephew, Lot, had two daughters. The older daughter became the mother of the people group known as Moabites while the younger daughter gave rise to the nation of Ammonites. The Ammonites lived just north of the Moabites East of the Jordan River and north-east of the upper tip of the Dead Sea. After leaving Egypt with Moses the Israeiltes spent forty years in the desert wilderness of the Arabian Peninsula. At one point during the forty years the Israelites wanted to pass through the territories of Moab and Ammon (who were related also and also allies or even part of a blended nation).  Ammon was much more aggressive and stationed troops at the border of the combined territory, refusing to let Israel pass through. Moab seems to have been more passive and only made verbal refusals.

The king of Moab did take action in the form of trying to hire a prophet to curse the Israelites, a guy named Balaam. Balaam either could not or would not curse the Israelite, but he did inform them that they could “defeat” the Israelites by intermarrying with them and getting them to leave Yahweh, the one true God. This story is told in Numbers 20-25.  In those chapters we find that the Moabite did have some “success” in distracting the Israelites from God. Through out the following centuries Israel and Moab had an on again off again relationship. On other occasions throughout the centuries Moab would use it’s “daughters” to try to distract the Israelites from living for God. Moab lived under the authority of Israel for many of these centuries and paid “tribute” to Israel (Tribute was a sort of tax honoring the ruling nation, in this case Israel). These times of rebellion seem to have always involved, at least, Ammon, and also Edom. What we have is a picture of a weak but tricky nations who used what influence they had to defeat the Israelites.

In today’s reading several places are named many of which have not been discovered by archaeologist. Remember thought that these towns existed over 2400 years ago, that is a lot of time for the sands of the desert to make those towns disappear. People who want to doubt the Bible could challenge it’s accuracy, saying that the stories are made up. Unfortunately the stories are not made up and one archaeological discovery confirms many of these places. In 850 BC king Mesha of Moab successfully rebelled against the Israelites and for a time his people were free. After his successful rebellion Mesha had a monument made to celebrate the victory he and his cities had over Israel, it is called the “Moab Stone” and it mentions many of the cities also mentioned here.

As we read through today’s verses we see a pretty extensive and detailed destruction of the Moabites. Why is this judgment or punishment so important? I think there is a hint in verses 7 and 11-15. First in verse 7 we see two things mentioned as reasons for the exile of the Moabites; “trust in their own achievements and treasures” and trust in a false god called Chemosh. The first is pride and the second is idolatry (living for (worshipping) a false manmade “god”). In verses 11 we see Moab described as having an easy existence. The picture of wine is interesting. Wine is fermented fruit juice, in this case grapes. Dregs are like pulp that is in the bottles with the juice. After the wine is put in the bottles it is allowed to sit and ferment until it becomes alcoholic.   Of course when the juice sits for a long time the pulp settles to the bottom . Experts in wine making say that the pulp is an important part of what gives wine it’s (good?) flavor (I wouldn’t know since I don’t like it and don’t drink it). If it is disturbed it loses it’s (good?) flavor. On the other hand if it sits too long undisturbed it can get ruined too. The point of this picture is that God is going to “shake up” the easy lives of the Moabites. As a result they will lose their unique “flavor”; we might say their “culture” would be lost.  To us that seems tragic, we value different cultures.

In verse 10 we see an even more shocking part of the story, who ever God was going to use to destroy the culture and identity of the Moabites would be cursed if they did not make the destruction a bloody one. Seems more than tragic, it seems harsh. Verses 7 and 13 tell us why God is going to destroy the identity of this mostly “peaceful” people, it has to do with Chemosh. If you read “The Old Testament Connection” mentioned above you know that there is a far more important tragedy in our existence, the possibility of spending an eternity separated from God and his protection and provision (as well as his friendship. You know that “peace on earth, good will toward men” part of the Christmas song? It’s a quote from Luke 2:14 and it’s not about peace among men (although that is an ultimate result) it’s about peace between us and God made possible by the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus). The Moabites may not have been openly hostile, making war with Israel, but they were making war spiritually with Israel and that is way worse. Tempting the Israelites with their women to get them to honor Chemosh was the worst king of war. That is why the true king of the universe, Yahweh of the armies (hosts) made war with the Moabites and destroyed them. In verse 17 we see this idea of the deadly distraction hinted at when “all who live around [Moab]” are told to cry for his destruction. You see it’s about their very bad example. It didn’t matter how laid back they were it mattered what message they were sending to others about the truth about God. They easy life was not because of the power of Chemosh and God needed to make that very clear to all who might think of turning their love and life over to that false god or any other false god.  In verse 13 we see that this warning is even for the Israelites who mad their own god and worshipped it at a place called Bethel. Ironically that name means “house of God” which it clearly wasn’t.

It can be very easy to fall in love with our own culture and think it is the best or right way to live. We invent “gods” who have given that great life and protect it for us. For some they really are “gods” that they have invented for others the “gods” may be certain ideas in their culture that they think have made it great. Here in the United States we “worship” health, hard work, education, freedom, independence and many other things and think that that is why we have a pretty good life.

I suppose there are others who have been disappointed by their own culture and look to another one in hope of a good life. Perhaps the Israelites looked at the Moabites from time to time and thought, “There are no cats in Moab and the streets are paved with cheese”, to borrow an lyric from a popular cartoon movie from many years ago (An American Tail, 1986). Certainly during a drought in the time of the Judges, Naomi and here family turned to Moab for help.

The bigger picture though is that there is a creator of the universe, one who made it a good place for mankind. One who only saw his creation as very good after he placed man in it. That God, Yahweh (LORD) is king of all and he wants us in his kingdom. He won’t force us in but he will make it very clear to us what life on the outside is like. One interesting think about all the wars and killing that we read about in the Bible, is that most of it if not all of it is the invention of men; we do this to each other. God doesn’t usually stop it because he wants us to see what we do and what life is like without him, just a little bit. Moab was a hang loose kind of place but they were leading people down a path that would leave them hanging in eternity, very uncool and I’m glad God brought it to our attention. A few posts ago I quoted a verse from Ecclesiastes 3:11. That verse tells us that God has given us a little reminder that we are supposed to be immortal, “eternity in our hearts”. But it also tells us that we won’t understand what God is doing in our world. Job was reminded of the same thing when he suffered for no reason related to him. He wanted to know why but was reminded of “who” he was dealing with, a huge powerful loving God who has a plan and is working it out for the good of the most people possible (2 Peter 3:9). In the mean time we need to trust him and honor him only, not your own power or culture or anyone else’s.

God thank you for loving us. Thank you form making us aware of eternity. Thank you for working so hard to help us see the truth about us and you. Help me trust your love, live each day for you , and help others see and understand your love too.

Jeremiah 47:1-7. We have been reading in a new section of Jeremiah that relates to messages given to foreign nations. The message to Egypt (really two messages) ended with a note to the Jewish people.   That’s ok because there were notes to foreign nations in the messages earlier to the people of Judah, too. Although God had the person who put Jeremiah’s book together do it in a certain way we see by these little side notes that God is interested in all of us all the time. Jeremiah started his book by telling us that God had chosen him before he was born to be a prophet (messenger) to the “nations”. Here at the end we see that that was fulfilled in Jeremiah’s life. Also as we saw yesterday and the day before these messages weren’t necessarily given at the end of Jeremiah’s life while he was in Egypt. That is probably when they were collected together but at least some of the messages were from an earlier time. That seems to be the case here in today’s reading.

Today’s reading is a message to an area known as Philistia. In the book of Genesis God showed some land to Abraham and promised that his descendants would live and thrive there (Genesis 12:7, 17:8). That land is where modern day Israel is, plus parts of Jordan, Syria, and the Gaza Strip. In the Old Testament the part of the land west of the Jordan River was called the land of the Canaan (after a group of people who lived there in those days, the Canaanites. Some Hebrew experts believe the name Canaan is related to the name Hurrian which is related to the words red and purple. A red-purple die was an important product produced in the area.) The same territory was also called Philistia. That name was from another group of people who lived there near the coast called Philistines. If you have read through Judges with us you know that the Philistines were a major foe for the Israelites when they entered the land. The most popular name for the land in our times is Palestine, which we borrow from the name of the people, Philistines. That name was also used in ancient history. It is interesting that we still use that name because the Philistines disappeared from history long before the time of Christ. Modern day people who call themselves Palestinians have no relation to the earlier settlers, the Philistines.

In verse 1 we see that this message is to those Philistines living in the land “before Pharaoh conquered Gaza”. A reference like this is designed to give the readers a sense of time. Before can really means any time before but we need to understand that a reference like this means some time close to the event. We might say this message was given “right before” or “shortly before” Pharaoh conquered Gaza. That could include a few years but not decades. It is unfortunate for us that Jeremiah didn’t tell us which Pharaoh since we don’t have a lot of history to go on. Psammetichus I was Pharaoh of Egypt from 664 BC to 609 BC. Very near the end of his reign he attacked Gaza, about 610 BC. He was followed by his son, Necho who was Pharaoh from 609 BC to 593 BC. Necho was involved in a battle with Josiah (King of Judah) in the town of Megiddo in 609 BC. Josiah was killed but managed to turn Necho back from assisting the Assyrians against Nebuchadnezzar. An ancient historian, Herodotus, tells us that at that time Necho conquered a city called Kadytis which some scholars believe was Gaza. We know Necho fought with Nebuchadnezzar up north in Carchemish in 605 BC. Necho was defeated there and retreated south. He was defeated again during his retreat in Syene and retreated further back home. He was not killed in these battles with Nebuchadnezzar and probably had some soldiers with him during his trip home. It is quite possible that he and his troops attacked Gaza on this return journey (armies would have to steal supplies during such long campaigns, especially if they were under pressure to retreat). In 601 BC Necho and Nebuchadnezzar fought again and the battle ended in a stalemate or tie near the border of Egypt. That border was close to Gaza. Notice in verse 1 that Pharaoh only “attacked” Gaza, there is no mention of a “defeat”.

In verses 2-3 we see another threat, “from the north”. That has been a consistent reference in Jeremiah to Babylonians and Nebuchadnezzar. We know from history that Nebuchadnezzar turned back from pursuing Necho in 605 BC because his father had died back home. After securing his right to rule in Babylon he returned to the battle for the land of Canaan (Philistia, Israel, what ever you want to call it). In 604 BC he conquered Ashkelon. The Philistines were not a wide spread group of people. They had five main cities in the area: Gaza, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Ekron, and Gath. In verse 4 we see that this threat form the north destroys the Philistines. The refrence to Caphtor in that verse is to the island of Crete. When the Philistines came to the area it was either from Crete or Crete was one of the stopping points on their journey. Some think that the Philistines originally came from the islands near Greece. One thing we need to keep in mind is that these people spent many, many years traveling, settling down, and traveling again. The Israelites spent 40 years moving around the Arabian Peninsula before settling in Canaan. Nebuchadnezzar spent 40 years going back and forth to Babylon and fighting battles in the region of Canaan. So it is not surprising that the Philistines wuld have been associated with Crete even if they came from somewhere else before that.

A second effect of the destruction of the Philistine people was that Tyre and Sidon would lose their allies. Tyre and Sidon were Phoenician cities (another people group) further north on the coast, but were evidently allies with the Philistines. Tyre was evidently a problem for Nebuchadnezzar for many years on after the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BC he spent 13 years trying to overthrow it. Tyre had an island fortress and Nebuchadnezzar had no navy so he was unable to win. Eventually the people of Tyre gave in and a peace treaty was agreed to.

In verse 5 two of the cities of the Philistines are mentioned. Gaza would save their head or be bald and Ashkelon would be ruined. Shaving the head was a sign of mourning in the ancient world. Either the people would be mourning because of their defeat or Gaza itself would be leveled and it’s site made bare like a shaved head. The word translated “destroyed” can mean either “silent” or “destroyed”. If a city is silent after a war it’s pretty certain that the destruction was severe. At the end of verse 5 there must have been a few that survived because they are asked how long they will “cut themselves”. Cutting was an extreme way of mourning. It was a way of showing your gods how serious you were about them, trying to get them to help out. Here God is asking why they keep trying to impress “gods” who have clearly failed them.

In verses 6-7 we see that the destruction was actually from Yahweh. Nebuchadnezzar may have been the man but God was behind him. In verse 6 the question is asked how long Yahweh’s sword will keep making noise (not be quiet and out of it’s sheath or covering). The answer is it cannot be quiet because Yahweh (LORD) has given it an order to attack Ashkelon and the coast (referring to the place where the Philistines lived and worked). This was an “assignment” from God. Nebuchadnezzar has been called the servant of Yahweh in other places in Jeremiah. Here he was serving God by destroying the Philistine people.

It may seem harsh that God would destroy a whole people group but more harsh is their devotion to false gods who could not care for them. It is very clear form the Old Testament that God loves people and Jeremiah was even appointed form the womb to be a prophet or messenger to the nations. His purpose wasn’t to bring bad news but good news and hope. All over the world people look for meaning in life. Solomon tells us that we have “eternity in our hearts” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). We all have a built in sense that we are important, that death is wrong, and that we should have more. Through out the centuries there have been myths and legends about a fountain of youth, people look for immortality. That is because we were made for eternity and we know it in our hearts. The problem is we separated ourselves from that immortality when we disobeyed God. That happened with the first man and woman, Adam and Eve, in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3). Ever since that time mankind has tried to regain eternity one way or another. Making up fake gods and trying to make them happy has been one of the failed ways we have tried to get eternity back. But God promised Adam and Eve a fix for the problem, one of her descendants would solve the problem. That descendant is Jesus (see yesterday’s post and “The Old Testament Connection” for more about this). In the Old Testament when a people group is destroyed it is because they have become so distracted by their false gods and so much of distraction to those around them that God removes them; he ends their bad influence.

The interesting flip side to all of this is this message. This message is to the Philistines. God is appealing to them, “How long will you cut yourselves for a useless god? This active sword that is causing you so much trouble is from Yahweh.” It’s like God is saying come over to the winning team. When God destroyed Jericho he allowed Rahab to escape. In the history of Israel they destroyed cities and people groups more than once, it is clear that the destruction wasn’t complete, but the influence was destroyed, at least for a time. There was mourning after the destruction, cutting after the destruction, clearly there were survivors, they would no longer be a major distraction to the people around them. It would be clear from the destruction that their gods had no power. But God appeals to them. That is what we need to see, God removes the cancer from our spiritual lives and invites us to live. Hopefully we will turn to him and not re-infect ourselves with false religion.

God thank you for caring about us. Thank you for helping us see the weakness of our solutions to the broke relationship we have with you. Thank you for showing us the way to eternity. Thank you for Jesus.   I am sorry for my contribution to the pain and suffering in my world. I am sorry anything I have done that has made you have to take such drastic actions. I know you love and do not want to destroy. You are a God of mercy, not giving us what we deserve, and grace, giving us what we don’t deserve; a second chance to spend eternity with you.   Thank you for Jesus and thank you for eternity.