Jeremiah 24:1-10. In yesterday’s reading God reminded the Israelites that he wasn’t some local hick god but was the one true God who is overall, sees, all, and is yet right here watching each one of us.  Prophets are supposed to be messengers for God but in the southern kingdom of Judah, near the end before it was taken over by Babylon, guys who claimed to be prophets were passing off their own words and dreams as messages from God.  When the people couldn’t get a message from them they started turning to each other looking for messages from God.  But God had told them that they weren’t listening to what he had already said and so there would be no more messages.  Anyone who said otherwise would be punished and would suffer everlasting shame; they would be remembered as deceivers and liars.

In chapters 21-22 Jeremiah had a message from God to the last king (Zedekiah) of the southern kingdom (Judah).  The message was that they were going to lose to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon.  The message also included messages that he had given to the three previous kings of Judah; Shallum (also known as Jehoahaz), Jehoiakim, and Coniah (also known as Jehoiachin).  These messages establish a pattern in the Southern Kingdom of disregard for God’s standards.  The trouble that was coming in Zedekiah’s day was deserved and, some might say, long over due.  In chapter 23 we saw that the people had decided to listen to false prophets instead of true prophets, like Jeremiah, and to the word of God.  Twice in chapter 22 (vv. 11,18) God mentions Josiah in relationship to his family members who served after him on the throne.  It is interesting that Josiah was the young king who had cried when priests were fixing up the temple and found the word of God stuck in a forgotten corner.  He was the king who brought worship of Yahweh (the one true God, the God of the Israelites) back to the people (622 BC).  It is sad that just 25 years later, after the initial conquest by the Babylonians that Zedekaih would have to be reminded that this was all happening because the people, his people, had defected from God.  I think the reference to Josaih in those two verses was a little hint to Zedekiah about what was going on.

In chapter 23 we saw that the people had defected in part because of bad leadership.  In Jeremiah 23:1 The LORD (Yahweh) tells the “shepherds” of the people that they better look out (“woe”) because they are destroying and scattering the people.  Shepherds are supposed to lead and protect the flock (see Psalm 23).  In the time of Jeremiah the priests and prophets would have been these shepherds.  Chapter 23 makes it clear that they had misled the people by making up messages instead of giving them truth from God.

In today’s reading Jeremiah returns to the scene of those three kings mentioned in chapter 22.  Remember the order was Josiah (the good king), Jehoahaz or Shallum, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin or Coniah, and finally Zedekiah.  In 605 BC during the reign of Jehoiakim Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, had been busy fighting Egypt and conquering territory around Israel.  In that year he took captives from many of the leading cities of the area including Jerusalem.  It was at that time that Daniel (Daniel 1:1-7) was taken as a captive to Babylon. Eight years later in 598 BC Jehoiakim decided to rebell against the Babylonian rule.  Nebuchadnezzar marched his army back toward Jerusalem.  Before Nebuchadnezzar arrived  Jehoiakim died and left his 18 year old son, Jehoiachin, in charge.  Early in 597 BC Nebuchadnezzar arrived and removed Jehoiachin from the throne, replacing him with Zedekiah.  Jehoiachin, his family, and 10,000 leading citizens of Jerusalem were taken captive to Babylon.  That is the scene in verse 1 of today’s reading.

In verse 2 Jeremiah receives a vision from God.  Unlike the dreams of the previous chapter this one was from God.  In the dream or vision Jeremiah saw two baskets of figs one good and one rotten (verses 3-4).  Remember that this vision is to Zedekiah and the people left behind after the invasion.  You might also want to remember that these same people are the ones who we saw yesterday being scolded for making up their own visions.  It is very likely that the people left behind though of themselves as the lucky ones and of the captives as the ones whom God was punishing.

In verses 4-7 God explains the vision to Jeremiah but the explaination is just the opposite of what we might expect.  The people who had been taken captive by Nebuchadnezzar were the ones whom God was going to “bless”.  He was going to watch over them, build them up, make them like well cared for plants.  Eventually he would bring them back to Jerusalem and Judah.  But they would be different.  In verse 7 we see that God would use the time in Babylon to help them appreciate him.  Their hearts would be turned back to Him.  The captives would be his people and he would be their God.

In contrast we see that the people who remained with Zedekiah were the bad useless rotten figs.  God would leave them on their own (abandon them).  Also included in this group are some who were in Egypt.  When we studied Isaiah (a century earlier) we saw a constant desire by the leaders of Judah to look to Egypt for help.  God’s words to them through Isaiah were a constant warning to look to him not Egypt.  It appears from verse 8 that some of the people of Judah refused to give up on Egypt as a refuge.  They were not “whole heartedly” (v. 7) trusting in God; Egypt would be their refuge.  As we will see later that was a misplaced trust.

In verses 9-10 God tells the people who were left behind that they would become a terror, an evil, a reproach, a proverb, a taunt, and a curse.  All of these descriptions are of what the people around them would see and think when they looked at them.  In theses verses we see that God is going to scatter them through out the whole earth.  He would use faming and battles and disease to accomplish this.  Notice that they would be a terror and an evil for all the kingdoms of the Earth.  They would be a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse in all places .  The word translated terror means “to make shake or tremble”, the word translated evil is the same word that describes the figs as rotten.  It can also mean “unpleasant or disagreeable”, maybe think stinky or offensive.  The word reproach means “not approved” and a proverb is a wise saying.  The word translated “taunt” has the idea of sharpness, like a sharp stick uses to poke some one or something to keep them moving.  The word curse has the idea of something that is passing away, quickly gone.  This last word is just the opposite of how God described the people taken captive to Babylon; they were like permanent structures and well rooted plants.  Where I live it was a common practice a few years ago to set wrecked cars near certain intersections around the time of certain holidays where people would drink a lot.  The cars were wrecks from drunk driving accidents and based on how mangled the cars were you could tell that people had probably died in them.  If Jeremiah had been describing those wrecks he might have said that they were a terror, evil, a reproach, a taunt, a proverb, and a curse.  They were examples of what happens when you disregard the rules in life.  We see that the main point here is the example these dreamers, disrespectful and disobedient to God, were going to be to the world around them.  In verse 10 we see that they were not destroyed entirely but were completely removed from the land that had been promised to their ancestors.

Going our own way and not listening to God is destructive, in our own lives and in the lives of those around us.  The first group shows us that God can and will help but there is often a price to pay.  Those captives had to go live in a foreign land for many years (in the next chapter we will learn more about disobedience and the reason for the Babylonian Captivity).  They could not go to their temple, had to start over, and much more.  The second group shows us that sometimes our disobedience has permanent consequences.  The people left behind will continue to show a rebellious attitude toward God.  But there is hope too.  From the book of Daniel we know that people in Babylon had a positive influence for God in on the people around them.  We see even in the second group that their situation taught the people around them about God’s purity and standards too.  I like it that even when he is showing us his purity and high standards that God shows us his merciful side too.  I’m glad it’s not “one strike” and you are out.  I like it that God offers a way out and is constantly informing us of it.  I’m glad that God builds up and plants.

God help me be established and well rooted.  Build me up and make me grow.  I’m glad that you are willing to correct, I know I need a lot of it.  Help me learn your ways, hear your voice, know your truth.  Let me listen to the truth and not lies.  Let me look to your word for truth and not to the voice of my neighbors, or the voices in my own head.  Help me hear and obey.  Let my life be pleasing to you.  And help me be a voice of truth for you to others.

Jeremiah 23:23-40.  It has been some time since I posted to this blog.  It is supposed to be a daily reading blog to help the reader maintain an active relationship with God through His word.  Any relationship requires communication and understanding.  God has communicated and it is my desire to understand what God has communicated (it’s meaning to the original readers and to us today) and to share that understanding with those who use this blog to “hear” from God on a regular basis.  My absence has been due to some major job requirements over the last several months.  It does not mean that I have not maintained a relationship with God but I have been unable to study and write with respect to this blog.  On a couple of occasions I tried, in May and earlier this month, but it is difficult to get back “up to speed” after such a long interruption.  But here we go, and by God’s grace I will be able to continue.

In our last reading (Jeremaih 23:9-22) we saw both the heart of Jeremiah and the heart of God.  There was a lot of sadness on the part of both because so many of the people God had chosen to be a “blessing” to the nations around them had turned away from God.  Jeremiah warned the leaders who were misleading the people of disaster coming their way.  But as is very common we also saw that there is hope, God gives us the opportunity to turn back to Him.

In today’s reading God starts out with a question, or maybe two.  Depending on the translation you are reading verse 23 says something like, “Am I a God who is near but not far?”  It’s like God is saying that he is both close by; seeing and involved, and that he is also a God who has power beyond the city walls of Jerusalem or the boundaries of Judea.  In the Ancient Near East (ANE) (Basically we call that part of the world the Middle East today, although the ANE also included Turkey and some of Eqypt too.) in the time of Jeremiah there were powerful cities that controlled regions near them.  Sometimes this power and influence would grow and larger empires would be built.  Egypt was a fairly consistent empire at that time.  Assyria with it’s capital in Ninevah had recently lost power over a large portion of the Ancient Near East and Babylon was rising in power (Babylon was the name of the city and the empire, though it is usually called the Neo-Babyolonian Empire (“neo” meaning “new” since there was a more ancient Babylonian Empire)).   Both the local and larger powers had their own sets of “gods” that they honored and worshipped.  These people often saw their gods as limited in power and influence.  In 1 Kings 20:23-28 the King of Aram (Damascus was his capital, north of Israel) had been defeated by the people of the Northern Kingdom (Israel).  He decided to attack again the following year but on different turf.  In verse 23 his advisors determined that he lost because the god of Israel was a god of the mountains (where the defeat happened) and was (probably) not a god of the plain (where they decided to attempt a second battle).  In verses 27-29 we see that the defeat in the plain was huge.  The one true God, Israel’s God, Yahweh, is truly a power both near and far away.  God makes that very clear in Jeremiah 23:23-24.

In verses 25-27 God applies this idea to the fake prophets that were in Jerusalem.  Prophets were supposed to be sort of a mouth for God among the people, but theses guys were having dreams and saying that the dreams were a message from God.  To be sure God does use dreams to communicate, sometimes, but the message always has to be measured against what he has already told us.  In Numbers 23 a somewhat unfaithful prophet named Balaam was asked by an enemy king to pronounce a curse on the people of Israel.  Several times Balaam gave them a blessing instead of a curse.  In the middle of this encounter Balaam told the enemy king that the God of Israel is not like us; he does not lie or change, he follows through on his plans and promises.  We have to be careful, if we think God has given us some direction we need to see if it lines up with what we know for sure about God and his plans in the Bible.  The fake prophets in Jeremiah’s day were not checking their dreams against God’s word, or maybe they were.  God talks about them being deceived in their hearts and says that they intended to make the people of Jerusalem and the surrounding area forget about Him through their dreams just like their ancestors (fathers) did by using other fake gods (Baal was one of these fake gods honored by some of the original people in the area).

In verses 28-32 it becomes very clear that God is speaking through Jeremiah, and God is very clear about what he thinks of theses self serving “prophets”.  It may seem odd in verse 28 that God says, “Let them tell their dreams” since in verses 25-27 we learned that their dreams were lies and were actually designed to make the people forget God.  But there is a contrast in verse 28 that helps us understand.  God also says in verse 28 that the true prophet who actually does have a message from God should tell that to the people “in truth”.  God then compares the dreams of the false prophets to straw (the stems and leaves of a grain plant) and the true words that he has give prophets like Jeremiah to the kernels of grain.  In verse 29 God compares his words to fire and a hammer.  The first comparison kind of relates back to the straw and kernel comparison.  Not only are God’s true words useful like grain but they can also burn thing off like a fire does and one thing that burns pretty well is straw.  We see that sort of destructive power in the second comparison when we are told that the hammer can break rocks.  So it’s not that God is giving the false prophets permission to keep lying and misleading the people but he is informing all of us that his words, his plan, his message is much stronger and will destroy the lies of the false prophets.  In verses 29-32 we see that God himself is against these false prophets who have “stolen his words from each other” and run around the streets of Jerusalem and Judea saying, “God said …”  In the first case they are stealing lies from each other and spreading them around; it’s like gossip.  In the second case we are told that they are using their own tongues to make up messages that they claim are from God.  He is also against the ones who have claimed their “dreams” were messages from God when they were not.  Think about it, this is the guy who spoke the universe into existence (Genesis 1), do you really want him “against” you?  I don’t.  At the end of verse 32 we see that these made up stories were not from God and that they were having a bad effect on the people of Judea.  The people were all going the wrong way and were not benefitting at all from what these fake prophets were telling them.

In verses 33-40 we see a very stern warning.  In verse 33 God tells Jeremiah how he is supposed to answer the people, the priests, or the (false) prophets if they come to him looking for “oracles” from God.  The word “oracle” translates a Hebrew word that means “burden”; like something you have to carry.   That seems like a good word to describe the messages that true prophets would deliver from God to various people.  Sometimes their jobs would involve physically carrying a physical message from God to someone (like Moses and the stone tablets with the 10 commandments on them or earlier when Jeremiah had a scroll to deliver to the king) but their messages were also “burdens” emotionally and spiritually.  Many of the prophets suffered a great deal for bringing information from God to various people (See Hebrews 11).  It truly was a burden delivering these “oracles”.  In verse 33 we see that, if the people come to Jeremiah and ask him if he has a “delivery” for them from God that he supposed to ask them, “What delivery?  God has abandon you!”

Of course the people wouldn’t be satisfied with that answer so they would turn to the false prophets and the religious leaders looking for direction from God.  God tells Jeremiah he does have a package for those guys, “In the package is a warning not to pretend that they have messages from God.  If they do they will be punished.”

Verses 33-36 have a couple of interesting pieces of information in them.  First we see that the people won’t stop with the false prophets and the religious leaders, if they can’t get answers from them they will start looking to each other for messages from God.  The interesting part is in verse 36.  In verse 36 we are told that they had already gotten a message from God but had forgotten what it was.  This is probably referring to true messages from true prophets like Jeremiah.  And of course they had the original message they could go to, the Old Testament, or at least the part of it available to them at that time.

In verses 37-38 Jeremiah is told to go talk to any one who is claiming to be bringing a message from God to the people.  He is supposed to challenge these self-appointed “prophets” about their supposed messages from God and tell them to stop their lies.  Remember in verse 33 God told Jeremiah there would be no more answers to the people about the events that were happening, like the take over by the Babylonians.  In verses 39-40 we see that if the people insist on pretending that God isn’t dealing with their constant rebellion and disrespect that it will soon be very clear because the city of Jerusalem will be taken away from them and they will be taken away from the city.  These people may have been fooled or started to believe their own lies but the soon coming events would be a reminder forever of what happens when you don’t listen to God and make up your own explanation for what is going on in history.

This reading is a very serious warning to people who want to say what God is doing.  God has given us the big picture in the Bible about what is going on in history.  In the last “book” of the Bible, the Revelation, there is a stern warning not to add to the word of prophecy of the Bible.  Several years ago when the HIV virus started to make a big impact on lives in the United States some Christians started to say that is was a “judgment” from God on the homosexual community.  The problem with that sort of talk is that God didn’t tell us that, those people were coming very close to saying that they had special information from God.  To be sure God is displeased with people who participate in a homosexual lifestyle but there is no indication that HIV is a specific “judgment” from God.  What the people of Jeremiah’s day needed to do was listen to what God had already said and respond respectfully to it.  Today we need to listen to the warning and not try to mold God according to how we want life.  We need to be careful not to put our words into God mouth.  The cool thing thought is that God actually takes the time to warn us when we are rebelling.  He doesn’t just “ZAPPP!”, hit us  with a lightning bolt, he warns and warns and warns and makes it very clear what he wants us to do.  I’m so glad God gives us lots of chances, other wise I’m sure I’d be a little lump of charcoal out in the middle of a field some where.  God thank you for your patience.

Thank you for all the warnings.  Thank you for communicating to us through the Bible.  Thank you for Jesus, who made it possible for the Holy Spirit to live in us and help us understand and honor you.  Help me live for you and help me communicate your true words to others.