Jeremiah 2:14-28.  Today’s reading continues the ideas and thoughts from yesterday’s reading.  In yesterday’s reading God spoke to the Israelite people about their unfaithfulness to him.  He reminded them of how much he had love and cared for them; bringing them out of slavery in the land of Egypt and providing for them during their time in the wilderness.  In spite of his love for them they had turned to false gods.

Today’s reading returns to the idea of slavery and God asks if Israel has become a slave.  If you notice the question at the beginning of verse 14 you might think it kind of repeats itself.  Some people see a reference here to two different ways to become a slave, be conquered (either militarily or financially) and put into slavery or to be born into it.  Some of Jeremiah is written in a poetic style.  In Old Testament times poetry in Hebrew (the language that the Old Testament was written in) poetry was more about structure that things like rhyming.  Often in poetry in the Old Testament parallelism is used; an idea is repeated twice (or sometimes contrasted).  This may be what is going on here, Jeremiah may be writing in a poetic style and repeating his idea as part of the structure.

Verse 14 asks another question, “Why has Israel become prey?”  Depending on the translation you are reading that last word may be “spoil”.  Spoil is the stuff an army gets when in conquers people or cities.  After the battle the winners take what they want (including living humans as slaves).  Prey is what an animal gets after it hunts down another animal.  It’s the same idea in both cases, but I think spoil is the better idea here.  We see in the next two verses that Israel has been attacked.  Although the first verse mentions lions that is just a poetic way of talking about the people or army that conquered them and left their land empty or wasted.  Often in ancient times a nation was associated with a particular type of animal (Daniel describes different nations as a lion, leopard, and bear (Daniel 7:1-6)).  That may or may not be what is happening here but the lion probably represents Assyria.  Remember that about 100 years earlier Assyria conquered the northern half of the nation of Israel; the kingdom of Israel, and had destroyed many cities.  Also Assyria had attacked the southern kingdom of Judah and destroyed cities there also but had not conquered Jerusalem, the capital.  Judah was still under the control of the Assyrians and under Josiah they had to pay taxes to honor the Assyrians.  At various times Israel and Judah would look to alliances with other nations or kingdoms in hopes of becoming free.  One such nation was Egypt, represented here by two of it’s main cities, Memphis and Tahpanhes.  But that situation is no better because Judah would be trading one master for another.  Shaving the head was one way a master identified his slaves.  So we see here Israel and Judah as slaves of Egypt.

God (or Jeremiah) informs the people that it is really their fault because they have walked away from God.  God is more than powerful enough to deal with any nation and did in the days of Hezekiah when the Assyrians besieged Jerusalem and God destroyed 185,000 troops in one night (Isaiah 37).  But the people of Judah looked to Egypt and others for help instead of God.  In verse 18Jeremiah returns to the idea of water from yesterday’s reading and asks why they are looking to Assyria or Egypt for a drink (don’t they remember that it is God who can care for their needs the best).  So we see now that Assyrian and Egypt are specifically named and the idea of looking to them for help is made more clear.

In verse 19 Jeremiah calls their actions wickedness, apostasy, evil, and bitter.  The word apostasy means “turning away”.   It is interesting that the way God deals with this turning away and this wickedness is that he lets Judah suffer the “natural” consequences of their actions.  Their alliances with these nations will come at a price and it will be evil and bitter.  I think that last word is interesting because you may remember yesterday that I mentioned that God had provided water for the Israelites at a place called Marah right after he brought them out of slavery in Egypt.  At that place they had been thirsty and found that the water in the spring or pool was bitter.  God transformed the water through a miracle so that they could drink.  Here the bitterness returns because they have turned away from God.  God also describes their attitude toward him as a lack of “fear” or “dread”.  The idea here is a recognition of God’s great power.

In verses 20-28 Jeremiah uses three examples to describe how God sees the actions of the people of Judah.  First he compares the people to a vine.  He chose the best type of vine to plant, one that should have produced a good harvest and yet the people of Judah had become like an unfruitful wild vine.  The way that they became this “bad” vine was by turning to the false gods of he Canaanite people, specifically Baal.  In verse 25 the reference to “the valley” is probably to the Kidron Valley near Jerusalem where they had burned their children in worship to these foreign gods.  No matter how much they wash and they cannot remove this evil from themselves.

In verses 24-25 Jeremiah compares the Israelites to a wild donkey in heat (ready to get pregnant).  Evidently the female donkey acts quite wild and finds many male donkeys ready to take advantage of her.  In verse 25 Jeremiah identifies the desires of the Israelites as freedom and care.  The freedom is represented by being “unshod” that term is talking about the shoes that are put on domestic donkeys but not on wild ones.  The lack of thirst represents having their physical needs met.  Their situation is hopeless though because they have followed after gods that cannot help them.

Finally the Israelites are compared to a thief who has been caught.  As they sit there in handcuffs with the news cameras rolling they are quite embarrassed or ashamed.  The idea Jeremiah wants to communicate is actions that make us ashamed.  In the case of Judah they should be ashamed because their leaders (who should have known better) along with all the people have bowed down to trees and rocks and have turned their backs on God.  Of course when things go wrong they will call out to God.  It’s like children who want to blow off their parents until they need something and they come back asking with no apology.  The sad conclusion to today’s reading is God’s answer, “Hey, where are those gods that you made for yourselves?”  And we learn that this is not small problem, there are at least as man false gods as there are cities in the land.

It’s amazing that God takes the time to talk to us when we cheat on him and turn our backs toward him.  He sent Jeremiah to talk in their ears.  That’s very direct.  It’s also amazing how stupid we are trading the freedom god gives us for slavery to our own passions, passions that leave us thirsty and otherwise empty and in trouble.  Sure living for God has limits too, like shoes.  I know some people like to go barefoot, but shoes really are a good thing.  I think of pictures of people with rags around their feet walking in the snow.  Or think about Indians in the jungles of South America stepping on long thorns.  Or just the times I have gone barefoot on my won grass and stepped on a little thorn.  I’m glad I have shoes and I’m glad God has taken the time to show me what is best for me in the world he created for me.  But God will allow us to suffer the consequences of violating the rules he set up for us.  Adam and Eve brought a lot of trouble into their own lives and we do the same thing.  We really need to listen to God and turn our faces bcck to him.  We will be ashamed but I have the feeling that in the end we will have joy and peace that make that shame a distant memory.  Not so distant I hope that we forget and turn away again though.

God thank you for continuing to talk to me even when I am cheating on you.  Thank you for loving me so much and pursuing me.  Yesterday I saw the talking in the ear as a getting in my face but today I wonder if it is a loving whisper.  Maybe it’s both, maybe you whisper in my ear and it causes me such great shame because I know my own guilt.  Whether it’s a whisper of a shout I’m glad you are here.  Help me listen and return.  Let me not be stupid and make up my own gods.  Help me appreciate your care and respect your power.  And thank you for providing the one cleanser that can clean me from all my sins, the blood of Jesus.  Thank you for the truth that sets me free from my sins.

Jeremiah 2:1-13.  Today’s reading is pretty interesting.  Several things stood out to me.  First this is God’s word that Jeremiah is communicating.  Now of course anyone can say that they are speaking for God but the authors of the Bible back up what they are saying.  I mentioned in a recent post that the job of a prophet was to apply God’s words to the life of the people that they were speaking to, not in a “hey if you happen to get into this situation then…” sort of way, but in a “don’t you know what God thinks about what you are doing sort of way”.  Prophets were like the moral conscience of the people and most of their messages were warnings.  But they also did do what we think of when we think of prophets; they foretold the future.  It is that part of their message that really tells us that they were speaking from God.  There is enough predictive prophecy in the Old Testament to give certain scholars who don’t want to believe in God fits.  They are constantly trying to tell us that the person who wrote this book or that must have live very late, most of them after 450 BC, because their predictions are so accurate.  Unfortunately for them and fortunately for us the evidence doesn’t support their anti-God, anti-supernatural bias.

The beginning of verse 2 seemed pretty abrupt to me, kind of a “get in their face” instruction for Jeremiah.  In verses 2-3 God remembers the early history of Israel.  They had been a family that had grown into a nation, the descendants of twelve brothers, all sons of Jacob (who’s name was changed to Israel, see “What’s in a Name”).  they grew from the immediate families of the twelve into that nation of people over a 400 year period while living in Egypt.  They had started out as a favored group but by the end of the 400 years they had become slave in that land and the people of Egypt hated them.  God hear their sighs (Exodus 2:23-25) and put his plan for them into action, leading them out of the land toward the land he had promised to their ancestor Abraham.

Jeremiah (or God rather) saw that they were devoted to him and compares the relationship to that of newlyweds.  God also describes them as “first fruits”.  That term carries with it two ideas.  I like to grow vegetables in a garden, especially tomatoes.  I love to see the plants grow up and get flowers, then little fruit, but I especially like it when I go out and discover ripe fruit; ripe vegetable.  May of those “first fruits” never make it into the house, especially tomatoes, because I pick them and eat them right then and there, and I love it!  So the first idea is that God is very pleased with them; they are precious to him.  But the second idea contained in the comparison is that there will be more to come.  This year I got some tomatoes several of which I did not get to eat (I tell you more in a minute) but then the vines stopped producing, and I was doubly disappointed.  Israel was the “first fruit” spiritually of larger group that God intends to bring back to him; a group that includes people from “every tribe, tongue, people and nation” (Revelation 5:9).  Verse 3 also contains a warning of the consequences of messing with God’s garden.  The reason I missed out on a lot of tomatoes this year was just when one would become ripe I would go out to pick it and find that it had been eaten (actually half eaten so I would think it was there until I turned it around and found a big hole with little teeth marks).  I hate mice and rats and they were guilty and my wrath came upon them (unfortunately I’m not as good at wrath as God).  Eventually several were killed, though I have to give my pets more credit than I can take, unfortunately for me it was too late.  Anyway God sent evil on those who dared touch his first fruits.

It was not just outsiders who spoiled the honeymoon or the harvest though; most of the trouble came from within Israel.  Verse 5 tells us that they deserted God.  In verse 5 we find God asking the Israelites of Jeremiah’s day, what he did wrong that caused their ancestors to defect.  The question is to get them thinking, God had done nothing wrong, that is clear from the questions he continues to ask.  God wants them to think about the unfaithfulness of their ancestors and about God’s faithfulness and then apply it to their own unfaithful lives.  In the New Testament Jesus is confronting some religious leaders about their rules.  They made up all sorts of rules to the point that they actually interfered with people obeying God.  The Old Testament teaches children to honor their parents.  One rule the leaders made up was that if you had something that your parents needed you could neglect them and not give it to them if you gave it to God instead (Mark 7:6-11).  I’m sure those parents might have wanted to say, “Why are you neglecting me?  Is it because I cared for you all those years?  Fed you?  Clothed you?  Gave you a place to sleep?  Bought you a car, I mean sandals?”.  That is what God is doing here in Jeremiah in verses 5-6.

One thing struck me that I hadn’t thought about before.  If you have read “The Old Testament Connection” you know that I think that the history retold in the Old Testament tells us a story of man’s failure to live for God; we need God’s help in living for him.  As I read this passage I got the same feeling about the time that the Israelites spent wandering around in the wilderness before they got to enter the land God promised them.  If you don’t know the story, the Israelites turned on God pretty quickly and actually wanted to go back to Egypt.  They got a little thirsty, took one look at the desert they were in and wanted to go back.  They went from “believing in God because of his great power (in parting the Red Sea)” in Exodus 14 to grumbling and complaining three days later because they got to an oasis and the water was bad.  God fixed the water and also challenged them to be faithful to him.  He also implied that if they were unfaithful that there would be consequences (Exodus 15:22-27).  In Jeremiah 2:7-8 instead of remembering and looking to God the people, the priests, the leaders and the prophets turned to false gods, like Baal, the god of the people in the land that they took over.

Clearly Jeremiah’s readers were guilty in the same way and in verses 9-11 he “gets in their ears”.  God challenges the Israelites of Jeremiah’s day to travel around a little and see if anyone else is like them; do people in other countries treat their gods like Israel has treated Him?  They are faithful to their gods who really are powerless.  The gods of the world do not cause their people to profit in any way.  In verses 12-13 god or Jeremiah calls all of creation to be shocked and horrified at the way Israel has treated him.  In verse 13 God tells us that the actions of the Israelites is doubly evil.  First they have forgotten that God provides in the best way possible.  The idea behind “living water” is a fresh spring bubbling up out of the earth, the beginning of a great river before it has had a change to pick up all the slime and muck of a riverbed.   And second, they have exchanged this pure water for water from a dirty old cistern.  In many parts of the world water is collected and stored.  In ancient time people would build or carve a storage pool.  I have a pool and, if I do not filter it and keep chlorine in it, it can get pretty nasty pretty fast all filled with algae.  These guys would build storage pools that didn’t have the chemicals and filters and drink and use the water.  In this example their cisterns aren’t even very efficient because they leak.  Not only is the water nasty there isn’t very much of it.  What a contrast with a flowing spring.

In Isaiah 41:18 God tells the people that in a future day he will fulfill his promises to Abraham and the people of Israel and will “make rivers on the barren heights (by the way that’s a miracle because most rivers are from springs and runoff and are in valleys), springs in the valleys, he will turn the desert into pools, and springs will flow up from the dry ground.”  God provided in the past, he will provide in the future, and we need to believe he will take care of us today too.  When he does we need to take note and remember it so that when troubling times come we can not see a wilderness with no water but we can see another opportunity for God to get the credit he deserves.

God help me see and understand the great things you do for me each day.  Every aspect of my existence whether it be “miraculously” provided like the water at Marah (Exodus 16:25-26) or there where you put it waiting for my arrival like the water and dates at Elim (Exodus 16:27) is really a miracle from you.  All the universe is your handiwork and declares your existence and I need to recognize you and your care for me in it.  So help me see and understand and then honor you with my life.  Thank you for revealing yourself in history and in my life, let me remember, let me remember, let me remember.  Thank you God.