Jeremiah 37; 30-31

Then fear not, O Jacob my servant, declares the LORD,
nor be dismayed, O Israel;
for behold, I will save you from far away,
and your offspring from the land of their captivity.
Jacob shall return and have quiet and ease,
and none shall make him afraid.
For I am with you to save you,
declares the LORD;
I will make a full end of all the nations
among whom I scattered you,
but of you I will not make a full end.
I will discipline you in just measure,
and I will by no means leave you unpunished.

Jeremiah 30:10-11

The LORD reassures His people that He is not utterly abandoning them, that He will yet save them. Amidst all the words of woe and certain destruction, this message may seem surprising. But this is not the first time we have heard such a thing from Jeremiah. In fact, we read nearly the exact same words at the end of yesterday’s passage in Jeremiah 46:27-28. And we’ve had similar words of comfort and restoration elsewhere in Jeremiah. Just consider the following that we’ve already read:

• Jeremiah 3:12-4:2
• Jeremiah 4:27; 5:18
• Jeremiah 16:14-21
• Jeremiah 24:4-7
• Jeremiah 29:10-14
• Jeremiah 50:4-5,20,33-34

Now in Jeremiah 30-31 the LORD opens the floodgates of consolation, proclaiming that Israel’s current chastisement will come to an end and they will be restored to their land. But what Jeremiah describes is not merely an eventual release from captivity and a return to the land, but a restoration of relationship with the LORD. Further, this restoration applies not only to Judah, but to the whole house of Israel:

At that time, declares the LORD, I will be the God of all the clans of Israel, and they shall be my people.

Jeremiah 31:1

As we shall see, the exiles in Babylon are eventually released from their captivity and return to the land. But that return only hints at the fulfillment of the LORD’s promises here. The LORD has something much bigger and better in mind:

Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put My law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be My people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, “Know the LORD,” for they shall all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

Jeremiah 31:31-34

Stay tuned.

Jeremiah 10:17-25; 21:1-22:9; 34; 46:13-28

I know, O LORD, that the way of man is not in himself,
that it is not in man who walks to direct his steps.
Correct me, O LORD, but in justice;
not in your anger, lest you bring me to nothing.

Jeremiah 10:23-24

We would all do well to spend some time in quiet meditation on this prayer of Jeremiah. Jeremiah bows himself in humility, recognizing his (our) inability to get things right. He is not defensive or defiant toward the LORD, but instead looks for correction, knowing that he needs the LORD’s mercy and that he cannot endure the LORD’s wrath.

This prayer stands in marked contrast with what we see from Zedekiah:

…King Zedekiah sent to [Jeremiah] Pashhur the son of Malchiah and Zephaniah the priest, the son of Maaseiah, saying, “Inquire of the LORD for us, for Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon is making war against us. Perhaps the LORD will deal with us according to all his wonderful deeds and will make him withdraw from us.”

Jeremiah 21:1b-2

Zedekiah treats the LORD like a useful Genie, Someone Who previously did some neat stuff and might just come in handy again. But there is little hint here of any humility or contrition, no notion of a desire to be corrected, no repentance. The only semblance of humility shown here is that Zedekiah deigns to turn to Jeremiah at all, the man he has thus far completely failed to heed. The inquiry itself is ridiculous, though, because Zedekiah should already know the answer. Jeremiah has been declaring the LORD’s verdict for quite some time, so it should be no surprise when Jeremiah reiterates that everyone’s best course of action is to surrender to Nebuchadnezzar. (Jer. 21:8-10)

So what about us? How do we approach God in prayer? Do we come to Him in humility and contrition, recognizing that He is the LORD God Almighty, the One to Whom we owe our very life, indeed, the One Who is our very life? Do we come looking for correction in complete surrender to His will? Or do we come to our own personal Genie, looking for favors and blessings, despite our defiance of His known will?

We might want to think long and hard before we happily conclude that we are more like Jeremiah than Zedekiah…

II Chronicles 36:11-12; Ezekiel 1:1-3:21; II Kings 24:20-25:3; Jeremiah 52:3-6

Today we meet Ezekiel with his call to be a prophet of the LORD among the exiles in Babylon. Ezekiel sees a vision of the glory of the LORD, involving living creatures with four faces and wheels within wheels. (If you are looking here for an explanation of that vision, I’m sorry to disappoint…) Having gotten Ezekiel’s attention, the LORD commissions Ezekiel as a prophet to the people of Israel, including Judah, whom the LORD describes as rebellious, impudent, and stubborn:

And He said to me, “Son of man, I send you to the people of Israel, to nations of rebels, who have rebelled against me. They and their fathers have transgressed against me to this very day. The descendants also are impudent and stubborn: I send you to them, and you shall say to them, “Thus says the Lord GOD.” And whether they hear or refuse to hear (for they are a rebellious house) they will know that a prophet has been among them.

Ezekiel 2:3-5

We would do well here to remember Isaiah’s call:

And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.” And He said, “Go, and say to this people:
“‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand;
keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’
Make the heart of this people dull,
and their ears heavy,
and blind their eyes;
lest they see with their eyes,
and hear with their ears,
and understand with their hearts,
and turn and be healed.”

Isaiah 6:8-10

And let’s not forget how Jeremiah is consistently rejected…

Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel (not to mention innumerable others) are all called to prophesy to people who are not listening, and won’t. The LORD is clearly well aware of Israel’s hard heart, yet the LORD calls these prophets anyway and charges them to preach. He explains to Ezekiel that He is setting him as a watchman with the responsibility to warn the people, whether or not they choose to listen. (Ez. 3:16-21)

Do we as Christians today each stand in Ezekiel’s place, with the same responsibility as a watchman? No, I don’t think so, at least not in quite the same way; we are not Old Testament prophets. Ezekiel and others did their job, and the world has been duly warned. But that is not to say that we should sit idly by as the world goes to hell. Not at all. We must do what we can to warn against sin. We must take our stand on major moral and social issues of our day: human trafficking, drugs and addiction, abortion, pornography and sexual immorality, greed — any sin, actually. And we should stand firm, even when the world refuses to listen. Most of all, we should do our part in sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ. After all, it is not a message to be hoarded! But that does not mean that we are in Ezekiel’s shoes.

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One more thing…

You might notice that the LORD repeatedly addresses Ezekiel as “son of man”, which basically just means “man” or “human being” or “mortal person”. In other words, Ezekiel is one of us. As a title, “son of man”, is used over ninety times to refer to Ezekiel, but it is used nowhere else in the Old Testament except in Daniel 7:13 (where it points to the Messiah) and Daniel 8:17 (where it refers to Daniel). When we get to the New Testament, we will see in the Gospels that in referring to Himself, Jesus uses “the Son of Man” more than any other title. In so doing, Jesus emphasizes His humanity, that He is one of us, but we should also note that He is the Son of Man, that is, the Archetypical Man.

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And another thing…

There’s nothing like a good old African American Spiritual to remind us of Scripture, so have a listen to any of these varied renditions of “Ezekiel Saw de Wheel”:

• Norfolk State University Choir
• Louis Armstrong
• The Charioteers
• St. Olaf Choir

Jeremiah 50-51

Lest anyone think that Jeremiah really is a traitor, a sellout to the Babylonians and their gods, we see today how thoroughly mistaken such an idea is. Jeremiah tells us quite clearly that Babylon, the instrument of the LORD’s judgment on Judah (and the remnant of Israel), will herself be destroyed in good time. So no, Jeremiah is not rooting for the Babylonians.

Remember, this is very much in line with what God did with Assyria. The LORD raised up the Assyrians as a judgment against Israel and as a strong warning to Judah. Having accomplished His purposes through Assyria, the LORD used the Babylonians to destroy those evil Assyrians. Now the LORD raises up the Babylonians in judgment against Judah (and everyone else in the region), and when He is finished with them, He will destroy them, too. It’s the same idea. We might even call it a pattern.

The LORD raises up, and the LORD tears down, and the LORD accomplishes His purposes. We see this all throughout human history — not just ancient history, but modern history, too. Do you think God had nothing to do with the rise and fall of the Roman Empire? Do you think He was unaware of Genghis Khan or the Ming Dynasty? Do you think God was absent from World War I or World War II or the Holocaust? Or how about the Soviet Union? Or the People’s Republic of China? Is God aloof from American politics?

Whenever you think that the “bad guys” are winning, just wait. God will deal with them in His own time — which may not be as quickly as we might like. But in the meantime we should ask ourselves whether we are really the “good guys”. Or are we like Israel and Judah, in need of a little forceful “encouragement” to mend our ways? Or might we ourselves be Babylon?

Jeremiah 29

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

Jeremiah 29:11

We all love this verse, right? How many of us have memorized it? I’m guessing it is currently the best-known verse in all of Jeremiah. You’ll find it hanging on the wall in homes, as framed calligraphy or printed over a beautiful picture. Perhaps you’ve seen it as a refrigerator magnet. You’ll even find it emblazoned on t-shirts. It’s quoted frequently, most often by false prophets.

What?! Yes, you read that right: false prophets.

Think about it. This verse is consistently pulled entirely out of context. The false prophet fails to mention exile by the LORD’s hand. He fails to mention that Jeremiah is here telling the Jews in Babylon not to expect to come home any time soon, that it will, in fact, be seventy years of exile, by which time most of them will be dead. He fails to mention the rest of the story, that the LORD is bringing destruction upon all the exiles’ friends and family back home. The false prophet uses this verse to reassure us that all will be well, no matter what, that God never does anything that we might interpret as “negative”. God just wants to make you prosperous. Don’t worry; be happy! Everything is coming up roses!

And we drink it in, because that is what we want to hear. We are quick to claim Jeremiah 29:11 for ourselves, but why not Jeremiah 29:17-18? Who memorizes those verses? Why aren’t they hanging on our walls in framed art?

Please do not misunderstand me. I am not by any means saying that we cannot find hope and comfort in Jeremiah 29:11. We most certainly can and should. But let’s be sure to hear the whole message, not just the parts we like. Let’s remember that the path to the Resurrection runs through the Cross.

Jeremiah 25:15-38; 27:12-28:17

Bring your necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and serve him and his people and live.

Jeremiah 27:12b

That’s a hard thing to hear. In fact, it smacks of treason! Jeremiah might just as well be Nebuchadnezzar’s version of Tokyo Rose. Who wants to hear a message like that, especially when all the other prophets are much more encouraging? They, too, speak in the name of the LORD but are clearly much more loyal to the nation, much more patriotic — not like this traitor, Jeremiah.

We know that Jeremiah speaks the truth and that all the other “prophets” are lying. We know because we can look back and see how things work out for Judah and Jerusalem under Nebuchadnezzar. But when it comes to the voices around us today, it seems to me that we don’t do so well. In fact, I think we evangelicals do a pretty good job of training ourselves to believe the false prophets. Just think about all your Sunday School lessons: Moses vs. Pharaoh; Joshua and the walls of Jericho; David against Goliath; Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego defying Nebuchadnezzar and his fiery furnace. It’s always victory through faith. And yes, faith is good! But where is the children’s Sunday School lesson on exile? Or surrender? Or suffering? Those require faith, too — deeper faith.

As a kid I could have easily told you about Daniel and the lions’ den or about Daniel’s friends and the fiery furnace. But I could have told you nothing at all about Jeremiah. Absolutely nothing. And I am pretty sure the reason for that is that we still don’t really want to hear what he has to say.

To whom do you listen?

II Kings 24:18-19; Jeremiah 52:1-2; 27:1-11; 48-49

The LORD declares through Jeremiah:

It is I Who by My great power and My outstretched arm have made the earth, with the men and animals that are on the earth, and I give it to whomever it seems right to Me.

Jeremiah 27:5

We all smile and nod our heads in intellectual assent to the sovereignty of God. And it is all just fine, so long as we are thinking in the abstract and it is all “out there”.

Now I have given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, My servant, and I have given him also the beasts of the field to serve him. All the nations shall serve him…

Jeremiah 27:6-7a

Ah, here we move from the abstract to the concrete, and we begin to fidget.

But if any nation or kingdom will not serve this Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and put its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, I will punish that nation with the sword, with famine, and with pestilence, declares the LORD, until I have consumed it by his hand.

Jeremiah 27:8

Now we go from fidgeting to fear (or worse), because our nice abstract idea about God’s sovereignty suddenly demands something quite concrete of us, something we do not want to do: surrender to our perceived enemy.

So long as God’s will lines up with our own desires, we’re happy to say He is sovereign, but when His will and our desires diverge, we have a problem. Then we start trying to punch holes in this idea of an all-sovereign God, or we assert that His will is different from what we know it to be, all so that we can cling to our own way, our sin. But trying to outflank or outwit or overpower an omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent God is a losing proposition.

Stay tuned.

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One more thing…

It is our sins that make the barbarians strong. It is our vices that vanquish Rome’s soldiers. As if there were here too little material for carnage, civil wars have made almost greater havoc among us than the swords of foreign foes. Miserable must those Israelites have been compared with whom Nebuchadnezzar was called God’s servant. Unhappy too are we who are so displeasing to God that he uses the fury of the barbarians to execute his wrath against us. Still, when Hezekiah repented, 185,000 Assyrians were destroyed in one night by a single angel. When Jeshosaphat sang the praises of the Lord, the Lord gave his worshiper the victory. Again, when Moses fought against Amalek, it was not with the sword but with prayer that he prevailed. Therefore, if we wish to be lifted up, we must first prostrate ourselves.

Saint Jerome on Jeremiah 27, from Letter 60.17

Try rereading the above substituting “terrorists” for “barbarians” and “U.S.A.” for “Rome”.

Daniel 3-4

I expect that many of us are somewhat familiar with Daniel 3. We are probably less familiar with Daniel 4.

Although Nebuchadnezzar’s response to Daniel’s interpretation of his dream is favorable in Daniel 2, he does not then put his full faith in Daniel’s God. He continues in idolatry, erecting an enormous golden image and commanding that all bow down and worship it. Daniel’s friends, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah (Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego), refuse to bow down to this image, so Nebuchadnezzar has them thrown into a fiery furnace, from which they emerge unscathed, without even the smell of smoke. This is the story many of us may know from Sunday School, but I’m betting our focus has been on God’s miraculous work saving the three friends (Yay!), or maybe on their extraordinary faith (Yay!), and not so much on Nebuchadnezzar, whose response to this encounter with the living God is again quite favorable — and again in stark contrast to the people of Jerusalem. But even after this great miracle, as far as full faith in God is concerned, Nebuchadnezzar is not quite “there” yet.

God then gives Nebuchadnezzar another dream, and Daniel is called in again to interpret. Daniel urges the king to repent, to do righteousness, and to show mercy. (Dan. 4:27) Nebuchadnezzar probably gives Daniel’s advice fair consideration — for a time, at least — but pride is a hard thing to give up, especially when you are the most powerful person around. So about a year later, as Nebuchadnezzar stands admiring himself, glorying in his own kingdom, God takes that kingdom from him, sending him into what appears to be a complete mental breakdown.

It’s hard to be on top of the world when everyone can see that you are crazy. Nebuchadnezzar thus gets a strong dose of humility. Eventually, in His mercy, God restores Nebuchadnezzar’s sanity, along with his kingdom. Now, finally, Nebuchadnezzar gets the picture and (I think) truly does acknowledge God’s supremacy, placing His full faith in God.

It is only in the loss of his kingdom, no, the loss of himself, that Nebuchadnezzar finds God. He could be impressed by Daniel’s dream interpretations. He could be amazed at God’s miraculous rescue of Daniel’s friends from the fiery furnace. But these things are insufficient. It is only in complete loss — a kind of death — that he finds life.

And so it is with us, as Jesus tells us:

Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

John 12:24-25

Let’s learn from Nebuchadnezzar today. Let’s allow this king of Babylon to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ into our lives!

Daniel 1-2

Today we are introduced to Daniel and his friends, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah (better known, perhaps, by their Babylonian names: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego), who are exiled from Jerusalem to Babylon as young men, probably barely in their teens. From the outset, these young men cling to the God of heaven and refuse to be tainted by Babylonian practices, demonstrating a faith that is in stark contrast to the corruption of Judah.

King Nebuchadnezzar likewise stands in contrast to the leadership of Judah. Whereas those in Judah readily believe the false prophets, but refuse to believe Jeremiah (or any other true prophets), Nebuchadnezzar shows a healthy skepticism of all his magicians, enchanters, sorcerers, and Chaldeans and puts them to the test, demanding that they not only interpret his dream but tell him the dream, too. None rises to the challenge but Daniel, whom God empowers with an extraordinary revelation, giving both the dream and its interpretation. But the real punchline is how the pagan King Nebuchadnezzar responds. Back in Jerusalem, the priests of the LORD and all the people of Judah actively abuse Jeremiah and stifle his voice. Here in Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar honors Daniel and promotes him and his friends to positions of leadership and power.

Is it not shocking that this pagan king displays more godliness here than all the priests in Jerusalem? What a rebuke this scene is to them! Of course, Nebuchadnezzar is only just beginning to encounter God. He is not yet to the point of conversion (as will be amply demonstrated tomorrow), but he still produces a better response than those who should know God quite well.

May we likewise be quick to recognize Truth and respond rightly to God!

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One more thing…

In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah…

Daniel 1:1

If you are paying attention and can do basic arithmetic, you should recognize that this verse places the beginning of Daniel’s exile in Babylon eight years prior to yesterday’s reading (that is, in 605 B.C.), which goes to say that our chronology here is mixed up. We should have read this passage days ago, before Jehoiakim’s burning of Jeremiah’s scroll. The editors of The Chronological Study Bible rationalize their choice of placing today’s reading here, but I think we’d all do better to believe the Scriptures (including Daniel 1:1; 2:1) as written, rather than the very fallible interpretations of some modern scholars.

The editors’ choices are not without serious implications. If we disregard Daniel 1:1 (as the editors do in their not-so-chronological placement of today’s reading), then we are given the impression that Jeremiah has virtually no concrete evidence of the Babylonian threat before 597 B.C. But if we believe Daniel 1:1, we have a very different picture. Jeremiah does indeed have very clear evidence: the exile of Daniel and many others and the carrying off of some of the Temple treasure in 605 B.C. Among other things, that makes Judah’s choice to continue to believe the false prophets all that more egregious.

II Kings 24:5-9; Jeremiah 22:18-30; 13:15-27; II Kings 24:10-17; II Chronicles 36:5-10; Jeremiah 24:1-10

It’s 597 B.C. Jeremiah has been prophesying in Jerusalem for years, pleading for the people of Judah to repent in order to avoid destruction. Jehoiakim, that arrogant king that burned Jeremiah’s scroll, lies dead, unmourned. His son, Coniah/Jeconiah/Jehoiachin takes the throne but does not change course. Contrary to all the assurances of peace from the false prophets, Jerusalem falls to the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar. The upper-crust of society — King Jehoiachin, his mother, thousands of great men, nobles, craftsmen, anyone of capability — are deported to Babylon, along with all the precious things from the Temple and the palace. The disaster Jeremiah has been predicting is here. (Spoiler alert: The disaster has only just begun!)

Given the LORD’s pronouncement against Coniah/Jeconiah/Jehoiachin in Jeremiah 22:28-30 as he goes off to captivity, that he would be considered childless with no offspring on the throne of Judah, one might expect a similar assessment for all those going into exile. That is, our intuition views those being hauled off into captivity as the ones under condemnation, and those staying home in Jerusalem as better. In other words, “bad guys” are sent into exile, but “good guys” stay safe at home. Wrong. In an ironic twist, the LORD turns our intuition on its head when He gives Jeremiah a vision of two baskets of figs, one with good figs and one with bad, inedible figs:

Then the word of the LORD came to me: “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: Like these good figs, so I will regard as good the exiles from Judah, whom I have sent away from this place to the land of the Chaldeans. I will set My eyes on them for good, and I will bring them back to this land. I will build them up, and not tear them down; I will plant them, and not pluck them up. I will give them a heart to know that I am the LORD, and they shall be My people and I will be their God, for they shall return to Me with their whole heart.

Jeremiah 24:4-7

The LORD repeatedly promises to preserve a remnant of His people for Himself. But who would ever guess that captivity in Babylon would be the path of that preservation?!

Perhaps we should meditate on that when a) life does not seem to make sense or b) we think we have everything figured out.