COLNE AND VILLAGES TEAM
LENT BIBLE LECTURES 2011
LECTURE THREE – The Road to Destruction
Last week we heard about the beginning of Jeremiah’s prophesying in the reign of good King Josiah. Even then the Lord saw that Israel’s conversion was only skin deep, and delivered through him a message of inescapable doom. At that time the Northern power which would inflict this crushing blow was, as yet, unidentified.
Today we turn to the prophecies from Jeremiah’s second period, during the crisis which brought Judah to its knees in 597 BCE through to its eventual destruction in 587 BCE.
Jeremiah prophesied in this second period during the reign of King Jehoiacim and Zedekiah.
If we look back to the structure of the book, from week 1, we see that there are two sections of material which come from this period. The first, chapters 7-25 is largely made up of oracles, though there are some narrative sections. The second, chapters 26-45 is a coherent narrative of Jeremiah’s activities during this period, more a record of what he did rather than what he said. This week we look at the Jeremiah’s sayings from this period.
Both begin with the same event, Jeremiah’s Temple Sermon. It words are recorded in Chapter 7, the event is described in Chapter 26.
This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: “Stand at the gate of the LORD’s house and there proclaim this message:[1]
Jeremiah is explicitly commanded to stand in the Temple Gate and given specific words to utter. The sermon is in prose form, and is a single, extended message. Chapter 26 tells us that this took place ‘early in the reign of Jehoiacim’, probably before Nebuchadrezzar came to the throne in the fourth year of Jehoiacim’s reign.
Hear the word of the LORD, all you people of Judah who come through these gates to worship the LORD. This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Reform your ways and your actions, and I will let you live in this place. Do not trust in deceptive words and say, “This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD!”[2]
The Temple was the principal gathering place in Jerusalem, and, though they were addressed to ‘all the people’, his words would be uttered within the earshot of the priests who ministered there.
The theology of the Temple as well as that of Kingship was based on God’s Covenant with David. God had promised to continue the line of David and to protect his people from all harm. The Temple itself was the visible symbol of this theology. In those day the Covenant with David vastly overshadowed that made with Israel on Mount Sinai. Indeed many theologians believe that the collection of the Torah in its present form was largely an exilic project to bring back to centrality the older Patriarchal and Mosiac traditions which had been eclipsed by the Davidic Covenant. Certainly it would be very hard to reconstruct even a partial picture of the Law of God as presented in the Torah from the materials which are presented to us in Samuel and Kings.
The Davidic Covenant had been tested a hundred or so years ago in the days of Isaiah[3], when Hezekiah was King. Following the fall of Israel, the Northern Kingdom, to Assyria, Assyrian forces had advanced on Jerusalem and besieged it. Just at the point when the city was about to fall the King of Assyria retreated and Jerusalem was saved. Hezekiah’s prayer and Isaiah’s prophecies that the Lord would not allow Jerusalem to fall were vital features in the Judean interpretation of the miracle. This event had bolstered their belief that their Temple and their King were invincible.
Jeremiah’s Temple Sermon attacks false reliance on the Davidic Covenant root and branch. It was a bitter attack on the whole Temple system, and on the underlying ideology of the Davidic kingdom.
Jeremiah’s opening words, with the triple repetition of the reassuring slogan “This is the Temple of the Lord” make mockery of that false sense of security, and yet the opening verses are not unbridled condemnation. They make an offer
If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, if you do not oppress the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm, then I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your ancestors for ever and ever[4].
Note what the charges are this time. Social injustice is added to Syncretism.
The corollary is that if they do not amend their ways the Lord’s continued presence among them, signified by the Temple, is at risk.
Again the false sense of assurance is highlighted:
The sins of the people are then enumerated:
Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal and follow other gods you have not known,[6]
Having committed all these offences they return to the safety and security of the Temple,
…and then [you] come and stand before me in this house, which bears my Name, and say, “We are safe”—safe to do all these detestable things? Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of robbers to you?[7]
The Temple is not described as the dwelling of the Lord, but as ‘The House that is called by my name’. There is already a sense of distancing. The den of robbers is quoted by Jesus when he cleansed the Temple. This, however, is not an attack on commerce in the Temple, but, like Jeremiah, on the false sense of security generated by participation in the Temple cult. The Robbers Den is where they go home after robbing and feel safe.
This is not the word ‘shoqed’ which we encountered in the vision of the almond blossom. That really means ‘vigilant’. There the phrase ‘I am watching’ could be translated as ‘I have got my eye on you’. Here it is better translated ‘I have seen’. The Lord is not simply watching for evidence of misdoing, he has now got it.
The robbers den is under surveillance! An invitation now follows:
Go now to the place in Shiloh where I first made a dwelling for my Name, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of my people Israel.[9]
Long before Jerusalem came into the picture Shiloh was the first central shrine in the land, where the Israelites gathered back in the days of Joshua. Until the time of David it was where the Ark of the Covenant was kept. It was the shrine where Eli ministered and where Samuel was called by God. Shiloh, once the central shrine of Israel, had perished along with the people of Israel. Shiloh was about thirty miles north of Jerusalem, in the northern kingdom, in the territory of Ephraim. The invitation to a pilgrimage to Shiloh, destroyed by the Assyrians 120 years ago, would be a powerful lesson to the Judeans on the permanence of shrines! Look what that great shrine is like now, says the Lord.
Finally, anticipating that the invitation to repentance will not taken up, comes this condemnation
While you were doing all these things… I spoke to you again and again, but you did not listen; I called you, but you did not answer. Therefore, what I did to Shiloh I will now do to the house that bears my Name, the temple you trust in, the place I gave to you and your ancestors. I will thrust you from my presence, just as I did all your fellow Israelites, the people of Ephraim.[10]
A more plainly worded attack upon the whole ideology of the Judean State and Temple could scarcely be imagined. We will see the reaction of the establishment in later chapters. Here we simply hear his words.
To make his position in this matter completely plain the Lord now gives Jeremiah a personal command:
So do not pray for this people nor offer any plea or petition for them; do not plead with me, for I will not listen to you.[11]
What a command. How would I feel if I received a positive instruction from God not to pray for someone? Jeremiah’s role is not to stop the future condemnation, but to ensure it!
Jeremiah is now invited to observe the sins of the people. Whether these words were spoken out loud, or whether they remained private to Jeremiah we do not know.
Do you not see what they are doing in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? The children gather wood, the fathers light the fire, and the women knead the dough and make cakes to offer to the Queen of Heaven. They pour out drink offerings to other gods to arouse my anger[12].
This time the worship of other gods--specifically the Queen of Heaven, perhaps the Assyrian goddess Ashtaroth, is the only sin specified. The picture is an idyllic one, families working together, children gathering sticks, fathers kindling fires, mothers baking sweet cakes. But the practice is abhorrent to the Lord.
But am I the one they are provoking? declares the LORD. Are they not rather harming themselves, to their own shame? [13]
Who will suffer from this? Will it be God? There is an impassiveness here which contrasts strongly with the passionate love we saw in Chapters 2-6.
But impassiveness turns quickly to passionate anger, and judgement is prophesied.
Therefore this is what the Sovereign LORD says: My anger and my wrath will be poured out on this place—on man and beast, on the trees of the field and on the crops of your land—and it will burn and not be quenched.[14]
Even the fruitfulness of the earth, is devastated—this is a scorched earth policy with a vengeance. This is not simply a punishment upon people for the disobedience, but upon the whole land in the sense of dirt as well as country!
As he did in Chapter 2 Jeremiah turns their attention to the time in the wilderness, but this time it is not an idyll, but a time of disobedience:
This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Go ahead, add your burnt offerings to your other sacrifices and eat the meat yourselves! For when I brought your ancestors out of Egypt and spoke to them, I did not just give them commands about burnt offerings and sacrifices, but I gave them this command: Obey me, and I will be your God and you will be my people. Walk in obedience to all I command you, that it may go well with you. But they did not listen or pay attention….[15]
The Hebrew does not have the word ‘just’ in verse 22, nor do any of the other English versions. This is a case in the NIV where the translator translates what he thinks the text ought to say. The idea is presented that burnt offerings and sacrifices were not commended in the wilderness—a theme which indicates an ignorance of the Book of Leviticus. Sacrifices are things which developed ‘in the land’, with a negative connotation. The wilderness was an opportunity to learn obedience, but that opportunity was not taken then, nor is it now!
In Chapter 2 the Lord demonstrated how Judah had compounded the sins of Israel, and a similar theme is taken up here. The people of Judah had the example of countless prophets to lead them back to obedience, and their hard heartedness in refusing to listen to them simply compounds their sin.
When you tell them all this, they will not listen to you; when you call to them, they will not answer.[16]
The prophetic vocation, true to history, is to raise a voice which will not be heard, to not be heard. There is an innate stubbornness about them!
Therefore say to them, This is the nation that has not obeyed the LORD its God or responded to correction. Truth has perished; it has vanished from their lips.[17]
The final condemnation of false religious practice is preceded by a command to lament because the Lord has rejected his people.
Cut off your hair and throw it away; take up a lament on the barren heights, for the LORD has rejected and abandoned this generation that is under his wrath.[18]
This was one of Jeremiah’s symbolic prophetic acts. Shaving his head, as if in mourning, makes a point. Just consider how many people commented on my haircut just a couple of weeks ago!
A final description of false religious practice follows. This turns its back on the idyll of families baking cakes for the Queen of Heaven, and describes the practice of child sacrifice in the valley of Ben Hinnom. This, was to the south and west of Jerusalem. It was where rubbish was tipped out of the city, and bonfires smouldered continually to consume it. It was also where unclaimed dead bodies were dumped. Presumably, by association with the burning fires it was the place where children were sacrificed, by burning, to the Canaanite god Moloch.
The Greek word ‘gehenna’, which is translated in the New Testament as ‘hell’ comes from the Ge-Hinnom, the valley of Hinnom. The fires of Gehenna resemble the awful, unclean, fires of the Ge-Hinnom.
Child sacrifice was a dark underlying practice throughout much of the Old Testament period. To Jeremiah it was one of the worst examples of syncretism, where practices imported from the worship of other gods corrupted the very worship of yhwh himself. Josiah had destroyed the site at Hinnom where children were sacrificed, but it seems that in the reign of Jehoiacim the practice had quickly resumed [19]
The people of Judah have done evil in my eyes, declares the LORD. They have set up their detestable idols in the house that bears my Name and have defiled it. They have built the high places of Topheth in the Valley of Ben Hinnom to burn their sons and daughters in the fire—something I did not command, nor did it enter my mind[20].
Topheth means ‘the place of burning’, and from the description ‘high places’ was the shrine where these sacrifices took place.
So beware, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when people will no longer call it Topheth or the Valley of Ben Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter, for they will bury the dead in Topheth until there is no more room.[21]
There will be so many unclaimed bodies thrown out of the city that the Valley will become full. It will no longer be the place of burning, but will become The Valley of Slaughter.
Then the carcasses of this people will become food for the birds and the wild animals, and there will be no one to frighten them away[22].
Even beyond the disgrace of heaped up unburied bodies, there will not even be anyone left to drive away the vultures and other scavengers.
I will bring an end to the sounds of joy and gladness and to the voices of bride and bridegroom in the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem, for the land will become desolate[23].
Bridal celebrations, which normally give rise to mirth and celebration, will come to an end. The normal consequence of such celebrations will be new children, and there will be no more new children for those who slaughter them by fire in the name of God.
Burial was particularly important for the Jews and the disturbance of burial is a strong taboo. As a result of their disobedience there will be no-one to bury them, and that their bodies will be defiled. But the final words take this much further.
At that time, declares the LORD, the bones of the kings and officials of Judah, the bones of the priests and prophets, and the bones of the people of Jerusalem will be removed from their graves. They will be exposed to the sun and the moon and all the stars of the heavens, which they have loved and served and which they have followed and consulted and worshiped. They will not be gathered up or buried, but will be like dung lying on the ground.[24]
In political terms the natural consequences of paying tribute to a larger neighboring power was the adoption of certain of its religious forms. The Assyrians were particularly fond of ‘astral’ deities. Their interest in astronomy, continued by the Babylonians, gave us the 360° of the circle, for example. The Judeans took to this with some relish, and did not abandon the astral deities when they had opportunity, under Josiah, to do so. Now, they who had put such trust in astrology, would have their bones laid out beneath the gaze of heaven. Not only would there be no-one to bury the dead, but every existing tomb of every class of people would be desecrated and their bones spread out ‘like dung on the surface of the ground’. It is an image to which Ezekiel later returns in his visions[25].
The final chilling words are reflected in the words of Jesus in the Little Apocalypse in Mark 13:
Wherever I banish them, all the survivors of this evil nation will prefer death to life, declares the LORD Almighty.[26]
The consequences of these words can be well imagined. It is succinct, it is comprehensive in the scope of its judgments, and it is terrifying.
Throughout these chapters there are five a dialogues between Jeremiah and the Lord. Burdened by his message, Jeremiah complains to the Lord, who sometimes answers him, sometimes not. There are five major passages like this, and they are known as ‘The Confessions of Jeremiah’. These will be the major topic next week.
Today we are left with a very short time to consider the remaining eighteen chapters.
Last week we heard that Jeremiah’s early prophecies were not addressed to the King—good King Josiah, but there was criticism of the priests and prophets. In these chapters the criticism is more focused, as is the identity of the Northern oppressor, King Nebuchadrezzar and the armies of Babylon. Priests, prophets and Kings are all now named and identified. God’s judgement becomes much closer and more personal.
Four Kings are mentioned by name. Jeoahaz, or Shallum, who reigned briefly for three months before being taken off into exile; his brother Jehoiacim, who reigned for eleven years; Jehoiacin or Coniah, Jehoicaim’s son, who reigned for three months before Jerusalem fell to Babylon.( Because the father and son’s names are so similar we will call the son Coniah here.) Finally Coniah’s Uncle Zedekiah, Josiah’s third son.
In Chapter 22 there is a short oracle against Jeoahaz—whose personal name was Shallum. Throne names was often different from the personal one, as in Britain with Prince Albert becoming George VI.
For this is what the LORD says about Shallum son of Josiah, who succeeded his father as king of Judah but has gone from this place: “He will never return. He will die in the place where they have led him captive; he will not see this land again.”[27]
The fact that this prophecy was fulfilled gives some weight to Jeremiah’s preaching.
This is followed immediately by an attack on King Jeohoiacim.
Woe to him who builds his palace by unrighteousness, his upper rooms by injustice, making his own people work for nothing, not paying them for their labour. He says, ‘I will build myself a great palace with spacious upper rooms.’ So he makes large windows in it, panels it with cedar and decorates it in red.
Does it make you a king to have more and more cedar? Did not your father have food and drink? He did what was right and just, so all went well with him. He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well. Is that not what it means to know me?” declares the LORD. But your eyes and your heart are set only on dishonest gain, on shedding innocent blood and on oppression and extortion.”[28]
This time there is no mention of other gods, only social injustice—forced labour on royal luxury projects.
In Chapter 15 the King and the Queen Mother are addressed. This is the young King Coniah. His Mother was clearly a strong influence.
Say to the king and to the queen mother, Come down from your thrones, for your glorious crowns will fall from your heads.” The cities in the Negev will be shut up, and there will be no one to open them. All Judah will be carried into exile, carried completely away[29].
The cities of the Negev, in the deep south of the country, were traditional places of refuge.
This further prophecy is directed against Coniah.
This is what the LORD says: Record this man as if childless, a man who will not prosper in his lifetime, for none of his offspring will prosper, none will sit on the throne of David or rule anymore in Judah.[30]
No child to carry on the dynasty is the greatest disgrace a Judean King could experience. This prophecy again came true.
The text turns back to his father.
This is what the LORD says about Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah:
They will not mourn for him: ‘Alas, my brother! Alas, my sister!’
They not mourn for him: ‘Alas, my master! Alas, his splendour!’
He will have the burial of a donkey— dragged away and thrown outside the gates of Jerusalem.[31]
In fact, as we read in 2 Kings, Jehoiacim ‘rested with his fathers’[32]
In Chapter 21 King Zedekiah makes a request to Jeremiah at a time when Nebuchadrezzar is attacking.
King Zedekiah sent to him Pashhur… and the priest Zephaniah… They said: “Inquire now of the LORD for us because Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon is attacking us. Perhaps the LORD will perform wonders for us as in times past so that he will withdraw from us.”
But Jeremiah answered them, “Tell Zedekiah, ‘This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: I am about to turn against you the weapons of war that are in your hands, which you are using to fight the king of Babylon and the Babylonians who are outside the wall besieging you. And I will gather them inside this city. I myself will fight against you with an outstretched hand and a mighty arm in furious anger and in great wrath. I will strike down those who live in this city—both man and beast—and they will die of a terrible plague. After that, declares the LORD, I will give Zedekiah king of Judah, his officials and the people in this city who survive the plague, sword and famine, into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and to their enemies who want to kill them. He will put them to the sword; he will show them no mercy or pity or compassion.’[33]
Nebuchadrezzar is now approaching Jeremiah as a powerful prophet, and pleading with him to intercede for them. Just as the Lord has refused to let Jeremiah intercede earlier, now he refuses Zedekiah’s request. God will not only refuse to defend Jerusalem but will actively fight against it.
I myself will fight against you with an outstretched hand and a mighty arm in furious anger and in great wrath.[34]
Yhwh is again a passionate God, and again the passion is anger not love.
In Chapter 20 there is a personal prophecy against this priest Passhur, which predicts that he and his family will be taken into exile, including all those friends to whom ‘he has prophesied lies’.
Most of Chapter 23[35] is dedicated to lying prophets, and they too receive their judgement. Read it for yourself, but one notable passage is this, where the omnipotence of yhwh is asserted.
Am I only a God nearby,
declares the LORD,
and not a God far away?
Who can hide in secret places
so that I cannot see them?
declares the LORD.
Do not I fill heaven and earth?
declares the LORD[36].
Contrasted with this is a wonderful passage, similar to Isaiah 40-55, and to Psalm 115. Read it for yourself, and see the contrast with impotence of the idol, made by a joiner, adorned by a metal worker, dressed by an embroiderer.
Like a scarecrow in a cucumber field, their idols cannot speak; they must be carried because they cannot walk. Do not fear them; they can do no harm nor can they do any good.[37]
Again there is a majestic assertion of God’s power.
But God made the earth by his power; he founded the world by his wisdom and stretched out the heavens by his understanding. When he thunders, the waters in the heavens roar; he makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth. He sends lightning with the rain and brings out the wind from his storehouses[38].
This is not just an argument about the details of religious policy and practice. This is about the identity of God himself. The people may be respectful to yhwh, but they have failed to get the point that there is only one all-supreme, all-creating God—the God of Israel. And therefore they will be punished until they do get the point.
In Chapter 24 Jeremiah has another vision. This takes place after the first exile, in the reign of the last King, Zedekiah.
The LORD showed me two baskets of figs placed in front of the temple of the LORD. One basket had very good figs, like those that ripen early; the other basket had very bad figs, so bad they could not be eaten[39].
Like the first vision, Jeremiah is asked to identify what he has seen—two baskets of figs, one good and one rotten.
Then the word of the LORD came to me: 5 “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘Like these good figs, I regard as good the exiles from Judah, whom I sent away from this place to the land of the Babylonians. My eyes will watch over them for their 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 uproot them[40].
On the one hand are the exiles, blessed by God, knowing the Lord, and with the Covenant restored.
I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the LORD. They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me with all their heart[41].
And on the other hand is the final, tottering regime, to which Jeremiah continues to prophesy, with some authority now, after the other priests and prophets have been exiled, along with King Coniah, to Babylon.
But like the bad figs, which are so bad they cannot be eaten,’ says the LORD, ‘so will I deal with Zedekiah king of Judah, his officials and the survivors from Jerusalem, whether they remain in this land or live in Egypt. I will make them abhorrent and an offense to all the kingdoms of the earth, a reproach and a byword, a curse and an object of ridicule, wherever I banish them. I will send the sword, famine and plague against them until they are destroyed from the land I gave to them and their ancestors.[42]
Jerusalem, once so proud of itself, will become a figure of mockery because of its unfaithfulness. Think back to the ‘painted lady’ in 4.30!
There are a number of prophecies of hope and restoration in these chapters, and also prophecies against the nations. Both of these we will address in the final lecture.
Jeremiah also performs a number of symbolic acts, which we will look at next week.
In these chapters there are, again, some striking images, e.g. the olive tree (11.16), death creeping in through the windows (9.23), the hunter and the fisherman (16.16-18), an iron pen engraving stone (17.1), the potter and the clay (18.1-10). Read some of them, and use your imagination as you do so!
I want to end with a quote which I have always enjoyed. It breathes an English pessimism about the weather and the future!
The harvest is past,
the summer has ended,
and we are not saved[43].
The passages we have considered today address the whole question of God, his identity and his nature.
How far do we adapt our customs and our habits to God, or how far do we expect him to adapt to us? What are our equivalents of Bal or Ashteroth today?
At the heart of Jeremiah is the central question ‘Who is God?’
In Lent we are invited to explore and discover again the Living God, to let God be God, to turn from our broken cisterns to the fountain of living waters, and to see what that means for us.
[1] Jeremiah 7.1-2a
[2] Jeremiah 7.3-4
[3] Isaiah 35
[4] Jeremiah 7.5-7
[5] Jeremiah 7.8
[6] Jeremiah 7.9
[7] Jeremiah 7.10-11a
[8] Jeremiah 7.11b
[9] Jeremiah 7.12
[10] Jeremiah 7.13-15
[11] Jeremiah 7.16
[12] Jeremiah 7.17-18
[13] Jeremiah 7.19
[14] Jeremiah 7.20
[15] Jeremiah 7.21-24a
[16] Jeremiah 7.27
[17] Jeremiah 7.28
[18] Jeremiah 7.29
[19] 2 Kings 23.10
[20] Jeremiah 7.30-31
[21] Jeremiah 7.32
[22] Jeremiah 7.33
[23] Jeremiah 7.34
[24] Jeremiah 8.1-2
[25] Ezekiel 37
[26] Jeremiah 8.3
[27] Jeremiah 22.11-12
[28] Jeremiah 22.13-16
[29] Jeremiah 13.18-19
[30] Jeremiah 22.30
[31] Jeremiah 22.18-19
[32] 2 Kings 24.6
[33] Jeremiah 21.1-7
[34] Jeremiah 21.5
[35] Jeremiah 23.9-40
[36] Jeremiah 22.23-24
[37] Jeremiah 10.5
[38] Jeremiah 10.12-13
[39] Jeremiah 24.1-2
[40] Jeremiah 24.5
[41] Jeremiah 24.7
[42] Jeremiah 24.8-10
[43] Jeremiah 8.20
