JEREMIAH

God calls Jeremiah at a very young age to be a prophet to Judah and the nations. From the very beginning it is clear, that Jeremiah’s calling will make him a person of unpopularity, contempt and contention, and that his life will be threatened many times. God promises him protection, but doesn’t mince words as to the pressure he will be under.
Young Jeremiah picks up this heavy burden and though he often struggles with his calling, he lives it out faithfully over many decades. In spite of being often attacked, intensely disliked, plotted against, threatened, jailed, beaten and called traitor, Jeremiah manages to not only hold on to God, but to embrace his calling, even with its additional challenges of celibacy and isolation. He not only speaks the message, he displays the very heart of God to his fellow Jews: he always hopes and intercedes for the people’s best interest, encourages repentance, doesn’t rejoice when judgment comes and suffers with them through it all till the very end.
The nation of Judah is already in quite a bad shape when Jeremiah starts to prophesy. The reforms of the wholehearted and godly King Josiah have brought some repentance, but have also produced a lot of hollow spirituality, halfhearted worship and syncretistic practices. The moment Josiah dies an untimely death in a needless battle against Egypt (609 BC), Judah relapses into deep idolatry: Foreign deities are brought in on a massive scale, idol statues are set up in the very temple of God, Aaronitic priests are corrupt and syncretistic and the Molech cult, with its child sacrifice by burning, starts up again at a shrine just outside Jerusalem, called Topheth. With whole-sale idolatry comes a deterioration of law and justice: religion becomes business, poor people are exploited and the rights of the vulnerable are ignored.
The last few kings of Judah are a sad chapter. Though three of them are sons of Josiah (and one is a grand-child of his), they do not follow in their father’s footsteps but are corrupt, evil, unrepentant and stubbornly oppose Jeremiah’s message. Under their bad leadership Judah becomes a nation beyond redemption and Jeremiah has to speak one prophecy of doom after another.
More specifically Jeremiah predicts that the new super-power Babylon will not only defeat and conquer but also destroy and exile Judah. In the beginning no-one believes his prophecy of doom.
In earlier centuries when prophets called to repentance, they could promise people that repentance will prevent God’s judgment. Then, as Judah sinks lower and lower, the prophets can promise that repentance will delay God’s judgment. By the time of Jeremiah he can only promise that those who repent will survive the coming disaster and will be given a new life in exile. Jeremiah challenges the people of Judah, the king and even other nations to submit to Babylon’s conquest and so save themselves from vast bloodshed and total destruction.
As one wave of deportation after the other occurs (in 605, 597 and finally in 586 BC) and Jeremiah’s unpopular predictions come true, he finally can give messages of hope, not to those in Jerusalem who are stubbornly hoping against hope that they will outsmart Babylon, but those who accepted God’s judgment and now find themselves in exile in Babylon. He gives the all-important prophecy that the exile will only last seventy years. After seventy years even the seemingly un-defeatable Babylon will fall by the hands of yet another power and the displaced peoples will be given the opportunity to return to their own lands.
Until that happens Jeremiah encourages the exiles to embrace the state they are in as God’s discipline, to build houses, to plant gardens, to have children and to seek the welfare of the place they find themselves in. It is this humility and the faith that God will fulfill his promise of restoration (just as he fulfilled his prediction of judgment) that will carry the Jews through the exile and that will make them those whose fortunes God will restore.

The author and Date of writing
Jeremiah writes the book that bears his name (Jer 1:1), as well as the book of Kings and most likely Lamentations. He writes it at the clear command of God (Jer 30:1-2) with the help of Baruch, his faithful co-worker and scribe (Jer 38:18). Though King Jehoiakim burns up the first scroll of Jeremiah’s work, Baruch and Jeremiah reproduce it and keep expanding it as God’s messages keep coming (Jer 36:28, 32). Chapter 52 is most likely a postscript by Baruch, summarizing again the fall of Jerusalem and ending on a note of hope, the release of King Jehoiachin in Babylon (Jer 52:31-34).
Jeremiah starts prophesying in the 13th year of King Josiah (627 BC) and keeps speaking till after the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC. He covers the time of Josiah, Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin and Zedekiah, the last kings of Judah.

Jeremiah’s hearers and readers
Jeremiah’s hearers are the ever-dwindling number of Jews in Jerusalem and the surrounding area. God calls them the “bad figs” (Jer 24:1-7), those thinking themselves superior to the Jews already exiled, still assuming that they will not be judged by God, that they will yet be able to outsmart Babylon. To them Jeremiah’s message is: ‘Jerusalem will fall (Jer 1:13 and many more). Your false security in the temple will prove a lie (Jer 7:4). Repent now, accept God’s judgment. Submit to Babylon (Jer 38:17), for if you do, God promises that you will survive the disaster and that you will have a new start in Babylon.’
Jeremiah’s readers are the exiled Jews in Babylon. God calls them the “good figs” (Jer 24:1-7). They have submitted to God’s judgment and have embraced the fact that they are exiled. To them Jeremiah’s message is: ‘The promise of God now rests on you. In seventy years God will judge Babylon and will bring you back to your land (Jer 29:10). But in the meantime build houses, plant gardens, have children and seek the welfare of the place you find yourselves in (Jer 29:5-7). It is this humility, acceptance of God’s ways and faith in his promised restoration that will ensure that you will have a part in God’s restoration of the fortunes of his people.’
It cannot be overstated just how important Jeremiah’s prophecy that Babylon will be judged and that the exile will last only seventy years is for the Jews. It carries them through the exile. It gives them a frame to understand the events that happened. It helps them orientate themselves in their current situation. It strengthens their identity and upholds their future hope. It is specific, and since Jeremiah’s earlier predictions of doom have all come true to the letter, he is proven as an authoritative prophet of God, whose word can be trusted (Deu 18:21-22).

The historical background for Judah
By the end of the long and evil reign of king Manasseh (686-642 BC) Judah has descended into pervasive idolatry and fearful societal injustice (2 Chr 33:1-9). Manasseh’s son, King Amon, reigns only two years (642-640 BC), but continues in his father’s footsteps (2 Chr 33:21-25). When he dies, his son Josiah, at the age of eight, starts to reign (2 Chr 34:1-7). When King Josiah is sixteen years old, he starts to seek God, and when he is twenty years old, he starts to reform his country (2 Chr 33:1-3, 628 BC). He wholeheartedly exterminates whatever idolatry he can find, statues, pillars, shrines, groves, sanctuaries, idolatrous priests and practices. He re-opens and cleanses the temple and re-establishes the priesthood and the Levites. During his reforms the Law is re-discovered and Josiah reads and obeys it, with humility and fervor (2 Chr 34:8-28).
Jeremiah is called one year into Josiah’s reforms, he is about six years junior to Josiah. Jeremiah seeks to support Josiah’s reforms, but is confronted with the reality of the nation: the reforms have brought some repentance, but they have also produced a lot of hollow spirituality, halfhearted worship and syncretistic practices (Jer 7:1-15).
King Josiah sadly dies an untimely death in a needless battle against Egypt (609 BC, 2 Chr 35:20-27). Jeremiah mourns and utters a lament for Josiah (Jer 35:25). After his death Judah relapses quickly into deep idolatry: Foreign deities are brought in on a massive scale, idol statues are set up in the very temple of God, Aaronitic priests are corrupt and syncretistic and the Molech cult (with its child sacrifice by burning) starts up again at a shrine just outside Jerusalem called Topheth (Jer 19-20). With whole-sale idolatry comes a deterioration of law and justice: religion becomes business, poor people are exploited and the rights of the vulnerable are ignored.
The last few kings of Judah are a sad chapter. Though three of them are sons of Josiah (and one is a grand-child of his), they do not follow in their father’s footsteps but are corrupt, evil, unrepentant and stubbornly opposed to Jeremiah’s message. Under their bad leadership Judah becomes a nation beyond redemption and Jeremiah has to speak one prophecy of doom after another:
King Jehoahaz (1st son of Josiah) 609 BC reigns 3m deported to Egypt by Necho
King Jehoiakim (2nd son of Josiah) 609-597 BC reigns 12y rebels against Babylon, besieged
King Jehoiachin (Jehoiakim’s son) 597 BC reigns 3m surrenders to Babylon, is exiled
King Zedekiah (3rd son of Josiah 597-586 BC reigns 11y rebels against Babylon, defeated

The historical background for Babylon
Babylon was long a city and province in the vast and long-lasting Assyrian empire. In 628 BC a strong leader named Nabopolassar emerges, declaring himself king and Babylon independent of Assyrian rule. Assyria unsuccessfully tries to subdue him. In 627 BC Assyria’s last strong ruler, Ashurbanipal, dies.
Babylon allies itself with the Medes and other enemies of Babylon. Together they defeat Assyria’s capital Nineveh in 612 BC and the city of Haran in 610 BC. The Assyrians withdraw to Charchemish and ally themselves with their former enemy Egypt. Pharaoh Necho of Egypt then takes an army north, which is unwisely intercepted by king Josiah of Judah. Josiah is killed and Pharaoh Necho continues north to successfully fight with Assyria against Babylon in Charchemish 609 BC. On the way back to his country Pharaoh Necho deposes and deports Josiah’s son Jehoahaz, who has become king while Pharaoh Necho was engaged in Charchemish. Necho installs Jehoiakim as the new king of Judah.
Undeterred, Babylon challenges Assyria again to battle in 605 BC, again at Charchemish but this time the Assyria-Egypt coalition is defeated. The Assyrian empire is taken over by Babylon and its new king Nebuchadnezzar, son of Nabopolassar. After his victory at Charchemish, Nebuchadnezzar sweeps south, conquering vast areas, several nations and many cities, among them Jerusalem. Nebuchadnezzar makes Jehoiakim a vassal king under Babylonian over-lordship. A first group of Judeans are exiled to Babylon, among them Daniel.
King Jehoiakim allies himself with Egypt and rebels against Babylon in 602 BC. Nebuchadnezzar brings on his army to besiege Jerusalem anew in 598 BC. Jehoiakim dies during this siege, leaving his son Jehoiachin to deal with Babylon’s threat. In 597 BC, after only three months of reign, Jehoiachin surrenders to Babylon and is exiled there, together with a second group of Judeans, among them Ezekiel. Babylon installs Josiah’s third son Zedekiah as the new king over Judah.
As his brother Jehoiakim before him, Zedekiah allies himself with Egypt and rebels against Babylon. Babylon responds by besieging Jerusalem for the third time, starting on January 15th 588 BC. After about two and a half years of siege, on July 18th 586 BC, the city is breached and conquered. King Zedekiah flees but is caught, judged, blinded and exiled to Babylon. Many of Judah’s nobles are slaughtered, but Jeremiah is released respectfully. Almost all remaining Jews are exiled to Babylon, with only the poorest remaining in Judah under governor Gedaliah. When Gedaliah is murdered, they fear Babylon’s reprisal and move to Egypt, forcefully taking Jeremiah and Baruch with them.

Jeremiah’s Family and Calling
Jeremiah, son of Hilkiah, is of a priestly family (Jer 1:1). He is a descendant of Aaron, of the tribe of Levi, living in a town called Anathoth in the land of the tribe of Benjamin. David’s priest Abiathar, who was expelled by Solomon to Anathoth, is probably an ancestor of Jeremiah, as is priest Eli of Shiloh (1 Sam 3:11-14). Jeremiah, most likely aware of all these links, gives this word of God: “Go now to my place that was in Shiloh, where I made my name dwell at first and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel” (Jer 7:12). This word recalls the corruptness of the priesthood and of Israel, as it is also in the days of Jeremiah.
Only a few years into his ministry, the people of his very village, Anathoth, seek Jeremiah’s life (Jer 11:21) and later his very own family plots against him (Jer 12:6). Clearly Jeremiah’s family is not supportive of him, neither are they God-fearing, for they gang up on their unpopular prophet-relative.
Jeremiah is called by God in Josiah’s thirteenth year (627 BC), when he is still young (Jer 1:7). God declares that he formed him in the womb, knows him, consecrated him and appointed him a prophet to the nations (Jer 1:4-5). Jeremiah is shy, afraid at the calling, not eager or maybe overwhelmed (Jer 1:6). God assures him and gives him two initial pictures, the picture of an almond branch (to assure Jeremiah that God will follow through on his every promise), the other a boiling pot tilted away from the North (the threat of conquest from the North, Jer 1:11-13). God doesn’t mince words as to what this calling will mean, namely the opposition of kings, princes, priests and people. And – as he will do throughout Jeremiah’s life -, God rather than pitying him, sorely challenges him: “Do not break down before them, or I will break you before them”. Jeremiah will be a person of unpopularity, contempt and contention, and his life will be threatened many times, but God promises his utter protection in every conflict Jeremiah will endure, he will be “a fortified city, an iron pillar, a bronze wall” (Jer 1:16-19). Young Jeremiah picks up this heavy burden and though he often struggles with his calling, he lives it out faithfully over many decades.

Jeremiah during Josiah’s reforms
Jeremiah stands at the gate of the temple, addressing those who come to worship, maybe more due to king Josiah’s pressure than from their hearts. He warns them: No false security, no trusting in the presence of the temple. “If you truly amend your ways, if you truly act justly one with another, if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan” then God will show grace. If not, Jerusalem will become like Shiloh, that lost God’s presence and was completely destroyed (Jer 7:1-12).
Jeremiah, though ignored or treated with hostility throughout, has no joy in the predictions of doom he has to speak, but rather identifies with the suffering this will mean: “anguish! I writhe in pain! Oh, the walls of my heart! My heart is beating wildly; I cannot keep silent; for I hear the trumpet… how long must I see and hear?” (Jer 4:17-21). Jeremiah has the emotions that the people of Judah should have, but refuse to have: “My joy is gone, my grief is upon me, my heart is sick… for the hurt of my people I am hurt, I mourn, and dismay has taken hold of me” (Jer 8:18-9:2).
Jeremiah keeps interceding for his nation and is told three times that God will no longer hear (Jer 7:16, 14:11, 15:1).
He struggles severely, and also complains to God: “You will be in the right when I lay charges against you; but let me put my case to you. Why does the way of the guilty prosper?… But you, O LORD, know me; you see me and test me, my heart is with you… How long will the land mourn?” (Jer 12:1-4). Jeremiah remains childlike, he acknowledges God’s superiority, he addresses him, making God the center. God responds with yet another challenge: “If you have raced with foot-runners and they have wearied you, how will you compete with horses? And if in a safe land you fall down, how will you fare in the thickets of the Jordan?” (Jer 12:5).
God is not pitying him, rather informing him of the un-beautified reality that his family is plotting against him (Jer 12:6). God then seems to ‘lapse into his own grief’: “My heritage has become to me like a lion in the forest; she has lifted up her voice against me” (12:7-8).
During yet another heart-rending struggle Jeremiah goes through (Jer 15:10-21), God responds not only with a further challenge (Jer 15:19), but with stripping Jeremiah of one more layer of human comfort: He will never have a wife or children, nor participate in feasts or lamentations (Jer 16:1-9)
Is this cruel of God? Or is it yet a greater privilege for Jeremiah? It is as if God and Jeremiah both sit their grieving, God sharing his heart with one who ‘knows how it feels’. Maybe this is comforting after all for Jeremiah, or leading him further into his calling: participating in the emotion and grief of God. Jeremiah is ever more close to God’s heart, ever more feeling God’s emotion, ever more distraught at the doom he has to predict. As the book progresses, it often is hard to distinguish which are God’s words and which are Jeremiah’s (like Jer 13:17) “But if you will not listen my soul will weep in secret for your pride, my eyes will weep bitterly and run down with tears”. Jeremiah becomes not only the messenger, but the message, the representation of God’s heart to Israel.

Jeremiah during King Jehoiakim
As the political situation worsens (already the first group of Judeans have been exiled to Babylon) Jeremiah is increasingly threatened by those in spiritual or political leadership. First he is arrested and mistreated by priest Pashhur (Jer 20), then temporarily arrested and interrogated by priests, prophets and people (Jer 26), then a godly fellow prophet is killed (Jer 26:20-23) and he is plotted against by a Shemaiah in the Babylonian exile, opposing the letter Jeremiah sent there (Jer 29:24-28). Finally King Jehoiakim, upon confiscating Jeremiah’s written record of his prophecies, proceeds to burn it piece by piece (Jer 36).
Now, with Babylon’s ever-increasing threat on the horizon and Jeremiah’s prophecies of doom looking more and more realistic, God – in his grace – starts giving Jeremiah messages of hope beyond the exile (Jer 32). He tells Jeremiah to buy a field and seal the deed in an earthenware jar to withstand time. He has him do this at the very moment Judah is already overrun by Babylon and Jerusalem is besieged, giving a hope beyond: “Houses and fields shall again be bought in this land” (Jer 32:15).

Jeremiah under Zedekiah
After Babylon conquers Jerusalem for the second time, exiling more people, Zedekiah starts to reign under Babylonian over-lordship. Then, doing precisely the opposite of what Jeremiah instructed, Zedekiah conspires with Egypt and rebels against Babylon an his brother Jehoiakim had done. This brings on Babylon’s wrath, resulting in a third siege, the one that will end with Jerusalem and the temple’s total destruction.

Jeremiah – at God’s command – tells the people to accept Babylonian rule as God’s discipline for centuries of idolatry. He tells them that all who surrender to Babylon will at least survive. But those who trust in their own strength and persist in idolatry and opposition to Babylon, will be destroyed by them. For this message Jeremiah is declared a traitor and he is imprisoned, partially in a jail and partially in a miry pit. Jeremiah keeps reaching out to king Zedekiah, who never has the courage to actually obey anything Jeremiah says. Finally, on July 18th 586 BC, Jerusalem is breached, conquered and destroyed, including the temple built by Solomon. Zedekiah is blinded and exiled together with most remaining Judeans, whereas Jeremiah is freed with honor by the Babylonians.

The end of Jeremiah’s life
Jeremiah chooses to remain in Judah with the very poor people that the Babylonians left behind to farm the land. When the governor Gedaliah is assassinated, the people – again against Jeremiah’s specific word – flee to Egypt, taking Jeremiah along by force. After forty-one years of faithful ministry, with every prediction he ever spoke having come true, Jeremiah is still not respected or obeyed as a prophet of God!
But as Jeremiah has long said: the blessing of God is no longer on the rebellious Jews in Judah, but on those Jews that have embraced the exile as a judgment of God. To them Jeremiah has already given by letter (Jer 29) – and now by completing his book (Jeremiah) – the all-important prophecy that the exile will only last 70 years (Jer 25:12, 29:10). Babylon – though currently thought invincible – will fall (Jer 50-51) and the peoples they exiled, displaced and re-settled will be able to return home. Until that happens Jeremiah encourages the exiles to embrace God’s discipline, to build houses, to plant gardens, to have children and to seek the welfare of the place they find themselves in (Jer 29:11-14). It is this humility and the faith that God will fulfill his promise of restoration (just as he fulfilled his prediction of judgment) that will carry the Jews through the exile and that will make them those whose fortunes God will restore.
Jeremiah is the author of three books, Kings, Jeremiah and Lamentations, all to explain to those in exile the reasons why the exile happened: persistent idolatry and disobedience on Judah’s side, not weakness of God’s side. He gives them assurance that just as his every prophecy of doom did come through, his prophecy of a restoration and return after seventy years will also come true. He challenges them to obedience to their calling and faith in their future.

Jeremiah is some ways foreshadows Jesus. Jeremiah and Jesus both persistently address unwilling, even hostile people, who are able to hurt them. Both have the heart of God towards their people. Neither wants judgment on those hostile towards them. Both speak at a time of political turmoil, at a time of dark outlook: political and ideological conflict, increasing rebellion, imminent doom. Both suffer for the sins of others: Jeremiah has to join his nation in the disaster, siege, defeat and captivity. Jesus does so ultimately on the cross. Both get suffering they do not deserve. Both struggle with the suffering, Jeremiah repeatedly, Jesus in Gethsemane. Both prophesy and witness to a restoration beyond the judgment. Both intercede. Both are saved sovereignly by God at the time of greatest vulnerability.

Suggestions for Color Coding Jeremiah

• Who (individuals, leaders, kings, nations)
• When
• Where
• Emotions, Connectives (Reason)
• Questions
• Emphatic Statements…
• Bracket type color coding
  • Judgment
  • Reasons for judgment … idolatry, immorality, oppression of weak, innocent bloodshed, perverted justice
  • Jeremiah’s life … (especially Jeremiah’s responses, personal struggles)
  • Descriptions of God
• Repeated Themes
  • refusal to listen, to know, to respond … choosing deception
  • What else can I do? you brought this on yourself
  • full end / not a full end
  • wound, healing, …
  • persistently (like Jer 7:25, 11:7) and many more

Background Information

Who wrote?

• Jer 30:1-2 Jeremiah commanded to write in a book of all the worlds that God spoke
• Jer 36:2, 4 King Jehoiakim burning the scroll with Jeremiah’s prophecies
• Jer 36:28,32 Jeremiah commanded to re-write the scroll, dictating to Baruch, son of Neriah
• Jer 51:64d seems an editorial comment by presumably Baruch (?), indicating the “end” of Jeremiah’s words
• Jer 52:31-34 is probably a later postscript by Baruch (?), word for word the same as 2 Kin 25:27-30, also written to finish off another book by Jeremiah. 37th year of the exile is 560 BC, Jeremiah is most likely dead by this time (or above 80y old assuming he is 13 years old at his calling).
• Jeremiah’s struggle, prayer, reflection passages, very personal also, things nobody other would have known
• In summary: Writer Jeremiah for Jer 1-52:30, probably Baruch as scribe and then Jer 52:311-34 written by Baruch, or possibly a later editor.

Written to whom?

First hearers still in Jerusalem            “Bad figs” (Jer 24:1-7)             627-586 BC                 reducing number of people

• the people of Judah (including Benjamin) and Jerusalem (Jer 2:2), decreasing area and population as conquering / waves of deportation progress
• during Kings Josiah, Jehoiakim, Zedekiah … especially addressing kings, officers, priests, prophets but also people
• Jerusalem will fall! you will see it with your own eyes! Your false security in the temple will prove a lie!
• Repent and survive even within the judgment. To repent means to accept God’s discipline of exile in Babylon, to understand his reasons / justification for judging, to accept his ways

First readers in Babylonian exile     “Good figs” (Jer 24:1-7)          605, 597, 586 BC ff     growing number of people

• First and second generation of exiled Jews in Babylon, not in Egypt (see Jer 42-44), wherever they might have been scattered
• You are the good figs, you have submitted to God’s judgment, on you is God’s favor and promise, Israel’s calling is not canceled but rests on you, you will receive the chance to return in 70y
• God is not inferior to the gods of Babylon, rather because of persistent sin Judah looses its right to land & self-government and are currently in exile
• God will judge powerful Babylon and bring about a restoration beyond imagination
• before: if you repent > no judgment
• from Manasseh onward: if you repent > delay of judgment (Josiah)
• now: if you repent > submit to judgment, you will be saved within judgment (Jeremiah)

When spoken / written?

• Jer 1:1-3         13th year of Josiah 31y reign       Josiah reigns age 8 to 39 years old > 639 – 608 BC >. The 13th y = 627 BC, Josiah is 21 years old
• no words in days of Jehoahaz, 3 month reign, then imprisoned in Egypt  > 608 BC
• words in the days of Jehoiakim, 11 year reign, 25 to 36 years old              > 608 – 597 BC
• no words in days of Jehoiachin, 3 month reign, then exiled to Babylon     > 597 BC
• words in the days of Zedekiah, 11 y reign, 21 to 32 years old                      > 597 – 586 BC
• until captivity in the fifth month > 586 BC
• last mentioned event is the release of Jehoiachin in Babylon (Jer 52:31-34) on Jehoiachin’s release in 560 BC. Most likely an editor’s post script.
• Spoken all in all 627 BC – beyond 586 BC, that is over minimum of 41 years. Written probably while and shortly after this time
• Jer 52:31-34 is written after 560 BC.

From where spoken / written?

• Spoken mostly in Jerusalem, major groups and individuals he addresses are there (king, officers,…), mentioned speaking at the temple, some gate, the Topheth, … Judah is reduced to Jerusalem anyway by this time.
• Written all along, maybe finished off in Egypt, as Jeremiah is deported there against his will (Jer 43:6).

Historical background: Ruling kings of Judah?

King Manasseh         686-642 BC

• did evil, abominable practices of prior nations, rebuilt high places, Baal cult, made sacred poles, worshiped host of heaven, Asherah image in the temple, son pass through fire, soothsaying, sorcery, witchcraft
• misled Judah and Jerusalem, caused them to sin > did more evil than prior nations, more wicked than Amorites (prior nation)
• God sent prophets: as Israel was, Judah and Jerusalem will be destroyed and exiled. God sent prophets but they were not heeded.
• Manasseh also shed very much innocent blood.
• King of Assyria defeats Judah, captures Manasseh.
• In captivity Manasseh humbles himself greatly, prays > restored to kingship.
• built outer city wall.
• destroyed altars in temple, Jerusalem, restored altar, sacrificed > people still sacrifice at high places, but only to God

King Amon                 642-640 BC

• did evil like father, walked in all his ways, did not humble himself, incurred more guilt.
• His servants kill him > people kill killers > make his son king.
• buried not with kings but in garden of Uzza, in his house

King Josiah               640-609 BC

• He did right, walked in all the ways of David, did not turn aside, no king before of after him who turns to the Lord with all his heart like Josiah. At age 16 begins to seek God, at age 20 starts reforms.
• repairs temple, honest workers > find book of the law, bring it to the king.
• Josiah reads law, repents realizing just how far Judah has slipped. He repents, cries. Prophetess Huldah gives him a word: judgement irreversible, but it will not happen in Josiah’s days.
• Josiah reads law to all Judah > covenant > destruction of Asherah, Baal, host of heaven cults, deposed idolatrous priests, male temple prostitutes, defiled & broke altars, images, Baals, sacred poles, abominations, high places as far as towns of Samaria, Manasseh, Ephraim, Simeon, Naphtali. Including Bethel, fulfilling prophecy, removes mediums, witches, idols abominations, established words of the law.
• Josiah celebrates the passover.
• Comment: “before him no king who turned to the LORD with all his heart, soul, might according to the law of Moses”.
• Josiah made the people worship God > they did not turn away from God all the days of Josiah.
• Killed in provoked battle against Neco of Egypt, who is on the way to fight Assyria at Carchemish.
• people mourn for Josiah, sing laments. Jeremiah’s lament

Jehoahaz                609 BC        3 months

• did evil. People enthrone Jehoahaz after Josiah’s death. Neco of Egypt on return from being victorious at Carchemish confines him at Riblah, then Egypt till death.
• Egypt demands tribute.

Jehoiakim             609-597 BC

• did evil, abominations.
• Neco of Egypt imposes tribute > Jehoiakim extracts it from the people.
• Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon attacks > Jehoiakim becomes vassal for 3 years, then rebels.
• Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon attacks > siege.
• God sent against him Chaldeans, Moabites, Arameans, Ammonites to act on judgment prophecy.
• Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon takes temple vessels to Babylon

Jehoiachin              597 BC            3 months

• did evil. He is eight years old, reigning 3 months and 10 days.
• Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon besieges Jerusalem > Jehoiachin gives himself, family & officials up > imprisoned & exiled.
• Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon sent and brought him to Babylon, along with temple vessels, elite, artisans, officials, warriors etc all exiled, treasures, temple vessels looted

Zedekiah                  597-586 BC

• did evil, did not humble himself before prophet Jeremiah
• Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon enthrones Zedekiah > he rebels, though he swore loyalty, in his 9th year (588 BC)
• “Jerusalem and Judah so angered the Lord that he expelled them from his presence”
• King, leading priests, people were exceedingly unfaithful, following abominations of the nations, polluted the temple > God sent prophets out of compassion for the people and the temple > they mock, scoff at and despise > God’s wrath so great, no remedy any more.
• Zedekiah’s rebellion brings on the King Nebuchadnezzar’s third siege of Jerusalem. Jerusalem is breached. Zedekiah flees, but is stopped. Zedekiah’s sons are killed in front of him at Riblah, Zedekiah is blinded and imprisoned in Babylon. Jerusalem and temple completely destroyed, remaining people are exiled.
• Chaldeans defeat Judah, kill youths, aged, feeble, women, deport vessels of the temple, burnt temple, broke down wall of Jerusalem, exiled people to take them as servants, as prophet Jeremiah predicted, until Sabbath fulfilled in 70 years.

Gedaliah

• King Nebuchadnezzar makes Gedaliah governor over the remaining poor.
• Ishmael rebells > kill Gedaliah > remaining Jews flee to Egypt

Political Setting for Jeremiah?

• 626 BC Josiah starts his reforms, he is 20y
• 627 BC one year into Josiah’s reforms, Josiah is 21y, Jeremiah maybe 16y at his calling
• 622 BC law found, supporting the revival further, Jeremiah is 5 years into his ministry, maybe 21 by now. Josiah is 26.
• 609 BC Josiah’s death: Egypt moving army past Judah, Josiah engages him against Pharaoh’s counsel, is killed at age 39y, son Jehoahaz quickly put on the throne. Neco on his way back deports him to Egypt an installs his brother Jehoiakim as ruler and vassal to Egypt, pays tribute to Egypt. Jeremiah is about 34y.
• 605 BC Assyria & ally Egypt loses the battle of Carchemish > Babylon as new superpower
  Babylon attacks and conquers Jerusalem (1st deportation 605 BC) > Jehoiakim becomes vassal of Babylon, Jeremiah is about 38y.
• 602 BC Jehoiakim rebels against Babylon after 3 years. He is pleasure / luxury loving by unrighteous gain and oppression of the people. He refuses Jeremiah’s challenges, burns the scroll. Jeremiah is about 41y.
• Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon re-invades Judah, besieges Jerusalem.
• 597 BC Jehoiakim dies when Jerusalem is already besieged. His son Jehoiachin becomes king, rules 3 months.
• 597 BC Jehoiachin gives himself up to Babylon, is deported (2nd deportation 597 BC), together with his mother and many other Jews, Ezekiel for example. Babylon installs Zedekiah as new vassal king when Jeremiah is 46y.
• 597-588 BC Zedekiah is a both corrupt and weak figure, inquiring of Jeremiah, but never obeying, nor protecting him.
• 588 BC Zedekiah rebels in his 9th year. Babylon attacks again, besieges Jerusalem. Jeremiah declares Babylon to be superpower by God’s design > submit to them > evade destruction. Jeremiah is jailed at age 55y.
• 586BC Jerusalem breached, conquered > complete destruction of Jerusalem and 3rd deportation. Jeremiah is 57y.
• 586BC Gedaliah is left as governor over the remaining poor & refugees, is assassinated, people flee to Egypt.
• 586BCff Jeremiah is taken against his will to Egypt and probably dies there.

Spiritual Situation?

• Still people come for festivals to the temple (Jeremiah addresses them repeatedly, for example Jer 7:2). Though Josiah was wholehearted, it seems some of the reforms created a religiosity or even syncretism more than a true heart change.
• The moment Josiah dies there is a quick and permanent reversal > complete breakdown of spirituality and morality. Idol worship quickly rampant again (‘as many altars as streets, as many gods as cities in Judah’), Baal, queen of heaven … Idol altars even in the temple of God … not repented off even after the destruction / conquest.
• Priests co-operate with this, are syncretistic themselves, corrupt, playing power-games, …
• Prophets prophesying peace and God’s favor even in the face of rampant sin (for example Jer 26 Hananiah) > break-down of spiritual leadership

Contemporary Prophets?

• To Judah & Assyria Nahum (663) 640 -628 BC
• To Judah: Zephaniah 628-612 BC
• To Judah: Habakkuk 609-605 BC
• To kings & court on Babylon Daniel 605-536 BC
• To exiles in Babylon Ezekiel 592-560 BC

Contemporary Babylonian Kings?

• 626 BC Nabopalassar gains independence from Assyria, starts conquering Assyria
• 605 BC Nebuchadnezzar(rezzar) conquers Assyria and many nations, height of power
• 562 BC Evil-Merodach
• 560 BC Nergal-Sharezer (Neriglissar?)

Kind of Literature?

• Poetry (> figurative) and Prose (> literal) frequent interchange, about half half.

Structure?

• Prophecy … not really sharply chronological arrangement of the text, see Horizontal

Style / Composition?

• Oracles, reminders of history, enacted symbols … many word pictures … dramatic speech, questions / exclamations
• Rhetorical questions
  • Jer 2:5    “What wrong did your ancestors find in me that they went far from me?”
  • Jer 12:5  “If you have raced with foot-runners and they have wearied you, how will you compete with horses?”
  • Jer 22:16 “Is not this to know me?”
  • Jer 23:18 “For who has stood in the council of the Lord so as to see and to hear his word? Who has given heed to his word so as to proclaim?”
  • Jer 23:23 “Am I a God near by? Not a God for off? Who can hide in secret places so that I cannot see them? Do I not fill heaven and earth?”
  • Jer 49:19 “For who is like me? Who can summon me? Who is the shepherd who can stand before me?”
• Word pictures … these and many more!
  • Jer 1:11    almond branch > God watching over his word to perform it
  • Jer 1:13    boiling pot, tilted away from north > coming invasion by Babylon
  • Jer 1:18    Jeremiah as fortified city, iron pillar, bronze wall
  • Jer 2:10-11 test for this: Has a nation changed its gods?
  • Jer 2:21    Israel planted as choice vine of pure stock > degenerate wild vine
  • Jer 2:22    though wash with much lye / soap > stain of your guilt remains
  • Jer 2:23-24 restive young camel, wild ass in her heat, sniffing the wind
  • Jer 2:26    thief shamed when caught > so Israel will be shamed
  • Jer 2:31    have I been a wilderness / thick darkness to Israel?
  • Jer 2:32    Can a girl forget her ornaments, a bride her attire? Yet my people have forgotten me
  • Jer 3:2      look at the bare heights, where have you not been lain with?
  • Jer 3:8      sent Israel away with a decree of divorce, yet false sister Judah did not fear.
  • Jer 3:15    shepherds after my own heart
  • Jer 4:11    a hot wind coming, too strong > Babylon
  • Jer 4:23-26 void earth, heavens without light, hills moving, birds missing, fruitful land a desert
  • Jer 5:8      they were well-fed lusty stallions, each neighing for their neighbor’s wife
  • Jer 5:22    sand as perpetual barrier, sea, waves
  • Jer 6:7      as well keeps water fresh, so she keeps fresh her wickedness
  • Jer 6:9      glean the remnant thoroughly as a vine, pass hand again over branches
  • Jer 6:16    stand at crossroads, ask for ancient path
  • Jer 6:29-30 silver in furnace, bellows blow, in vain refining > rejected silver
  • Jer 8:6       like a horse, plunging headlong into battle
  • Jer 8:13     vine without fruit or leaves, fig tree without figs
  • Jer 8:17     snakes
  • Jer 8:22     no balm in Gilead? No physician?
  • Jer 11:16   a green olive tree, fair with goodly fruit, but with a roar of tempest God will set fire to it
  • Jer 13:12   every wine-jar should be filled. Fill these people with drunkenness, dash them against one another, no pity
  • Jer 17:1     Judah’s sin is written with iron pen, with diamond point engraved on their hearts / horns of altar
  • Jer 24:1-10 two baskets of figs before temple, one very good figs (those deported > will build, plant them, give them a heart to know me, shall return to me with whole heart), one very bad figs (King
  • Zedekiah, officials, remnant in Jerusalem > horror, curse, disgrace. Sword, famine, pestilence after them until destroyed from the land).
• Enacted Symbols
  • Jer 13:1-11 linen loincloth, hid in cleft of rock near Euphrates > ruined. I will ruin the pride of Judah. Made Judah cling to me as loincloth clings to loins, that they might be for me a people, a name, a praise, a glory
  • Jer 16:1     Jeremiah’s celibacy: children will die
  • Jer 16:5     Jeremiah not to enter house of lament: God removing his peace, steadfast love, mercy, comfort
  • Jer 16:8     Jeremiah not to enter house of feasting: banish from this place, no more mirth, marriages
  • Jer 18:1-4  Jeremiah at potter’s house, refashioning marred vessel
  • Jer 19:1-13 Buy earthenware jug, take with you elders, people, priests > Valley of Hinnom, Potsherd Gate > bring such evil, fall by sword, will
    eat own children during siege. Then break jug > so will I break this people, bury at Topheth till no room to bury. I will make city like Topheth, all houses, places of idolatry destroyed.
  • Jer 27:1-11 yoke of straps and bars, put in on your neck. Send word by the envoys of the king of Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre, Sidon (currently at King Zedekiah’s): Creator & Owner of all says: If you submit and serve Babylon > not devastated, remain in land, under Babylon for a time. If you do not submit to Babylon > conquered anyway, devastated and exiled. Do not listen to false prophets.
  • Jer 27:12-22 Same message to Zedekiah, to priests: vessels won’t come back now, pray more vessels won’t go to Babylon, vessels will come back when God attends to them).
  • Jer 32           Buying of field, preservation of deed
  • Jer 3             Rechabites
  • Jer 36           Public scroll reading
  • Jer 43:8-13  Enacted symbol: Jeremiah buries large stones under pavement at the entrance of Pharaoh’s palace in Tahpanhes > King Nebuchadnezzar will place his throne here, will destroy, burn Egypt and temples / gods.
  • Jer 51:59-64 In 4th year of Zedekiah’s reign Jeremiah commands Seraiah to take scroll with the written Babylon judgments to Babylon, read them out there, then sink them into Euphrates, saying: “Thus shall Babylon sink, to rise no more, because of the disasters I am bringing on her.”

Main Topics?

• Impending judgment on Judah, by now irreversible
• Reasons for judgment, they got worse than Israel … idolatry, immorality, oppression of poor, injustice, bloodshed, …
• God’s absolute sovereignty over all nations, including Judah and superpower Babylon
• God’s heart and principle in both judging and restoring, both Judah and other nations

Main Reasons?

• To let Judeans know their sin, the coming judgment, the reasons therefore, the repentance option, the heart of God in all this, that God will bring restoration even so
• To let the exiles know that they are not worse / abandoned by God compared to remaining Judeans (good figs), that the exile will last a while (live where you are!), but that it will end after 70 years, that God will bring restoration.
• Now that “all is over”, to know why it happened, that it was under God’s control, that this is not the final word, that restoration is coming … so live godly lives, accept where you are, know God will bring a restoration, wait and prepare for it, pass this down to next generation.

Overview and Timeline for Jeremiah

• See Horizontal > which words are spoken at which time (see kings marked) > Jeremiah is not strictly chronological.
• Example: Jer 34:2 is to Zedekiah, Jer 36:1 is to Jehoiakim.
• Also: Chapter 46-51 is a compilation of words / judgments concerning other nations. Jeremiah got these at different points. Sometimes it is referenced: Jer 46:2 to Egypt concerning Necho. Jer 47:1 concerning Gaza.
• The sequence of the nations to be judged and the endless chapter 50-51 on the judgment are no accident. More later.

Family tree and dates of the last kings of Judah

• 640-609 BC   Josiah 31 years good
• 609 BC           Jehoahaz =Shallum =Jochanan 3months evil 1st son of Josiah
• 609-597 BC  Jehoiakim =Eliakim 12 years evil 2nd son of Josiah
• 597 BC           Jehoiachin =Coniah 3 months evil son of Jehoiakim, Josiah’s grandchild
• 597-586 BC Zedekiah =Mattnaiah 11 years evil 3rd son of Josiah, Jehoiachin’s uncle
• Events made chronological with some references from Kings, Chronicles, Daniel put in:

King Josiah

• 648 BC Birth of Josiah
• 642 BC Amon succeeds father Manasseh as king
• 2 Chr 34:1  640 BC Josiah succeeds father Amon as king (age 8 years)
• 2 Chr 34:3  632 BC Josiah starts to seek God (age 16 years)
• 2 Chr 34:3  628 BC Josiah starts reforms (age 20 years)
• Jer 1           627 BC Jeremiah called as a boy. He is just slightly younger than Josiah. Ashurbanipal dies.
• Jer 2-6        627 BC This part is considered to be during the reign of Josiah. He speaks against their
• apostasy, condemns their false repentance and warns of judgement coming
• Jer 7-10     627-622 BC This includes the temple sermon (some consider this to be the same as in ch 26 during
• the reign of Jehoiakim) and condemnation of false religion.
• 626 BC Nabopolassar gains independence from Assyria and establishes Babylon as an empire
• 622 BC Book of the Law found in the Temple
• Jer 11:1-8 622 BC This passage addresses the broken covenant, and may have been during the reforms of Josiah. (This could also be during the time of Jehoiakim)
• Jer 11:9-20 620-609 BC Some consider this to be during the time of Jehoiakim
• Jeremiah’s personal complaints against God, symbolic acts, more warnings of judgment
• 612 BC Nineveh destroyed (as Nahum said) by Babylon & Media, Assyria’s power is waning
• 610 BC Babylon and allies defeat Assyria at Haran.
• 2 Chr 35:20 609 BC Josiah gets in Pharaoh Necho’s way and is killed. Egypt & Assyria defeat Babylon.
• 2 Chr 35:25 609 BC Jeremiah laments Josiah’s death

King Jehoahaz               Josiah’s first son = Jochanan, = Shallum

• 2 Chr 36        609 BC Jehoahaz, son of Josiah is quickly made king, reigns for 3 months, removed by Necho
• Jer 22:10‑12 609 BC Jehoahaz deported to Egypt, predicted to die in bondage in Egypt

King Jehoiakim               Josiah’s second son = Eliakim

• 2 Chr 36 609 BC Jehoiakim is placed on throne by Necho of Egypt in place of his brother Jehoahaz
• Jer 26 609 BC Jeremiah preaches in the temple ‑ threatened with death
• Jer 26:20-23 609 BC Uriah the prophet killed
• Dan 1:1 605 BC Nebuchadnezzar becomes King of Babylon, defeats Assyria & Egypt at Carchemish,
  conquest of Judah & Jerusalem > 1st Judean exile to Babylon, among them Daniel. Jer 25 605 BC Prophecy stating that the exile would be 70 years from this date to the laying of the
  foundation of the temple (536 BC)
• Jer 50‑51 605 BC Prophecy concerning Babylon’s downfall
• Jer 36:1‑8 605 BC Jeremiah barred from temple ‑ his prophecies written down
• Jer 45 605 BC Prophecy for Baruch
• 604 BC Nebuchadnezzar returns to Palestine to receive tribute
• Jer 36:9‑32 604 BC Scroll read before people and before king. King cut it up and burn it. Seeks to kill
• Jeremiah, but not find him. Jeremiah rewrote the scroll
• Jer 47 605/4 BC Prophecies concerning the nations: Philistia
• Jer 46, 48‑49 Egypt, Moab
• 602 BC Jehoiakim rebels against Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon’s over-lordship.
• Jer 35 600 BC Sign of the Rechabites
• 598 BC Babylon besieges Jerusalem. Jehoiakim dies towards end of the siege.

King Jehoiachin                Jehoiakim’s son             = Coniah

• Jer 13:18 ff 598/7 BC Jehoiakim’s son Jehoiachin rules for 3 months (9th Dec 598 to 16th March 597) only.
• 597 BC Babylon conquers for 2nd time > Jehoiachin, mother, many Jews (Ezekiel) deported
• Jer 22:20-30 prophecy about Jehoiachin

King Zedekiah                     Josiah’s third son             = Mattaniah

• 2 Chr 36:11 597 BC Jehoiachin’s uncle Zedekiah is put on the throne by Babylon
• Jer 24 597 BC Vision of baskets of figs: God’s blessing is on the exiles, not the Jews in Jerusalem
• Jer 29 597 BC Letter to exiles affirming their stay there ‑ Jeremiah placed in stocks
• Jer 23 597? BC Message to shepherds
• Jer 30‑31 597 BC Prophecies of hope
• Jer 49:34‑39 597 BC Prophecy concerning Elam
• Jer 27 593 BC Sign of yoke bars ‑ message to nations via envoys
• Jer 28 593 BC False prophecy concerning yoke bars (Hananiah)
• Jer 51:59‑66 593 BC Letter sent to Babylon by Seriah: Prophecy that Babylon will eventually fall
• 588 BC Nebuchadrezzar attacks Judah, Siege of Jerusalem started on 15 Jan 588 BC
• Jer 21 588 BC Zedekiah sends to Jeremiah to inquire of the Lord
• Jer 34:1‑7 588 BC Prophecy concerning Zedekiah’s fate
• Jer 37:1‑5 588 BC Siege temporarily lifted
• Jer 37:6‑10 588 BC Prophecy ‑ Nebuchadrezzar will return
• Jer 34:8‑22 588 BC Prophecy concerning release of slaves
• Jer 37:11‑21 588 BC Jeremiah imprisoned
• Jer 32‑33 587 BC Jeremiah buys the field at Anathoth ‑ promise of restoration. Jeremiah imprisoned
• Jer 38 586 BC Jeremiah put into cistern, saved from cistern by Ethiopian
• Jer 39:15‑18 586 BC Word to Ethiopian
• 586 BC Jerusalem breeched by 18 July 586 BC, Zedekiah tries to flee, destruction started
• 586 BC 3rd Judean exile to Babylon, most remaining population
• Jer 39-40 586 BC Jeremiah is taken, then released with honor
• Jer 41 586 BC by 7 Oct 586 BC Governor Gedaliah murdered by Ishmael. Johanan rescues the people
• Jer 42 586 BC People inquire of the Lord concerning going to Egypt
• Jer 43:1‑7 586 BC People go to Egypt against God’s word, forcing Jeremiah to come with them
• Jer 43:8ff 586 BC Jeremiah prophesies against Egypt
• Jer 44 586 BC Oracles against Jewish refugees in Egypt
• Jer 52:31‑34 561 BC Post script: Jehoiachin released from prison in Babylon

Who is Who in the book of Jeremiah?

• Pashur, son of Immer Priest, chief officer in temple own initiative, strikes Jeremiah, puts him in stocks > terror-all-around
• Pashur, son of Malchiah sent by Zedekiah to inquire of Jeremiah
• Zephaniah, son of Maaseiah priest, sent by Zedekiah to inquire of J, receives letter of Shemaiah from Babylon, reads letter to Jeremiah, later
  during siege sent with Jehucal to Jeremiah by Zedekiah to ask for prayer
• Hananiah, son of Azzur of Gibeon false prophet prophesies Babylon gone in 2 y, all return, vessels also, breaks yoke, dies
• Elasah, son of Shaphan envoys of King Zedekiah to Nebuchadnezzar, carry Jeremiah’s letter to exiles
• Gemariah, son of Hilkiah envoys of King Zedekiah to Nebuchadnezzar, carry Jeremiah’s letter to exiles
• Ahab, son of Kolaiah false prophet to exiles, say God with Jerusalem, exile short?, God: killed by Nebuchadnezzar, curse
• Zedekiah, son of Maaseiah false prophet to exiles, say God with Jerusalem, exile short?, God: killed by Nebuchadnezzar, curse
• Shemaiah of Nehelam sent letter to people in Jerusalem, and to priest Zephaniah, son of Maaseiah, instructing him to put Jeremiah in
  stocks for letter to exiles saying: long time. J to exiles: Shemaiah > none living to see good, spoke rebellion
• Uriah, son of Shemaiah from Kirjath-jearim, true prophet, words like Jeremiah, Jehoiakim wants to kill him, flees to Egypt, fetched from
  there by Elnathan, son of Achbor, killed by Jehoiakim
• Elnathan, son of Achbor sent by Jehoiakim to Egypt to fetch Uriah, later official with Elishama, hears scroll > alamed > read to king, hide
  Baruch, urges king
• Ahikam, son of Shaphan, protects Jeremiah
• Hanamel, son of Shallum cousin of Jeremiah offers field to Jeremiah
• Baruch, son of Neriah, son of Mahseiah, keeps J’s land deed, Jeremiah’s secretary, reads words for him in temple, secretary’s chamber
• Jaazaniah, son of Jeremiah, son of Habazziniah … son of Jonadab, son or Rechab
• Sons of Hanan, son of Igdaliah the man of God, their chamber in the temple used for Baruch’s reading
• Maaseiah, son of Shallum keeper of threshold in temple, has a chamber nearby
• Micaiah, son of Gemariah, son of Shaphan > brings Baruch and scroll to secretary’s chamber
•  Elishama secretary, place where officials assemble, hears scroll > alarmed > read to king, hide Baruch
• Delaiah, son of Shemaiah official with Elishama, hears scroll > alarmed > read to king, hide Baruch, urges king
• Gemariah, son of Shaphan, official with Elishama, hears scroll > alarmed > read to king, hide Baruch, urges king
• Zedekiah son of Hananiah official with Elishama, hears scroll > alarmed > read to king, hide Baruch
• Jehudi, son of Nethaniah, son of Shelemiah, son of Cushi sent to fetch Baruch and scroll, sent to fetch scroll by king
• Jerahmeel, son of King Jehoiakim sent to arrest Baruch & Jeremiah
• Seraiah, son of Azriel sent to arrest Baruch & Jeremiah
• Shelemiah, son of Abdeel sent to arrest Baruch & Jeremiah
• Jehucal, son of Shelemiah sent to Jeremiah by Zedekiah to ask for prayer
• Irijah, son of Shelemiah, son of Hananiah arrests Jeremiah when leaving Jerusalem under suspicion of desertating > imprisoned for many days
• Gedaliah, son of Ahikam made governor by N, warned by Johanan, ignores plot, killed by Ishmael.
• Ishmael, son of Nethaniah guerilla leader, sent by Baalis, King of the Ammon, to assassinate Gedaliah, kills him, takes people towards
• Ammon, attacked by Johanan, escapes
• Johanan, son of Kareah guerilla leader, submits to Gedaliah, warns him of Ishmael’s plot, is ignored. Upon hearing slaughter attacks
• Ishmael, frees people (they are glad), inquires of Jeremiah, defies his advice, goes to Egypt with all people and Jeremiah
• Seraiah, son of Neriah, son of Mahseiah, quartermaster, went with King Zedekiah to Babylon in the 4th year of his reign. J gives him scroll with
• Babylon prophecies to be read out, drowned in Euphrates by a stone.

It seems:

• Shaphan
  • > son Elasah envoy of King Zedekiah to N, carries Jeremiah’s letter to exiles
  • > son Ahikam protects Jeremiah
  • > son Gedaliah made governor by N, ignores plot, killed by Ishmael
  • > son Gemariah > son Micaiah hears Baruch in temple chamber , brings him to father at secretary’s chamber, father
    alarmed, speaks up
• Shallum
  • > Maaseiah > son Zephaniah priest, written to by Shemaiah to put J in stocks, reads letter to him, later executed at Ribla
  • > son Zedekiah false prophet to exiles, exile short, killed by Nebuchadnezar, curse
• Mahseiah
  • > Neriah > son Baruch J’s secretary, deed keeper, scroll writer, reader, co attacked, personal safety promise
  • > son Seraiah quartermaster, King Zedekiah to Babylon in 4th year. Reads & drowns Babylon scroll

May be:

• Shemaiah
  • > son Uriah from Kirjath-jearim true prophet, flees to Egypt, fetched and killed by King
  • > son Delaiah official with Elishama, hears scroll, alarmed, speaks up

JEREMIAH’S LIFE’S EVENTS & PRAYERS

• We know far more about him than any other prophet. He is a writing prophet, his feelings, his inner conflict, his emotional and physical suffering, his loneliness at not being understood and even less appreciated.

Family Background

• Jer 1:1 Jeremiah, son of Hilkiah, of priestly family, that is: of the tribe of Levi, living in a town called Anathoth in Benjamin.
• David’s priest Abiathar who supported Adonijah to be king (1 Ki 1:5) was expelled by Solomon to Anathoth, deserved death (1 Kin 2:26) but not killed. A fulfillment of prophecy on house of Eli in Shiloh (1 Kin 2:27, 1 Sam 3:11-14).
• Jer 7:12 Jeremiah says this to the people: Go now to my place that was in Shiloh, where I made my name dwell at first and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel, recalling the corruptness of the priesthood and it’s punishment … now again.
• As of a priestly family Jeremiah should be trained in the traditions of the covenant, Exodus, ark, sacrifices … maybe, maybe not. At this time they don’t even know about “the Law” (rediscovered in 622 BC), maybe it’s just rituals and mixed rituals at that.

Calling

• Jer 1:6     ‘only a boy’ at the calling, Josiah’s 13th year (= 627 BC), if an age of 13 to 18 is assumed, he is born 645 to 640 BC, the final years of Manasseh’s life. He is then 3-8 years younger than Josiah, who is 21 in 627 BC.
• Jer 1:4-5  Formed in womb, known and consecrated by God before conception, appointed prophet to the nations
• Jer 1:6     Young, shy, not experienced, afraid at calling, not eager or maybe overwhelmed or humble or quite aware o what this will mean … later also struggling
• Application: What is it for us? ‘I am only a girl’ …’I am only a Bangladeshi’ … ‘I am only xxxx’ … we will always feel unworthy (we are!) and inferior (shame from Gen 3:6), but because of grace this is no longer binding reality
• Jer 1:7-6  God affirms & encourages him by hearing him, yet restating appointment, calling him called, created by God’s hand, known, consecrated, … a calling, go where I send you, speak what I command you.
• Jer 1:8     understands his fear, responds with assurance of his presence, does a visual sign of touching his mouth to affirm his words being in Jeremiah’s mouth … parallels to Mt 28:18-20: first the great commission, then promise of God’s presence with us
• Jer 1:9    the honor of actually having God’s word in our mouth … later at times this will seem a burden, a stuckness
• Jer 1:12   you see well, initial encouragement. Though God may show him pictures as well, it seems to be first always a hearing: “the word of the Lord came to me”
• Jer 1:11-12 First initial vision: branch of an almond tree (Anathoth was famous for almond orchards) ‘shaqed’ … > God is watching (‘shoqed’) over his word to fulfill it … a nice picture, homey, Jeremiah will be reminded of it time and again when he visits his village home … yet also a heavy one:
• Jer 1:13   a boiling pot, tilted away from the North … disaster or kingdoms called by God to Judah, Jerusalem, will invade from North (point out geography) … reason: forsaking God & choosing and making idols (a double reproach repeated later several times, like Jer 2:13).
• Jer 1:17-19 predicted and foreseeable opposition of kings, princes, priests, people … will fight against you. Not comforting, but very real.
  God doesn’t beautify things or smooth over things, not even with a youth he just overwhelmed. God doesn’t seem to think that this is more helpful than reality. Application? A terminal illness patient
• Jer 1:17   Do not break down before them, or I will break you before them … sort of a threat / warning. Again not exactly comforting. Why does God say it? God will do everything from his side in support & protection, but Jeremiah also has a choice in this, he needs to take it, lean into the help & protection of God. … All throughout Jeremiah we will see this: God is not exactly doing empathy-pitying when Jeremiah seems emotionally low …

Jeremiah during Josiah’s reforms

• Jer 4:19-21 at the destruction prophecy …anguish! writhe in pain! walls of my heart! Heart beating wildly, cannot keep silent, hear trumpet, how long must I see and hear? … no joy in judgment predictions, identification
• Jer 7:2 stand at the gate of the temple, to all people of Judah coming to worship … a very visible, public, potentially offending religious feelings sort to ministry … Message: no false security. Truly amend your ways … if not: Jerusalem like Shiloh.
• Jer 7:16 Jeremiah, do not pray for this people, I will not hear you … for queen of heaven worship.
• Jer 7:29 God has spoken persistently, they have not listened … > cut off your hair and throw it away, raise lamentation
• Jer 8:18-21 Kings, priests, prophets, inhabitants bones spread before sun, coming invasion … My joy is gone, grief upon me, for the hurt of my people hurt, mourn, dismay … Jeremiah has the emotions the people should have
• Jer 9:1-2 my eyes a fountain of tears, week day and night for slain of my poor people, that I could go away from them
• Jer 10:23-25 Idolatry > invasion …humans cannot control / direct. Correct me in just measure. Pour out your wrath on other nations … though his own nation treats him badly, Jeremiah identifies with them, wishes for their good.
• Jer 11:14-17 Broken covenant, Baal worship … Do not pray for them, I will not listen when they call. No right to help. Jeremiah trying to intercede, requesting God on behalf of them.
• Jer 11:18-20 threat on Jeremiah’s life, describes himself like sheep lead to slaughter, Jeremiah commits his cause to God (trusts him for deliverance) and prays for retribution on the offenders.
• Jer 12:1-4 Jeremiah complains to God: You will be in the right, O LORD, when I lay charges against you; but let me put my case to you. Why does the way of the guilty prosper? … But you, O LORD, know me; you see me and test me, my heard is with you … How long will the land mourn?… childlike, acknowledging God’s superiority, yet addressing him, making God the center of his complaint, like Job and Habakkuk in this regard.
• Jer 12:5 God answers: If you have raced with foot-runners and they have wearied you, how will you compete with horses? And if in a safe land you fall down, how will you fare in the thickets of the Jordan? … God again is not ‘poor you’, he challenges him on, speaks of greater challenges ahead …
• Jer 12:6 God stating straight out that Jeremiah’s family against him, have dealt treacherously, do not believe them and their friendly words … Again full reality, un-beautified.
• Jer 12:7-8 God keeps speaking ‘lapsing into his own grief’ it seems … Is this cruel of God? Or is it the greater privilege yet still for Jeremiah … They both sit their grieving, God sharing his heart with one who ‘knows how it feels’ … Maybe this is comforting, or leading Jeremiah further into his calling: participating in the emotion, grief of God. Jeremiah will later have sentences on
• Jer 13:17 God or Jeremiah: But if you will not listen my soul will weep in secret for your pride, my eyes will weep bitterly and run down with tears … because the LORD’s flock has been taken captive. Again appropriate emotion, that Judah doesn’t have.
• Jer 14:1ff Drought …. O hope of Israel, its savior in time of trouble, why would you be like a stranger? … Do not forsake us. … Truly they have loved to wander …
• Jer 14:11 Do not pray for welfare of this people, do not hear their cry, I do not accept them … again Jeremiah trying to fulfill his role.
• Jer 14:13-16 Jeremiah intercedes with God: people deceived because of the lying prophets … God’s destruction prophesy on false prophet: sword, famine, I will pour their wickedness on him.
• Jer 14:19-22 People’s half-hearted repentance at the misery of drought … Can any idols of the nation bring rain? Is it not you, O LORD our God? We set our hope on you, for it is you who do all this.
• Jer 15:1-3 Even Moses or Samuel’s intercession I would not accept … 4 destroyers: pestilence, sword, famine, exile … Jeremiah affirmed through this: it’s not because he is not fulfilling his role that God won’t relent. He here gets put into high company: Moses and Samuel … God affirms Jeremiah and the role he plays.
• Jer 15:10 Jeremiah: would I’d never been born, a man of strife and contention, done no wrong yet all curse me.
• Jer 15:11-12 God: I have intervened for good, though hard.
• Jer 15:13-18 Jeremiah: remember me, bring retribution on my persecutors, do not take me away, know that on your account I suffer insult. … Your words became my joy and the delight of my heart, for I am called by your name … You have filled me with indignation, why is my wound is incurable? Truly, you are to me like a deceitful brook, like waters that fail.
• Jer 15:19 God: if you turn back, I will take you back, and you shall stand before me. If you utter what is precious, you shall serve as my mouth. I will make you to this people a fortified wall of bronze, they will fight against you and but they shall not prevail. I am with you to save / deliver / redeem you … Again not pity, but a sore challenge to repent, and assurance of forgiveness … a re-affirmation of calling: You shall stand before me. … also of the reality of persecution and God’s promise of protection as at his calling in 1:4-19.
• Jer 16:1-4 Jeremiah: no marriage, no children… God adds challenge to challenge, removes comforts that could remain. Is that a fitting answer to Jeremiah’s emotional struggle in chapter 15? … Would you be willing? Are you putting conditions on God? … are you judging Jeremiah in your heart? I have heard teaching like this: Ezekiel never complains, he is more faithful to calling, but Jeremiah does complain. … Or is it that Jeremiah is the only one honest enough to let us know the struggles behind the ministry? … Be very careful to ‘think other people’s challenges small’.
• Jer 16:5-8 enter no house of lament, enter no house of feasting … This is picking up on Jeremiah’s complaint in 15:17, it’s also an enacted symbol: Coming destruction, loss of life, loss of freedom to live life as we please.
• Jer 16:19 After a ‘Jews will return prediction’ … things widening out: Jeremiah interceding for other nations to come, to convert from idols to God. God (?) promises to teach them … greater restoration also in Jeremiah.
• Jer 17:14-18 Jeremiah’s prophecies ridiculed – actually: God’s grace in waiting to bring it about ridiculed – See how they say to me: “where is the word of the LORD? Let it come! … Jeremiah’s response: heal me, and I shall be healed. Save me, and I shall be saved. I have not run away, nor desired the fatal day. What came from my lips, it was before your face. Let my persecutors be shamed, not me … Jeremiah throwing himself on God, seeking for no honor other than what God gives, knowing his weakness, asking God for help & healing …
  also joining God’s heart in not desiring the judgment, though he asks for retribution on them.
• Jer 18:18-23 Plot against Jeremiah, charges against him. Jeremiah cries out: Repay evil for good … Remember how I stood before you to speak good for them … hurl them out of the land … you know their plots … do not forgive their iniquity … yet again: casting himself on God. Jeremiah has no protection other than God.
• Jer 19:1-13 Buy earthenware jug, take with you elders, people, priests > Valley of Hinnom, Potsherd Gate
• Jer 19:14-15 After Topheth, stood in court of the temple >
• Jer 20:1-9 After the enacted symbol at Topheth (breaking earth ware jug) denouncing Topheth and the queen of heaven worship … Conflict with priest Pashur, son of Immer, chief officer in temple > struck Jeremiah, puts him in stocks at upper Benjamin Gate of the temple over night. Next morning released. Jeremiah prophesies: ‘terror-all-around’, will go into captivity, there die, buried, for you have prophesied falsely… Priests syncretistic or even idolatrous?
• Jer 20:7-18 “Lord, you have enticed me, overpowered me. Word of God has become a reproach, derision. Can’t hold it in either. My close friends plotting against me. God with me like dread warrior. God you test the righteous, you see the heart and the mind. Let me see your retribution on them. Sing to the Lord, he has delivered the needy. Cursed by the day I was born. Why only toil and sorrow, spend my days in shame?” … a medley of complaint, accusing God, misery, fear, acknowledging God, deliverance, yet frustration … unfiltered, unprocessed, illogical, pouring out his soul’ … whatever you think of a text like this, Jeremiah finds through it to continued faithfulness and sharing of God’s heart. No internal withdrawal, no sarcasm, no ‘what’s in it for me?’, … if you think one should do better than Jeremiah, think again.

Jeremiah during Jehoiakim

• Jer 26:1-19 Jeremiah preaches in the temple court to the cities of Judah coming to worship: repent, otherwise Jerusalem like Siloh. Priests, prophets and people want him arrested > go to officials. Upon hearing Micah quoted, they decide the announcement of doom for Jerusalem does not warrant a death sentence. Elders: Hezekiah didn’t kill Micah but rather entreated God’s favor and was spared. A close call, but here reason prevails. Jeremiah is courageous, keeps speaking his message, insists it is from God and is willing to take the consequences (Jer 26:14).
• Jer 26:20-23 Prophet Uriah of Kiriath-jearim, another prophet prophesies same as Jeremiah, death threat > flees to Egypt, brought back from there and killed by King Jehoiakim … how do you think this makes Jeremiah feel? Finally a soul mate, finally a support, and then he is threatened and killed. Jeremiah would see himself in Uriah, a display of what is most likely waiting for him also. Maybe he also takes note that there is saving oneself through fleeing. It is either God who saves or it won’t work anyway.
• Jer 28:1-17 Prophet Hananiah opposes Jeremiah in the temple, before priests and all people: Babylon broken within 2 years, vessels and people and Jehoiachin back. Jeremiah: prophets of old prophesied war / famine to nations, not peace. Truth be known when fulfilled (this is good old Deuteronomy theology). Hananiah breaks Jeremiah’s yoke, restates. Jeremiah leaves…Later announces death within a year to Hananiah (Law: death sentence for false prophets). Dies 3 months later….
• What to learn from this? In a sense this is a battle of the prophets, but also: Jeremiah doesn’t presume on a ‘judgment prediction’ on Hananiah, though that could be concluded from Deuteronomy. He only gives it once he gets it, which is later.
• Another point: if people want to know who is a true prophet, they have ample proof. God did not leave people confused in a ‘battle of the prophets’, he has not left himself unrevealed.
• Jer 29:1-23 After deportation 2nd wave, Jeremiah writes letter to exiles / elders / priests / prophets in Babylon: build houses, plant gardens, marry, multiply, seek the welfare of the city, pray. After 70 years (but not before) I will bring you back, restore your fortunes. Remnant in Jerusalem = rotten figs, God will send sword, famine, pestilence, drive them away. False prophets Ahab and Zedekiah: will die at the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, because they prophesied lie, committed outrage, adultery…. Jeremiah is not all gloom & doom. He is very proactive in building what can possibly be built (Jer 1:10) and in seeing the needs of others (at a time when his are not really met).
• Jer 29:24-32 Jeremiah answers Shemaiah’s letter to priest Zephaniah to persecute Jeremiah: He will not have one descendant who will live to see the restoration in 70 years. He has prophesied a lie, mislead the people, spoken rebellion against God…. Probably shocking to Jeremiah, the deception is also in Babylon, and persecution comes even from over there, even after giving a positive word.
• Jer 30:1-3 write in a book all the words that I have spoken to you … for: restoration surely coming … Need to preserve long-term, something Jeremiah understands > ministers to the needs of the exiles & those born in exile. Finally he gets to speak hope.
• Jer 31:26 Jeremiah ‘dreams’ of restoration, wakes up, pleasant sleep.
• Jer 32 Jeremiah buys field of cousin during siege > sign of hope: houses, fields, vineyards shall again be bought … again: no resentment in Jeremiah, he has no children, who will inherit this? He won’t see the good coming, yet he can abandoned-ly rejoice with the good to come. In this also he is the message, the display of the grace, compassion and goodwill of God.
• Jer 36:1-8 4th year of King Jehoiakim Jeremiah dictates all words of God so far to Baruch > scroll. Command to Baruch to read scroll in temple on fast day.
• Jer 36:9-19 5th year, 9th month on fast day Baruch reads scroll in chamber of Gemariah at temple. Officials hear, alarmed, have king hear it, tell Baruch to hide with Jeremiah .
• Jer 36:20-26 Scroll read to King Jehoiakim, who burns it piece by piece. King sends to arrest Baruch and Jeremiah, but God hides them.
• Jer 36:27-32 Jeremiah dictates Baruch whole scroll again, many similar words added…. Why did they not make 2 copies at God’s command? Why all this work for nothing? William Carey’s Bible Translation burning up just when they finished. What do you do? > You do it again. Need for endurance in an instant generation.

Jeremiah under Zedekiah

• Jer 51:59-64 In 4th year of Zedekiah’s reign Jeremiah commands Seraiah to take scroll with the written Babylon judgments
  to Babylon, read them out there, then sink them into Euphrates, saying: “Thus shall Babylon sink, to rise no more, because of the disasters that I am bringing on her.”
• Jer 37:1-10 Egyptian army withdraws: King Zedekiah sends Jehucal and Zephaniah the priest: please pray. God: Egyptian army will return to Egypt, Babylonian army will return to finish siege. Do not deceive yourselves. Even with a one man army they would conquer. Jeremiah now inquired of, asked for prayer. A little bit honored, but still neither obeyed nor protected.
• During the siege, all things start coming to a head … There is a gap in the siege, when Nebuchadnezzar’s army withdraws shortly because they hear of being attacked by Pharaoh. This is probably when this happens:
• Jer 37:11-16 Jeremiah wanting to got to Benjamin to receive ancestral land (did hear about this – legal system still working? Some in his family for him informing him? – goes to Anathoth (?) though earlier threats on his life, meets family, takes his rights, does take possession and preserve inheritance though no children, participates in legal transactions) > Irijah arrests him, charges him with deserting. > officials enraged > Jeremiah beaten, imprisoned in house of secretary Jonathan, cistern house cells… The story of joy, the enacted symbol of restoration now has become contention and a reason to step up persecution.
• Jer 37:17-21 King Zedekiah sends secretly for Jeremiah to inquire. Given another hard message: You shall be handed to king of Babylon. Asks what his guilt is? Asks: where the peace-prophets are now? Jeremiah pleads to not be left dying in house of secretary Jonathan. Zedekiah moves him to court of guard, allowance of bread. Jeremiah always seems to get to say what nobody wants to hear and for which he’ll get into trouble.
• Jer 38:1-6 Jeremiah tells all people to surrender to Babylon to save their lives, if they don’t > city will fall. Officials to Zedekiah: Jeremiah should be killed for preaching treason / weakening defense / seeking our harm. Zedekiah hands Jeremiah to them, “I am powerless against you” > they throw him into muddy cistern. He is in his 50s now (16y at calling + 17y Josiah + 11 y Jehoiakim + 9 y Zedekiah, siege on presumably = 54 minimum), Jeremiah is charged for not wanting welfare of people, forced to endure all the disaster he never wanted and worked against, knowing the more he is proven right during the siege, the more he is in danger of being killed.
• Jer 38:7-13 Jeremiah is saved out of cistern by Ethiopian eunuch Ebed-melech, courageously (initiative), legally (asks for king’s permission, is given as command), with foresight (wardrobe access), carefully (rags for under ropes). Jeremiah saved not by own family member, not Ahikam, not own fellow-countryman, but a God fearing Ethiopian eunuch. Interesting also: Zedekiah is powerless to do this, but Ebed-melech manages.
• Jer 39:15-18 During siege still: word to Ebed-melech, the Ethiopian: will survive war. Kindnesses & individual ministry
• Jer 38:14-28 Zedekiah secretly inquires of Jeremiah, swears oath to not hand him over to officials. Jeremiah: if you surrender > he and family spared, city not burned. If not > him handed over, city burnt.
• Zedekiah: afraid of being handed over to deserted Judeans and being abused. Jeremiah: will not happen. If disobey: women of king’s family lead out to Babylonians, “you seduced by unfaithful allies”.
• Zedekiah: keep conversation secret. Lie if asked about it. Jeremiah does so, he keeps being civil and truthful to a king who has betrayed him. Jeremiah remains in court of the guard until Jerusalem taken.

Jeremiah with the remnant

• Jer 39:11-14 Jeremiah also bound, brought till Ramah. Nebuchadnezzar’s command to be treated well, offered freedom, Finally a bit of honor. By whom? The idolatrous invading nation! Irony over irony
• Jer 40:1-6 Babylonian captain of the guard understands reasons for God’s judgment of Judah. Offers Jeremiah good life in Babylon or remaining under care of Gedaliah, son of Ahikam. Jeremiah chooses to stay with remnant. Why? Is this still part of the calling? Or too old to travel? Or sticking it out till sthe bitter end?
• Jer 41:1-10 Ishmael assassinates Gedaliah. Johanan attacks Ishmael, frees people, Ishmael escapes. Inquire of Jeremiah what to do. Think it a lie, incited by Baruch to hand us over to Chaldeans > Take all the people, Jeremiah and Baruch to Egypt, Tahpanhes (now age 55y, calling & 41y). Ultimate defeat, fruitless ministry proven: Even when all his words have come true, he is a proven prophet, nobody believes him, even forces him back to Eypt where one shouldn’t return (Deu 17:16).
• Jer 44:1-19 Jeremiah speaks to Judeans in Migdol, Tahpanhes, Memphis, Pathros: history > judgment on idolatry. Do not now sacrifice to queen of heaven! If you do: judgment / disaster will reach you here. They refuse to listen, Jeremiah is gracious to keep speaking truth, even in the face of total rejection. Faithful to the end.

Summary Jeremiah

• Jeremiah is so honest in his struggling, with people, with oppression, with threats, fears, imprisonment, torture, death fear, bitterness, vindictiveness, depression (it seems sometimes). He struggles with God, the message he has to speak, the unbelief of the people, the no-joy-in-fulfillment. He is submitted under the disaster, though he never wanted it, and didn’t cause it, he joins those who rejected and tortured him in their suffering.
• His calling and destiny seems a lose-lose situation, and God emphasizes, but also challenges him quite ‘sorely’. God seems to think that the privilege of serving him, of knowing him, or doing the right thing far outweighs all the suffering, affliction and despair. Jeremiah agrees eventually and really, but does show that it is a fight.
• God is the reward, outweighing anything and everything!

Comparison of Jeremiah with Jesus

• Both persistently address unwilling, even hostile people, able to hurt them
• Both have the heart of God towards those that maybe willing and for the unwilling, neither wants judgment
• Both woo people to reconsider, neither rejoices once the hostile people ‘get their due’
• Both speak at a time of political turmoil, at a time of worsening government, political and ideological conflict, increasing rebellion, increasing violence, dark outlook
• Both suffer for the sin of others, Jeremiah has to join the disaster, siege, defeat, captivity … Jesus does it ultimately on the cross. Both get suffering they do not deserve, Jeremiah has to undergo stocks, imprisonment, miry pit … Jesus ultimately is the one getting the suffering he does not deserve.
• Both struggle with the suffering, Jeremiah repeatedly, Jesus at Gethsemane.
• Both prophesy and witness to the restoration beyond the judgment.
• Both get persecuted by the religious leaders, and political leaders, and their schemes
• God is utterly sovereign in saving them at the time of greatest vulnerability / weakness / out of control situation
• Both intercede
• Both for the joy set before them endured suffering (Heb 12:1-2)

Summary of Character Study – Jeremiah

• Jeremiah is so honest in his struggles with people, with oppression, with threats, fears, imprisonment, torture, fear of death, bitterness, vindictiveness and depression.
• He struggles with God, with the message he has to speak, with the unbelief of the people, with the no-joy-in-fulfillment.
• He is submitted under the disaster, though he doesn’t deserve it nor ever wished it on anybody revengefully. He joins in the suffering of those who rejected, ridiculed and tortured him.
• Jeremiah sees little to no fruit to any of his long and sacrificial ministry. Yet at the end of it all, he is proven a true prophet (Jerusalem did fall!) which is the basis for faith in the restoration he promised (in 70 years Israel will return!).
• The importance of this 70 year prophecy for the Jews in exile cannot be overestimated: this gives them the framework to understand their situation by, the affirmation that their calling as a nation is not over, the rallying point of a new hope, the holding on to an inheritance.
• Other prophets may have prophesied beyond Jeremiah’s 70 years prophecy (especially Isaiah), but those prophecies seem so far out, people probably think they are canceled by Jerusalem’s fall. Rather it is Jeremiah’s 70 year prophecy that carried the Jews through the exile, short-range, concrete, time-limited.
• It is also the prophecy that will startle Daniel to further seek God as to the future (Dan 9:1-2 onward). And Daniel will speak the prophecies that will give framework and strength to the Jews till Jesus’ time.
• Jeremiah’s ministry might seem fruitless in the short run, but it is essential and powerful the exile, and becomes the life-giving word of God still studied 2500 years later.
• Jeremiah’s calling and destiny seems a lose-lose situation. God empathizes, but also takes away possibly comforts and challenges him ‘sorely’. God seems to think that the privilege of serving him, of knowing him, or doing the right thing far outweighs all the suffering, affliction and despair. Jeremiah agrees eventually and really, but does show that it is a fight.
• God is the reward, outweighing anything and everything!

Enacted Symbols

• Jeremiah is commanded to perform various enacted symbols:
  • Jer 13:1-11 linen loincloth, hid in cleft of rock near Euphrates > ruined. I will ruin the pride of Judah. Made Judah cling to me as loincloth clings to loins, that they might be for me a people, a name, a praise, a glory
  • Jer 16:1 Jeremiah’s celibacy: children will die
  • Jer 16:5 Jeremiah not to enter house of lament: God removing his peace, steadfast love, mercy, comfort
  • Jer 16:8 Jeremiah not to enter house of feasting: banish from this place, no more mirth, marriages
  • Jer 18:1-4 Jeremiah at potter’s house, refashioning marred vessel: Can God not do this with a nation? With Judah? If any nation repents > change the evil I intended.
  • Jer 19:1-13 Buy earthenware jug, take with you elders, people, priests > Valley of Hinnom, Potsherd Gate > bring such evil, fall by sword, will eat own children during siege. Then break jug > so will I break this people, bury at Topheth till no room to bury. I will make city like Topheth, all houses, places of idolatry destroyed.
  • Jer 27:1-11 yoke of straps and bars, put in on your neck. Send word by the envoys of the king of Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre, Sidon (currently at King Zedekiah’s): Creator & Owner of all says: If you submit and serve Babylon > not devastated, remain in land, under Babylon for a time. If you do not submit to Babylon > conquered anyway, devastated and exiled. Do not listen to false prophets.
  • Jer 27:12-22 Same message to Zedekiah, to priests (vessels won’t come back now, pray more vessels won’t go to Babylon, vessels will come back when God attends to them).
  • Jer 32 Buying of field, preservation of deed … fields will again be sold and bought > return, restoration
  • Jer 35 Rechabites … they obey a mere ancestors’ needless command, you don’t even obey your Creator’s commands
  • Jer 36 Public scroll reading
  • Jer 43:8-13 Enacted symbol: Jeremiah buries large stones under pavement at the entrance of Pharaoh’s palace in Tahpanhes > King Nebuchadnezzar will place his throne here, will destroy, burn Egypt and temples / gods > false security will be proven as such, the sword can reach you here.
  • Jer 51:59-64 In 4th year of Zedekiah’s reign Jeremiah commands Seraiah to take scroll with the written Babylon judgments to Babylon, read them out there, then sink them into Euphrates, saying: “Thus shall Babylon sink, to rise no more, because of the disasters I am bringing on her.”
• Why the enacted symbols? > God trying in one more way to communicate, to touch the hardened hearts, to plant a picture in the mind … quite parallel Jesus’ parables.
• The last is the most significant, basically closing the book and bringing home the essential message of chapter 50-51: Babylon will fall, there will be an opportunity to return > you need to take it!

EVENTS / COMMENTS ON THE TEXT

• chapter 1-6 medley of assurance of coming judgment, reasons are ‘adultery’, meaning idolatry, political alliances, social injustice, breakdown of leadership (political & spiritual) very much like a summary of all other prophets. Reminders of history, catchy convicting questions (Jer 2:11, 2:32), …
• The most repeated feature is refusal to listen, change, repent; willful, chosen deception, … choosing against God in full daylight & knowledge
• Jer 5:1-5 Find one person who acts justly and seeks the truth, so that I might pardon Jerusalem. … Jeremiah: these are only the poor, don’t know the way of the LORD, the law of their God … Let me go to the rich, surely they know the way / law … But they all alike had broken the yoke … Painful parallels to Gen 18 Abraham interceding for Sodom. Morality can have to do with teaching, but more than anything else it is a choice of heart.
• Jer 6:16 stand at the crossroads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way lies; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls. Parallel the history-reminders: Go back to the root, the original, the calling, the law. I wish I could tell my nation that.
• Jer 7 Jeremiah to preach at gate of the temple > people who are religious, obeying feasts and sacrifices. Challenge: truly amend your ways & doings, act justly with one another, do not oppress the alien, orphan, widow, or shed innocent blood … normal covenant stuff.
• Jer 7:4, 7:8, 7:10 … deceptive words: This is the temple of the LORD. ‘we are safe’ … only to go on doing all these abominations. Has this house become a den of robbers in your sight? … Jesus quotes this: Jhn 2:16, Luk 19:46, Mrk 11:17, Mth 21:13. This passage seems to speak of hollow religiosity, a superstitious view of the temple, if not downright syncretism. We can see that Jesus quotes this appropriately, he quotes the verse with its context of false religiosity yet greed.
• Jer 9:23-24 alluded to in 1 Cor 1:31 Let not the wise boast in their wisdom … but that they understand ans know me.
• Jer 9:25-26 Those circumcised only in the foreskin (Egypt, Edom, Ammon, Moab, shaven temples, those in the desert). Desert dwellers could be Ishmaelites / Arabs or other Keturah-peoples. Egypt? Not sure where they learned circumcision from? Then they are called uncircumcised, in contrast to Judah: uncircumcised in heart.
• This is picked up by Paul in Php 3:1. This is parallel to the temple thing: an outward sign which means to represent and inward reality … but that inward reality is gone. Temple turns into a false security, like in the NT with Jesus also.
• Jer 15:2 the 4 destroyers: pestilence, sword, famine, captivity … realistic picture of war and siege. Due to crowding, lack of water, lack of nutrition > epidemics. Also: sword is only one way in which war kills. This is realistic also: at the bitter end the amount of exiled people is actually quite small > the population decimated before.
• Jer 17:5-10 “cursed are those who trust in mortals and make flesh their strength, whose hearts turn away from God… Blessed are those who trust in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD > tree planted by water” (Psa 1)… “heart is devious above all else, perverse, who can understand it? I the LORD test the mind and search the heart …” Warning that they cannot fool God. Maybe also Jeremiah’s honesty, seeing himself react. Maybe an extension of the celibacy calling > Do not make a spouse your trust … Do not make the absence of a spouse the pivotal point.
• Jer 19:1-13 addressing kings, inhabitants, taking along elders, senior priests … > Potsherd Gate, which is the exit to the Topheth / Valley of Hinnom … Judgment. Reason: forsaken God, offering to other imported gods, filled place with the blood of the innocent, burnt children to Baal … horror of a siege, famine, eating own children, valley of Slaughter.
• Jer 21:1-14 Inquiry of King Zedekiah concerning impending war with Babylon: I myself will fight against you. Execute justice, deliver the weak
• Jer 22:1-5 challenge to the kings sitting on David’s throne … act with justice, righteousness, protect week, no innocent bloodshed
• Jer 22:11-17 Concerning Shallum (Jehoahaz): luxury & injustice loving, will not come back from exile.
• Jer 22:18-23 Concerning Jehoiakim: will die, be buried without honor. His allies will go into exile. Jer 22:15 Josiah did well.
• Jer 22:24-30 Concerning Jehoiachin (Coniah): into exile, with mother, die there, no son as king on throne of David
• Jer 24:1-10 After Nebuchadnezzar exiled people, artisans, smiths, … Vision of two baskets of figs before temple
• Jer 25:1-14 In the 4th year of King Jehoiakim (= first year of king Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon): For 23 years I have spoken persistently to you, but you have not listened. Turn now, everyone of you, and you will remain upon the land. No turning. > All tribes of North, even Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon against this land and surrounding nations > utterly destroy, land a waste, disgrace, serve king of Babylon 70 years. Then I will punish Babylon for their sin > make them everlasting waste. Will bring on them all written this book, all prophesied by Jeremiah. Other nations will make Babylon their slave. I will repay them according to deeds. … The all essential 70 year prophecy! Also in Jer 29:10
• Jer 26:1-6 at beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim: Jeremiah prophesies in temple court: unless repent, temple destroyed like Shiloh
• Jer 26:7-19 Jeremiah’s trial at the New Gate of the temple. Elders remember Micah of Moresheth’s prediction of Jerusalem’s destruction (Mic 3:12) and Hezekiah’s response..
• Jer 35 Rechabites (Rechab > Jonadab > > Jaazaniah & family) asked to chamber of sons of Hanan, in temple, served wine. A Jonadab, son of Rechab, is Jehu’s close ally, but whether that is the same family is not sure (2 Kin 10:15). They refuse (Jonadab: no wine, no house, no agriculture, no land owning). Kept till today. They are in Jerusalem for fear of Babylonian invasion. God to Judah: Judah doesn’t obey even God like the Rechabites obey their ancestor. God to Rechabites: because you obeyed ancestor: never lack a descendant to stand before me.
• Jer 36:1-8 4th year of King Jehoiakim Jeremiah dictates all words of God so far to Baruch > scroll. Command to Baruch to read scroll in temple on fast day, since Jeremiah is prevented (unclean? But the happening is much later. Rather: forbidden to show up in temple, he does keep this prohibition, it seems).
• Jer 36:9-19 5th year, 9th month on fast day Baruch reads scroll in chamber of Gemariah at temple. Officials hear, alarmed, have king hear it, tell Baruch to hide.
• Jer 36:20-26 Scroll read to King Jehoiakim, who burns it piece by piece. Not alarmed, neither his officials, servants. Elnathan, Delaiah, Gemariah intervening > no avail. King sends Jerahmeel, Seraiah, Shelemiah to arrest Baruch and Jeremiah, but God hides them.
• Jer 39:1-10 588 BC Jerusalem besieged (9th y, 10th m till 11th y, 4th m, which is a 19 month siege), then 586 BC breached, conquered, burned. King Zedekiah captured on flight > Riblah, judged, sons killed, eyes gouged out > captivity in Babylon. People: those not died exiled except the very poor > left to till the land.
• Jer 40:1-6 Babylonian captain of the guard understands reasons for God’s judgment of Judah. Offers Jeremiah good life in Babylon or remaining under care of Gedaliah, son of Ahikam, the newly appointed governor. Jeremiah chooses to stay with remnant. Jeremiah is given freedom to go anywhere, allowance of food, present.
• Jer 40:7-12 Gedaliah swears to remaining guerilla troups Babylon’s protection. Many Judeans return from surrounding countries, big harvest. Gedaliah joined by Johanan, guerilla leader.
• Jer 40:13-16 Johanan warns Gedaliah of Ishmael (other guerilla leader, supported by Ammon), doesn’t believe.
• Jer 41:1-10 Ishmael assassinates Gedaliah, eighty men from Shechem, Shiloh, Samaria. People taken captive, marched off towards Ammon
• Jer 41:11-18 Johanan attacks Ishmael, frees people, Ishmael escapes. People decide to go to Egypt for fear of Babylon.
• Jer 42 Johanan, people inquire of Jeremiah what to do, promise to obey. Jeremiah: remain in the land, not to Egypt
• Jer 43:1-7 Johanan, Azariah, insolent men > telling a lie, incited by Baruch to hand us over to Chaldeans > Take all the people, Jeremiah and Baruch to Egypt, Tahpanhes (now age 55y, calling & 41y)
  In Egypt
• Jer 43:8-13 Enacted symbol: Jeremiah buries large stones under pavement at the entrance of Pharoh’s palace in Tahpanhes > King Nebuchadnezzar will place his throne here, will destroy, burn Egypt and temples / gods.
• Jer 44:1-14 Jeremiah speaks to Judeans in Migdol, Tahpanhes, Memphis, Pathros: history > judgment on idolatry. Do not now sacrifice to queen of heaven! If you do: judgment / disaster will reach you here.
• Jer 44:15-19 people, men & women, refuse to listen, attribute current lack to not sacrificing to queen of heaven
• Jer 44:20-30 God swears by his great name to bring judgment / disaster. Remnant will not utter his name anymore. My word will stand, and they shall know it. Only very few will escape back to Judah. Sign: Pharaoh Hophra will be given into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar.
• Jer 44 Keeps prophesying to idolatrous remnant in Egypt, dies there? His writings are preserved … by whom?
• Jer 45:1-5 Baruch: suffers, but not God’s heart. Do not seek great things. Promise of protection of life wherever he goes.
• Jer 52:1-30 Siege, conquest and destruction of Jerusalem. Capture / killing / exile of people / priests / officials. List of bronze, silver and gold utensils / items brought to Babylon. Number of people exiled in the three waves.
• Jer 52:31-34 Newly crowned King Evil-merodach of Babylon frees and feeds King Jehoiachin till his death.

REPEATED THEMES

Judgment on Judah is predicted

• Jer 1:14-15    from the north disaster, God calling tribes, set their thrones into the gates of Jerusalem
• Jer 4:5-9       trumpet, flight, destroyer coming, land waste, cities in ruins, courage failing
• Jer 4:11-18  Hot wind from desert, chariots, horses, besiegers, bitter doom
• Jer 4:23-31 earth, heavens void, mountains quaking, no people, land desert, cities ruins, horseman & archer, your lovers despise you, anguish, fainting before killers
• Jer 5:6         lion, wolf, leopard … torn in pieces
• Jer 5:10-11  destroy, strip away branches, for they are not the Lord’s
• Jer 5:14-17  my words fire in your mouth, bring far away nation, enduring, ancient, warriors, shall eat up food, children, flocks, destroy fortified cities
• Jer 6:1-9     flee from Jerusalem, war & destruction coming
• Jer 6:11-12 old, children, families will fall under judgment
• Jer 7:14-15 temple will be destroyed like Shiloh
• Jer 7:20     God’s wrath on humans and animals and plants
• Jer 7:32-34 valley of the son of Hinnom > valley of slaughter, corpses, will bring and end to mirth
• Jer 8:1-3    Valley of son of Hinnom > bones dug up, left before sun & stars, corpses, death preferred to life by remnant
• Jer 8:10     will give their wives, fields to others
• Jer 8:12     I will punish / kill them
• Jer 8:14-17 go perish in fortified cities, look for peace, healing > none, horses, snakes
• Jer 9:10-12 no cattle, birds, animals left, Jerusalem a heap of ruins, towns of Judah a desolation, who wise enough to understand reason?
• Jer 9:15-16 feeding them wormwood, poisonous water, scatter them, sword, consume them
• Jer 9:17-22 mourning women, teach daughters, wail, weep, lament for we are ruined, utterly shamed
• Jer 10:17-22 gather up bundle, siege, sling out people, distress, tent destroyed, children gone, shepherds stupid
• Jer 11:11-12 I will bring disaster, tough crying to me, I will not listen, gods won’t save them
• Jer 11:21-22 I will punish people of Anathoth, who seek Jeremiah’s life, sword, famine, disaster
• Jer 11:7-13 I have forsaken my house, abandoned my heritage, shepherds, spoilers; shall be ashamed of harvests
• Jer 13:8-10 ruined loincloth: I will ruin the great pride of Judah
• Jer 13:12-14 filled wine-jars: I will fill them with drunkenness, dash them against each other, no pity, destroy them
• Jer 13:15-22 do not be haughty, give ear before darkness, twilight, gloom
• Jer 13:18-27 king, queen mother, Jerusalem: where is your flock? What if conquered by your ‘allies’? Can Ethiopians change their skin? You trusted in lies, I myself will lift up your skirts and your shame will be seen
• Jer 14:1-6 drought hitting Judah, even wild animals
• Jer 14:10 God does not accept them, will remember their iniquity, punish their sin
• Jer 14:15-16 God punishing lying prophets, pouring out their wickedness on them.
• Jer 14:17-18 tears for my people, killed by sword, sick with famine
• Jer 15:1-9 though Moses and Samuel > I would not turn. Send them away, to pestilence, to the sword, to famine, to captivity. Destroyers. Who will pity you? Widows numerous, shamed and disgraced
• Jer 16:2-4 children shall die by diseases / sword / famine
• Jer 16:5-9 I have taken away my peace / steadfast love / mercy / comfort / marriages / mirth. All shall die.
• Jer 16:13 I will hurl you out of this land into another, there serve other gods. No favor.
• Jer 17:3-4 I will give your wealth as spoil / price for your sin. I will make you serve your enemies, my anger kindled, shall burn forever
• Jer 17:5-6 those who trust in mortals > like shrub in desert, shall not see when relief comes.
• Jer 17:11 those who amass wealth unjustly > in mid-life it will leave them, at the end will prove to be fools.
• Jer 17:27 If you disobey and bear burdens on Sabbath > I will kindle fire in its gates, palaces devoured
• Jer 18:17 I will scatter them, I will show them my back not my face in the day of their calamity.
• Jer 19:3, 6-13 I will bring such disaster, fall by sword, eat flesh of own children during siege. Break jug > so will I break this people, bury at Topheth till no room to bury. I will make city like Topheth, all houses, places of idolatry destroyed.
• Jer 19:14-15 Court of temple: All the disaster I pronounced I will now bring
• Jer 20:3-6 Priest Pashur: ‘terror-all-around’, terror to all friends, shall fall by sword before his eyes. Will go into captivity, there die. All the wealth of Jerusalem > be looted, plundered, carried off to Babylon.
• Jer 21:1-14 Kind Zedekiah’s inquiry: I myself will fight against you, bring Babylonians into the city. Pestilence, sword, famine, no pity. If not executing justice > God’s wrath, he is against the proud, the self-trusting
• Jer 22:1-10 Message to King of Judah: act with justice, deliver the weak, alien, orphan, widow, stop shedding innocent blood. If not: David’s house a desolation, destroyers, shame, no return.
• Jer 22:11-17 Concerning Shallum (Jehoahaz?): went into exile, will not return, but die there. Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness, does not give wages, but luxury for himself. Did not your father eat and drink and do justice and righteousness? But your eyes and heart are only on dishonest gain, for shedding innocent blood, for practicing oppression and violence.
• Jer 22:18-23 Concerning King Jehoiakim: Will die, no one lamenting him, corpse dragged off and thrown outside gates. His lovers (allies) are crushed, exiled. Ignored God’s voice. Will be ashamed and dismayed
• Jer 22:24-30 Concerning King Jehoiachin (Coniah): Even if signet ring on my right hand, would tear him off and give into hands of King Nebuchadnezzar, whom he fears. Hurl you and your mother out, no return, there die. Like childless, none of his sons shall sit on the thrown of David and rule Judah.
• Jer 23:9-15 Prophet and priest ungodly, wickedness even in my house. Therefore > slippery path into darkness, disaster, eat wormwood, poisonous water.
• Jer 23:16-22 Do not listen to deluding prophets, assuring those who despise / disobey / stubbornly follow own will that all shall be well.
• Jer 23:23-32 My word like fire, I am against the prophets, who steal words, use own tongues, prophesy lying dreams, lead my people astray.
• Jer 23:33-40 “Burden of the Lord” … If people / prophet / priests asks: what is the burden of the Lord > It is you! And I will cast you off, ring upon you everlasting disgrace / shame.
• Jer 24:1-10 basket of very bad figs (King Zedekiah, officials, remnant in Jerusalem, those living at Egypt) > I will make them a horror, curse, disgrace. Send sword, famine, pestilence after them until destroyed from the land.
• Jer 25:8-12 All tribes of North, even Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon against this land and surrounding nations > utterly destroy, land a waste, disgrace, serve king of Babylon 70 years.
• Jer 26:4-6 Unless repent, God will destroy temple like Shiloh (as also prophesied by Micha during Hezekiah, and Uriah currently)
• Jer 27:1-22 yoke of straps and bars. To Zedekiah, all people, priests, and envoys of surrounding nations: Creator & Owner of all says: If you do not submit to Babylon > conquered anyway, devastated and exiled. Do not listen to false prophets. Vessels won’t come back now, pray more vessels won’t go to Babylon, vessels will come back when God attends to them).
• Jer 28:15-16 prophet Hananiah will die within the year for speaking rebellion against God, making people trust a lie.
• Jer 29:1-23 Letter to exiles: Remnant in Jerusalem = rotten figs, God will send sword, famine, pestilence , drive them away. False prophets Ahab and Zedekiah: will die at the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, because they prophesied lie, committed outrage, adultery.
• Jer 29:24-32 Jeremiah answers Shemaiah’s letter to priest Zephaniah to persecute Jeremiah: He will not have one descendant who will live to see the restoration in 70 years. He has prophesied a lie, mislead the people, spoken rebellion against God.
• Jer 30:4-7 Cry of panic, alas! Time of distress
• Jer 30:12-15 hurt incurable, no medicine, no healing for you. Your lovers have forgotten you. I have done these things.
• Jer 30:23-24 storm of the Lord, wrath will not turn back until executed and accomplished the intents of his mind
• Jer 32:26-29 I will give Jerusalem into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar, burn it and the houses where idolatry happened
• Jer 32:36 city given to Babylonians for sword, famine, pestilence
• Jer 33:4-5 city houses torn down for siege ramps > filled with dead bodies, stricken down in my wrath. I have hidden my face because of wickedness.
• Jer 34:1-7 Time of siege, only Jerusalem, Lachish, Azekah unconquered: To Zedekiah: city will fall, burn. You will be captures, meet Nebuchadnezzar, but die in peace, be lamented.
• Jer 34:8-22 King Zedekiah makes covenant with all Jerusalem to free Hebrew slaves. They free them. Later take them back into subjection. Obedience may have caused God to withdraw Babylonian armies, > less pressure > subjection again > God announces coming back of armies, complete wipe out. They broke covenant just made, God will keep his word: every disaster pronounced I will bring.
• Jer 35:17 Will not learn from / do as Rechabites > will bring every disaster that I have pronounced
• Jer 36:29-31 After King Jehoiakim burns Jeremiah’s scroll: You will have no one to sit upon the throne, your corpse cast out to the heat of day, frost of night. I will punish him and his offspring and his servants, bring all disasters I threatened
• Jer 37:1-10 God to Zedekiah via Jehucal and priest Zephaniah: Do not deceive yourselves: Egyptian army will return to Egypt, Babylonian army will return to finish siege. Even with a one man army they would conquer.
• Jer 37:17-21 King Zedekiah sends secretly for Jeremiah to inquire. God: You shall be handed to king of Babylon.
• Jer 42:13-22 If remnant decides to go to Egypt: sword, famine, pestilence, disaster shall overtake you there, anger, wrath, dishonor.
• Jer 43:10-13 Jeremiah buries large stones under pavement at the entrance of Pharoh’s palace in Tahpanhes > King Nebuchadnezzar will place his throne here, will destroy, burn Egypt (and Judean remnant), temples / gods.
• Jer 44:11-14 If you keep doing idolatry (in Egypt): bring disaster, sword, famine, dishonor. You will long to go back, won’t be able to except a few fugitives.
• Jer 44:24-30 God is watching over you for harm, disaster, sword, famine until no one is left, only few will return to Judah. Will no longer swear in God’s name. Pharaoh Hophrah of Egypt will be given into hands of Nebuchadnezzar. > Judgment will be national and personal.
• The huge first message, from the very first, the pot tilted away from the North (Jer 1:13), the message first no-one believes, then no-one wants to hear, that gets to be politically ‘hot’, even seditious. But Jeremiah hasn’t said anything else for the last 35 years!
• The warning that was meant to lead to repentance. The fulfillment that is meant to convince them all of the validity of Jeremiah’s prophetic ministry, of the reliability of God’s word, of God’s commitment to the hope oracles.
• Crucial to the overall message, though the issue is actually past for the first readers.

Irreversibility of Judgment

• Jer 2:22       though much lye / soap, stain of guilt remains
• Jer 7:16       Jeremiah, do not pray for this people, I will not hear you
• Jer 11:14      do not pray for this people, I will not listen to their cry
• Jer 14:11      Do not pray for welfare of this people, do not hear their cry, I do not accept them
• Jer 14:19-21, 15:1 though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my heart would not tune toward this people
• Jer 18:17     I will scatter them, I will show them my back not my face in the day of their calamity.
• Jer 37:10    Even with a one wounded soldier army the Babylonians would succeed at siege and destroy Jerusalem.

Partial Judgment has been unfruitful

• Jer 2:30 in vain I have struck down your children, accepted not corruption
• Jer 3:3 rain withheld > you refuse to be ashamed
• moves from partial judgment to full judgment
• moves from repentance options to no repentance option
• moves from “will be judgment” to “now I will bring” to within judgment “I will keep on”
• in all developments God is completely consistent, principled, but hurting, pleading, hoping, explaining, revealing his heart, happy and immediate to jump to restoration once they were punished
• the process is strictly according to Deuteronomy, strictly according to covenant agreed upon, no personal vendettas
• Babylon is instrument of God, God using the superpower of the day, if you lose your boundaries, there is a reason.
• God will judge the superpower by the same standard as everyone else. Much leadership > much responsibility.
• Punishment is “in kind” with sin committed:
  • they worshiped idols > go to the nation where they are worshiped.
  • They do not maintain law and justice > loose governing authority.
  • They put idols in the temple > temple will be destroyed.
  • They abandon God’s temple > God abandons his temple.
  • They don’t want him and his intervention > he leaves them to themselves.
  • They defile or pollute the land > they lose the land.
  • Jer 18:17 …I will scatter them, I will show them my back not my face in the day of their calamity … they show their back, God shows back his back.
  • Jer 19:13 they sacrificed children, in the final siege will eat their children
  • They break law > moral, economic, political, familial breakdown.
• There is a point of no return, but it is not easily reached, God’s grace goes further than our patience in reading about it.

Reasons for Judgment

• Jer 1:16 forsaken God, worshiped other idols
• Jer 2:6 did not seek the Lord their Deliverer and Giver of the land … history
• Jer 2:11 no peoples have changed their gods, though they are nothing, but Israel did!
• Jer 2:13 two evils: forsaken God, the fountain of living water and dug up cisterns that hold no water
• Jer 2:18 sought out Egypt, Assyria
• Jer 2:20 long ago you broke your yoke, “I will not serve!”, complete whoredom on every hill / tree … C.S. Lewis: in hell are those who’d rather reign in hell than serve in heaven
• Jer 2:23-24 Look at your way in the valley … like ass in her heat
• Jer 2:25 I have loved strangers
• Jer 2:27 say to a tree: You are my father, turned backs to God, not faces
• Jer 2:29 you have rebelled against me
• Jer 3:1-2 you played the whore with many lovers … where have you not been lain with? Polluted land with whoring and wickedness
• Jer 3:5 did all evil you could
• Jer 3:8 Judah followed Israel in playing the whore, with every stone, tree
• Jer 3:11 faithless Israel is less guilty than false Judah … Return, Israel, only acknowledge your guilt!
• Jer 3:19-20 Israel faithless as a faithless wife leaving her husband
• Jer 4:1-4 should be and are not doing: return, remove idols, swear in truth, justice, uprightness, conviction, humility
• Jer 4:22 foolish, do not know me, stupid children, have no understanding, skilled at evil, do not know how to do good
• Jer 5:1-5 no one acting justly, seeking truth to be found in all of Jerusalem, rich or poor, educated or not
• Jer 5:7-9 How can I pardon? Forsaken God, sworn by idols, when fed > adultery, lusty stallions after neighbor’s wife
• Jer 5:12-13 spoken falsely, “God will do nothing”
• Jer 5:17 trusting in fortified cities
• Jer 5:18 forsaken God, served foreign gods in their land > God makes them serve strangers in a foreign land
• Jer 5:20-31 foolish, senseless, eyes that do not see, ears that do not hear, no fear of God, stubborn, rebellious, scoundrels, stealing, kidnapping, treachery, no limit to wickedness, false judgments for widows, orphans, bend right of needy
• Jer 6:6-7 nothing but oppression in this city, keeps wickedness fresh like a well its water
• Jer 6:8 take warning or I shall turn from you in disgust
• Jer 6:10 ears closed, cannot listen, treat word of God as object of scorn, have no pleasure in it
• Jer 6:13 everyone greedy for unjust gain, deals falsely, from least to greatest, from prophet to priest
• Jer 6:15 they acted shamefully, committed abomination, not ashamed, don’t know how to blush
• Jer 6:16-17 walk in good path! We won’t. Give heed! We won’t
• Jer 6:19 have not given heed to my words, rejected my teaching, expensive sacrifices unacceptable
• Jer 6:28-30 all stubbornly rebellious, slanders, are bronze, iron, all act corrupt, rejected silver
• Jer 7:8-15 do not trust in deceptive religiosity. If steal, worship idols, temple will safe you? Spoke persistently
• Jer 7:17-19 cakes for queen of heaven, all family involved
• Jer 7:21-26 why burnt offerings? My command: obey. Refused to listen though God speaks persistently
• Jer 7:30-31 idols in the temple, Topheth, valley of Hinnom, burning children
• Jer 8:4-9 perpetual backsliding, hold fast to deceit, refuse to return, do not know law, reject God’s word
• Jer 8:10-12 = 6:13-15
• Jer 8:13 fruitlessness
• Jer 9:2-8 adulterers, traitors, falsehood, evil tongues, evil to evil, do not trust own kin, supplanters, slanderers, deceit upon deceit, oppression upon oppression
• Jer 9:13-14 forsaken law, stubbornly followed own heart, gone after Baals
• Jer 11:1-10 history of exodus retold, heed covenant, then my people, promised land … warned continually, yet did not obey, conspiracy to do idolatry
• Jer 11:13 gods as many as towns in Judah, altars to gods as many as streets in Jerusalem
• Jer 13:11 Judah was meant to cling to God as a loincloth clings to loins in order to be for God a people, a name, a praise, a glory. But they would not.
• Jer 14:18 for prophet and priest ply their trade, have no knowledge
• Jer 15:4 judgment because of what King Manasseh of Judah did in Jerusalem
• Jer 15:10-12 Why this great evil? Forsaken God, gone after idols, behaved worse than ancestors, stubborn evil will
• Jer 17:1-2 Judah’s sin engraved into their hearts, children remember altars / poles …
• Jer 17:5 cursed those who trust mere mortals, make flesh their strength, whose heart turns away from God
• Jer 17:19-23 Do not hear burdens on Sabbath. If obey > kings on the throne of David, well being, center of worship.
• Jer 18:12 Repentance option > it’s no use! We will follow our own plans
• Jer 18:13-17 Ask among the nations: who has done such evil? My people have forgotten me, follow idols, make their land a horror
• Jer 18:4-5 Earthenware jug > have forsaken God, profaned by idolatry, filled place with innocent blood, burnt children
• Jer 19:15 All I disaster I announced I will now bring because they stiffened their necks, refusing to hear my words
• Jer 20:6 Priest Pashur judged … for he have prophesied falsely
• Jer 22:1-10 Message to King of Judah: act with justice, deliver the weak, alien, orphan, widow, stop shedding innocent blood. If not: David’s house a desolation, destroyers, shame, no return.
• Jer 22:11-17 Concerning Shallum (Jehoahaz?): Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness, does not give wages, but luxury for himself. Did not your father eat and drink and do justice and righteousness? But your eyes and heart are only on dishonest gain, for shedding innocent blood, for practicing oppression and violence.
• Jer 22:18-23 Concerning King Jehoiakim: All your lovers (allies) are crushed. I spoke to you in your prosperity, you said: I will not listen. Your lovers shall go into captivity, you will be ashamed and dismayed
• Jer 22:24-30 Concerning King Jehoiachin (Coniah): Even if signet ring on my right hand, would tear him off and give into hands of King Nebuchadnezzar, whom he fears. Why? Land, land, land, hear the world of the Lord: childless, none to sit on throne of David.
• Jer 23:9-15 Prophet and priest ungodly, wickedness even in my house. Worse than prophets of Samaria, prophesying by Baal: commit adultery, walk in lies, strengthen hands of evildoers, so no one turns, have become like Sodom & Gomorrah. From the prophets of Jerusalem ungodliness has spread throughout the land.
• Jer 23:16-22 Deluding prophets, speaking visions of own minds. They assure those who despise / disobey / stubbornly follow own will that all shall be well. Who has stood in the council of the Lord so as to see and to hear his word? God: storm. I did not send the prophets, did not speak to them. If they had stood in my council: preached repentance.
• Jer 23:23-32 prophesy lies / dreams, who prophesy deceit of own hearts, make people forget my name, steal words, use own tongues, prophesy lying dreams, lead my people astray.
• Jer 23:33-40 “Burden of the Lord” … perverted the meaning of the word
• Jer 25:1-7 In the 4th year of King Jehoiakim: For 23 years I have spoken persistently to you, but you have not listened. Turn now, everyone of you, and you will remain upon the land. No turning
• Jer 28:15 prophet Hananiah will die within the year for he made people trust in a lie, spoke rebellion against God.
• Jer 29:1-23 False prophets Ahab and Zedekiah in Babylon: will die at the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, because they prophesied lie, committed outrage, adultery.
• Jer 29:24-32 Shemaiah, letter-writer from Babylon, no descendants to see the restoration for he has prophesied a lie, mislead the people, spoken rebellion against God.
• Jer 30:15 your guilt is great, your sins are numerous
• Jer 32:30-35 Judah has done nothing but evil from youth, idolatry, offered children to Molech, kings, officials, priests, prophets, Judah, Jerusalem
• Jer 34:8-22 King Zedekiah makes covenant with all Jerusalem to free Hebrew slaves, later take them back into subjection > broke covenant just made, God will keep his word: every disaster pronounced I will bring.
• Jer 35:13-16 Can you learn a lesson (Rechabites) and obey? Rechabites obeyed command of a ancestors faithfully. You don’t obey commands of your God.
• Jer 5:9, 5:29, 9:9 Shall I not judge … a nation such as this?
• The root of their sin is to forsake God, to not repent, to replace him with idols, to still trust religiosity
• Out of idolatry follow > breakdown of family (lust, adultery, prostitution, child sacrifice, …)
  • > breakdown of education (forgetting God, forgetting history, no pass down of truth / values, …)
  • > breakdown of church (religiosity, competition with sacrifices, corrupt priests, deluding prophets)
  • > breakdown of economy (fertility down, inflation, injustice to workers / poor, oppression of weak)
  • > breakdown of government (corrupt courts, injustice, innocent blood, alliances, land loss, defeat)
• Again God is completely principled / consistent / just in his reasons for judgment (no vendetta, no impatience, no “getting back at”, no arbitrary lashing out), it’s strictly Deuteronomy, all is known, nothing is a surprise, all is multiply communicated.
• Color code Reasons for judgment list with GOV, ECO, ECC, SCI, FAM, COM, ART, EDU

Cause and Effect as ever since the law of Moses

• Jer 2:17 Brought this on yourself
• Jer 2:19 your wickedness will punish you, your apostasies convict you
• Jer 3:24 the shameful thing has devoured all for which our ancestors had labored
• Jer 4:3 Break up your fallow ground, and do not sow among thorns
• Jer 4:18 your ways and doings have brought this upon you
• Jer 5:31 false prophets, priests following suit, people love to have it so
• Jer 6:19 I am going to bring disaster, the fruit of their schemes
• Jer 6:19 Is it I whom they provoke? Is it not themselves, to their own hurt?
• Jer 12:4 How long will the land mourn and the grass of the field wither? For the wickedness humans & animals are swept away
• Jer 14:15 lying prophets will be killed by the sword / famine they deny
• Jer 14:16 God pouring out the wickedness of the prophets on themselves
• Jer 17:4 by your own act you shall lose the heritage that I gave you
• Jer 17:5-6 Cursed those who trust in mortals
• Jer 17:7-8 Blessed those who trust the Lord.
• Jer 18:15-17 But my people … make their land a horror
• Jer 44:7 Jeremiah to Judeans in Egypt: why are you doing such great harm to yourselves, to cut off man and woman, child and infant, leaving yourselves without a remnant? Why do you provoke me (offerings to other gods)?
• Reaffirmation of Deuteronomy, the covenant, the principled-ness of what is coming. See also next theme

Choosing deception / Issue of human will

• Jer 2:23 How can you say “I am not defiled”? Look at your way in the valley, know what you have done
• Jer 2:35 I am innocent, surely his anger has turned from me! I have not sinned … though lifeblood of innocent poor is on you
• Jer 3:4-5 “my father, friend of my youth, will he be angry forever?” But done all evil that you could.
• Jer 3:10 Judah did not return with her whole heart, but only in pretense
• Jer 6:16-17 we will not walk in it, we will not give heed.
• Jer 6:28 they are stubbornly rebellious
• Jer 7:24-28 stubbornness of their evil will, stiffened their neck, will not listen, will not answer, will not accept discipline > truth has perished, cut off their lips
• Jer 9:6 they refuse to know me
• Jer 9:14 they have stubbornly followed their own hearts
• Jer 14:13 Jeremiah to God: people deceived because of lying prophets
• Jer 14:14 God: lying prophets, prophesying deceit of own minds, saying: no punishment.
• Jer 16:12 you all follow your stubborn evil will, refusing to listen to me.
• Jer 17:4 By your own act you shall lose the heritage that I gave you
• Jer 17:10 I the Lord test the mind, search the heart to give to all according to their ways, the fruit of their doings.
• Jer 18:12 Repentance option > it’s no use! We will follow our own plans, act according to stubbornness of our evil will
• Jer 19:15 All I disaster I announced I will now bring because they stiffened their necks, refusing to hear my words
• Jer 25:6-7 Do not go after other gods, do not provoke me to anger. Then I will do you no harm. Yet you did not listen to me, and provoked me to anger with the work of your hands to your own harm.
• Jer 37:1-10 Jeremiah to King Zedekiah via Jehucal and Zephaniah the priest: Do not deceive yourselves, current withdrawal of Babylonian army due to Egyptian draw-up will not last. Egypt will return, Babylon will conquer.
• Jer 44:7 Jeremiah to Judeans in Egypt: why are you doing such great harm to yourselves, to cut off man and woman, child and infant, leaving yourselves without a remnant? Why do you provoke me (offerings to gods)?
• Though there are false prophets, prophesying ‘peace’, when all is said and done those who believe them wanted to believe them.
• God doesn’t judge before there is a willful, consistent, unrepentant, intentional choosing of deception

Flippancy

• Jer 2:36 how lightly you gad about, changing your ways!
• Jer 3:1 you played the whore … would you return to me?
• Jer 3:4-5 Calling me ‘my Father, friend of my youth, will you be angry forever? But you have done all the evil that you could’.
• Jer 7:9-10 will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal … and then come and stand before me in this house … and say ‘we are safe!’.
• Jer 42:6>44:16 whether the word is good or bad, we will obey > as for the word you have spoken, we are not going to listen to you. Instead we will do everything that we have vowed (offerings to queen of heaven).
• God belabors that it is not God’s petty discontentment / anger that will cause judgment, but their own choices. Whoever is in hell, chose to be there, no surprises.
• Lack of knowledge will not be able to be claimed. God did speak persistently, over years, in many ways, faithfully. The people will not hear, refuse to listen, stiffen their neck … actively, purposefully, intentionally, and finally: effectively.
• God is sovereign, but he ordained that a human’s choice be sovereign over himself. No blaming possible.
• God will punish, = leave them to themselves, = cease treating them as his own people, = leave them to the consequences of their choices. God does actively punish, but the destruction is also intrinsic (Rom 1:18-20).
• Theme of horror / hissing / disgrace / those walking by appalled … Jer 18:16, 19:8, 25:9, 25:18, 29:18 people hissing at Judah. Jer 51:37 people hissing at Babylon.
• This is in contrast the Israel’s calling to be lighthouse to the nations, Ex 19:4-6, Lev 20:26. They should have revealed God to the nations, now they are revealing God and their utter faithlessness to the nation. You will reveal something, but it’s your choice whether in God’s design or through ungodliness. God, though, will get his message across, through you or in spite of you. Moses’ intercession “think about what other nations will think” is of a good motivation, and God heeds it, but he is not ultimately bound by that.
• One redemption of this is that some of the nations well understand why God did this to his own nation, for example Babylonian officials in Jer 40:2-3: ‘The LORD brought this on you because of all sinned.’
• Another redemption of the theme of surrounding nations in horror / hissing / being appalled: Jer 33:9 “This city shall be to me a name of joy, a praise and a glory before all the nations of the earth who shall hear of all the good that I do for them; they shall fear and tremble because of all the good and all the prosperity I provide for it.” Nations will see restoration, God’s sovereign hand, fear and tremble … God does turn that around.

DIFFERENT GROUPS WITHIN THE NATION

Kings / Ruler

• Jer 2:8 rulers transgressed
• Jer 4:9 Courage shall fail the king and the officials
• Jer 8:1-3 their bones dug up, spread in the open, death preferred to life by the remnant
• Jer 13:18-19 king, queen mother: take a lowly seat, crown has come down. Towns of Negeb shut up, Judah into exile
• Jer 21:1-14 Kind Zedekiah inquiring > God: I will fight against you. Hear, execute justice, deliver the weak!
• Jer 22:1-10 Message to King of Judah: act with justice, deliver the weak, alien, orphan, widow, stop shedding innocent blood. If yes, sit on throne of David, strength, honor. If not: David’s house a desolation, destroyers, shame, no return.
• Jer 22:11-17 Concerning Shallum (Jehoahaz): went into exile, will not return, but die there. Built house by unrighteousness, does not give wages, but luxury for himself. Father did justice and had all he needed > But you on dishonest gain, shedding innocent blood, practicing oppression, violence.
• Jer 22:18-23 Concerning King Jehoiakim: Will die, no one lamenting him, corpse dragged off and thrown outside gates. All your lovers (allies) are crushed. I spoke to you in your prosperity, you said: I will not listen. Your lovers shall go into captivity, you will be ashamed and dismayed
• Jer 22:24-30 Concerning King Jehoiachin (Coniah): Even if signet ring on my right hand, would tear him off and give into hands of King Nebuchadnezzar, whom he fears. Hurl you and your mother out, no return, will die there. Like childless, none of his sons shall sit on the thrown of David and rule Judah. (Why then Mth 1:11-13, Zerubbabel, son of Shaltiel, son of Jechoniah as governor? … though not king)
• Jer 27:1-22 yoke of straps and bars, put in on your neck. Send word by the envoys of the king of Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre, Sidon (currently at King Zedekiah’s): Creator & Owner of all says: If you submit and serve Babylon > not devastated, remain in land, under Babylon for a time. If you do not submit to Babylon > conquered anyway, devastated and exiled. Do not listen to false prophets. Same message to Zedekiah.
• Jer 32:30-35 Judah has done nothing but evil from youth, idolatry, offered children to Molech, kings, officials, priests, prophets, Judah, Jerusalem
• Jer 34:1-7 Time of siege, only Jerusalem, Lachish, Azekah unconquered: To Zedekiah: city will fall, burn, king captured, will meet Nebuchadnezzar, but die in peace, be lamented.
• Jer 37:1-10 King Zedekiah sends Jehucal and Zephaniah the priest to ask for prayer of Jeremiah.
• Jer 37:11-16 Jeremiah wanting to got to Benjamin to receive ancestral land > Irijah arrests him, charges him with desertation. > officials enraged > Jeremiah beaten, imprisoned in house of secretary Jonathan, cistern house cells.
• Jer 37:17-21 King Zedekiah sends secretly for Jeremiah to inquire. God: You shall be handed to king of Babylon. Jeremiah pleads to not be left dying in house of secretary Jonathan. Zedekiah moves him to court of guard, allowance of bread. Some interest in God’s word, some mercy though hard message.
• Jer 38:1-6 Jeremiah tells all people to surrender to Babylon to save their lives, if they don’t > city will fall. Godly prophecy here clearly turning political / “treason” / decisive. Officials to Zedekiah: Jeremiah should be killed for preaching treason / weakening defense / seeking our harm. Zedekiah hands Jeremiah to them, “I am powerless against you”. Is he? Little later he will command Ebed-melech to follow through with his initiative, send 3 men, give access to wardrobe of storehouse to get Jeremiah out, transfers him to court of the guard. Or is it just mutual covering: Officials do it “for” the king’s cause, and the king “for” the officials’ will. Or is it perceived powerlessness of a falling king, the less success / more pressure / siege progressing the more vulnerable he is to assassination etc.
• Jer 38:7-13 Jeremiah is saved out of cistern by Ethiopian eunuch Ebed-melech, who courageously asks for king’s permission, which is given as command, and provided for with 3 men and access to wardrobe, and transfer given (presumably) to court of guard.
• Jer 38:14-28 Zedekiah secretly inquires of Jeremiah, swears oath to not hand him over to officials. Jeremiah: if you surrender > he and family spared, city not burned (still possible!!) If not > him handed over, city burnt. What keeps him from accepting even in a hopeless siege with all other predictions of Jeremiah coming true? Pride? Fear? Jehoiachin before him did the same and survived. No return? Jeremiah says it will be fine.
• Jer 38:19 Zedekiah: afraid of being handed over to deserted Judeans and being abused. Why that? Did he threaten threaten / abuse deserters to keep them loyal by fear? Does his long injustice make him many enemies who might now be in more favor than him? Reversal of hierarchy unacceptable / dangerous? He fears own people more than Babylonians (with whom he broke covenant!). Is this last stages of a sinking king, who knows the morality / intrigue / disloyalty / loyalty to only power & success too well? Is this fruit of own deception, having chosen too long to deceive oneself finally really fearing the wrong things and ignoring the right?
• Jeremiah: will not happen (and he was right every time up to now!). If disobey: women of king’s family lead out to Babylonians, “you seduced by unfaithful allies”. Why is that powerful? Ultimate shame? Women a weakness of Zedekiah? Even his family turning on him? Humiliated pride over his “shrewd dealing with allies”?
• Zedekiah: keep conversation secret. When officials ask: Lie. Why? Just trying to retain the little power and freedom of action he still has (knowledge is power)? Or not wanting their interference? What does he fear they would do? Wanting to surrender (they didn’t up to now)? Delivering him to Babylon to save their heads (they don’t need Jeremiah to come up with that solution)? Or is he the most stubborn still? The one with most to lose? Most to fear? Does he not want them to know because he won’t heed? Or does he not want them to know because he toys with idea of heading and fearing their disloyalty / usurpation if he changes course? Or just hanging on to the little control he still got? Interesting that at this moment he trusts Jeremiah more than his own loyal supporter-officials?
• Jer 39:1-10 Jerusalem besieged 19 months (9th y, 10th m till 11th y, 4th m), then breached, conquered, Babylonian officials sitting in the gate, burned. King Zedekiah captured on flight > brought to Riblah, judged, sons killed, eyes gouged out > captivity in Babylon.
• Babylonian officials mentioned in detail with name: Rabsaris (Nergal-sharezer, Samgar-nebo, Sarsechim, later Nebushazban), Rabmag (Nergal-sharezer), other officials, captain of the guard (Nebuzaradan) … welcome to a new government / power / administration, welcome to heathen leaders (Nebo = name of god). They are kind at least to Jeremiah, are people, have true understanding (Jer 40:2-5) … suddenly the defeat seems not that much of a loss anymore.
• Jer 40:5 Gedaliah, son of Ahikam, son of Shaphan is appointed by Nebuchadnezzar as new governor of the town of Judah.
• Jer 40:8 Guerilla troops and their leaders (Johanan, Ishmael) come to Gedaliah, are assured of good treatment by Babylon.
• Jer 40:13-16 Johanan warns Gedaliah of Ishmael (other guerilla leader, supported by Ammon) planning assassination, doesn’t believe
• Jer 41:1-10 Ishmael assassinates Gedaliah, eighty men from Shechem, Shiloh, Samaria. Peop taken captive, marched off towards Ammon
• Jer 41:11-18 Johanan attacks Ishmael, frees people, Ishmael escapes. People decide to go to Egypt for fear of Babylon.
• Jer 42 Johanan, people inquire of Jeremiah what to do, promise to obey. Jeremiah: remain in the land, do not go to Egypt
• Jer 43:1-7 Johanan, Azariah, insolent men > telling a lie, incited by Baruch to hand us over to Chaldeans > Take all the people, Jeremiah and Baruch to Egypt, Tahpanhes.
• Jer 52:31-34 King Jehoiachin freed from prison in 37th year of exile > eats at King Evil-merodach’s table till his death
• Last kings of Judah are a sad chapter, do not follow model father Josiah, are idolatrous, tolerate injustice, trust military alliances, refuse to listen to prophets, sink and sink their country, but don’t repent.
• They have ceased to be peoples’ representative, act in service of justice and people, uphold law and justice, they are into power games and arbitrary, far removed from Deuteronomy’s political principles and godliness. The ever widening power gap of king and normal people, as Samuel predicted: finally you will be slaves to the king (1 Sam 8).
• Repentance options still given (would cause delay, not reversal or judgment since Manasseh), prophets continually sent, address kings and others. Especially Zedekiah is very aware, even seemingly interested what Jeremiah has to say. He seems to take Jeremiah serious, yet does not heed or believe after all, neither good nor bad
• If political leadership does not govern the people well, maintaining their interest and justice, it looses its right to rule and will be replaced, here by Babylon. The last years of Judah’s monarchy are riddled, with weak leadership, frequent changes, corruption, toleration of injustice, overstepped boundaries, nepotism, bending of rules, misinformation, mistrust, secrecy, arbitrariness etc.
• Babylon seems to have more organized, instructed, wise and principled officials than Judah by the end of the game. Their chain of command is intact, they execute the will of King Nebuchadnezzar and are trusted to do so (Jer 38:5 Zedekiah says he has no power against his officials). They have information, understanding and wisdom (Jer 39:11-14, 40:2-3, they are trusted with this by their king, truly took it, act accordingly informed-ly and willingly). Though I don’t know what the different titles mean, there is clear chain of command, clear responsibility, clear duty, clear obedience. A well functioning system, and not only functioning by fear, but also by understanding, it seems. Also Jeremiah predicts Babylon to be true to their word / covenant, those who surrender will not be killed, and their property / cities destroyed. Babylon doesn’t run wild in the end, it does exactly as said: if surrender > protection or life and infrastructure, if no surrender > death, destruction.
• By the time God finally does judge the situation in the nation is so far gone (injustice, breakdown etc.) that a conquest / change of leadership is not really that bad anymore at all, possible preferable. Jer 39:10 Babylon gives the land to the poorest to cultivate.
• Do not lead in such a way that your removal means a sigh of relief to most people!

Priests

• Jer 2:8 did not seek God, handled law but did not know me
• Jer 4:9 shall be appalled / stunned … priests as law teachers (if then specialists) should not at any time be surprised at what is happening!
• Jer 5:30-31 appalling, horrible: priests follow lead of false prophets
• Jer 6:13-14 from prophet to priest, everyone greedy, deal falsely, have treated wound of my people carelessly, say peace when there is none, acted shamefully, committed abomination, were not ashamed, did not blush
• Jer 7:4 religiously / mystically believing in the temple
• Jer 7:7 ‘then I will dwell with you in this place’ verse implying that God is not currently dwelling in this place!
• Jer 8:1-3 their bones dug up, spread in the open, death preferred to life by the remnant
• Jer 14:18 priests ply their trade, have no knowledge … priests are meant to be the teachers of the law
• Jer 20:1-9 Priest Pashur, son of Immer, chief officer in temple > strikes Jeremiah, puts him in stocks at upper Benjamin Gate of the temple over night. Next morning released. Jeremiah prophesies: ‘terror-all-around’, will go into captivity, there die, buried, for you have prophesied falsely.
• Jer 23:9-15 Prophet and priest ungodly, wickedness even in my house. Therefore slippery path into darkness, disaster.
• Jer 23:33-40 “Burden of the Lord” … perverted the meaning of the word, God forbids it used. If people / prophet / priests asks: what is the burden of the Lord > It is you! And I will cast you off, ring upon you everlasting disgrace / shame. If you inquire, say: what did the Lord say / answer?
• Jer 26:16 priests first part of wanting Jeremiah killed, then agree that he is not guilty
• Jer 27:1-11 yoke of straps and bars, put in on your neck. Creator & Owner of all says also to priests (Jer 27:14): If you submit and serve Babylon > not devastated, remain in land, under Babylon for a time. If you do not submit to Babylon > conquered anyway, devastated and exiled. Do not listen to false prophets. Vessels won’t come back now, pray more vessels won’t go to Babylon, vessels will come back when God attends to them.
• Jer 27:16-17 Vessels will not come back now, only when God attends to them. Priests: do not believe lying prophecies!
• Jer 29:24-32 Shemaiah’s letter to priest Zephaniah: God put you as officer over the temple so you control madman like Jeremiah. Jeremiah in answer: Shemaiah will not have one descendant who will live to see the restoration in 70 years. Shemaiah has prophesied a lie, mislead the people, spoken rebellion against God.
• Jer 32:30-35 Judah has done nothing but evil from youth, idolatry, offered children to Molech, kings, officials, priests, prophets, Judah, Jerusalem
• Jer 37:1-10 Priest Zephaniah, son of Maaseiah sent by Zedekiah to inquire of Jeremiah.
• Priests still exist and function to a degree (sacrifices, offerings, festivals going), but neither know God nor his law, refuse to respond to Jeremiah, disobey prophetic instruction, actively oppose true prophets, overstep boundaries in doing so (imprisoning, Schemaiah asking him to control), are players in power games, involve / influence politically to bring about their will.
• Priest seem to maintain religiosity, yet are deeply idolatrous, promoters of a evil and thorough syncretism, it seems. They maintain trust in the temple as protection and sign of God’s favor, but do not know or understand God even remotely. Priest Pashhur persecutes Jeremiah after the anti-Topheth prophecy.
• RELIGIOSITY, IDOLATRY, SYNCRETISM, FALSE TRUST, IMMORALITY. They lead out in (or surely do not counter) what all people are doing.

Prophets

• Jer 2:8 prophesied by Baal
• Jer 4:9 shall be astounded … irony! Those who should know the future are astounded / surprised!
• Jer 5:13 nothing but wind, the word is not in them, thus shall it be done, making my words in your mouth fire
• Jer 5:30-31 appalling, horrible: prophets prophesy falsely
• Jer 6:13-14 prophets greedy, deal falsely, have treated wound of my people carelessly, say peace when there is none
• Jer 8:1-3 their bones dug up, spread in the open, death preferred to life by the remnant
• Jer 14:14 God: lying prophets, prophesying deceit of own minds, saying: no punishment. > By sword, famine they themselves will be consumed, no one left to bury them. God pouring out their wickedness on them
• Jer 14:18 prophets ply their trade, have no knowledge
• Jer 23:9-15 Prophet and priest ungodly, wickedness even in my house. Therefore > slippery path into darkness, disaster, did worse than prophets of Samaria, prophesying by Baal: commit adultery, walk in lies, strengthen hands of evildoers, so no one turns, have become like Sodom & Gomorrah. > eat wormwood, poisonous water, for from the prophets of Jerusalem ungodliness has spread throughout the land.
• Jer 23:16-22 Do not listen to deluding prophets, speaking visions of own minds. They assure those who despise / disobey / stubbornly follow own will that all shall be well. Who has stood in the council of the Lord so as to see and to hear his word? God: storm. I did not send the prophets, did not speak to them. If they had stood in my council: preached repentance.
• Jer 23:23-32 Do I not fill heaven and earth? I have heard those who prophesy lies / dreams, who prophesy deceit of own hearts, make people forget my name. My word like fire, I am against the prophets, who steal words, use own tongues, prophesy lying dreams, lead my people astray. I did not send or appoint them.
• Jer 23:33-40 “Burden of the Lord” … perverted the meaning of the word, God forbids it used. If people / prophet / priests asks: what is the burden of the Lord > It is you! And I will cast you off, ring upon you everlasting disgrace / shame. If you inquire, say: what did the Lord say / answer?
• Jer 27:1-11 yoke of straps and bars, put in on your neck. To envoys of surrounding nations, to Zedekiah, to priests, all people: Do not listen to false prophets (Jer 27:9).
• Jer 27:12-22 If prophets be true prophets let them pray more vessels won’t go to Babylon, vessels will come back when God attends to them, but not now.
• Jer 29:1-23 Letter to the exiles: False prophets Ahab and Zedekiah: will die at the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, because they prophesied lie, committed outrage, adultery.
• Jer 29:24-32 Jeremiah answers Shemaiah’s letter to priest Zephaniah to persecute Jeremiah: He will not have one descendant who will live to see the restoration in 70 years. He has prophesied a lie, mislead the people, spoken rebellion against God.
• Jer 32:30-35 Judah has done nothing but evil from youth, idolatry, offered children to Molech: kings, officials, priests, prophets, Judah, Jerusalem
• There are prophets, those claiming to speak the word of the Lord, but they are false, do not stand in the council of God, have no knowledge of God, his heart, his law, his justified wrath at the current idolatry and injustice. They prophesy what people want to hear, peace, well-being, God’s blind blessing on whatever they are doing now..
• As yeah-sayers, re-enforcers, encouragers, they might be thought of as neither particularly important, trusted nor influential, but what they do is not harmless at all.
• God holds them accountable for every word they speak, will judged them (law: death penalty for false prophet), warns by his true prophets about their delusion (both them and others).
• To deceive is by no means harmless, even if it happened “to please” or “well-intending”. For to say something nice if the reality is evil is as bad as saying something bad about a good thing. Niceness is not helpful, truth is, though less comfortable.
• But most likely they are not just ‘nice deluded people’, they get comfort, advantage, finances, importance, influence through their speaking, so no self-less motivation at all.
• Like all other groups they are fully self-responsible as well a responsible for the influence they had on others. God does persistently send to them as well by his true prophets, they get ample repentance-opportunity, but decide to persist in delusion.
• They are idolatrous, to the degree of child sacrifice, they have no knowledge, they speak deceit of own minds, they delude others, they steal words from each other, they predict peace when they should warn, they treat Judah’s wound carelessly, they make people trust in lies, they oppose true prophets, they commit adultery, they strengthen hands of evildoers.

People of Judah / Inhabitants of Jerusalem

• Jer 2:6 didn’t remember Exodus, Giver of the good land
• Jer 5:30-31 appalling, horrible: prophets prophesy falsely, priests follow their lead, my people love to have it so
• Jer 8:1-3 Inhabitants of Jerusalem: their bones dug up, spread in the open, death preferred to life by the remnant
• Jer 8:7 Even the stork knows its times, but my people do not know the ordinance of the LORD.
• Jer 16:10-13 “Why this great evil? What is the sin?” your ancestors forsook God, idolatry, not kept law … you worse than ancestors, following own stubborn evil will, refusing to listen.
• Jer 18:15 my people have forgotten me, burn offerings to a delusion, gone into bypaths, making their land a horror
• Jer 19:4 People have forsaken me, have profaned this place by offerings to other gods, filled place with blood of the innocent, burnt their children
• Jer 23:33-40 “Burden of the Lord” … perverted the meaning of the word, God forbids it used. If people / prophet / priests asks: what is the burden of the Lord > It is you! And I will cast you off, ring upon you everlasting disgrace / shame. If you inquire, say: what did the Lord say / answer?
• Jer 25:1-7 people heard Jeremiah for 23y, but did not listen, were given repentance option, but provoked God instead
• Jer 32:30-35 Judah has done nothing but evil from youth, idolatry, offered children to Molech, kings, officials, priests, prophets, Judah, Jerusalem
• Jer 34:8-17 Covenant with all the people to release slaves > took them back into slavery
• Jer 35:13-16 People of Judah, can’t learn from Rechabites? You did not obey, though prophets, did not incline your ear
• Jer 43:1-7 Johanan, Azariah and remnant of people: accuse Jeremiah of lying, of being influenced by Baruch, refuse to obey, go to Egypt and force Jeremiah and Baruch to go with them.
• Jer 44:15-19 complete refusal of people to believe / trust / heed / obey Jeremiah contrary to prior assurance, will deliberately continue idolatry, trust idol for provision, believe idol brought about the latest developments.
• Though kings, officials, prophets and priests are singled out by several oracles to realize their disastrous influence, called to take responsibility and repent / obey, still the people themselves are ultimately fully responsible for their choices / for the way the nation went. They themselves chose idolatry / breaking of law / evil, the leaders may have influenced / helped, but ultimately it was their choice also, so they are fully responsible, and cannot blame the judgment on anyone else.
• The last remaining remnant are the very poor, very uneducated, guerilla troops, fringes and leftovers, but they are deeply and determinedly idolatrous. > The poor are not innocent as a class. They are also idolatrous, also breaking the law, also choosing evil. Ultimately blaming others will not work. Myth of innocent poor.

CALL FOR REPENTANCE

• Jer 3:22-25 Return, and I will heal your faithlessness. Here we come to you, for you are God … truly the hills are a delusion, truly in God is salvation. Let our shame cover us, we and ancestors have sinned against the Lord.
• Jer 4:1-4 If you would return, remove idols, swear in truth, break up fallow ground, circumcise yourselves …
• Jer 6:16 ask for the ancient path, good way, walk in it, find rest for your souls
• Jer 7:3-7 amend your ways and doings, do not believe in “the temple”, if you truly amend > I will dwell in this place
• Jer 14:7-9 Israel (Jeremiah for them?) acknowledging sin, asking for God’s salvation after all, God refuses
• Jer 15:19-21 we acknowledge our sin, do not spurn us, can idols bring rain? We set our hope in you.
• Jer 18:11 I am planning evil against you. Turn now, all of you, amend your ways
• Jer 21:11 King of Judah, hear, execute justice, deliver the weak from the oppressor
• Jer 22:1-10 Message to King of Judah: act with justice, deliver the weak, alien, orphan, widow, stop shedding innocent blood. If yes, sit on throne of David, strength, honor.
• Jer 25:1-14 In the 4th year of King: For 23 years I have spoken persistently to you, but you have not listened. Turn now, everyone of you, and you will remain upon the land. No turning.
• Jer 26:2-3 Speak to all the cities of Judah that come to worship in the temple, speak all, do not hold back > It may be that they will listen, all of them, and will turn from their evil way, that I may change my mind about the disaster.
• Jer 27:1-11 yoke of straps and bars, put in on your neck. To Zedekiah and all people: If you submit and serve Babylon > not devastated, remain in land, under Babylon for a time. Vessels of temple will come back when God attends to them.
• Jer 31:21-22 Set up road markers, guideposts, return! How long will you waver?
• Jer 34:8-22 King Zedekiah makes covenant with all Jerusalem to free Hebrew slaves. They free them. Later take them back into subjection. Obedience may have caused God to withdraw Babylonian armies, > less pressure > subjection again > God announces coming back of armies, complete wipe out.
• Jer 37:1-10 King Zedekiah sends Jehucal and Zephaniah the priest to ask Jeremiah to pray.
• Jer 42:10 Jeremiah to remaining Judeans: If you only remain in this land, I will build you up, I will plant you for I am sorry for the disaster that I brought upon you. Do not be afraid of Nebuchadnezzar. I am with you, to save and to rescue, will grant you mercy.
• Jer 44:4 history summary: God: “I beg you not do this abominable thing that I hate!”
• God does not want to judge, he has no joy in destroying / punishing, he desires and works always for repentance, so he can forgive, redeem, restore, bless. He will gladly respond to the slightest repentance, he is quick to at least delay judgment.
• Relationship between national judgment and individual judgment? Even when a judgment on a nation has become irreversible, God will still allow for and gladly save repentant individuals within the greater irreversible judgment. Judgment of Egypt > multinational group in the exodus. Judgment on Canaan > Rahab, Gibeonites saved. Judgment on Israel > Israelites moved into Judah over the years. Judgment on Judah > first and second wave deportations saved, 3rd wave remnant also saved, Jehoiachin, Zedekiah, Jeremiah, Baruch, Ebed-melech, those in surrounding nations … Final judgment in the same pattern: Mankind judged > those repentant saved.
• Maybe this shift (is it one?) from national judgment to individual judgment something leading towards the NT? Colin Sinclair: they went into exile a nation, they came back a church. I’m not sure. First the importance of the individual choice was never not there, from Adam, Cain, Noah, Abraham onward. Also: is the national focus of judgment really gone in the NT?
• The very fact there is such a thing as prophets shows that God wants to save. Isaiah, Jeremiah are incredible testimonies of God’s commitment to save what at all can be saved. Both speak to Judah and its groups and people over decades, speaking, pleading, explaining, warning, suffering, … to maybe save some.
• The very fact there is such a thing as the Bible shows that God wants to save in the same way
• How do repentance option when nobody will repent correlate with the foreknowledge and sovereignty of God? “It may be that they will listen, all of them, and will turn from their evil way, that I may change my mind about the disaster” (Jer 26:2-3). It’s not only God ‘hoping’ some will repent, but hoping all will repent! How is a God hoping who foreknows (some would even say determines) their future non-repentance? Since God is not playing games they truly do have an option. Since God is all-knowing, he does know they won’t repent. But he still wants to give the option, so it is their choice and not his. If he short cuts this, he ‘will have decided’, or at least there in no evidence any more of an option ever having been there. If he goes through with it, men will have decided, and evidence will be recorded of men deciding. > God wants us to know that he does hope, he does give us the option, his heart is to forgive … but we may or may not choose it.
• Another aspect is the effect on Jeremiah: he must speak, he must offer the option, he must hope … even if they will reject it. The prophet has and represents the heart of God > therefore he must do this. Also: unless the prophet has any hope, this will translate itself into the way he communicates > he will end up having closed down the option, and that is not acceptable. > there are things where the emotional roller coaster of hope and rejection is necessary to maintain the witness of the heart of God, to maintain the option, to maintain the integrity of the speaker. You cannot teach / encourage anyone in what you don’t believe in yourself, here: their repentance.

PREDICTED RESTORATION OF ISRAEL

• Jer 4:27 not a full end
• Jer 5:10 not a full end
• Jer 5:18 not a full end

Prediction of the Judgment – fall of Jerusalem and individualized fates

• God will protect in the middle of the war chaos: positive
  • Jer 35:18-19 Promise to Rechabites: will never lack a man to stand before God.
  • Jer 39:15-18 During siege still: word to Ebed-melech, the Ethiopian: will survive war.
  • Jer 45:5 During siege still: word to Baruch, son of Neriah: will survive the war, wherever he goes.
• God will send the sword after them even if they should flee or not be caught in general negative
  Zedekiah
  • Jer 44:14 Of the idolatrous remnant of Judeans in Egypt few fugitives will return to Judah
  • Jer 44:28 Of the idolatrous remnant of Judeans in Egypt few will return to Judah.

Predictions of 70 year Babylonian exile

• Jer 24:1-10 Basket of very good figs (those deported) > I will build, plant them, give them a heart to know me, shall return to me with whole heart, they shall be my people, I will be their God (link to calling in Jer 1:10).
• Jer 25:12-14 After 70 years Babylon will fall.
• Jer 29:1-23 After deportation 2nd wave, Jeremiah writes letter to exiles / elders / priests / prophets in Babylon: build houses, plant gardens, marry, multiply, seek the welfare of the city, pray. After 70 years (but not before) I will bring you back, restore your fortunes. Remnant in Jerusalem = rotten figs.
• 2 Chr 36:20-21 70 years are the years of sabbath rest that the land missed (computing to 490y of not obeying Lev 25)

Predictions of the return to Judah fulfilled 539 BC onwards > Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome

• Jer 25:11-12 After serving the king of Babylon for 70 years > I will punish Babylon for their sin
• Jer 16:14-16 2nd exodus: God bringing people back from tribes / land of the north. Fishermen, hunters to bring them
• Jer 23:1-4 Woe to destroying shepherds, scattered flock, did not attend to it. God himself will gather his flock out of all the lands where he has driven them. Bring them back, shall be fruitful and multiply. God will raise up shepherds, no fear, nor missing
• Jer 23:7-8 Second exodus as metaphor, shall live in own land.
• Jer 30:3 I will restore fortunes of my people, bring them back, shall take possession of land
• Jer 30:17-22 I will heal, have compassion, rebuild Jerusalem, thanksgiving and merrymaking, honor, prince of their own, you shall be my people and I will be your God.
• Jer 30:24 Judgment. In the latter days you will understand this.
• Jer 31:1-20 especially Jer 31:1-6 … survivors found grace in the wilderness (Steve Camp’s song!), rest, everlasting love, again build you. Sing & give praise, bringing the remnant (blind, lame, pregnant, birthing, parallel to Isa 35, messianic), consolation. God will gather, ransom, redeem. Israel radiant over God’s goodness, economical blessing, joy, priests provided for.
  Rachel weeping for children. Hope for your future. I took the discipline, repented, was ashamed > bring me back. Ephraim my dear son, deeply moved for him, surely have mercy on him.
• Jer 31:23-25 bless you, holy hill, town inhabited, replenish the faint
• Jer 31:27-30 Israel, animals will multiply. I will build and plant. Parents’ sin no longer on children.
• Jer 31:35-37 As sure as order in creation > I will not reject Israel
• Jer 31:38-40 Jerusalem will be enlarged and holy.
• Jer 32:15 houses, fields, vineyards shall again be bought in this land
• Jer 32:37-44 Just as great disaster, restore good fortune. Fields bought, deeds signed in Benjamin, Judah, Jerusalem, cities of Judah, Negeb, Shephelah.
• Jer 33:6-13 I will bring recovery, healing, prosperity, security, rebuilding, forgiveness > city again a joy, praise, glory before all nations, who shall fear. Waste > inhabited by humans and animals, gladness, offerings, thanks. Pastures again with flocks, shepherds.
• Jer 33:7 Judah and Israel
• Jer 46:27-28 God will save Israel, will return from captivity, have quiet and ease. Do not fear, I am with you. Will make an end of nations among which you are banished, but will make no end of you, though not leave you unpunished.
• Jer 50:8 Flee from Babylon, go out of the land, be like male goats leading the flock.
• Jer 50:16-20 All of them shall return to their own people, flee to own land … I will restore Israel to its pasture, satisfy it, iniquity forgiven.
• Jer 50:33 Israel & Judah oppressed, captors refuse to let them go. Their Redeemer is strong, Lord of hosts is his name. He will surely plead their cause, give them rest.
• Jer 51:5-6 Israel and Judah have not been forsaken. Flee from the midst of Babylon, save your lives! Do not perish because of her guilt
• Jer 51:45-51 Come out of her, my people! Save your lives, each of you. Do not be fainthearted or fearful. Babylon must fall for the slain of Israel, as the slain of all the earth have fallen because of Babylon. You survivors of the sword, do not linger! Remember the Lord, Jerusalem, holy place. Jeremiah here creates a sense of urgency, like fleeing from Babylon so as to not get caught in her fall. In history it doesn’t happen that dramatically: Babylon falls, Medo-Persia takes over and then people are allowed to return in 539 BC, and they do return, but not so quickly nor as flight in 536 BC. Maybe the sense of urgency is meant to motivate the Jews to really return: The blessing of God moved from Jerusalem (bad figs) to the exile (good figs) but it will shift back to those who return to Judah.
• Israel and Judah theme: doesn’t really fulfill in history as we know it. 2 Options: take it literally and relegate it to future from us. Or take it metaphorically to refer to Christ, NT and the church.
  The picture of the return from exile massively overlaps with the picture of God saving his people (the willing, the believers) out of all nations:

Predictions concerning Jesus / NT

• Jer 3:15-18 shepherd that feed you with knowledge, understanding, multiplication in the land, Jerusalem as throne, all nations gathered, Israel and Judah shall come from the north
• Jer 23:5-6 I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, he shall reign as king, deal wisely, execute justice and righteousness. Judah will be saved, live in safety. Will be called “the Lord is righteousness”
• Jer 30:7-11 Israel will be rescued, yoke broken, shall serve God and David, saved from captivity, I am with you, will chastise you in just measure
• Jer 31:31-34 New covenant: put law in them, write it on their hearts, will be their god, they my people, no longer teach, all shall know me, forgive their sin.
• Jer 33:14-26 I will fulfill promise. Righteous branch > justice, salvation, safety. David nor priests will ever lack a man to sit on throne / in God’s presence to sacrifice. Two families have not been rejected, before God would break his covenant with day and night. I will restore fortunes, have mercy.
• How would the returnees have felt with so many promises yet quite partial and incomplete fullfillments? Discouraged? Loosing faith? Doubting God? …
• Yet it is also God forcing their eyes onward, forcing them to long for the Messiah, for the real, true reign of God, for the things to come. Obedience and embracing of the now yet longing and hoping for a greater future. In that sense we are a bit like them (though we have a LOT more): the kingdom now and not yet.

Predictions on other nations

• Jer 25:17-18 God’s world judgment starts with Jerusalem and Judah (NT: judgment starts with the house of God)
• Jer 25:29 If my own city doesn’t escape, heathen nations won’t either.
• Jer 9:25-26 God will attend to those circumcised only in foreskin, not in heart (Judah, Edom, Ammon, Moab, shaven temples peoples who live in the desert).
• Jer 10:25 pour out your wrath on the nations that do not know you, for they have devoured Jacob
• Jer 12:14-17 pluck up Judah from among nations. If other nations learn my ways > built in midst of my people, if not, completely uprooted
• Jer 16:17-18 they have polluted my land with carcasses of idols, will repay double for their sin.
• Jer 16:19-21 To you, God, shall all nations come, acknowledging that idols are no gods. God: I will teach them my power > they shall know my name.
• Jer 18:5-11 Potter refashioning marred vessel. Can I do not with Israel as I please? At any moment about any nation: judgment. If repents > change my mind about disaster. At any moment about any nation: build and plant it. If does evil > change my mind > judgment instead.
• Jer 25:11-14 After Israel has served king of Babylon 70 years > I will punish Babylon for their sin > make them everlasting waste. Will bring on them all written this book, all prophesied by Jeremiah. Other nations will make Babylon their slave. I will repay them according to deeds.
• Jer 25:15-27 Cup of God’s wrath to all nations / peoples, all inhabitants on the face of the earth.
  • First: Jerusalem, towns of Judah, kings, officials
  • Pharaoh king of Egypt, his servants, officials, people
  • Mixed people
  • Kings of the land of Uz
  • Kings of the land of Philistines, Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron, remnant of Ashdod
  • Edom
  • Moab
  • Ammonites
  • Kings of Tyre
  • Kings of Sidon
  • Kings of coastland across sea
  • Dedan
  • Tema
  • Buz, all with shaven temples
  • Kings of Arabia
  • Kings of mixed people that live in the desert
  • Kings of Zimri
  • Kings of Elam,
  • Kings of Media
  • Kings of the North, far & near
  • Kings of the world
  • Last: king of Sheshach , cryptogram for Babel
• Jer 25:28-38 No one can refuse to accept the cup. If God starts disaster / judgment with his own city > how can you avoid punishment? God will road, judgment of all the inhabitants of the world > disaster spreading, wail, no escape.
• Jer 27:1-11 yoke of straps and bars, put in on your neck. Send word by the envoys of the king of Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre, Sidon (currently at King Zedekiah’s): Creator & Owner of all says: If you submit and serve Babylon > not devastated, remain in land, under Babylon for a time (Nebuchadnezzar, his son, his grandson). If you do not submit to Babylon > conquered anyway, devastated and exiled. Do not listen to false prophets.
• Jer 29:10 Israel will serve Babylon for 70 years, then God will restore them back to their land.
• Jer 30:11 I will make an end of all the nations among which I scattered you
• Jer 30:16 all who devour Israel shall be devoured, those who plunder Israel shall be plundered
• Jer 30:20 I will punish all who oppress Israel
• Jer 33:9 All the nations shall hear Israel’s restoration / prosperity / joy / glory > shall fear and tremble
• Jer 43:10-13 King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon will defeat, conquer and ravage Egypt (and remnant there), will destroy and burn Egyptian temples / gods. Will put up throne on the stones Jeremiah buried before Pharaoh’s palace at Tahpanhes.
• Jer 44:30 Pharaoh Hophra will be given into hands of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon.
• Jer 46:1-26 Judgment on Egypt: Pharaoh Neco defeated at Carchemish battle, Egypt conquered by Nebuchadnezzar. Afterward inhabited as in the days of old
• Jer 47:1-7 Judgment on Philistines, Tyre, Sidon. No reverse mentioned
• Jer 48:1-47 Judgment on Moab. Yet I will restore the fortunes of Moab in the latter days.
• Jer 49:1-6 Judgment on Ammon. But afterward I will restore the fortunes of the Ammonites
• Jer 49:7-22 Judgment on Edom. Her towns shall be perpetual wastes.
• Jer 49:23-27 Judgment on Damascus. No reverse mentioned
• Jer 49:28-33 Judgment on Kedar and Hazor. Hazor will become an everlasting waste.
• Jer 49:34-39 Judgment on Elam But in the latter days I will restore the fortunes of Elam.
• Jer 50, 51 Judgment on Babylon. You (Babylon) and her cities shall be a perpetual waste.
• God is sovereign over all nations, created all, watches all, hold all to a standard, judges all according to deeds.
• Some sin beyond measure > God cancels their right to exist > perpetual wastes
• Some sin, but are restored after punishment > still exist
• Standard according to what they knew (revelation), for Judah / Israel > the law, for the circumcised (related to Abraham?) > another standard, for those without any special revelation > golden rule.
• Jer 12:14-17 “Concerning all my evil neighbors who touch the heritage that I have given my people Israel: I am about to pluck them up from their land. And after … I will again have compassion and I will bring them again to their heritage / land, everyone of them. And then if they will diligently learn the ways of my people, to swear by my name, as they taught my people to swear by Baal, then they shall be built up in the midst of my people. But if any nation will not listen, then I will completely uproot and destroy it.” Open door for willing and obedient surrounding nations.
• Jer 16:19-21 “Lord, my strength, stronghold, refuge in the day of trouble, to you shall the nations come from the ends of the earth and say: … idolatry is stupid”. “Therefore I am surely going to teach them, this time I am going to teach them my power and my might, and they shall know that my name is the LORD.” God revealing himself to all nations, they shall repent of their idolatry and come to God.
• Jer 33:9 “This city shall be to me a name of joy, a praise and a glory before all the nations of the earth who shall hear of all the good that I do for them; they shall fear and tremble because of all the good and all the prosperity I provide for it.” Nations will see restoration, God’s sovereign hand, fear and tremble (panic or fear of God?).
• Theme of extending revelation / covenant / relationship with God onto all nations, or the willing / repentant of all nations > NT pointing scriptures.

LIST WITH FULFILLMENTS OF PRO

• Egypt and Assyria defeated at Carchemish by Babylon                           > fulfilled 605 BC
• Babylon will have mercy on those surrendering / destroy those rebelling > fulfilled in 586 BC conquest
• Judgment on surrounding nations                                                               > Babylon conquers most of them
• Judgment on Egypt                                                                                         > Babylon defeats Egypt
• Babylon will be conquered / punished                                                         > 539 BC conquered by Medo-Persia
• Israel will not return immediately but after 70 years                                  > 539 BC 1st return under Medo-Persia
• Jer 46:1-26 , 44:30  Egypt > judgment (by Babylon)                                   > afterward inhabited as before 🙂
• Jer 47:1-7                   Philistines, Tyre, Sidon. > judgment (by Babylon)  > No restoration mentioned ?
• Jer 48:1-47                 Moab. > judgment (Babylon)                                     > I will restore the fortunes in latter days 🙂
• Jer 49:1-6                   Ammon. > judgment (Babylon)                                  > afterward I will restore their fortunes 🙂
• Jer 49:7-22                Edom. > judgment (Babylon)                                       > Her towns shall be perpetual wastes 🙁
• Jer 49:23-27              Damascus. > judgment (Babylon)                              > No restoration mentioned ?
• Jer 49:28-33              Kedar, Hazor. > judgment (Babylon)                           > Hazor > an everlasting waste. 🙁
• Jer 49:34-39              Elam > judgment ( )                                                       > I will restore their fortunes 🙂
• Jer 50-51                    Babylon > judgment (Medo-Persia)                            > you & cities > perpetual waste 🙁

GOD DESCRIPTIONS / CONTRAST IDOLATRY / TEACHING

• Jer 10:1-16 idolatry is ridiculous, none like God, feared among nation and wise
• Jer 13:17 but if you will not listen, my soul will weep in secret for your pride … because the Lord’s flock taken captive … Jeremiah speaking (I think), revealing the heart of God
• Jer 17:5-13 Cursed. Blessed. Human heart devious. God, hope of Israel, those that forsake you forsake living water
• Jer 16:19-21 Lord, my strength, my stronghold, my refuge in the day of trouble. Can mortals make gods? Such are no gods! I am going to teach them my power, my might, they shall know that my name is the LORD.
• Jer 18:5-11 Potter refashioning marred vessel. Can I do not with Israel as I please? At any moment about any nation: judgment. If repents > change my mind about disaster. At any moment about any nation: build and plant it. If does evil > change my mind > judgment instead.
• Jer 20:7-18 Lord you have enticed me, overpowered me. Word of God has become a reproach, derision. Can’t hold it in either. My close friends plotting against me. God with me like dread warrior. God you test the righteous, you see the heart and the mind. Let me see your retribution on them. Sing to the Lord, he has delivered the needy. Cursed by the day I was born. Why only toil and sorrow, spend my days in shame?
• Jer 22:11-17 Concerning Shallum (Jehoahaz?): Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness, does not give wages, but luxury for himself. Did not your father eat and drink and do justice and righteousness? Then it was well with him. He judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well. Is not this to know me: says the LORD
• Jer 23:18-22 Who has stood in the council of the Lord so as to see and to hear his word? God: storm. I did not send the prophets, did not speak to them. If they had stood in my council: preached repentance.
• Jer 23:23-32 Do I not fill heaven and earth? I have heard those who prophesy lies / dreams, who prophesy deceit of own hearts, make people forget my name. My word like fire, I am against the prophets, who steal words, use own tongues, prophesy lying dreams, lead my people astray. I did not send or appoint them.
• Jer 23:33-40 “Burden of the Lord” … perverted the meaning of the word, God forbids it used. If people / prophet / priests asks: what is the burden of the Lord > It is you! And I will cast you off, ring upon you everlasting disgrace / shame. If you inquire, say: what did the Lord say / answer? … God’s concern about language / meaning
• Jer 32:16-27 Creator, nothing too hard for you, history of Israel, sin > now punishment, siege, destruction > yet sign of bought field. God: God of all flesh, anything too hard?
• Jer 49:19-20 Edom … I will appoint over it whomever I choose. Who is like me? Who can summon me? Who can stand before me? Therefore hear the plan that the Lord has made against Edom …
• Jer 51:14-19 Lord of hosts, made heaven and earth by power, wisdom, understanding, word … idols are false. Not like these is the Lord.
• Jer 51:44 Babylon … I will appoint over it whomever I choose. Who is like me? Who can summon me? Who can stand before me? Therefore hear the plan that the Lord has made against Babylon …
• To know who God is, his nature, his character, his will, his ways, his law, his promises, his principles, his word, his truth is absolutely foundational to understanding the universe, nature, history, time, humans and everything else, for that matter. He is the first cause. He is the only reason for everything. He is the way.
• If I pursue knowledge of God, understanding, wisdom, I must start and end and go by GOD.
• He has not left us in the dark, in confusion … he has revealed himself, communicated, explained, reasoned, demonstrated, said, modeled, … He wants us to know, to understand. He is not silent. He is not stingy with information. Francis Shaeffer: ‘He is there and he is not silent.’

WORLDVIEW THOUGHTS

• The root of their sin is to forsake God, to not repent, to replace him with idols, to still trust religiosity
• Out of idolatry follow > breakdown of family (lust, adultery, prostitution, child sacrifice, …)
  • > breakdown of education (forgetting God, forgetting history, no pass down of truth / values, …)
  • > breakdown of church (religiosity, competition with sacrifices, corrupt priests, deluding prophets)
  • > breakdown of economy (fertility down, inflation, injustice to workers / poor, oppression of weak)
  • > breakdown of government (corrupt courts, injustice, innocent blood, alliances, land loss, defeat)
• Again God is completely principled / consistent / just in his reasons for judgment (no vendetta, no impatience, no “getting back at”, no arbitrary lashing out), it’s strictly Deuteronomy, all is known, nothing is a surprise, all is multiply communicated.
• Colorcode Reasons for judgment list with GOV, ECO, ECC, SCI, FAM, COM, ART, EDU

Government

• God’s sovereignty over all nations / armies / peoples, small or great
• Punishment of nations by nations
• Judging nation later also judged
• Nations judged by their sin, not another nation’s restoration
• No fight but rather submission can be the will of God
• Conquering another nation can be the will of God
• Standard the same for all (who knew the same)
• King’s abuse of power to muzzle prophet
• Wholesale judgment, individual components
• Exile turns comfortable
• History is important, right interpretation and reminders of history
• Military strength is not alone decisive, though an expression of other things, for example being raise up by God
• Marriage of law-fulness and godliness. No split between religiosity and legal behavior.
• God will withhold judgment … for a time. > Time, when things are confusing, scores are not settled, injustice seems to pay off > prophetic voice needed to interpret.
• Political alliances are not value-neutral. Alliances can express lack of trust in God. Good alliances also (David, Hiram of Tyre)?
• Power-games, international maneuvering, covenants, alliances do backfire big time … counter point?
• Nebuchadnezzar is servant of the Lord. Has highly instructed captain of the guard Nebuzaradan: knows about God, why Judah gets punished, that it is God himself doing it through Babylon. Also:
• Nebuchadnezzar is fully aware about Jeremiah, and fully committed to saving him, treating him well, instructs high powered team (captain of the guard, Rabsaris, Rabmag, all chief officers) to save him.
• Where is all this knowledge coming from? > maybe from Daniel? Maybe letter to exiles became known? Jer 29 shows Nebuchadnezzar involved in putting out rebellion among the Babylon exiles. Maybe a
• general strategy of Babylon? Already Sennacherib dealing with Hezekiah knew at least something about Judean thinking / believing, uses it to do psychological warfare some 100 plus years earlier, but he
• does not understand fully, treats God as one among other fallen idols. But Nebuchadnezzar doesn’t seem to. Under influence of Daniel. Daniel advising him concerning foreign policy, it seems. Must be hard
• for Daniel to see Nebuchadnezzar go against Judah again, yet understandable. If Daniel was taken with 1st wave 605 BC, three years training > by 601 he is in the service of the king, already the statue dream
• and its interpretation are past. Golden statue of N may or may not have already happened. Sounds like pride and animal time hasn’t happened yet.
• Babylonian organization / administration / conquest. They appear powerful, but also principled, informed, internally consistent, specific, organized. Nebuchadnezzar in Dan 1:18-21 is capable to interview / test out the smartest his university has produced.
• Theme of God’s covenant with nations, any nation: Jer 18:5-11. God teaching Israel by what he does with all nations, here.
• Theme of God’s covenant with all nations, Jer 25:15-31. God judging all the nations, starting with Judah, ending with Babylon
• moves from partial judgment to full judgment
• moves from repentance options to no repentance option
• moves from “will be judgment” to “now I will bring” to within judgment “I will keep on”
• in all developments God is completely consistent, principled, but hurting, pleading, hoping, explaining, revealing his heart, happy and immediate to jump to restoration once they were punished
• the process is strictly according to Deuteronomy, strictly according to covenant agreed upon, no personal vendettas
• Babylon is instrument of God, God using the superpower of the day, if you loose your boundaries, there is a reason.
• God will judge the superpower by the same standard as everyone else. Much leadership > much responsibility.
• Punishment is “in kind” with sin committed: they worshiped idols > go to the nation where they are worshiped. They do not maintain law and justice > loose governing authority. They put idols in the
• temple > temple will be destroyed. They abandon God’s temple > God abandons his temple. They don’t want him and his intervention > he leaves them to themselves. They break law > moral, economic, political, familial breakdown.
• There is a point of no return. It is not easily reached, God’s grace goes further than our patience in reading about it.
• Last kings of Judah are a sad chapter, do not follow model father Josiah, are idolatrous, tolerate injustice, trust military alliances, refuse to listen to prophets, sink but don’t repent.
• They have ceased to be peoples’ representative, act in service of justice and people, uphold law and justice, they are into power games and arbitrary, far removed from Deuteronomy’s political principles and
• godliness. The ever widening power gap of king and normal people, as Samuel predicted: finally you will be slaves to the king.
• Repentance options still given (would cause delay, not reversal or judgment since Manasseh), prophets continually sent, address kings and others. Especially Zedekiah is very aware, even seemingly interested what Jeremiah has to say. He seems to take Jeremiah serious, yet does not heed or believe after all, neither good nor bad
• If political leadership does not govern the people well, maintaining their interest and justice, it looses its right to rule and will be replaced, here by Babylon. The last years of Judah’s monarchy are riddled, with weak leadership, frequent changes, corruption, toleration of injustice, overstepped boundaries, nepotism, bending of rules, misinformation, mistrust, secrecy, arbitrariness etc.
• Babylon seems to have more organized, instructed, wise and principled officials than Judah by the end of the game. Their chain of command is intact, they execute the will of King Nebuchadnezzar and are trusted to do so (Jer 38:5 Zedekiah says he has no power against his officials). They have information, understanding and wisdom (Jer 40:2-3, they are trusted with this by their king, truly took it, act accordingly informedly and willingly). Though I don’t know what the different titles mean, there is clear chain of command, clear responsibility, clear duty, clear obedience. A well functioning system, and not only functioning by fear, but also by understanding, it seems. Also Jeremiah predicts Babylon to be true to their word / covenant, those who surrender will not be killed, and their property / cities destroyed. Babylon doesn’t run wild in the end, it does exactly as said: if surrender > protection or life and infrastructure, if no surrender > death, destruction.
• By the time God finally does judge the situation in the nation is so far gone (injustice, breakdown etc.) that a conquest / change of leadership is not really that bad anymore at all, possible preferable.
• Though kings, officials, prophets and priests are singled out by several oracles to realize their disastrous influence, called to take responsibility and repent / obey, still the people themselves are ultimately fully responsible for their choices / for the way the nation went. They themselves chose idolatry / breaking of law / evil, the leaders may have influenced / helped, but ultimately it was their choice also, so they are fully responsible, and cannot blame the judgment on anyone else.
• The last remaining remnant are the very poor, very uneducated, guerilla troops, fringes and leftovers, but they are deeply and determinedly idolatrous. > The poor are not innocent as a class. They are also idolatrous, also breaking the law, also choosing evil. Ultimately blaming others will not work. Myth of innocent poor / vulnerable.
• God is sovereign over all nations, created all, watches all, hold all to a standard, judges all according to deeds.
• Some sin beyond measure > God cancels their right to exist > perpetual wastes
• Some sin, but are restored after punishment > still exist
• Standard according to what they knew (revelation), for Judah / Israel > the law, for the circumcised (related to Abraham?) > another standard, for those without any special revelation > golden rule.
• Jer 12:14-17 “Concerning all my evil neighbors who touch the heritage that I have given my people Israel: I am about to pluck them up from their land. And after … I will again have compassion and I will bring them again to their heritage / land, everyone of them. And then if they will diligently learn the ways of my people, to swear by my name, as they taught my people to swear by Baal, then they shall be built up in the midst of my people. But if any nation will not listen, then I will completely uproot and destroy it.” Open door for willing and obedient surrounding nations.
• Jer 16:19-21 “Lord, my strength, stronghold, refuge in the day of trouble, to you shall the nations come from the ends of the earth and say: … idolatry is stupid”. “Therefore I am surely going to teach them, this time I am going to teach them my power and my might, and they shall know that my name is the LORD.” God revealing himself to all nations, they shall repent of their idolatry and come to God.
• Jer 33:9 “This city shall be to me a name of joy, a praise and a glory before all the nations of the earth who whall hear of all the good that I do for them; they shall fear and tremble because of all the good and all the prosperity I provide for it.” Nations will see restoration, God’s sovereign hand, fear and tremble (panic or fear of God?).
• Theme of extending revelation / covenant / relationship with God onto all nations, or the willing / repentant of all nations > NT pointing scriptures.
• Relationship between national judgment and individual judgment? Even when a judgment on a nation has become irreversible, God will still allow for and gladly save repentant individuals within the greater irreversible judgment. Judgment of Egypt > multinational group in the exodus. Judgment on Canaan > Rahab, Gibeonites saved. Judgment on Israel > Israelites moved into Judah over the years.
• Judgment on Judah > first and second wave deportations saved, 3rd wave remnant also saved, Jehoiachin, Zedekiah, Jeremiah, Baruch, Ebed-melech, those in surrounding nations … Final judgment in the same pattern: Mankind judged > those repentant saved.
• Maybe this shift (is it one?) from national judgment to individual judgment something leading towards the NT? Colin Sinclair: they went into exile a nation, they came back a church. I’m not sure. First the importance of the individual choice was never not there, from Adam, Cain, Noah, Abraham onward. Also: is the national focus of judgment really gone in the NT?

Economy

• Economical devastation of a war
• Build up, plant not possible on all foundations. Unless there is some truth / repentance, God must tear down.
• Greed / unrighteous gain > leading to manipulation of judicial system
• Frustration of the just, the faithful, the diligent, the honest … for some time
• Desecrated land, polluted land, by sin, by idolatry, by shedding innocent blood > restoration again, can become holy again (valley of slaughter becoming sacred)
• Land is given by God, maintained by God and righteousness, can be taken away by God as punishment. Land is foundational. To have or to not have land is central.
• Jer 8:13 God expects increase. Even the leaves are withered, and what I gave them has passed away from them, not only no fruit

Science

• orderliness / lawfulness of universe
• devastation of land by war
• Jer 31:35-37 fixed order of sun, moon, stars, sea, waves > used to show surety of God’s faithfulness to Israel
• Jer 33:19-26 God’s covenant with day and night > surety of God’s commitment to David & Levites to have man on the throne / in the presence of God. Innumerable stars, sand of the sea > increase of the offstring of David and Levites
• Jer 20:4 Mental health: Pashhur, terror-all-around. God: “I am making you a terror to yourself and to all your friends”. To be a terror to oneself, afraid of yourself is the ultimate terror. It’s the path all sin leads, us being our own worst enemy, our own disaster-cook, us being the real problem, not anyone else. L’enfer, c’est moi. (J.P. Sartre: L’enfer, c’est les autres.). Also sounds like the beginning of schizophrenia, I am doing something that scares me. To be a terror to your friends is simply the breakdown of all relationships, complete isolation and rejection, not only not receiving love, but inevitably damaging all others.
• God belabors that it is not God’s petty discontentment / anger that will cause judgment, but their own choices. Whoever is in hell, chose to be there, no surprises.
• God is sovereign, but he ordained that a human’s choice be sovereign over himself. No blaming possible.
• God will punish, = leave them to themselves, = cease treating them as his own people, = leave them to the consequences of their choices. God does actively punish, but the destruction is also intrinsic.

Church

• absolute centrality of the godliness / idolatry question. On that hinge all other issues / behaviors etc.
• Must address idolatry, for out of that flow other moralities, family / sexual morals, corruption of legal system, abuse of power, oppression of weak, …
• Difficulty of being a prophet. Prophesy disaster, but not to want it. When prophesied word is fulfilled: ultimate defeat > no victory either way. If they repent > you may have not been a true prophet, if not > punishment > all destroyed.
• Baruch: obedient to Jeremiah, courageous to read scroll in temple, faithful to Jeremiah in writing and rewriting scroll, co-threatened with Jeremiah, co-suffering, co-mistrusted later 43:3. Does suffer. Is seen, addressed by God and promised his life, protection and God does fulfill that. But it does not seem he understands the heart of God like Jeremiah. > It seems possible to do all things right, to be loyal and faithful, to suffer and still miss God’s heart in that.
• Jeremiah: not sinning, warning against sin, but still suffering the consequences of people’s sin. Rehabilitation and provision / honor > chooses to stay with remnant, the bad figs, not join the good figs over in the exile at Babylon. Chooses against numbers / influence / natural tendency, even need?. Seeming restoration turns into the next nightmare: Gedaliah killed, Jeremiah called a liar, his counsel not only ignored, but forced to join the fate of those sinning, – again! Keeps speaking the word of God (and herewith giving options) to the remnant in Egypt.
• Persistent idolatry, a bit of suffering does not automatically wipe that away.
• Incredible incongruence between saying (Jer 42) and doing (Jer 43)
• Incredible religious mixture of godly speech, flat refusal, deep idolatry, yet keeping the “as the Lord God lives”. It’s God who has to declare them completely gone from under him, they would have continued mixing.
• Jeremiah’s crystal clear perspective, how clear was it to them?
• How much is this like now: completely idolatrous, annoyed at the prophets, thinking themselves quite okay, worshiping at the temple, swearing in God’s name, flat refusing the prophet’s advice, … they think they understand God better than Jeremiah, that he focuses on stuff that is not an issue. They think they are in the good books still. Or do they? Zedekiah is crumbling. They prove a lot of logic in the queen of heaven argument (cause and effect). Choosing to be deceived? Now really deceived?
• Priests still exist and function to a degree (sacrifices, offerings, festivals going), but neither know God nor his law, refuse to respond to Jeremiah, disobey prophetic instruction, actively oppose true prophets, overstep boundaries in doing so (imprisoning, Schemaiah asking him to control), are players in power games, involve / influence politically to bring about their will.
• Priest seem to maintain religiosity, yet are deeply idolatrous, promoters of a evil and thorough syncretism, it seems. They maintain trust in the temple as protection and sign of God’s favor, but do not know or understand God even remotely.
• RELIGIOSITY, IDOLATRY, SYNCRTISM, FALSE TRUST, IMMORALITY. They lead our (or surely do not counter) what all people are doing.
• There are prophets, those claiming to speak the word of the Lord, but they are false, do not stand in the council of God, have no knowledge of God, his heart, his law, his justified wrath at the current idolatry / injustice. They prophesy what people want to hear, peace, well-being, God’s blind blessing on whatever they are doing now..
• As yeah-sayers, re-enforcers, encouragers, they might be thought of as neither particularly important / trusted / influential, but what they do is not harmless at all.
• God holds them accountable for every word they speak, will judged them (law: death penalty for false prophet), warns by his true prophets about their delusion (both them and others).
• To deceive is by no means harmless, even if it happened “to please” or “well-intending”. For to say something nice if the reality is evil is as bad as saying something bad about a good thing. Niceness is not helpful, truth is, though less comfortable.
• But most likely they are not just ‘nice deluded people’, they get comfort / advantage / finances / importance / influence through their speaking, so no self-less motivation at all.
• Like all other groups they are fully self-responsible as well a responsible for the influence they had on others. God does persistently send to them as well by his true prophets, they get ample repentance-opportunity, but decide to persist in delusion.
• They are idolatrous, to the degree of child sacrifice, they have no knowledge, they speak deceit of own minds, they delude others, they steal words from each other, they predict peace when they should warn, they treat Judah’s wound carelessly, they make people trust in lies, they oppose true prophets, they commit adultery, they strengthen hands of evildoers.
• Predictions for wartime / return after 70 years … fulfilled with 3 returns in 539 BC onward (Zerubbabel, Ezra, Nehemiah) and subsequent Jewish remnant living in Palestine under different Empires (Medo-Persia > Greece > Seleucids / Ptolemeans > Rome) till the NT.
• Predictions of returnees and NT and beyond … predictions which have literal partial fulfilling in the 3 returns and Jewish remnant, but which have a second greater fulfilling in the NT / Church Age and till today. Themes mentioned are picked up in NT. Gather the flock (return / Jesus’ believers, Church). God will save Israel (return / Jesus on the cross). Flee from Babylon (return / flee kingdom of darkness into kingdom of light). God, their Redeemer is strong (return / real redemption on the cross). Will live in own land (Palestine / true owners, heirs in God’s kingdoms) …
• Predictions of NT and beyond … Predictions which seem to come to no or only very little fulfillment during return, and point strongly to the NT. Shepherd that feeds you with knowledge (Jesus). Righteous Branch, sitting on throne of David (Jesus). New covenant, law in their hearts, will understand (NT). Two families not rejected (Jesus is the ultimate David on the throne and the ultimate Aaron the High priest).
• How would the returnees have felt with so many promises yet quite partial and incomplete fulfillments? Discouraged? Loosing faith? Doubting God? … Yet it is also God forcing their eyes onward, forcing them to long for the Messiah, for the real, true reign of God, for the things to come. Obedience and embracing of the now yet longing and hoping for a greater future. In that sense we are a bit like them (though we have a LOT more): the kingdom now and not yet.
• How do repentance option when nobody will repent correlate with the foreknowledge and sovereignty of God? “It may be that they will listen, all of them, and will turn from their evil way, that I may change my mind about the disaster” (Jer 26:2-3). It’s not only God ‘hoping’ some will repent, but hoping all will repent! How is a God hoping who foreknows (some would even say determines) their future non-repentance? Since God is not playing games they truly do have an option. Since God is all-knowing, he does know they won’t repent. But he still wants to give the option, so it is their choice and not his. If he short cuts this, he ‘will have decided’, or at least there in no evidence any more of an option ever having been there. If he goes through with it, men will have decided, and evidence will be recorded of men deciding. > God wants us to know that he does hope, he does give us the option, his heart is to forgive … but we may or may not choose it.
• Another aspect is the effect on Jeremiah: he must speak, he must offer the option, he must hope … even if they will reject it. The prophet has and represents the heart of God > therefore he must do this. Also: unless the prophet has any hope, this will translate itself into the way he communicates > he will end up having closed down the option, and that is not acceptable. > there are things where the emotional roller coaster of hope and rejection is necessary to maintain the witness of the heart of God, to maintain the option, to maintain the integrity of the speaker. You cannot teach / encourage anyone in what you don’t believe in yourself, here: their repentance.
• See also meditation passages.
• Jeremiah is so honest in his struggling, with people, with oppression, with threats, fears, imprisonment, torture, death fear, bitterness, vindictiveness, depression (it seems sometimes). He struggles with God, the message he has to speak, the unbelief of the people, the no-joy-in-fulfillment. He is submitted under the disaster, though he never wanted it, and didn’t cause it, he joins those who rejected and tortured him in their suffering.
• His calling and destiny seems a lose / lose situation, and God emphasizes, but also challenges him quite ‘sorely’. God seems to think that the privilege of serving him, of knowing him, or doing the right thing far outweighs all the suffering, affliction and despair. Jeremiah agrees eventually and really, but does show that it is a fight.
• GOD IS THE REWARD, outweighing anything and everything!

Family

• family breakdown is a corollary to idolatry
• most powerful / grabbing metaphors come from family domain
• national well-being is expressed in strong, fruitful, happy marriages / families

Communication

• theme of deceit, of leaders / kings / prophets / priests being rebuked for deceiving people
• theme of chosen deceit, we don’t want to hear > we will not hear > we don’t hear > (?) we cannot hear
• God, time and again, in a 1000 ways addressing the people, using pictures, questions, dramatic stuff, enacted symbols, …whatever, just to engage them, to cut through to their heart, to shake them up, to scare them insto listening
• God initiates communication, humans shut down communication
• Only in final stages is it ever the other way round, and even then not truly finally
• Jer 32 > Burden of the Lord, God concerned about words, meaning, perversions of meanings.
• Lack of knowledge will not be able to be claimed. God did speak persistently, over years, in many ways, faithfully. The people will not hear, refuse to listen, stiffen their neck … actively, purposefully, intentionally, and finally: effectively.
• Theme of horror / hissing / disgrace / those walking by appalled … versus calling to be lighthouse to the nations, Exo 19:4-6, Lev 20:26. They should have revealed God to the nations, now they are revealing God and their utter faithlessness to the nation. You will reveal something, but it’s your choice whether in God’s design or through ungodliness. God, though, will get his message across, through you or in spite of you. Moses’ intercession “think about what other nations will conclude” is of a good motivation, and God heeds it, but he is not ultimately bound by that.
• Jer 40:2-3 One redemption of this is that some of the nations well understand why God did this to his own nation, for example Babylonian officials in. Another redemption of the theme of surrounding nations in horror / hissing / being appalled:
• Jer 33:9 “This city shall be to me a name of joy, a praise and a glory before all the nations of the earth who shall hear of all the good that I do for them; they shall fear and tremble because of all the good and all the prosperity I provide for it.” Nations will see restoration, God’s sovereign hand, fear and tremble … God does turn that around.

Art

• lamentation, dirge, wail,
• singing, thanksgiving, rejoicing
• spices used on kingly burials

Education

• orderliness / lawfulness of universe used as teaching illustration, as stability, surety illustration
• knowledge / learning greatly depends on attitude. Those who want, will, those who don’t want, won’t.
• God is incredibly committed to letting us know / teaching us.
• Writing scrolls / records / even repeated
• Letting people know / reading in public places, gates, temple area
• Teach at danger of life
• Jer 30:24 in the latter days you will understand this.
• Jer 32 Burden of the Lord, God concerned about words, meaning, perversions of meanings.
• To know who God is, his nature, his character, his will, his ways, his law, his promises, his principles, his word, his truth … is absolutely foundational to understanding the universe, nature, history, time, humans and everything else, for that matter. He is the first cause. He is the only reason for everything. He is the way.
• If I pursue knowledge of God, understanding, wisdom, I must start and end and go by GOD.
• He has not left us in the dark, in confusion … he has revealed himself, communicated, explained, reasoned, demonstrated, said, modeled, … He wants us to know, to understand. He is not silent. He is not stingy with information.
• Lack of knowledge will not be able to be claimed. God did speak persistently, over years, in many ways, faithfully. The people will not hear, refuse to listen, stiffen their neck … actively, purposefully, intentionally, and finally: effectively.
• Theme of horror / hissing / disgrace / those walking by appalled … versus calling to be lighthouse to the nations, Exo 19:4-6, Lev 20:26. They should have revealed God to the nations, now they are revealing God and their utter faithlessness to the nation. You will reveal something, but it’s your choice whether in God’s design or through ungodliness. God, though, will get his message across, through you or in spite of you. Moses’ intercession “think about what other nations will think” is of a good motivation, and God heeds it, but he is not ultimately bound by that.
• One redemption of this is that some of the nations well understand why God did this to his own nation, for example Babylonian officials in Jer 40:2-3.
• Another redemption of the theme of surrounding nations in horror / hissing / being appalled: Jer 33:9 “This city shall be to me a name of joy, a praise and a glory before all the nations of the earth who shall hear of all the good that I do for them; they shall fear and tremble because of all the good and all the prosperity I provide for it.” Nations will see restoration, God’s sovereign hand, fear and tremble … God does turn that around.
• The very fact there is such a thing as prophets shows that God wants to save. Isaiah, Jeremiah are incredible testimonies of God’s commitment to save what at all can be saved. Both speak to Judah and its groups and people over decades, speaking, pleading, explaining, warning, suffering, … to maybe save some.
• The very fact there is such a thing as the Bible shows that God wants to save in the same way
• How do repentance option when nobody will repent correlate with the foreknowledge and sovereignty of God? “It may be that they will listen, all of them, and will turn from their evil way, that I may change my mind about the disaster” (Jer 26:2-3). It’s not only God ‘hoping’ some will repent, but hoping all will repent! How is a God hoping who foreknows (some would even say determines) their future non-repentance? Since God is not playing games they truly do have an option. Since God is all-knowing, he does know they won’t repent. But he still wants to give the option, so it is their choice and not his. If he short cuts this, he ‘will have decided’, or at least there in no evidence any more of an option ever having been there. If he goes through with it, men will have decided, and evidence will be recorded of men deciding. > God wants us to know that he does hope, he does give us the option, his heart is to forgive … but we may or may not choose it.