Tag Archives: Old Testament

Jeremiah 22: Justice, the King and Judgment

Justice and the Covenant

Gustav Dore, Jeremiah Preaching (1865)

1 Thus says the LORD: Go down to the house of the king of Judah, and speak there this word, 2 and say: Hear the word of the LORD, O King of Judah sitting on the throne of David– you, and your servants, and your people who enter these gates. 3 Thus says the LORD: Act with justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor anyone who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place. 4 For if you will indeed obey this word, then through the gates of this house shall enter kings who sit on the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, they, and their servants, and their people. 5 But if you will not heed these words, I swear by myself, says the LORD, that this house shall become a desolation. 6 For thus says the LORD concerning the house of the king of Judah:
You are like Gilead to me, like the summit of Lebanon;
but I swear that I will make you a desert, an uninhabited city.
7 I will prepare destroyers against you, all with their weapons;
they shall cut down your choicest cedars and cast them into the fire.
8 And many nations will pass by this city, and all of them will say one to another, “Why has the LORD dealt in this way with that great city?” 9 And they will answer, “Because they abandoned the covenant of the LORD their God, and worshiped other gods and served them.”
10 Do not weep for him who is dead, nor bemoan him;
weep rather for him who goes away, for he shall return no more to see his native land.

Two conflicting views of reality are coming into conflict between the prophetic and the royal ideologies of the day. Jeremiah’s worldview comes out of the Mosaic and particular the Deuteronomic covenant where the covenant is conditional, if the people live into the vision that God has set before them they will be bless and if they do not they shall be cursed. For example the structure of Deuteronomy 28 illustrates this well:
If you will only obey the LORD your God, by diligently observing all his commandments that I am commanding you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth; 2all the blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you obey your God:….
But if you will not obey the LORD your God by diligently observing all his commandments and decrees, which I am commanding you today, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you:
Deuteronomy 28: 1,2,15
And the prophetic voice interprets these obligations primarily not in terms of cultic actions but in terms of living in justice/righteousness (justice and righteousness are the same word families in both Hebrew and Greek). In contrast the royal ideology views God’s commitment as unconditional, so long as there is a Davidic king and a temple God will not forsake God’s people. The prophet Jeremiah tries again and again to call the people and the rulers back to the vision of justice and righteousness. They are charged again to not shed innocent blood, to care for the weakest of the society, the widows and orphans, and their success is conditional upon their living out of this justice. In contrast to the desire to accumulate more and more wealth among the elite as a way of securing their position, Jeremiah points to the practice of justice and righteousness as a condition for their security which ultimately comes from God. Numerous passages throughout the prophets echo this sentiment, perhaps one of the most well known being from Amos:
But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. Amos 5: 24

The King Of No Account

Vultures around a Dead Donkey

11 For thus says the LORD concerning Shallum son of King Josiah of Judah, who succeeded his father Josiah, and who went away from this place: He shall return here no more, 12 but in the place where they have carried him captive he shall die, and he shall never see this land again.
13 Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness, and his upper rooms by injustice;
who makes his neighbors work for nothing, and does not give them their wages;
14 who says, “I will build myself a spacious house with large upper rooms,”
and who cuts out windows for it, paneling it with cedar, and painting it with vermilion.
15 Are you a king because you compete in cedar?
Did not your father eat and drink and do justice and righteousness?
Then it was well with him.
16 He judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well.
Is not this to know me? says the LORD.
17 But your eyes and heart are only on your dishonest gain,
for shedding innocent blood, and for practicing oppression and violence.
18 Therefore thus says the LORD concerning King Jehoiakim son of Josiah of Judah: They shall not lament for him, saying, “Alas, my brother!” or “Alas, sister!” They shall not lament for him, saying, “Alas, lord!” or “Alas, his majesty!” 19 With the burial of a donkey he shall be buried– dragged off and thrown out beyond the gates of Jerusalem.
20 Go up to Lebanon, and cry out, and lift up your voice in Bashan;
cry out from Abarim, for all your lovers are crushed.
21 I spoke to you in your prosperity, but you said,
“I will not listen.” This has been your way from your youth,
for you have not obeyed my voice.
22 The wind shall shepherd all your shepherds,
and your lovers shall go into captivity;
then you will be ashamed and dismayed because of all your wickedness.
23 O inhabitant of Lebanon, nested among the cedars,
how you will groan when pangs come upon you, pain as of a woman in labor!
24 As I live, says the LORD, even if King Coniah son of Jehoiakim of Judah were the signet ring on my right hand, even from there I would tear you off 25 and give you into the hands of those who seek your life, into the hands of those of whom you are afraid, even into the hands of King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon and into the hands of the Chaldeans. 26 I will hurl you and the mother who bore you into another country, where you were not born, and there you shall die. 27 But they shall not return to the land to which they long to return.
28 Is this man Coniah a despised broken pot, a vessel no one wants?
Why are he and his offspring hurled out and cast away in a land that they do not know?
29 O land, land, land, hear the word of the LORD!
30 Thus says the LORD: Record this man as childless,
a man who shall not succeed in his days;
for none of his offspring shall succeed in sitting on the throne of David,
and ruling again in Judah.

Much of the ire of the prophets is directed at the kings, and we need to remember that this is a time much different from our own. In an age where the vast majority of the population was illiterate and relied on the kings and the elites of the society to establish the systems of justice that the society operated within. As Brueggeman accurately states, “The conduct of the king is decisive for the weal or woe of the entire social system.” (Brueggemann, 1998, p. 194) and so here at the end of the Davidic monarchy, at the point where the elites are being taken into exile, including King Jehoiakim and his son Jeconiah (here referred to as Coniah) who is contrasted to his well respected father/grandfather Josiah. He is of no account, he will not have the honors he desires, instead of an honorable death Jeremiah declares he will have the death of a donkey—simply thrown beyond the gates. God is done with Jeconiah, ready to cast him off. In contrast to Josiah who rebuilt the temple, his son and grandson are accused with surrounding themselves with luxury far greater. This is not a new critique, it goes at least as far back as Solomon when the amount of resources placed into the temple is compared with the amount of time and resources that go into the construction of Solomon’s houses. Yet in contrast to Jeremiah’s words at the end of this chapter about his being recorded childless, when the people return to Jerusalem under the Persian empire it will be Zerubabbel, the grandson of Jeconiah will be leading the people home. The grandson of the one who if he was a signet ring on the LORD’s finger he would be cast off will experience the reversal of being the signet ring that is put back on after the exile is over.

On that day, says the LORD of hosts, I will take you, O Zerubbabel my servant, son of Shealtiel, says the LORD, and make you like a signet ring; for I have chosen you, says the LORD of hosts. Haggai 2: 24

And the harsh words of Jeremiah about the type of death Jehoiakim (or Jehoiachin) would receive seem also not to come to pass as the ending of 2 Kings points to:

²⁷ In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of King Jehoiachin of Judah, in the twelfth month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, King Evil-merodach of Babylon, in the year that he began to reign, released King Jehoiachin of Judah from prison; ²⁸ he spoke kindly to him, and gave him a seat above the other seats of the kings who were with him in Babylon. ²⁹ So Jehoiachin put aside his prison clothes. Every day of his life he dined regularly in the king’s presence. ³⁰ For his allowance, a regular allowance was given him by the king, a portion every day, as long as he lived. 2 Kings 25: 27-30

Jeremiah 8:4- 9:1: The Headstrong People and the Heartsick Prophet and God

3 Replies

I am trying something a little different as I start again with Jeremiah: rather than breaking each section into several posts throughout the week I am going to try to do one larger post for those who enjoy this type of Biblical reflection but to where those who don’t read this part of the blog don’t have multiple posts weekly on Jeremiah. I have also been given the honor of reviewing Binyamin Lau’s Jeremiah: The Fate of the Prophet and that should be coming in the next couple weeks as well as integrating some of his insights into my journey through Jeremiah.

Jeremiah 8:4-17
4 You shall say to them, Thus says the LORD:
When people fall, do they not get up again?
If they go astray, do they not turn back?
5 Why then has this people turned away in perpetual backsliding?
They have held fast to deceit, they have refused to return.
6 I have given heed and listened, but they do not speak honestly;
no one repents of wickedness, saying, “What have I done!”
All of them turn to their own course, like a horse plunging headlong into battle.
7 Even the stork in the heavens knows its times;
and the turtledove, swallow, and crane observe the time of their coming;
but my people do not know the ordinance of the LORD.
8 How can you say, “We are wise, and the law of the LORD is with us,”
when, in fact, the false pen of the scribes has made it into a lie?
9 The wise shall be put to shame, they shall be dismayed and taken;
since they have rejected the word of the LORD, what wisdom is in them?
10 Therefore I will give their wives to others and their fields to conquerors,
because from the least to the greatest everyone is greedy for unjust gain;
from prophet to priest everyone deals falsely.
11 They have treated the wound of my people carelessly,
saying, “Peace, peace,” when there is no peace.
12 They acted shamefully, they committed abomination;
yet they were not at all ashamed, they did not know how to blush.
Therefore they shall fall among those who fall; at the time when I punish them,
they shall be overthrown, says the LORD.
13 When I wanted to gather them, says the LORD,
there are no grapes on the vine, nor figs on the fig tree;
even the leaves are withered, and what I gave them has passed away from them.
14 Why do we sit still? Gather together, let us go into the fortified cities and perish there;
for the LORD our God has doomed us to perish, and has given us poisoned water to drink,
because we have sinned against the LORD.
15 We look for peace, but find no good,
for a time of healing, but there is terror instead.
16 The snorting of their horses is heard from Dan;
at the sound of the neighing of their stallions the whole land quakes.
They come and devour the land and all that fills it, the city and those who live in it.
17 See, I am letting snakes loose among you,
adders that cannot be charmed, and they shall bite you, says the LORD.

If you have been following through Jeremiah to this point you could be forgiven for thinking you have read much of this before. Much as people agonizing over the brokenness of a relationship or the ending of a marriage often revisit the same material again and again trying to make sense of the reality of the changes they are dealing with, we see God continuing to struggle through God’s own disillusionment and emotions. As I’ve mentioned before the God portrayed in Jeremiah struggles with very human emotions and struggles against the coming disaster, desiring any evidence of a return to the way things could have been. Yet the falsehood of the people, which begins at the top with the prophets and the priests, has set them on a course that is moving away from God. Over and over we hear God saying, turn, return, repent but the people are charging towards their own destiny as a horse charging in battle. Even the law has been corrupted by the scribes, whether it is by their interpretation of it or their actual recording of it we do not know, but this is a world where only a select few were literate and they were the interpreters of God’s will to the people.

Two things that caught my attention reading through this, one is the reference to the fig tree, in verse 13, that neither puts our figs and even its leaves are withered. I am becoming more and more convinced of the influence of Jeremiah’s imagery on the New Testament, and in Mark 11(as well as Matthew) we encounter Jesus encountering a fig tree with no fruit, cursing it and it withers-which is a direct allusion to the temple. In earlier posts I have also talked about the vine/vineyard imagery. Both figs and grapes are common parts of the agricultural life of the people in Judah. The other image is the transition to snakes in verse 17, which may also point back to Numbers 21 where the Lord sent snakes among the people in their journey in the wilderness and Moses eventually was commanded to make a bronze serpent that the people could look upon and live.

God continues to agonize over the judgment that is coming upon God’s chosen people. If there was some way to restore the relationship without the removing of God’s protection and the harsh reality of the coming Babylonian invasion God seems open to it, but the direction of the people has moved away from God’s pursuit, and soon God’s people will also join in the grieving.

Jeremiah 8: 18-9:1
18 My joy is gone, grief is upon me, my heart is sick.
19 Hark, the cry of my poor people from far and wide in the land:
“Is the LORD not in Zion? Is her King not in her?”
(“Why have they provoked me to anger with their images, with their foreign idols?”)
20 “The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.”
21 For the hurt of my poor people I am hurt,
I mourn, and dismay has taken hold of me.
22 Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there?
Why then has the health of my poor people not been restored?
9:1 O that my head were a spring of water, and my eyes a fountain of tears,
so that I might weep day and night for the slain of my poor people!
Who is doing the weeping here, is it the prophet or is it God, or perhaps it is both. The prophet is so closely tied into God’s emotions and yet these are his people too. There is a heartsick God and a heartsick prophet who are mourning for the people whose path is taking them to a place where they will experience hurt and destruction. It is like the parent watching a child go down a path that they know will cause them pain but no words they say will turn them away, or it is like the person who loves the addict but has to allow them to follow the path they are on until they are ready to receive treatment not as a punishment but as a new opportunity. The old African American spiritual points to the reality of a the region of Gilead, East of the Jordan, being famous for a balm, an aromatic resin famous for its properties of easing pain and covering the smell of a festering wound:

There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole
There is a balm in Gilead to heal the sin sick soul. (Evangelical Lutheran Worship 2006)

But in contrast to not only the words in the song and the hopeful nature, Jeremiah and God see no healing, even in Gilead. There is no prescription medication or course of treatment that will ease the pain of what is to come.

Searching for the Righteous One: Jeremiah 5: 1-6

1 Reply

Icon of Jeremiah

Jeremiah 5: 1-6

Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, look around and take note!
Search its squares and see if you can find one person who acts justly and seeks truth—
so that I may pardon Jerusalem.
² Although they say, “As the LORD lives,” yet they swear falsely.
³ O LORD, do your eyes not look for truth?
You have struck them, but they felt no anguish;
you have consumed them, but they refused to take correction.
They have made their faces harder than rock; they have refused to turn back.
⁴ Then I said, “These are only the poor, they have no sense;
for they do not know the way of the LORD, the law of their God.
⁵ Let me go to the rich and speak to them; surely they know the way of the LORD, the law of their God.
” But they all alike had broken the yoke, they had burst the bonds.
⁶ Therefore a lion from the forest shall kill them,
a wolf from the desert shall destroy them.
A leopard is watching against their cities;
everyone who goes out of them shall be torn in pieces—
because their transgressions are many, their apostasies are great.

Where is the righteous person, show me the person who I can look at and say all this pain it really is worth it. Yet the vision, the hope seems dashed. God is so deeply wounded that God that God’s pain seems to be overwhelming God’s love. Such is the risk of caring deeply. You can say many things about the picture of God we see in Jeremiah, but you can never make the claim that this God does not care and is uninvolved. In an intentional echo of Genesis 18 when Abraham intercedes before God for the people of Sodom and Gomorrah and bargains with God down to ten righteous people, now God tells Jeremiah ‘just find one.’ Things have become so bad that the people are living in a lie and the lie has become their reality. It is as if they have told themselves over and over again a falsehood until they believe it is true. Beyond that they have begun to believe that the lie has divine sanction. Something is so horribly wrong in the relationship of the people with God that it appears irreconcilable.

Jeremiah seems to say back to God, do you not want to see the truth. You have sought and believed the best possible in these people. God seems to have, in Jeremiah’s mind, done everything to interpret the peoples actions in the best possible light and the divine trust has been met with increased recalcitrance. Yet, Jeremiah too seems reluctant to give up hope. These are his people, his family as well and so he goes first among the poor, and then assuming it is ignorance (remember this is a pre-literate society where the poor would have been unable to read and this is a time where most people would have made it to the temple primarily for festivals if they were able) Jeremiah goes to the elite. Those who have no excuse, who can read and would have been taught the law of God which contains the vision of peace and justice God desired for them to live in, and they too have refused to live within it.

In a relationship we see a God who doesn’t want to believe that things have reached this point, but has seen the hopes and dreams of the relationship dashed by the people and we hear the wounded words go forth. The very animals of nature begin to represent the destruction that is coming, the people have become like sheep without a shepherd and their fence has been taken away. It is almost as if the shepherd walks away with tears in his eyes, exhausted from trying to lead and protect them surrendering them to the natural consequences of the world they live in.

The Poetry of Death and Destruction: Jeremiah 4: 11-18

The Siren Call: Jeremiah 4: 5-10

6 Replies

F4 Wedge Type Tornado, nearly a mile wide that hit Binger, Oklahoma

Jeremiah 4: 5-10

⁵ Declare in Judah, and proclaim in Jerusalem, and say:
Blow the trumpet through the land; shout aloud and say,
“Gather together, and let us go into the fortified cities!”
⁶ Raise a standard toward Zion, flee for safety, do not delay,
for I am bringing evil from the north, and a great destruction.
⁷ A lion has gone up from its thicket, a destroyer of nations has set out;
he has gone out from his place to make your land a waste;
your cities will be ruins without inhabitant.
⁸ Because of this put on sackcloth, lament and wail:
“The fierce anger of the LORD has not turned away from us.”

⁹ On that day, says the LORD, courage shall fail the king and the officials; the priests shall be appalled and the prophets astounded. ¹⁰ Then I said, “Ah, Lord GOD, how utterly you have deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, ‘It shall be well with you,’ even while the sword is at the throat!”

When I lived in Oklahoma, tornado sirens were a way of life. When spring came you knew that if the siren was blaring its dissonant tones that you needed to check the TV to see where the storm might be and how dangerous the storm was. Some storms were storms that you could weather in place, going to the safe room in your house. But some storms, if you were in their path you didn’t want to stay in place and wait out, you needed to flee to designated areas that were better able to withstand the winds. And yet sometimes even fleeing to a strong place is not enough, as was the case of the F5 tornado that struck Oklahoma City in 1999 destroying or badly damaging over 8,000 homes.

Jeremiah has the unfortunate role of being the siren, alerting the people to a disaster they do not expect nor do they want to see. War is approaching, an unspecified invading army is coming to lay waste to the land. Destroying cities, burning crops, killing and enslaving and the Lord has withdrawn the protection they have relied upon in the past. The prophet goes even farther, to place the Lord behind the movement of the predicted enemy. The Lord has made a choice, a dreadful choice, a choice against his former people. It is a choice the prophet has allowed us to see the Lord agonizing over, and yet the pieces are in motion, the storm is in motion and yet the prophet continues to hope for a turn. The prophet desires for the people to put on sackcloth, to lament and wail, and perhaps the Lord will turn once more.

The very people who should be keeping the people in the relationship with God, the king-priest-prophet have become the very people who have dulled the people to the siren’s call. There is a Davidic king and the temple which the people have begun to place their trust in, yet the prophets are always pointing to God’s vision of justice and shalom (harmony/peace) and the ways that the people have betrayed this vision.

Jeremiah makes a bold statement, in essence placing the blame at God’s feet, for the people have heard and received the message that it is well (most likely from the king and his officials, the priests and the prophets) while terror approaches. One of the roles of the prophet is to stand between the people and God, challenging both. The prophet will love both God and the people and weep with and for both of them, and in standing between the two his heart and body will be broken. Yet Jeremiah, among the prophets, seems to stand alone-for the other prophets of his time seem to be singing in unison with the kings and priests. Jeremiah speaks dangerous words, but they are the words of the faithful willing to enter into the struggle with God, to challenge God, to even go so far as calling God a traitor while still remaining in the relationship. As Moses in the Exodus, Jeremiah intercedes for the people he loves and yet even Jeremiah will have his limits as we will find.

God the Wounded Lover: Jeremiah 4: 1-4

1 Reply

The Prophet Jeremiah by Michelangelo

Jeremiah 4: 1-4

If you return, O Israel, says the LORD,
if you return to me,
if you remove your abominations from my presence,
and do not waver,
² and if you swear, “As the LORD lives!”
in truth, in justice, and in uprightness,
then nations shall be blessed by him,
and by him they shall boast.
³ For thus says the LORD to the people of Judah
and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem:
Break up your fallow ground,
and do not sow among thorns.
⁴ Circumcise yourselves to the LORD,
remove the foreskin of your hearts,
O people of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem,
or else my wrath will go forth like fire,
and burn with no one to quench it,
because of the evil of your doings.

One of the gifts of having been through a divorce that I did not want or seek, that I did everything in my power to prevent is being able to resonate with the emotions of the God portrayed in Jeremiah. A God who is wrestling with a feeling of absolute betrayal, and yet still has deep feelings for the beloved one. The desire is there to start again, to do everything within their power to rebuild the relationship. Everything, that is, except force the other party to remain within the relationship with them. Yet if the relationship is to be reconciled it requires faithfulness and it requires the ending of the affairs that created the separation in the first place.

I am writing this during the season of lent (often there is a significant lag between when I write something and when I publish it as is here apparent), preparing for Holy week, and one of the traditional services for Good Friday includes a long series of solemn reproaches that I think capture some of the emotion of this part of Jeremiah:

O my people, O my church, what have I done to you?
How have I offended you? Answer me.
I led you out of slavery into freedom,
And delivered you through the waters of rebirth,
But you have prepared a cross for your Savior….
O my people, O my church, what more could I have done for you?
Answer me.
I struck down your enemies, but you struck my head with a reed;
I gave you peace, but you draw the sword in my name,
And you have prepared a cross for your Savior
(Evangelical Lutheran Worship Leaders Edition, 639ff)

Even against the wisdom of Torah (the law) God still yearns for the relationship with his covenant people, and if it can be resumed it will have to be in a new type of relationship. God is not like King Ahasuerus in Esther who is bound by royal decrees and laws, no God is more like Joseph in Matthew’s gospel, portraying a different kind of righteousness. A legalistic understanding of righteousness or a punitive understanding would say here is the rule, the law that was broken and here is the punishment that this infraction dictates. Every action has a consequence, every offence has a punishment and reconciliation rests in the hands of the one who offended. But I use the example of Joseph, because he was a righteous man as Matthew tells the story, but rather than look for justice when he learns of Mary’s pregnancy he looks for mercy. In Jeremiah and in the New Testament we find a God for whom relationships are more important than rules, who desires and works for the return of the departed even while they are still turned away. Who desires nothing more than to resume the relationship as it was meant to be.

Perhaps God is naïve in the nature of relationships among humans, perhaps God is an idealistic fool—or perhaps God loves and that love is greater than the wound that the brokenness has caused.

Rhetorical Overkill: Jeremiah 2: 20-37

1 Reply

Apophysis-Betrayal (1footonthedawn at deviantart.com)

Jeremiah 2: 20-37
20 For long ago you broke your yoke
and burst your bonds, and you said, “I will not serve!”
On every high hill and under every green tree
you sprawled and played the whore.
21 Yet I planted you as a choice vine, from the purest stock.
How then did you turn degenerate and become a wild vine?
22 Though you wash yourself with lye and use much soap,
the stain of your guilt is still before me,
says the Lord GOD.
23 How can you say, “I am not defiled, I have not gone after the Baals”?
Look at your way in the valley; know what you have done—
a restive young camel interlacing her tracks,
24 a wild ass at home in the wilderness, in her heat sniffing the wind!
Who can restrain her lust?
None who seek her need weary themselves; in her month they will find her.
25 Keep your feet from going unshod and your throat from thirst.
But you said, “It is hopeless, for I have loved strangers,
and after them I will go.”
26 As a thief is shamed when caught, so the house of Israel shall be shamed—
they, their kings, their officials, their priests, and their prophets,
27 who say to a tree, “You are my father,” and to a stone, “You gave me birth.”
For they have turned their backs to me, and not their faces.
But in the time of their trouble they say,
“Come and save us!”
28 But where are your gods that you made for yourself?
Let them come, if they can save you, in your time of trouble;
for you have as many gods as you have towns, O Judah.
29 Why do you complain against me?
You have all rebelled against me, says the LORD.
30 In vain I have struck down your children; they accepted no correction.
Your own sword devoured your prophets like a ravening lion.
31 And you, O generation, behold the word of the LORD!
Have I been a wilderness to Israel, or a land of thick darkness?
Why then do my people say, “We are free, we will come to you no more”?
32 Can a girl forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire?
Yet my people have forgotten me, days without number.
33 How well you direct your course to seek lovers!
So that even to wicked women you have taught your ways.
34 Also on your skirts is found the lifeblood of the innocent poor,
though you did not catch them breaking in.
Yet in spite of all these things
35 you say, “I am innocent; surely his anger has turned from me.”
Now I am bringing you to judgment for saying, “I have not sinned.”
36 How lightly you gad about, changing your ways!
You shall be put to shame by Egypt as you were put to shame by Assyria.
37 From there also you will come away with your hands on your head;
for the LORD has rejected those in whom you trust, and you will not prosper through them.

One of the things you will see if you spend much time with the prophets is what I and others have called rhetorical overkill. Not only is the person unfaithful, but they are having sex under every green tree, they are like a wild ass in heat, etc….that is the language and it is what it is. You can try to explain it away, you can say it is a metaphor, you might find it offensive, it might work differently in different cultures, but it is using figurative language to express the depth of pain of the betrayed by the betrayer. In this case God is the betrayed one and out of the language of God’s pain comes this set of metaphors shifting from sexual to agricultural and back to sexual to cultic and legal and back to sexual. This is the language of a person in pain trying to make sense of how their view of a person could be so different from the reality. What is the offense that caused this level of pain and disillusionment? Two are lifted up in this section: idolatry and injustice.
Idolatry may constitute a whole range of things from people at this time going out and doing practices which honor other gods, conducting worship of other nations gods, conducting practices which are not approved by God or they may not be worshipping God correctly (away from the temple in Jerusalem or it may be worship without justice). Somehow there has been a distortion of the vision that God had for God’s people. Injustice is lifted up when the prophet says : 34 Also on your skirts is found the lifeblood of the innocent poor, though you did not catch them breaking in. Justice in the ancient world, even more than in the modern world, often depended upon one’s social standing, wealth and power more than any modern understanding of guilt or innocence, and yet this was not the society that the Lord envisioned.
The vine and vineyard image is one that recurs several times throughout scriptures because the vine was one of the most important and common agricultural images. In Isaiah 5, Isaiah morns of a vineyard that the vineyard’s owner did everything for and yet it does not produce, in Mark 12: 1-10 and parallels the image is once again brought up with a vineyard and unfaithful tenants and here in Jeremiah it is a choice vine which goes wild. People would have understood the agricultural imagery because this was an agrarian society.
One additional thing to consider is that we have a theological interpretation of reality going on, which we should expect from the prophets. This is not the world of power politics which the kings and princes are dealing with, they are trying to appease Assyria and Egypt, the powers that could conceivably invade and conquer Judah and they are attempting to maintain security through political alliances, military power and economic policy. Judah is a very desirable piece of property because it is at the trade crossroads between Assyria, Babylon, Persian and the far East and Egypt and Northern Africa and as N.T. Wright notes over the course of its history of 4,000 years on average every 40 years another army will march in or through it. (Wright 1992, 3) The prophets, kings and people are all looking at different strategies of survival and security. Security becomes the most important thing, more important than justice, more important than God, more important than freedom.
Security is perhaps the greatest idol that many in America face. We want to ensure that we have enough for ourselves at the exclusion of a societal concern for others and this runs headlong in contrast with the prophet’s and by extension God’s vision of shalom and justice. While many would read these words and be immediately drawn to condemn personal immorality as a method of societal corruption the prophet reverses this societal corruption, the loss of justice and trust in God’s way, is pointed to using a rhetorically inflated image of personal immorality where the woman in this image represents Judah.

The Wounded God: Jeremiah 2: 1-19

6 Replies

Apophysis-Betrayal (1footonthedawn at deviantart.com)

Jeremiah 2: 1-19

The word of the LORD came to me, saying: 2 Go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem, Thus says the LORD:
I remember the devotion of your youth,
your love as a bride, how you followed me in the wilderness,
in a land not sown.
3 Israel was holy to the LORD,
the first fruits of his harvest.
All who ate of it were held guilty;
disaster came upon them,
says the LORD.
4 Hear the word of the LORD, O house of Jacob, and all the families of the house of Israel. 5 Thus says the LORD:
What wrong did your ancestors find in me
that they went far from me,
and went after worthless things, and became worthless themselves?
6 They did not say, “Where is the LORD
who brought us up from the land of Egypt,
who led us in the wilderness,
in a land of deserts and pits,
in a land of drought and deep darkness,
in a land that no one passes through,
where no one lives?”
7 I brought you into a plentiful land
to eat its fruits and its good things.
But when you entered you defiled my land,
and made my heritage an abomination.
8 The priests did not say, “Where is the LORD?”
Those who handle the law did not know me;
the rulers transgressed against me;
the prophets prophesied by Baal,
and went after things that do not profit.
9 Therefore once more I accuse you,
says the LORD,
and I accuse your children’s children.
10 Cross to the coasts of Cyprus and look,
send to Kedar and examine with care;
see if there has ever been such a thing.
11 Has a nation changed its gods,
even though they are no gods?
But my people have changed their glory
for something that does not profit.
12 Be appalled, O heavens, at this,
be shocked, be utterly desolate,
says the LORD,
13 for my people have committed two evils:
they have forsaken me,
the fountain of living water,
and dug out cisterns for themselves,
cracked cisterns
that can hold no water.
14 Is Israel a slave? Is he a homeborn servant?
Why then has he become plunder?
15 The lions have roared against him,
they have roared loudly.
They have made his land a waste;
his cities are in ruins, without inhabitant.
16 Moreover, the people of Memphis and Tahpanhes
have broken the crown of your head.
17 Have you not brought this upon yourself
by forsaking the LORD your God,
while he led you in the way?
18 What then do you gain by going to Egypt,
to drink the waters of the Nile?
Or what do you gain by going to Assyria,
to drink the waters of the Euphrates?
19 Your wickedness will punish you,
and your apostasies will convict you.
Know and see that it is evil and bitter
for you to forsake the LORD your God;
the fear of me is not in you,
says the Lord GOD of hosts.

Can it hurt to be God? For many people their image of God is shaped more by stoicism and philosophy than the picture of God we find in the Bible. This is not a new thing, it was a consequence of the church entering into the Greek speaking and thinking world right at the very beginning of its life where in Greek thought (where stoicism comes from) the ideal person (and thus God) is not swayed by emotions, but is instead logical and rational. God being the unmoved mover who created the world would not be motivated by pleasure, joy or even love and conversely would not get angry, hurt, wounded, or really feel much of anything. Ultimately this is the picture of an apathetic God (apathy is the opposite of pathos, the ability to suffer, a-pathos) but it in no way reflects the God we encounter anywhere in scriptures. I remember Duane Larson, who was president at Wartburg Theological Seminary while I was there, stating, “We have a pathetic God”, we have a God who can feel, who does suffer and so yes, it can hurt to be God. An openness to the pain of rejection and loss are the risks of love.
Now I also approach this from the perspective of having gone through a divorce, and so I hear very clearly in the midst of this the language of a heartbroken God trying to make sense of a relationship that is broken. “What did I do wrong? I gave you everything you asked for…I did this, I did that, look around, what makes you think this an acceptable way to treat your partner…” There is a romanticizing of the past, “I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed me in the wilderness…” Really, is this the same people who remember this journey in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy…at least the way that memory is recorded they are hardly paragons of faithfulness and trust. It is like the person who exhibits all types of relational issues during dating and early in a marriage and then when the relationship is broken the other partner looks back and overlooks all those red flags and initially remembers that time better than what it was. God in effect says, “I provided for you, I protected you, I gave you the place you always wanted, what more could I give?” To quote Jeremiah “What wrong did your ancestors find in me that they went far from me?” (vs. 5). The priests, interpreters of the law and the prophets, those who are charged with honoring and pointing to this relationship have turned away as well. The honeymoon is over and the relationship is broken, distorted and in serious jeopardy. God is still reaching out, but Judah and Jerusalem are not.
God tells them go to the east (Kedar) and the west (Cyprus) and you won’t find others doing this, even when their partners aren’t able to give the things that God has given. They don’t change their gods, but Israel has. They have also looked to the powers of the day: Assyria and Egypt-they look at the power in the North and the power in the South and through playing politics they try to ensure their survival. In one sense it is a very rational move, to negotiate with the superpowers of the day who Judah finds itself geographically caught between. But they have put their trust in the way things are rather than the God who has made new things occur in the past.
Adam C. Welch makes the following suggestion:
There was no cause (for other nations) to forsake such gods, because It involved so little to follow them. …The iron core was that Israel could only have Yahweh of His own terms…Yahwism was no colorless faith which was simply the expression of the people’s pride in itself and its destiny. It laid a curb on men, it had a yoke and bonds. The bonds were those of love, but love’s bonds are the most enduring and the most exacting.
Israel’s central command from Deuteronomy 6:5 “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might”perhaps is the most difficult commandment to keep. (Breuggemann 1998, 36)

God’s vision of shalom (harmony and peace) and justice were much different from the world around the people of Judah, and so even though I can easily see myself in the shoes of the people who Jeremiah is addressing, I can also understand the brokenhearted God who longs for this people to return, to come home, to live in the covenant and blessing he desires for them. The road of reconciliation ahead, if it is to happen will be a difficult one, and it will require hard words to get past the devastated feelings. It will take the relationship, as it is, dying if there is to be a chance for rebirth. We will not get there quickly, there is hard work that is required by both partners, but God’s woundedness has left the door open.

The Calling: Jeremiah 1

6 Replies

Jeremiah by James Tissot

Jeremiah 1

   The words of Jeremiah son of Hilkiah, of the priests who were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, ² to whom the word of the LORD came in the days of King Josiah son of Amon of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign. ³ It came also in the days of King Jehoiakim son of Josiah of Judah, and until the end of the eleventh year of King Zedekiah son of Josiah of Judah, until the captivity of Jerusalem in the fifth month.
⁴ Now the word of the LORD came to me saying,
⁵ “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
and before you were born I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”
⁶    Then I said, “Ah, Lord GOD! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.” ⁷ But the LORD said to me,
“Do not say, ‘I am only a boy’;
for you shall go to all to whom I send you,
and you shall speak whatever I command you.
⁸ Do not be afraid of them,
for I am with you to deliver you, says the LORD.”
⁹ Then the LORD put out his hand and touched my mouth; and the LORD said to me, “Now I have put my words in your mouth.
¹⁰ See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms,
to pluck up and to pull down,
to destroy and to overthrow,
to build and to plant.”
     ¹¹ The word of the LORD came to me, saying, “Jeremiah, what do you see?” And I said, “I see a branch of an almond tree.” ¹² Then the LORD said to me, “You have seen well, for I am watching over my word to perform it.” ¹³ The word of the LORD came to me a second time, saying, “What do you see?” And I said, “I see a boiling pot, tilted away from the north.”
    ¹⁴ Then the LORD said to me: Out of the north disaster shall break out on all the inhabitants of the land.¹⁵ For now I am calling all the tribes of the kingdoms of the north, says the LORD; and they shall come and all of them shall set their thrones at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem, against all its surrounding walls and against all the cities of Judah. ¹⁶ And I will utter my judgments against them, for all their wickedness in forsaking me; they have made offerings to other gods, and worshiped the works of their own hands. ¹⁷ But you, gird up your loins; stand up and tell them everything that I command you. Do not break down before them, or I will break you before them. ¹⁸ And I for my part have made you today a fortified city, an iron pillar, and a bronze wall, against the whole land– against the kings of Judah, its princes, its priests, and the people of the land. ¹⁹ They will fight against you; but they shall not prevail against you, for I am with you, says the LORD, to deliver you.

Why would anyone want to be a prophet? I know, I’ve heard the young rebels I know who want to ‘speak truth to power’ but the reality is that the prophet is not an easy role. To use Richard Lischer’s words, “The prophet’s voice is usually about an octave too high for the rest of society.” (Lischer 2005, 23) And while there may be moments of anger for the prophet they are caught between God and a people and often they feel abused by both sides. They are the messengers of God at a time when it is all to common to shoot the messenger, they are the bearers of the news that nobody wants to hear. They love their people dearly even when they are abused by them, and while there may be moments of anger, that is not their dominant emotion. Following Lischer again: “…the emotion most characteristic of the prophet is not anger but sorrow. He tells the truth but rarely in bitterness of spirit and never with contempt for the Other. His truth-telling is pervaded by a sense of tragedy.” (Lischer 2005, 161) As we journey with Jeremiah we will experience that tragedy, the sorrow, the frustration and the honest emotions he feels as he is caught between God and the people of God.

Let us begin with his calling: Jeremiah starts out as a priest, one of the literate elite in the time leading up to crisis. He will serve for a prophet as a long time, and will suffer much and it is not a life he chose, but rather a life that was chosen for him:

⁴ Now the word of the LORD came to me saying,
⁵ “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
and before you were born I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”

God is the actor, Jeremiah is acted upon. God makes the choice, God has made Jeremiah who he is for this role, to be a mouthpiece. Jeremiah doesn’t ask for this, doesn’t want this and like every other prophet I can think of tries to talk God out of this: I don’t know how to speak, for I am only a boy. Like Moses who didn’t know how to speak, and he is not the type of youth who thinks he knows it all but rather is all too aware of his unworthiness and weaknesses-and yet he is chosen and he begins the road that is laid out before him.

Back in the 1980s one of my favorite bands was a heavy metal group, Queensrÿche, and one of their songs The Road to Madness is perhaps helpful at this point:

Most of this is memory now
I’ve gone too far to turn back now
I’m not quite what I thought I was but
Then again I’m maybe more
The blood-words promised, I’ve spoken
Releasing the names from the circle
Maybe I can leave here now and, o
Transcend the boundaries

For now I’m standing here
I’m awaiting this grand transition
The future is but past forgotten
On the road to madness

Times measure rusts as it crawls
I see its face in the looking glass – stop
This screaming laughter hides, the pain of its reality
Black, the door was locked I opened
And now I’ve paid that price ten-fold over
Knowledge – was it worth such torment, oh
To see the far side of shadow

And still I’m standing here
I’m awaiting this grand transition
I’m a fool in search of wisdom
And I’m on the road to madness
Yes, I’m on the road to madness

I’m awaiting endlessly
Pounding rhythms echo me
Won’t you take me somewhere far beyond the void

And still I’m standing here
I’m awaiting this grand transition
Maybe one day, oh I’ll meet you, and we’ll
Walk the roads to madness
Yes, we’re on the road to madness

Oh, I think they’ve come to take me
I hear the voice, but there’s no-one to see
I can’t scream, too late it’s time

As with this song, the actual meaning of the words may not be as important as what they convey-the sense of having and seeing things in a way that everyone else sees them opens the one seeing to a whole new world of pain, it is almost like Plato’s famous story in the Republic of the Cave where the person who has seen the world in a new way and returns home only to be apprehended and killed by those who are still in darkness. Being God’s mouthpiece is going to come at a high personal price for Jeremiah.

God has chosen, the prophet will pluck up and pull down, destroy and overthrow, build and plant. The prophet will bear the news that nobody wants to hear and he doesn’t have the choice to throw up his hands and give up. In the words of the song, the door that is locked is opened (and not by the prophet but from the other side, from God) and the prophet will pay the price ten fold over. Who the prophet is, why he was chosen is based on who God formed him to be—God has chosen his instrument for a difficult task and will continue to be with Jeremiah, but Jeremiah never has the ability to give up for it is either withstand priests and princes or be crushed by God?
But who is this God who puts prophets in such a difficult circumstance? Why make the chosen ones suffer so? And yet it is the way of the elect. A person is set aside not for their own benefit but for the benefit of others. The way we naturally want to think of election is that it is what makes a person separate and perhaps able to look down their righteous noses at others, election makes me or us special…but in scripture election, setting apart is always for the sake of the other. Israel is set apart to be a blessing to the nations (the world), the prophets are set apart to be a witness to either the covenant people or those outside the covenant. They are a part of what God is doing and the world, and it is not always easy. The suffer and grieve for those who will not or can not hear, they bear the weight of seeing all that is wrong even when they may not be able to fix it. They may indeed be close to the road to madness, and yet they are there not for their own sake, not for some secret knowledge…they are there because ultimately God loves God’s people (and by extension the world) so much that God will not let go and so God allows those who are drawn closest to suffer on their behalf so that they might see, know and return.

The world of Jeremiah, like our world is not as it should be. Most people accommodate and make their way as best they can with little reference to God or any other source of meaning outside what benefits themselves. The prophets, like Jeremiah, are drawn into the relationship with God and into God’s desire to re-establish the relationship and the idea of shalom (God’s peace or harmony in the world). They are drawn to the dream and they see the nightmare that most of the rest of us have grown accustomed to. It is like us watching a dystopic movie, like The Hunger Games for example, where reality is so dark and yet when we are honest we can see parts of our own society mirrored in that experience. In a very real sense, when everyone else sees things as running along OK the prophet will see through a dystopic lense of all the things that are really wrong and it is only in the midst of crisis that the prophetic hope of what a utopia might look like emerges and gives light and hope for the hard work of building that society of shalom and reconciliation. We are journeying towards the light, but we have a long way to go before the dawn and the road ahead will get darker on the prophet’s road.

A Brief Forward to the Prophet Jeremiah

Sign of the Rose

Searchings: Sacred and Secular

Tag Archives: Old Testament

Jeremiah 22: Justice, the King and Judgment

Justice and the Covenant

The King Of No Account

Jeremiah 8:4- 9:1: The Headstrong People and the Heartsick Prophet and God

Searching for the Righteous One: Jeremiah 5: 1-6

Jeremiah 5: 1-6

The Poetry of Death and Destruction: Jeremiah 4: 11-18

The Siren Call: Jeremiah 4: 5-10

Jeremiah 4: 5-10

God the Wounded Lover: Jeremiah 4: 1-4

Jeremiah 4: 1-4

Rhetorical Overkill: Jeremiah 2: 20-37

The Wounded God: Jeremiah 2: 1-19

The Calling: Jeremiah 1

Jeremiah 1

A Brief Forward to the Prophet Jeremiah