CHAPTER 21
This kicks off a section called “Oracles of the Last Years
of Jerusalem.” King Zedekiah is in
Babylon, due to a lost battle with that power.
Judah hasn’t been completely taken over.
I guess they’re a vassal state.
But Jeremiah is still in Jerusalem and he predicts more doom
and gloom. God will abandon them and let
them lose. Hell, that’s nothing. God says, “I myself will fight against you
with outstretched hand and mighty arm, in anger, wrath, and great rage! I will strike down the inhabitants of this
city, human beings and beast, they shall die in great pestilence.”
Wow. This is
new. Previously God had been upset with
the Hebrew, but he’d never gone so far as to declare he’d fight against them in
battle personally. In the days of Moses,
he’d just side with the good Hebrew to kill the bad ones. Now it’s God versus
the Hebrew.
This couldn’t have helped Jeremiah’s popularity with the
masses.
CHAPTER 22
This is a series of general prophecies about particular
people and stuff. Most is pretty
forgettable. I will say this: the
opening is one of the few uplifting notes in Jeremiah, as he says eventually
God will come back to them.
But for now, “I swear by myself, oracle of the Lord, this
house shall be rubble.”
While I can see why Jeremiah was unpopular in his own time,
I do wonder one thing: do you think Judaism would survive without him? He’s vital in interpreting the Babylonian
Captivity. Before it even happens, he’s
saying it’ll happen because God wants it as punishment for his backsliding
people. With that narrative already set,
the Jews of the Captivity can look back on Jeremiah and say he was right, and
deep that narrative. Without Jeremiah,
it’s harder to create the narrative of “God is punishing us” from whole cloth.
It helps to have a foundation already laid.
And without that foundation, many likely will drift away
from the religion. He was our God, but
then he stopped helping us – time for Baal or whatever. Maybe that’s why the northern kingdom
disappeared after losing their independence.
They lacked a Jeremiah.
Just a theory.
CHAPTER 23
This chapter is all about Jeremiah’s problems with the
prophets and priests. He’s focusing on
his own personal matters more than any larger cause. Admittedly, those two do notably overlap.
(Prophets do matter, after all). But
he’s focusing on them because he’s had run-ins with them. These passages are both understandable, but
always tinged with a bit of personal pettiness.
Jeremiah compares them to Sodom and Gomorrah and says of the
prophets that the Lord, “will give them wormwood to eat, and poisoned water to
drink.” Would Jeremiah really be so
nasty in his prophecies if it weren’t for his own personal experiences here? I think not.
Also, Jeremiah keeps saying “Oracle of the Lord.” It goes beyond Isaiah’s “Lord of hosts”
references (which Jeremiah also uses).
Jeremiah will insert it in the middle of a sentence sometimes,
disrupting his flow. It’s like he has
OCD or Tourette’s Syndrome or something.
Sample; “Therefore I am against the prophets – oracle of the Lord –
those who steal my words from each other.
Yes, I am against the prophets – oracle of the Lord – those who compose
their own speeches and call them oracles.”
CHAPTER 24
This is a short chapter.
It’s another analogy. God has
Jeremiah get two baskets of figs. One is
full of great figs and the other inedible, rotten figs. We can already see where this one is going.
The good figs are the Jews in exile in Babylon. God will look after them. The bad figs are the ones left behind. Fuck them.
God says, “I will make them an object of horror to all the kingdoms of
the earth, a reproach and a byword, a taunt and a curse, in all the places I
will drive them.” Basically, God will do
to them what he’s already done to Jeremiah among them.
Also, those must be some pretty vile looking figs in
Jeremiah’s basket.
CHAPTER 25
I’m calling bullshit on this chapter. I don’t think Jeremiah wrote this one. I think this was inserted later on by a
different guy.
This one makes some incredibly specific predictions. Most notably, in this chapter “Jeremiah”
predicts that the Jews will stay in Babylon for 70 years. Incredibly – you’ll never believe this! –
that’s exactly what happens. If you’re a
believer, this is easy to explain – God told this to Jeremiah, and Jeremiah
told everyone.
But I’m calling bullshit.
Aside from not being a believer, we already have evidence that these
books can be tampered with. Isaiah is
clearly 2-3 different people – unless he lived the longest life of anyone since
before Abraham.
One interesting moment. Jeremiah – er, excuse me – “Jeremiah” has God say one remarkable thing: “I will send, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, my servant.” Wait – what: his servant? His servant? Did God just call the king of Babylon his servant?
His tool? Fine. His instrument of wrath? That works.
But his servant? That makes it
sound like he’s deliberately taking orders from God. In plain point of fact, he doesn’t believe in
God at all. It’s a bit out of line to
call him God’s servant.
CHAPTER 26
Jeremiah damn near gets killed this time. He’s doing what he always does – exactly what
God wants him to do, uttering a series of downbeat jeremiads about how everyone
is doomed. In particular, he’s preaching
the doom of Jerusalem in the court of the temple in Jerusalem.
Well, this is too much for the priests and prophets. They
seize him, shouting that Jeremiah must die.
They ain’t just saying words, either.
They are primed to have him killed.
Jeremiah, to his credit, stands his ground as best as he
can. He tells them, “I am in your hands;
do with me what is good and right in your eyes.
But you certainly know that by putting me to death, you bring innocent
blood on yourselves, on this city, and its inhabitants. For in truth it was the Lord who sent me to
you, to speak all these words for you to hear.”
That takes guts. Jeremiah isn’t
cowering. If he dies, he’ll die with his
head held high.
And that’s enough to give the priests a touch of pause. They take him to the princes instead. And there their case falls apart. They’re reminded of Micah (a minor prophet
with his own book later on in the Bible) said similar things during the reign
of good king Hezekiah. No one killed him
for it. Another prophet named Uriah did
likewise, though he fled to Egypt.
But precedent is on Jeremiah’s side, so he’s let go. It was a close one, but he survives.
CHAPTER 27
Not too surprisingly after what just happened, this chapter
is all about Jeremiah versus the prophets.
It’s nothing we haven’t read so far, though. Jeremiah is still right and they’re still
false prophets.
CHAPTER 28
Jeremiah goes at it with Hananiah the prophet. Or, as I should say, it’s Jeremiah versus
Hananiah the false prophet. Hananiah
tells the people that all will turn out fine, and Jeremiah lays into him. He essentially calls his rival a panderer;
telling people what they want to here and ignoring any/all uncomfortable
truths.
Jeremiah does some prophetic performance art with a yoke, to
symbolize what God wants to happen to the Hebrew. Hananiah breaks the yoke, which just causes
Jeremiah to declare: by breaking this wooden yoke, you’ve assured God will put
an iron yoke on you guys.
No comments:
Post a Comment