Saturday, November 16, 2013

Jeremiah: Chapters 21 to 28

Click here for the previous bunch of Jeremiah.



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. 

Click here for the next seven chapters of Jeremiah.

Friday, November 15, 2013

Jeremiah: Chapters 14 to 20

Here is the previous chunk of Jeremiah.


CHAPTER 14

Jeremiah foresees a drought, as God is so unhappy with his people.  In fact, God tells Jeremiah, “Do not interceded for the well-being of this people.  If they fast, I will not listen to their supplications.  If they sacrifice burnt offerings or grain offerings, I will take no pleasure in them.  Rather, I will destroy them with sword, famine, and plague.” 

WOW!  God is so damn cold-blooded right there.  And, of all prophets you have to tell, “don’t intercede for the well-being of this people” to, Jeremiah is probably at the bottom of the list.  If ever a prophet rooted for something like this to happen, it’s him.  Hell, when I first read it, I thought it was Jeremiah telling God not to backslide in punishing them.  Jeremiah doesn’t say that – but he also doesn’t urge God away from it.  Contrast this with Moses.  When God was upset with them during Moses’ time, Moses would also speak up for the Hebrew, no matter how poorly they treated him.

Jeremiah does speak up – but it’s not on behalf of the people. It’s on behalf of … Jeremiah.  He complains to God about how all the other prophets are telling the people that they won’t be abandoned by God.  Well, God sets Jeremiah straight.  They aren’t real prophets.  I haven’t spoken to them, but to you.

So Jeremiah doesn’t urge God from his path of anger.  The comparison with Moses really isn’t a nice one for Jeremiah.  To be fair, the Hebrew never wanted to kill Moses, but then again it’s not like all Judah is conspiring to kill Jeremiah.  But if you read Jeremiah’s prophesies, they all got it coming – every last damned (literally, damned) one of them.

CHAPTER 15

This is similar to the previous chapter.  Again, we get a cold-blooded God.  He begins by saying, “Even if Moses and Samuel stood before me, my heart would not turn toward this people.  Send them away from me and let them go.”  Hey, fuck the Hebrew.  When Jeremiah asks where the Hebrew should go, God replies, “Whoever is marked for death, to death; whoever is marked for the sword, to the sword; whoever is marked for famine, to famine; whoever is marked for captivity, to captivity.” 

God is just so gangster right there.  That might be his most cold-blooded line in the entire Bible.

Jeremiah never tries talking God out of it.  He just asks some questions to get more detail and takes notes. 

Again, Jeremiah does get around to bemoaning a fate – but again, the fate is just his own.  “Woe to me, my mother, that you gave me birth!” is how he begins.  He later begs the Lord: “Remember me, and take care of me, avenge me on my persecutors.”  That’s 12 words – and four of them are either me or my. 

Prophecy hasn’t been good for Jeremiah’s soul.  He’s supposed to be a prophet for the Hebrew, but all it’s led to is him wishing that they’d all die.  He really isn’t trying to steer them away from their fate at this point.  He’s given up on that.  He’s just railing against them for deserving it.  They hate him for saying that, and he hates them for hating him.  In his first batches of prophecies, there were occasional moments (well, maybe it was just moment singular) where Jeremiah held out hope for getting back in God’s good graces.  But they responded by wanting him dead, so now he’s just a prophet of doom. 

Jeremiah is full of pity for himself – “I did not sit celebrating in the circle of merrymakers” – and anger for everyone who goes against him.

CHAPTER 16

If anything, Jeremiah keeps digging deeper into bleakness.  I said earlier that he’s the Cassandra of the Bible.  But Cassandra just foresaw disaster, Jeremiah foresees disaster and uses that as a reason to get personally insulting about it.  He tells people that they’ll die, and it’s not a sorrowful prediction, but a vengeful one.  “Unlamented and unburied they will like dung on the ground.  Sword and famine will make an end of them, and their corpses will become food for the birds of the sky and the beasts of the earth.”  He gets so angry because he thinks everyone has it coming.  That’s not Cassandra.

Also, did you really need to go to dung, Jeremiah.  That’s the second time he’s done that. 

The rest of just more railing against the people by the Lord.  At one point God says he’ll give people a double share of punishment for all their sins.  That’s right: double punishment.

CHAPTER 17

God tells Jeremiah, “For a fire has broken out from my anger, burning forever.”  That shows a problem I have with this book – it’s all so overblown.  Forever, Lord?  Really?  You’ll never let go of this?  C’mon!  Similarly, Jeremiah’s jeremiads often indicate that every deserves it. C’mon, man!

The highlight of this chapter is a section titled, “True Wisdom.”  The Bible has spoken plenty on wisdom so far, but none of it is even remotely close to the first line here: “Thus says the Lord: `Cursed is the man who trusts in human beings.’” 

Whaaaa?  First, that’s incredibly misanthropic. Second – this incredible misanthropy is the opening line of a section called True Wisdom?  Some of these lines tell us more about Jeremiah than God.

There are nicer moments.  For example, later on Jeremiah begins a prayer to the Lord with these words: “Heal me, Lord, that I may be healed.  Save me, that I may be saved.” That’s a downright beautiful sentiment.  But you know what?  That’s the opening of a section called, “Prayer for Vengeance.”  Man, even when Jeremiah sounds endearing there is a dark, misanthropic edge to it.  That line is just the opening of a prayer where Jeremiah calls on God to hurt his enemies. Given the sentiment – and how poetical he starts – I wonder if Jeremiah wrote any/many of my least favorite psalms.  He does sound like them here.

CHAPTER 18

Time for another analogy.  God wants Jeremiah to look at a potter in action.  Notice that when a vessel turns out badly, the potter throws it away and tries again? Well guess what? God thinks that’s a good idea and is planning on doing it to the Hebrew.

Later, there’s a section called, “Another Prayer for Vengeance.”  Heh.  Man, even the Bible editor titling these sections sounds bored with Jeremiah’s negativity. 

Wait – that isn’t fully fair.  This isn’t Jeremiah praying for his enemies to be killed.  This is about his enemies wanting to kill him.  Again.  Yeesh. 

Actually, this chapter makes me realize something.  I noted earlier how Chapter 53 of Isaiah seems for foreshadow Christian theology.  It talks of a servant of God who will be abused and blasted by the people, but will take their sins upon himself and suffer for them.  It’s a strong foreshadowing of Christ – but it can also almost all apply to Jeremiah. He’s blasted and suffering because he’s a servant of God, after all.

OK, but it doesn’t work out when you think it through.  Chapter 53 is from Second Isaiah, a prophet who lives during the Babylonian Captivity.  Jeremiah is pre-Babylon, so Second Isaiah can’t be foretelling Jeremiah – he’s after Jeremiah.

Also, Jeremiah isn’t really taking the suffering of the people upon himself.  He’s focusing solely on his own suffering.  In fact, he tells God, “But you, Lord, know all their planning for my death.  Do not forgive their crime and their sin do not blot out from your sight!  Let them stumble before you, in the time of your anger act against them.” 

Jeremiah isn’t taking their suffering upon himself.  He wants God to whack them because of Jeremiah’s own personal suffering.  So he doesn’t really work as the Chapter 53 foretelling, despite some parallels.

Again, Jeremiah treats God like a mafia don.  God – please kill all of my enemies.  I sure would appreciate it.  God is the original Godfather. 

CHAPTER 19

God has Jeremiah go back to the potter. This time it’s not really an analogy though.  Just grab a pot and take it to a place called Topheth.  Bring a bunch of people there with you and the pot.  Then Jeremiah shatters the pot and tells everyone that’s what God will do to them. 

And Jeremiah really outdoes himself with the dark visions.  Do you think dung references are bad?  Check out this, “I will have them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters, they shall eat one another’s flesh during the harsh siege under which their enemies and those who seek their lives will confine them.”   Cannibalism!  And of close relatives no less! 

This harkens back to some of the darkest, nastiest speeches in the Torah. In particular, I recall Chapter 28 of Deuteronomy where Moses tells people that a woman will eat the afterbirth after giving birth.  Remember: Richard Elliot Friedman argued that Jeremiah wrote Deuteronomy. 

CHAPTER 20

This is Jeremiah at his most likable and sympathetic.  That is to say, this is Jeremiah when he’s being persecuted.  A priest named Pahhur hears Jeremiah’s latest jeremiad against the Hebrew and isn’t going to stand for it.  He has Jeremiah put in the stocks as punishment.  Around here, we’re getting a shift in focus.  We’re moving from just Jeremiah delivering his tirades to angry priest and prophets going after Jeremiah.  This isn’t the last of it; not by any stretch.

And once Jeremiah gets persecuted, it gets personal for Jeremiah.  He tells Pashhur that for his actions, the Lord now renames you, “Terror on every side.”  That doesn’t sound too good.  Jeremiah says that the bad priest will be terrorized on all sides and handed over to his enemies.  This is just Jeremiah issuing prophecies to settle scores against his enemies.  I can see why he’s upset, but it’s a bit petty for a prophet.

But then things shift to Jeremiah’s internal monologue. And this is where he becomes sympathetic.  Jeremiah feels his real problem is less the priests and the people who don’t like being called lusty camels, but God himself.  Jeremiah wails to God, “You seduced me, Lord, and I let myself be seduced.  You were too strong for me, and you prevailed.”  This is not the normal way prophets talk to God.

Jeremiah goes on, “All day long I am an object of laughter.  Everyone mocks me. When I speak, I must cry out, violence and outrage I proclaim.  The word of the Lord has brought me reproach and derision all day long.”   It’s hard not to feel for him right here.  Even if you’re a non-believer like me and think the voices coming to him aren’t really from God but his own internal mind, the point is he thinks they come from God.  And these voices are telling him to issue a bunch of statements that will get him beaten up, neglected, and mocked.  No, that’s not fun at all.  And yet he does. 

He says, “I say I will not mention him, I will no longer speak in his name, but then it is as if fire is burning in my heart, imprisoned in my bones.  I grow wearing holding back, I cannot!”  He wishes he knew how to quit the Lord, but that’s irrelevant – he can’t.  He hates how he’s treated and what his life has become – but it’s his life.  It’s his calling – it’s literally his calling. 

There is a price: “Yes, I hear the whisperings of many: `Terror on every side!’ Denounce, let us denounce him!  All those who were my friends are on the watch for any misstep of mine.  `Perhaps he can be tricked, then we will prevail and take our revenge on him.’”  This is an amazing bleak and sad section.  Remember: for all the problems he is having with the priests and prophets – he’s the soon of a priest.  He really does know a lot of the people who are terrorizing him right now.  Like I said, if you can’t sympathize with Jeremiah around here, then you can’t sympathize with anyone.  This is like Job – only it’s a real person, not some parable.

But Jeremiah has an ace he can play when he feels this low: “But the Lord is with me, like a mighty champions.  .My persecutors will stumble, they will not prevail.”  Yes, they wait for him to fail and he does likewise.  And he thinks he can win, because the Lord is on his side. 

But while he’s suffering, Jeremiah would like some quicker action, please: “Lord of hosts, you test the just, you see mind and heart.  Let me see the vengeance you take on them, for to you I have entrusted my cause.”  Please Lord, hurt them.

This culminates in one epic bout of self-pity – but I’ll allow as he’s earned some given his circumstances, “Cursed be the day on which I was born!  May the day my mother gave me birth never be blessed!  Cursed be the one who brought the news to my father, `A Child, a son, has been born to you!’ filling him with great joy.”  Jeremiah literally hates his life.  But he’s duty bound to stay the course.

He could use a hug right about now. Lord, for all this talk about you stretching out your hand, please stretch it out to give him a pat on the head or something.  

Thursday, November 14, 2013

Jeremiah: Chapters 7 to 13

Click here for the first part of Jeremiah.


CHAPTER 7

After six chapters of almost entirely poetic verse, we get this one, which is almost all prose. 

It’s more denouncing.  Jeremiah apparently stands at the temple gate and tells everyone to get bent.  More or less, yeah, that’s what he does.  He tells them that if they think they can ignore God and then get away with it with some thoughtless sacrifice, they’ll learn the hard way just how wrong you are.  God will cast them out of his sight. 

CHAPTER 8

More of the same.  People continue to misbehave, and God will punish them like only God can.  “Death will be preferred to life by all the survivors of this wicked people who remain in any of the places to which I banish them.”  Bummer. 

Also – that isn’t really true.  The banished Jews won’t find themselves yearning for death, but yearning for forgiveness.  But Jeremiah is always a real Debbie Downer.

He gets off a few good lines here.  God is befuddled with how the Hebrew keep violating his ways, saying, “Even the stork in the sky knows its seasons.”  Heh.  Even birds know when to fly south and north – why don’t these guys know when to turn to the Lord?  (To be fair, they’re always supposed to turn to the Lord.  Anytime they don’t is denounced.  Stocks don’t have to fly the same way all of the time).  Jeremiah does say that no one is really good in Jerusalem and how all the sacrifices are hypocritical – but that just sounds a little hysterical when you get down to it.

At the end of the chapter, Jeremiah states how bad he feels for the doom that’s coming.  He says, “My joy is gone, grief is upon me, my heart is sick.”  I don’t doubt his genuine grief in his mind – but it’s just that: in his mind more than his heart.  He seems to be willing to think of people as good on in an abstract sense.  He really gets his passions burning when he denounces them as wrong.  He doesn’t like people that much; maybe the concept of people – but not the actual flesh and blood ones before him.  They sin too much.  He doesn’t like the notion of the people suffering their fate, but he really doesn’t like seeing people earning it.

Also, I get a bit of a kick out of hearing Jeremiah say, “My joy is gone.”  My, that’s too bad – he’s normally such a ray of sunshine, too.

CHAPTER 9

The Cassandra of the Bible gives more generalized slander towards the Hebrew.  They suck.  They all suck. Every.  Last.  Fucking. One.  Jeremiah makes this clear, saying, “Be on your guard, everyone against his neighbor, put no trust in any brother. Every brother imitates Jacob, the supplanter, every neighbor is guilty of slander.  Each one deceives the other, no one speaks the truth.” 

Wow!  No exceptions!  Me thinks the prophet doth curse too much.  Also, he even works in a dig at Jacob, for stealing Esau’s birthright.  We haven’t heard that one before; at least not since Esau himself. 

So God will destroy the Hebrew.  Because “they have abandoned my law.”  By this time, we’re passed the reign of Josiah, and the following kings have abandoned his religious reforms.  That, of course, was centered on the book of Deuteronomy, which Jeremiah may have written and which his dad may have presented to Josiah.  So no wonder Jeremiah is so cheesed at the course of the people.  That explains why he proclaims that the Lord now says, “I will turn Jerusalem into a heap of ruins, a haunt of jackals.  The cities of Judah I will make a waste where no one dwells.” 

In part it’s because of theological differences.  He thinks the people really abandoned the Lord.  But there is a personal grudge in this as well.  That’s his reform movement they’ve tossed on the ash heap. 

Jeremiah goes so far as to proclaim, “Corpses shall fall like dung in the open field.”  Gross, Jeremiah – really gross.  Did you have to compare people to corpses?  What would Dale Carnegie say?

CHAPTER 10

This attacks idolatry.  Yeah, it’s still bad. 

Also, Jeremiah finds a new favorite insult: stupid.  (For those in sabermetric circles, let me restate my belief that Jeremiah is the MGL of the Bible).  Jeremiah says, “Everyone is too stupid to know” and then later adds, “How stupid are the shepherds.” 

In many ways, that’s the worst insult you can give someone in the Bible.  Hey, we expect there to be sinners and backsliders and screw ups?  But stupid?  Ever since Jacob back in Genesis, God has favored the smart and savvy – even if they are morally questionable, like Jacob.  We have entire books of the Bible that do little more than laud having wisdom.  Calling people morons – that’s the cheapest shot in the Bible.

CHAPTER 11

This is mostly stuff we’ve already heard: be faithful to the Lord or else, it takes more than just sacrifices to appease the Lord, etc. 

But the end part is a little different.  An event is alluded to here, without quite being spelled out.  Apparently, there was a plot to kill Jeremiah.  That isn’t terribly surprising, given that he claims the Hebrew are a bunch of lying, deceitful, stupid, lustful, whorish camels who deserve God’s wrath for what they’ve done.  I’m not trying to defend any conspirators – I’m just noting that yeah, I can see why this is the prophet people want to kill.

He is able to escape them, though.  Yeah, otherwise the next 41 chapters would all be funeral arrangements.

CHAPTER 12

This one has an unexpected start.  Oh sure, Jeremiah is laying into someone again – but this time it’s God.  Huh.  That’s a new direction.  He sounds positively Job-ain as he declares to the Lord, “I must lay out the case against you.  Why does the way of the wicked prosper, why do all the treacherous live in contentment?  You planted them, they have taken root.  They flourish and bear fruit as well.”  Yeah, that’s Job.

The Bible doesn’t give us a clean answer, either.  Again – it’s like Job.  But this is unexpected.  Well, let’s think for a second.  This was the first chapter I read one day – and then I looked back at the last chapter from the day before. Right – this comes right after a plot to kill Jeremiah.  Previously, Jeremiah had called people lusty camels and they just took it.  Now they want to knife Jeremiah.

So Jeremiah fells like Job – adrift and abandoned.  He’s convinced of his righteousness because he knows he’s a prophet for the Lord.  But the bad guys are the popular ones, and they want to kill him.  What’s up with that, Lord? 

However, Jeremiah isn’t Job. When Job has a problem with someone, he argues with them.  Jeremiah wants God to kill them: “Pick them out like sheep for the butcher, set them apart fro the day of slaughter.”  To be fair, Job just had lousy friends.  Jeremiah has people who want him dead. (Then again, death itself might be preferable to hanging out with Job’s “friends.”) 

God replies, but doesn’t really respond specifically to what Jeremiah said.  He pledges he’ll abandon the Hebrew to their fate, and turn their lands into a devastated wilderness.  So I guess the bad guys will get there.

One other notable part I should note in passing.  Jeremiah complains to God of the people in Judah: “You are upon their lips, but far from their thoughts.”  This is part of a key theme of the prophets.  It isn’t enough to do the rituals.  You must be doing them for the right reasons.  Moral righteousness matters, folks. 

CHAPTER 13

This is mostly another chapter denouncing the Hebrew as a bunch of worthless rotters. In fact, in the one really original part, God wants Jeremiah to demonstrate that they are literally worthless rotters.

God tells Jeremiah to get a loincloth and wear it without putting it in water.  (I guess you’re not supposed to do that, given what happens to this loincloth).  Then Jeremiah is to hide it away in the wilderness for a time and go back and find it.  OK, Jeremiah does all this.  When he comes back to it, the loincloth, “was rotted, good for nothing!”  God tells him that’s the point – now tell all the Hebrew that this is what they are. 

It’s like God is trying to get Jeremiah beaten up or something.

Click here for the next bunch of chapters

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Jeremiah: Chapters 1 to 6

Here is the end of Isaiah.  Now for the next prophet - Jeremiah.



CHAPTER 1

Here it is – the Cassandra of ancient Judah: Jeremiah. 

There is quite a bit more biographical info about him than there was about Isaiah, and it starts off like a biography.  The first biographical parts might seem dry, but they are actually really important.  We’re told that he is the son of a priest named Hilkiah and became a prophet during the reign of Josiah.

OK, let’s unpack all of this.  Josiah’s reign?  That’s a big, important time.  He’s the Bible’s favorite king of the divided kingdom era.  He is promoted heavily in the historical books as the ideal king.  He was the big religious reformer.  During his reign, priests uncovered a seemingly lost book of wisdom from Moses (a book scholars universally regard to be Deuteronomy, as it says all the stuff that Josiah actually does in his period of reform). 

That “lost” book of Deuteronomy was presented to Josiah by a priest in verse 4 of Chapter 22 in Kings II.  That priest’s name?  Hilkiah.  That’s right – the same name as Jeremiah’s dad, who is also listed as a priest – and Jeremiah himself becomes a prophet of the Lord during the reign of Josiah.

Coincidence?  Well – part of it could be, actually.  There could always be a second priest named Hilkiah.  Stranger things have happened.  But it sure sounds interesting, doesn’t it?  Jeremiah will be the prophet of the Deuteronomy reforms.  The Biblical scholar Richard Elliot Friedman has even argued that Jeremiah might be the actual author of Deuteronomy (and all the historical books that come after it – Joshua, Judges, the Samuels, and the Kings). 

All that, from those opening verses of dry biographical info.

On, and we’re told something else pretty interesting shortly after.  We’re told that God decided to make Jeremiah a prophet “before I formed you in the womb.”  Huh.  Isaiah mentioned something like this, but it was a throwaway comment in the midst of that never ending book.  This is the fifth verse of the first chapter – front and center for all to see.  St. Paul will later make a similar claim about himself, but the third person claim here just sounds more impressive.  And again, I don’t think St. Paul’s claim is so front and center.  So Jeremiah is a prophet’s prophet.

What will be the purpose of Jeremiah’s prophecy?  Will it be to guide the Jews to the Promised Land like Moses?  Will it be to shepherd them when they need help?  Will it be to provide solace for those in needs?  Eh, not so much.  For Jeremiah, the point will be, “to uproot and to tear down, to destroy and to demolish, to build and to plant.”  OK, that last bit sounds positive, but the main theme is of a Destroyer Prophet.  Don’t see too many of those, now do you? 

That is fitting though, because no prophet will have a rockier road of dealing with the masses than Jeremiah.  He is not only a doom saying, but he just really needs to read “How to Win Friends and Influence People.”  He is just so damn abrasive.  So it makes sense that he’s described in such contentious language right from the word go.

Jeremiah initially wants nothing to do with this, by the way.  Like Moses and Gideon before him, when he finds out he’s been called, Jeremiah tries to wiggle out of it.  God tells Jeremiah to overcome his fears and never worry – God will be with him.   God acknowledges that people will oppose him (naturally – Jeremiah will pronounce doom repeatedly) but God will always be with him.

This does a nice job setting up what kind of prophet Jeremiah will be.

CHAPTER 2

OK, so the first chapter does a nice job setting him up, but the second chapter provides the first real taste of Jeremiah. 

He starts off by calling the Hebrew a bunch of whores.  That’s his opening statement.  Well, officially, he begins by comparing the relationship between God and the Hebrew as a relationship between a husband and wife, but he then makes clear that the Jews prostituted themselves to any God who came their way.  So, yeah, they’re a bunch of whores.  This isn’t just me extrapolating.  Jeremiah specifically says, “you sprawled and served as a prostitute.”  Whores.  He then calls them a lust-filled camel.  Well, points for originality, I guess. 

It’s an effective diatribe, but I fear that Jeremiah is getting lost in the process and not thinking of the result.  Ask yourselves this – what’s the purpose of his prophecy?  What is his ultimate goal?  I assume it’s to get people to return to God.  He wants them to quit backsliding and go back to old school Deuteronomy-like worship. (Let’s never mind that Deuteronomy isn’t old school, and his just been written – possibly by this guy). 

Look, if you want people to return to the Lord, is this really the best way of going about it?  If you want to win someone over to your religion, should you really start off by saying, “Hey you!  The sprawled out whore with the morals of a lusty camel!  Worship God the way I do!”  Doesn’t that sound massively counterproductive to anyone else? 

You lead with the insult, and you make people defensive.  They are upset with you, and just shut down any/all arguments you make.  Like I said, he needs to read “How to Win Friends and Influence People” but good. 

It also makes you wonder about Jeremiah.  Part of being good at dealing with people is being able to relate to them.  Can you empathize with them?  Jeremiah pretty much can’t.  He relates to scripture and the word of the Lord (never mind that he may have written it). What he thinks is right is all there is to it.  Yeah, that isn’t that good.  He talks of people, but can’t relate to individual persons.

CHAPTER 3

Jeremiah again begins with the husband-wife analogy.  If a man divorces his wife and she leaves him, and then becomes the wife of another – can she return to the first?   That’s his analogy against the Hebrew.  They had God and they walked out on them, so screw them.  But modern day law, of course, would let them get back together.  We’re more forgiving that Jeremiah is.

Boy, he isn’t forgiving anyone.  He calls them whores again: “Raise your eyes to the heights and look, where have men not lain with you?”  Man, Judah – you humped men all over the landscape!  Glancing through it again, he uses the words “prostitute” or “prostitution” five times, traitor at least twice, and adultery once.  I’m probably missing some references, too.  All this in 10 verses.  Man, he his nasty.

Jeremiah does shift gears midway through and says how they can get back to the Lord.  So all his mean spirited insults earlier were for naught, eh?  But you must admit your guilt and go back to the pure ways. In other words, you have to admit your guilt, beg forgiveness, and act like that book of Deuteronomy says. 

CHAPTER 4

This is more prophecies of doom.  The big one is a more specific one.  Instead of just generalized bemoaning of the Hebrew, Jeremiah drops a bomb on them – they’ll be invaded from the North. And it won’t be pretty, either: “Up comes the lion from its lair, the destroyer of nations has set out, has left its place, to turn your land  into a desolation, your cities into an uninhabited waste.”  He means Assyria, I think.  Or Babylon.  Babylon actually will take over, but I forget if there’s another failed Assyrian attack to come before Babylon takes over.

But he makes the northern power sound like the machine from Terminator.  Babylon is a cyborg from the future come to fulfill God’s punishment upon his lusty camel of a chosen people.

And they are coming as God’s punishment.  The people have just sinned and turned away from God. 

CHAPTER 5

We get more denouncing of the Hebrew.  It starts off with Jeremiah saying, “Roam the streets of Jerusalem, look about and observe.  Search through her squares, to find even one who act justly and seeks honesty and I will pardon her!”  So there isn’t a single good person in Jerusalem.  I could be wrong, but I think Jeremiah’s folk are from Shiloh.  (checks Chapter 1).  It just says from the land of Benjamin there.  I wonder if there is some sort of territorial grudges going on around here – like Chicago versus downstate.  Benjamin is the small tribe and Jerusalem the big capital. 

You also get the most Jermemiah-esque Jeremiad that Jeremiah ever Jeremiaded: “Pay attention to this, you foolish and senseless people.”  That perfectly captures his spirit.  To be fair, he follows it up with a great couplet – here’s the full thing: “Pay attention to this, you foolish and senseless people, who have eyes and do not see, who have ears and do not hear.”  That’s well done, but he is suck a dick in the first half, who will still be hearing him out in the second half?

You know what I just realized?  Jeremiah is the MGL of the Bible.  MGL is a well-respected sabemetrician who does a lot of great research and is often right – just as Jeremiah is one of the great prophets who speaks with the word of the Lord.  But in both cases, people rarely pay attention to the meat of his message because they so dislike his tone of voice.  Threads on MGL’s comments are often a series of attacks on him for being a jerk, and Jeremiah sure won’t have many friends in this Bible.

CHAPTER 6

More doom.  We’re still in his visions of invaders from the North.  In this entire section of prophecy, I kept writing “Bummer” in the margins.  Jeremiah notes, “Be warned, Jerusalem, or I will be estranged from you, and I will turn you into a wilderness, a land where no one dwells.”  Bummer.

Later: “Yes, husband and wife will be taken, elder with ancient.  Their houses will fall to others, their fields and their wives as well.”  Bummer.  Also: “Elder with ancient.”  That seems botched up, like he was going to contrast two different things but screwed up and said the same thing twice.  Hey, who knows – maybe this is something that got messed up in translation 2,500 years ago and we’ve been stuck with it ever since.

Here’s a line I liked: “Therefore they will fall among the fallen.”  It’s not too ambitious, but I just like how it sounds.

Jeremiah moves in a different direction later on.  Oh, he’s still damn negative on the Hebrew, but he finds a particular focus for his wrath: hypocrisy.  He notes how people violate all God’s commandments and then figure they can just give a sacrifice and it’s all cool.  But Jeremiah, echoing previous Bible chapters (Isaiah?  Some of the wisdom books?  I forget, to be honest), says: “Your burnt offerings find no favor with me, your sacrifices do not please me.” 

This is an advancement on Hebrew theology.  Go back and read Leviticus.  It was all about actions.  It didn’t stress belief or morality so much right there.  Commit a misdeed – do the sacrifice.  That had the advantage of making the priest’s job important.  They were in charge of sacrifices after all. 

But for people like Jeremiah, that isn’t enough.  He’s had enough of people who don’t really feel the Lord inside them.  Heck, this simple version of religion is one reason so many are also able to dabble with other gods, like Baal.  After all, you just have to do the ritual to make it good with God, so why get too caught up in it.  Prophets like Jeremiah who emphasize a deeper level of religion will help make this religion stick.  It’s a big reason why the Jews do a much better job observing their Lord’s duties in the post-kingdom years, because they’re being held to a higher standard.