You Can Read the Bible Guided Podcast

If you’ve never before read through the prophets, take stock of what you’ve been feeling the past few weeks.  There is something stirring about how prophecy and narrative are woven together in this unique book. 

Whether the camera is focused on the prophet or is expanded over the whole story, Jeremiah’s story is intense on multiple levels.  A nation falls, a victim of its own infidelity to its true King.   The kings, the officials, the people and even the other prophets refuse to heed Jeremiah’s warnings.  That he is constantly proven true reveals nothing but their glaring stubbornness.  Again, take stock of what you’re feeling. 

Baruch’s lament, which we read yesterday in chapter 45, serves as both the closing scene in Jeremiah’s story and as a bridge to the oracles at the end of this book.  Just before it we saw the remnant of Judah disobeying God and fleeing to Egypt.  Now after it are a series of oracles promising Egypt’s demise. 

The first of these is set in that same fateful year of Jehoiakim’s reign, at the moment when power in the region shifted from Egypt to Babylon.  Given the prophetic activity at the time this must have been a dramatic political and social upheaval for Judah.  Egypt had been Israel’s fallback plan since the Exodus, the safest territory in the region.  In the first oracle Egypt is wounded; in the second, it is laid waste, “The LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel…bringing punishment upon Amon of Thebes, and Pharaoh and Egypt and her gods and her kings, upon Pharaoh and those who trust in him.”

The people of the coast – generically called Philistines – are the next nation on which the LORD promises judgment.  Like Egypt, Gaza, Tyre and Sidon were often attacked but rarely conquered.  The prophet echoes the words of Nebuzaradan: this is not an act of Babylonian strength, but of the LORD’s will. 

Likewise in chapter 48 Moab shall be destroyed and be no longer a people, because he magnified himself against the LORD.  Pay attention to specific images, like swords, and water, that are revisited throughout these oracles. 

Pay attention also to the historical upheaval that is occurring.  Moab was already a settled kingdom in the time of Moses.  Tyre and Sidon had traded with King David.  And Egypt had not been conquered from the north in recorded history.  Something significant is happening on the Biblical and world stage, and the prophet insists that all of it is being orchestrated by the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel. 

Our verse for this week is Psalm 51:10: Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.

Jeremiah 46 through 48.  Now let’s read it!

"The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron; with a point of diamond it is engraved on the tablet of their heart, and on the horns of their altars, while their children remember their altars and their Asherim, beside every green tree and on the high hills, on the mountains in the open country. Your wealth and all your treasures I will give for spoil as the price of your high places for sin throughout all your territory.  You shall loosen your hand from your heritage that I gave to you, and I will make you serve your enemies in a land that you do not know, for in my anger a fire is kindled that shall burn forever."    Jeremiah 17:1-4

In chapter 43 you’ll see whether the Judean remnant decides to flee to Egypt, and how both Jeremiah and the LORD respond to their decision.  I’m not going to tell you what happens, but you’ll probably be surprised at how unsurprising their decision is.  As you read this, remember the Judeans’ promise that they “will obey the voice of the LORD our God…” Also remember the LORD’s warning in Deuteronomy that His people “shall never return that way again.”   

The above prophecy from an earlier day is intense and perhaps a little disturbing.  Judah’s sin is etched on their hearts, their turn to idolatry is total, and the LORD’s anger is a fire that shall burn forever.  You’re allowed to ponder this statement and what it says about the LORD.  Keep it in mind also when you read chapter 44, in which the LORD condemns Judah’s persistent idolatry, His people resentfully reject Him, and the LORD promises a final judgment on those who escaped His wrath the first time. 

The intensity of these prophetic conversations is broken by a brief final scene in chapter 45.  Coming out of this whirlwind we see Baruch, twenty years younger, after his encounter with Jehoiakim, “weary with groaning and find[ing] no rest.” 

The LORD makes Baruch a promise: “I will give you your life as a prize of war…”  We’ve heard this exact phrase three times before: twice to any Judeans who would abandon Jerusalem, and once to the Ethiopian servant who spoke up for Jeremiah.  As the narrative sequence of this books ends, and with it the stories of these characters, consider the final image: prizes go to the victors. 

Our verse for this week is Psalm 51:10: Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.

Jeremiah 43 through 45.  Now let’s read it!

Consider the questions that were raised in the first two acts of this book.  Is Jeremiah telling the truth, or are the prophets who promise peace?  Would the LORD really allow Zion to burn, and drive His people from a land that He himself had given them?  Is it truly safer to flee Jerusalem than to remain inside the walls?  Would Jeremiah’s strength remain…and would the LORD truly make him a fortified city, “against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, its officials, its priests, and the people of the land?”  Yesterday, many of these questions were answered. 

Today’s opening scene shows Nebuzaradan, the Babylonian Captain of the Guard, revealing to Jeremiah his understanding of why Jerusalem was destroyed:  "The LORD your God pronounced this disaster against this place.  The LORD has brought it about, and has done as he said. Because you sinned against the LORD and did not obey his voice, this thing has come upon you.”  

Let’s dwell on this a second.  In this statement, it sounds like Nebuzaradan is giving the LORD – Jehovah, the God of Israel – the glory for Babylon’s victory.  Not Merodach, not the Baals, not Asherah.  He says, “The LORD has brought it about…”   Furthermore, he recognizes that it was Judah’s rebellion against the LORD, not against Babylon, that brought judgment on them: “Because you sinned against the LORD and did not obey His voice…”

This is stunning in religious, historical, and literary terms.  The persistent thread running through this book has been: “But they would not listen…”  Through peace and war, plenty and famine, Jeremiah has been proclaiming the coming judgment.  Thousands of God’s people and four of Judah’s kings stubbornly refused to heed the warnings.  Yet in these chapters we’ve seen the king’s Ethiopian servant, the Babylonian captain, and even the king Nebuchadnezzar himself (by granting Jeremiah protection) recognize that the truth was in Jeremiah and in his words. 

And this is only the beginning of the surprises today, as a new order takes shape for the provinces of Western Babylon.  Raiding parties of mixed background roam the land.  A new governor is appointed but is soon murdered.  Fear that Babylon will avenge him grips the remaining Judeans and the refugees who only recently returned home. 

So they come, ironically, to Jeremiah, asking “that the LORD your God may show us the way we should go…” and promising that “Whether it is good or bad, we will obey the voice of the LORD our God…”

Our verse for this week is Psalm 51:10: Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.

Jeremiah 40 through 42.  Now let’s read it!

“He who stays in this city shall die by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence, but he who goes out and surrenders to the Chaldeans who are besieging you shall live and shall have his life as a prize of war.”     Jeremiah 21:9

Today the long march is over.  For over four hundred years a king of David’s line had sat on the throne at Jerusalem.  At the end of these three chapters, there will be a Babylonian-appointed governor in Mizpah.  

There is so much detail to this narrative, you really need to pay attention, and my comments will be brief.  Read this slowly.  Follow Jeremiah, who moves from foreground to background but is never entirely out of frame. 

I’m going to point your attention to dialogue.  Zedekiah’s clandestine conversation with Jeremiah and his commission to keep it secret.  The prophet’s persistent message and the equally persistent accusations of the Jerusalem officials.  The Ethiopian’s advocacy, and Nebuchadnezzar’s orders, for Jeremiah’s safety. 

Attend also to the LORD’s words:  His warning “Do not deceive yourselves…” when Egypt attempts to intervene; His promises to King Zedekiah; His instructions to flee Jerusalem and desert to the Chaldeans; and His promise to give the king’s servant his life “as a prize of war.”

Remember that yesterday’s reading ended with a memory from eighteen years earlier, when Jeremiah tried to warn Judah and her king that Babylon would destroy them, imploring them to beg the LORD for mercy…“But they would not hear.”

Our verse for this week is Hebrews 8:10: For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 

Jeremiah 37 through 39.  Now let’s read it!