Jeremiah

With Isaiah and Amos, I made the generalization that the messages of the prophets are rightly called burdens, but that they are burdens worth bearing.  I would make the same generalization about Jeremiah and Ezekiel. 

Jeremiah is another of those books that’s a burden to us.  It presents some real difficulties in interpretation and understanding.   With most books, it’s helpful to start with the overall structure of the book and then try to organize the details within that overall structure.

But this is not easy at all with Jeremiah.  Like the book of Isaiah, Jeremiah was not written at one time.  Instead, it contains messages delivered over quite a few years, starting in the reign of Josiah and ending with the reign of Zedekiah.  The messages can be anywhere between 638 and 586 BC.  There are many different messages given on many different occasions.

A big problem for us is that the present arrangement is not chronological:

         Chapter 28 indicates it’s written in the first year of Zedekiah (597 BC).
       Chapter 32 indicates it’s written in the tenth year of Zedekiah (587 BC).
       Chapter 35 is from the time of Jehoiachim (609-597)
       Chapter 37 is back to the reign of Zedekiah
       Chapter 45 is in the 4th year of Jehoiachim (605)

Adding to the difficulties for us, the fact that the Septuagint (LXX) translation presents the material in a different order. 

    Ch. 49:34-39
Ch. 46
Ch. 50-51
Ch. 47:1-7
Ch. 49:7-22, 1-6, 28, 33, 23-27
Ch. 48
Ch. 25:15-39
Ch. 52

The Septuagint version differs from the Masoretic text in other ways as well, and it’s difficult to know exactly why. Were there two different versions of Jeremiah’s book, both of which remained in circulation after his death?  Did the Septuagint translators try to rearrange things for the sake of an audience who needed a more chronological approach?  Impossible to know.

A partial explanation of the strange order of Jeremiah is in Chapter 36.  Jeremiah is commanded to put all his messages into a book.  Baruch helps him with this, and, since Jeremiah is confined, Baruch then reads the messages in the temple. The people respond fairly favorably (some of them, perhaps, remembering the great revival of Josiah’s days), and the leaders even ask that the message be read to them.  And then word gets to the king—who has the book read out to him (sure enough) but then gets angry.  Into the fire goes the book.  Jeremiah gets Baruch a new scroll, has Baruch transcribe the messages again, and then adds “many like words.” 

While this explains the difficulties of Jeremiah, it still leaves us with something of a dilemma in terms of approach.  Do we look at Jeremiah as a random anthology?  Or can we can we find a pattern in the current order.

For more than 30 years, I have been giving guest messages at various places.  I tend to put my notes in a drawer at home.  They’re not very well organized, but what’s there is often more interesting (and more important) that what I teach in my classes. Someday, I’ll do something with the material, and what I’ll probably end up doing is arranging things thematically: chronological order wouldn’t work. 

Maybe this is what we are getting with Jeremiah.  The Septuagint order makes sense in terms of chronology, but the Masoretic text might have a pattern we don’t see at first.  Maybe we are supposed to see Jeremiah’s call, messages of judgment, refusal to heed the messages, the hope that will follow judgment, the Chaldeans as instruments of God’s judgment on the nations, God’s judgment of the Chaldeans, God’s judgment on Jerusalem and Judea, and, finally, a hint of hope.

Thinking along these lines make things easier, but the historical context is some help too.

At the death of Amon (son of Manasseh), his son Josiah (640-609) came to the throne and there was a time of revival.  Josiah has the temple repaired, and, as that's happening, the priests discover a copy of the law that had been neglected.

Bad news: they see what's in store because of the years of apostasy.  The prophetess Huldah advises repentance...but warns that, while punishment is delayed, it isn't to be avoided. 

Still, Josiah does his best.  There is a great Passover feast. Idolatry is gone, "And like unto him was there no king before him, that turned to the Lord with all his heart, and with all his might, according to all the Law of Moses."

And yet despite all this, the prophetic message was still gloomy: destruction is ahead.  The wickedness of Manasseh means the price will be paid.

Now this is perhaps troubling theologically, but from a political/historical point of view it's obvious truth.  The bad decisions of earlier generations often come back to haunt their descendants.

Anyway, the end is a dreary one, described in some detail by the author of II Kings (just maybe, Jeremiah himself!). 

Josiah seems to have thought that Egypt was weak enough for him to block their expansion north.  Perhaps he was right, but wars are unpredictable, and he died in battle against the Egyptians.

His sons and his grandson can't seem to play the political game successfully either.

The game is complicated here.  The last four kings of Judah include three sons of Josiah and one grandson.  All of them have more than one name, and some of them similar names (e.g., Jehoiakim and Jehoiachin) so it’s hard not to get confused--as I have done plenty of times.  Here's the brief summary.

Nebuchadnezzar and the Chaldeans (aka Babylonians and neo-Babylonians) took Nineveh in 612 BC.  With Assyria on its last legs and Egyptian power waning, Nebuchadnezzar is free to push in to Syria and Judea.

Josiah's son Jehoahaz reigns briefly, but Pharaoh Necho removes him and installs Eliakim (another son of Josiah) as an Egyptian puppet, changing his name to Jehoiakim.

Nebuchadnezzar then invades, and Joiakim switches his alliance to Nebuchadnezzar.  After a time, he rebels, and Nebuchadnezzar attacks. 

Jehoiakim dies, and his son Jehoiachin (Coniah) takes his place.  Nebuchadnezzar besieges Babylon, takes Jehoiachin and thousands of others captive into Babylon. 

Nebuchadnezzar puts Jehoiachin's uncle Mattaniah (another son of Josiah) on the throne and changes his name to Zedekiah.  Zedekiah rebels, Nebuchadnezzar returns, kills his sons in front of him, and pokes out his eyes.  This time, it's disaster: Jerusalem is destroyed along with the temple, and there is another round of deportations.

This time, Nebuchadnezzar leaves in charge Gedaliah, a governor, who treat s the Jews well.  But a conspiracy hoping to get a native ruler back assassinates him, and, when it's clear the Chaldeans are going to take revenge, the conspirators flee to Egypt—taking Jeremiah with them!

Among the burdens of Jeremiah:

1.  His personal sacrifice (16:2).  He will have no wife or children.

2.  He begins young.

3.  Unlike Isaiah and Amos who promised victory over enemies to a repentant Israel/Judah, Jeremiah has to preach capitulation.  No use resisting Nebuchadnezzar!

4.  He faces opposition from those who *should* be on his side and claim to be speaking for God.

5.  He has to stand in the gate of the temples with a “house of thieves” type message (7:1-11)

6. He would rather not have to get into these conflicts, “Woe is me that I was born a man of strife and contention” (15:10)

7.  He has to deal with heart problems: more difficult than externals.  “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.  Who can know it?” (17:9).

8.  He has to deal with worst kind of treachery. He compares infidelity to God to infidelity to a husband.

9.  He has to deal with people who have given up hope of change.  “There is no hope—we will walk after our own devices” (18:12).

10. Jeremiah put in the stocks by Pashur, governor of the Temple (Jeremiah 20)

11. Jeremiah 20:7-18 (Jeremiah’s lament at being a prophet--Why was I ever born?)

12. Jeremiah 28 (Hannaniah taking Jeremiah’s yoke)

13.  Jeremiah 32 (Jeremiah in prison)

14.  Jeremiah 38 (Jerusalem besieged, Jeremiah asked to prophesy and then told to shut up!)

15. Jeremiah 41 (Ishmael’s conspiracy against Gedaliah)

16.  Jeremiah 44 (Captives explain their struggle by saying it’s because they haven’t burned incense to the queen of heaven!)

[What makes up for this?  A couple of things, perhaps.  Note the hope in Jeremiah 31:31, the New Covenant.  Note also the line in Ecclesiastes 7:3 that sorrow is better than laughter.  There's a sense of that here, and in Lamentations 3:16-30.]