Today, I am reading and commenting on Jeremiah 16-18.

Jeremiah continues to prophecy that God’s anger will not be turned aside from Jerusalem to the point that God tells him to neither join in feasting celebrations, or in mourning the dead.  He reminds us that no matter how secretive we may have been, God sees our sins.  We cannot conceal our actions from Him.  Then he begins a slight turn in theme.  Jeremiah says that God will restore Israel to their land after banishing them to many nations.  In addition, people from all nations will turn to God after recognizing that the gods they had made were not truly gods.  Then Jeremiah tells the people of Jerusalem that if they were careful to obey God and keep His Sabbath, Jerusalem would remain inhabited forever.  So, despite having prophesied that Jerusalem and Judah would be destroyed with no chance of reprieve, here he says that if they were to truly reform and turn back to God that fate might be avoided.  Then in chapter 18, Jeremiah reconciles those two prophecies.  He tells the people if each one of them were to reform their ways and actions, God would relent the destruction He has declared, but that both Jeremiah and God know that they will not.  Jeremiah tells them that they have decided that there is no value in truly turning to God.  Here is how I see it.  Jeremiah started to prophecy while Josiah was king, when Josiah was reforming the religious practices of Jerusalem and Judah to serve God.  Josiah reined for thirty one years.  In that time, Jerusalem was not restored to the prominence it had when David was king.  Before Josiah, Jerusalem had been ruled for fifty seven years by kings who embraced evil, and the people had joined those kings in their evil.  They failed to see that to see the benefits of serving God we must commit to the long haul.  When thirty one years (actually less because it took years after he was crowned before Josiah was able to begin his reform) was insufficient to bring about the power for which they hoped, the people decided it was pointless.  It is never pointless to serve God, but we have to recognize that it may take years to undo the years of damage done by our sin.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.