Today, I am reading and commenting on  Jeremiah 33-35.

I want to start with something of which I only want to make a short mention.  Jeremiah prophesied that as long as night follows day, God will not reject the descendants of Jacob.  He may from time to time inflict disaster upon them when they fail to follow His commands, but He will always restore them again in due time.

Now to the part of this passage which speaks to me more today.  King Zedekiah sought to respond to Jeremiah’s prophesies (and likely other prophets giving similar prophesies) and restore a level of justice to Jerusalem and Judah by getting the “elites” to free their Hebrew slaves.  I suspect that there was a lot of popular support for this movement.  So, in the face of popular outcry, the “movers and shakers” of Jerusalem very publicly entered into a covenant to free their slaves, and even did so in the face of the public view.  However, as soon as the glare of public attention turned to something else, they found ways to quietly re-enslave those they had freed.  I believe that some of those who freed, and then re-enslaved, their slaves believed they were doing a good thing when they released their slaves, and justified re-enslaving them as doing what was best for “everyone”.  However, many of them did so to receive the accolades of being righteous, with no intention of changing their ways.  There are two lessons for us here.  First, such acts of “righteousness” have no lasting value.  If you are going to vow to change your ways, don’t find excuses to return to your old ways.  Second, God is not fooled when we act one way in public, but completely differently when we think no one is looking (and we should not be fooled by others who do likewise).

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Jeremiah 33-35.

At the beginning of today’s passage Jeremiah speaks of God’s promise to restore Israel after its destruction because of the sins of the Israelites.  The thing I took note of today is that at the end of that portion of today’s passage, Jeremiah refers to people who despise the Israelites because God had brought about the destruction of the Northern Kingdom and was now destroying the Southern one.  I am unclear from the context who Jeremiah refers o when he talks about people who despise God’s people.  Whoever it was, Jeremiah was warning them that the descendants of Jacob were still His Chosen people.  There are people today who despise Jews, God was speaking to them through Jeremiah.  As Paul wrote, God has grafted those who accept salvation through Jesus Christ into His family, He has made them descendants of Jacob, but that does not mean that He will not keep His promises to those who are genetically descended from Jacob.  God still has plans for the good of the people of Israel.

Jeremiah’s interaction with the Rekabites provides a counter to the previous.  The Rekabites were not descendants of Jacob.  Yet God made a promise to them as well.  Through Jeremiah, God praised the Rekabites for remaining faithful to the instructions their ancestor had given them, instructions which went beyond anything God has laid down in the law He gave Moses.  The Rekabites worshiped God along with the Israelites, and had done so as part of the Kenites since before the Israelites settled in the Land of Canaan.  Jehonadab, who gave the Rekabites the commands they followed, had assisted Jehu in wiping out the House of Ahab and destroying Baal worship in Israel, the Northern Kingdom.  So, while the Israelites were God’s Chosen people, the Rekabites were used by God as well.  Here, they are held up as an example of those who were more faithful than the Israelites.  The Israelites were proud because they were God’s Chosen People, but Jeremiah holds the Rekabites up as a model whom the Israelites would do well to imitate.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Jeremiah 33-35.

Under the threat of Babylonian conquest, King Zedekiah convinced the people of Jerusalem made a covenant with God and with each other to free all of their Hebrew slaves.  I will note that the impetus behind this command was the fact that they had not been keeping the requirement from the Law of Moses to free Hebrew slaves after seven years.  However, the elites of Jerusalem only entered into this covenant as a public relations move and as soon as they thought no one was looking they re-enslaved those they had freed.  This was the worst of the three things this covenant could have been.  The best option would have been for those who held slaves to recognize that they had done wrong and repent of their wrong doing by releasing their slaves and seeking other ways in which they could serve God.  Second best would have been for those who held slaves to recognize that freeing the slaves good press and do so, going on with their lives without those slaves.  In the first case, God would likely have forestalled the judgement He was in the process of pouring out on the people of Jerusalem.  In the second case, I think that God might have done the same.  However, the elites of Jerusalem chose a third option: release the slaves as a public relations move to appear righteous, but re-enslave them as soon as the general public was no longer paying attention.  If you watch, you see that this is often the choice made by the elites of society.  When public opinion turns against a particular practice, they make a very public show of distancing themselves from that practice.  However, as soon as the attention of the crowd moves on to some other issue they resume the practice which they had loudly condemned just a short time earlier.

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

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on Jeremiah 33-35.

During much of the time when Jeremiah prophesied, the land of Judah (and the rest of Israel) was a war ravaged land; It was desolate and barren.  Even the Recabites, a clan of the Israelites which had maintained a nomadic lifestyle, had moved into the city of Jerusalem.  Yet, Jeremiah prophesies that God will restore Jerusalem and the entire land of Israel.  The day will come when the people of Israel in the land of Israel will bring glory to God’s name.  When I look at the world of today, with the new agreement which Israel has reached with the United Arab Emirates, I wonder if perhaps God is about to fulfill this prophecy.  Certainly, there are still ways in which the people of the modern nation of Israel anger God, but that does not mean that God’s Spirit is not working to bring this prophecy to fulfillment. (Of course, there is a part of me which suspects that this prophecy figuratively applies to the Christian Church).

I intended to write about Jeremiah’s interaction with the Recabites and their faithfulness, but the more I thought, trying to put together my thoughts in order to write, the more I thought the account of the elites of Jerusalem freeing, then re-enslaving, their slaves seemed to speak to today.  The elites of  Jerusalem acknowledged that the way that they treated their Hebrew slaves was sinful and entered into a binding covenant to free them.  However, as soon as the public attention had turned to other things, they re-enslaved their recently freed slaves.  This reminds me of the ways in which many of the elites of today act.  They publicly acknowledge that the way in which they treat the poor and powerless is wrong and vow to make changes (although, they rarely admit that they themselves have done this wrong), yet as soon as the public attention is turned to other things, they change the rules in ways that allow them to resume their former practices.  God is not fooled, and eventually even the most gullible person catches on as well.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on Jeremiah 33-35.

Jeremiah predicted the fall of Jerusalem, but he also prophesied that God would never abandon the Jewish people.  What I find interesting is that Jeremiah’s prophecy here was in response to people saying that Israel was not worthy to be counted as a nation.  This struck me because there are many people saying the same thing today.  I thoroughly believe that those people will discover that God’s promise given through Jeremiah is every bit as true today as it was then.  The reason that people said it then was much different from the reasons people say it today.  When Jeremiah prophesied, God promised to restore the people of Israel to their land.  Today, they have been restored to that land, but some people refuse to recognize that this came about because of God’s action.  It may be that God will once again exile His people from the land He gave them because of their sin, but those who choose to be their enemies will pay a price for their hostility.  God has restored the people of Israel to their land several times throughout history, and each time, He exiled them once more when they failed to faithfully follow His commands.

After the above prophecy, Jeremiah condemns the elites of Jerusalem for their failure to stay the course when they repented and turned back to God, or, at least, claimed to do so.  They had freed their Hebrew slaves, their fellow Israelites whom they had enslaved for one reason or another.  By doing so as part of a religious revival they acknowledged that continuing to keep them as slaves was a sin.  However, they soon repented of freeing their slaves and re-enslaved them on one pretext or another.  Jeremiah unfavorably contrasts this with the Recabites, who followed the commands of their ancestor to not drink wine or live in houses.  They had followed these commands since the time of King Jehu of Israel, when their ancestor helped Jehu eliminate Baal worship in the Northern Kingdom.  The Recabites followed their ancestors commands for generations, but the elites of Jerusalem would not remain faithful to God’s commands for even a matter of months.  To which of these groups do you and I belong?