Personal Gloom
With the attack of Passhur, the book of Jeremiah takes on a far
more personal tone. Up until now,
Jeremiah had uttered prophecies from God against the nation in general. However, now Jeremiah will go about uttering
specific prophecies. Now God goes on a
very specific offense as judgment is sealed and draws perpetually closer.
People of Jerusalem – First Oracle
The first people to be personally attacked in prophesy are the
people of Jerusalem. This is not a big
change in the tenor of the book. After
all, most of Jeremiah is written when only Jerusalem remains against the
onslaught of the Babylonians. Therefore,
as Jeremiah begins to narrow God’s sight of His wrath we don’t see too much
narrowing happen.
However, you will notice that God is quite specific in revealing
the destruction to come. God tells the
people of Jerusalem that not only is God not going to fight for them as they
hope but in actuality God is going to fight against them! God is going to take their weapons of warfare
and make them ineffective against the Babylonians.
Then it gets worse. When
the people of Jerusalem discover that their weapons are useless against the
Babylonians, they will also discover a plague and pestilence among them. Not only will they struggle to defend
themselves from an external threat, but they will also be unable to fight an
enemy within the town! Just in case this
wasn’t bad enough, God reminds the people that there will also be a famine as
talked about elsewhere in Jeremiah.
Whoever is “lucky” enough to survive the siege warfare, the
pestilence, and the famine will then get to face the ire of
Nebuchadnezzar. God tells them that
Nebuchadnezzar will not be merciful.
The Choice
Then something very interesting happens. God gives them a choice. God tells the Hebrew people in Jerusalem that
they can choose life or death. It’s that
simple. If they surrender to
Nebuchadnezzar they will become his captives but they will live. If they stay in the city they will die.
The Hebrew people would not humble themselves to God. They absolutely refused. So God made them decide to humble themselves
to Nebuchadnezzar or stubbornly invite death.
This really is an absolute story about humbleness.
This is also a great analogy to life. We can stubbornly cling to living our life
our way in our self-defined attempt to embrace freedom. We can stay within “Jerusalem” and eventually
die. Or, we can let go of personal
freedom and embrace God’s ways. We can
let go of our so-called ability to choose for ourselves and we can start being
obedient to God. We can humble ourselves
and be His servant or we can refuse and stubbornly cling to our own ways and
eventually die in them with no hope of salvation. This is the choice set before all of
Jerusalem. This is the choice set before
all of humanity. {Interestingly enough, might I also remind us that Jesus Himself died
OUTSIDE of Jerusalem. Even Jesus hints
back to this moment and tells us that surrender to God is far better than
ruling our own life within “Jerusalem.”}
Rebuke of the King
The next group to be attacked is the kings of the Hebrew
people. These are literally the house of
David. This pronouncement against the
kings of Judah begins in this chapter and will continue into Jeremiah 23.
What we have in the end of Jeremiah 21 is the set-up. God has told the kings that it was their job
to execute justice. It was their job to
deliver people from those who would take unfair advantage of them. It was the king’s responsibility to make sure
that the kingdom was fair, righteous, and honest.
But the kings did not do this.
The kings promoted a system where those in power exerted their power
over the subjects. Instead of being a
help to the people, the kings were an oppressor over the people. Instead of being a banner for righteousness,
the kings were a sign-post for worldly passionate behavior. They were supposed to make sure things
happened properly and instead they simply encouraged people to depart from
God’s ways.
They were also arrogant.
They believed they were safe inside the walled city of Jerusalem. They believed that they were
untouchable. So God gives them a
warning. God is going to kindle a fire
so great that they will be consumed.
Even their great city of Jerusalem is not going to be able to protect
them.
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