So Babylon faces judgment for sins against Judah. On the surface, this doesn’t seem entirely right, does it? God uses Babylon to punish Judah, and then he turns around and punishes Babylon for how they treated Judah. Except, God doesn’t make Babylon do anything. I think a far better way to say it would be: …
There was one line that caught my attention in the middle of these prophecies of judgment. “If those who did not deserve to drink the cup must drink it, will you go unpunished?” God never said that only bad people will suffer, that suffering is earned, deserved, somehow, that pain is judgment. Sometimes it is, …
I find it interesting that prophecies about Israel’s judgment always seem to be accompanied by prophecies of judgment on the very nations being used to punish Israel. (Now, I have not checked whether it is literally every prophecy of judgment. I mean that as I read this passage, that is the over-all impression I am …
So this is how I read this story: So, this is how it plays out in my life: To complete the comparison, the people of Judah basically said, “well, as soon as we stopped poking our little sister, we got put in time out! Maybe if we start poking her again, we’ll get out of …
It’s got to be difficult to be the puppet king the conquerors put on the throne. I mean, that seems like it would be fairly stressful, fairly precarious. Lean too far toward the people, and the conquering power will remove you. Lean too far toward the conquerors, and the people will reject. I don’t know …
The Rechabites are a wonderful inclusion in the narrative. We have a faithful family. A family full of people who choice to follow the covenant they were taught. You always wonder, or I do, when reading these accounts of judgment. With the exception of Sodom and Gomorrah, when we’re told there aren’t even ten righteous …
“I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts.” “And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord.” He’s talking about the coming of …
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, to give you a future and a hope. This is a very popular verse, and for good reason. It is an encouragement sent to a people in exile. Once your exile has been completed, …
I think it’s maybe safe to assume, or at least reasonable to expect, that not everyone in the nation of Judah was horrible. I mean, Jeremiah was a faithful man. He can’t have been the only one, right? But the king was corrupt. And the culture was corrupt. And the nation had, as a community, …
So, I could write about Jeremiah’s complex feelings after the night in the stocks. I really could. There’s something about having context to this outcry against God that hits a bit deeper than similar Psalms that have been preserved without the context. And it’s different than Job, somehow, too. Maybe because Jeremiah isn’t defending himself …