Reading: Jeremiah 14-17, Psalm 17

Oops. Sometimes, we screw up. I screw up. Like, I misplace Jeremiah 13. Don’t know where it went. Then I found it: I had left it behind yesterday! Much apologies to any confused readers- like Jeremiah’s loincloth, we’ll go ahead and dig it up today. Well, not quite like Jeremiah’s loincloth. It won’t have rotted.

Jeremiah 13 contains one of the more bizarre sign-acts recorded in the book of Jeremiah. It is pretty much par for the course for Ezekiel, but we aren’t there yet. Before we discuss the sign-act of burying underwear, I wonder if you have noticed something: Jeremiah seems to be repeating itself. We get judgment proclaimed, then a lament by the prophets, then a complaint by the prophet, then an affirmation by God that massive destruction is coming, but that it isn’t the end of the story. Then we hear the same things again. Sometimes in the same sequence, sometimes in a slightly different one. Judgment, lament, complaint, judgment, assurance. Over and over and over. I’ve been making the case over the course of the Hebrew Scriptures that they were written by good writers who knew what they were doing. So what is the author of Jeremiah (possibly a dude named Baruch, who we’ll meet later) trying to tell us by cycling the message over and over?

In some ways this is an open question, because its not like they left the Spark notes for us. But I’m willing to hazard a guess: the book of Jeremiah is playing out the history of the people of Israel. The final judgment, exile, is about to be enacted on the nation. There have been generations of warning. From Elijah to Jeremiah, there have been who knows how many prophets bringing warnings and calls to repentance to Judah. First the Judges failed to make Israel what it was supposed to be. Then the Kings failed in the same task. Now even the prophets are prophesying falsely. The game is over, but God is using Jeremiah to ensure there is no excuse of “we didn’t know.” The message was not proclaimed once, twice, or even a hundred times. It was proclaimed ad naseum, repeated so much even the prophet got sick of it. God is fulfilling his self definition as slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love… but by no means excusing the guilty. The judgment comes, but only after a constantly repeated warning.

Okay, the weird stories about underwear, and other things. It comes immediately after the discussion of the broken covenant in chapters 11 and 12, and I think it has to do with that. The covenant at Sinai, which when new served its purpose, has become rotten in disuse and misuse. The following prophecies about jars filled with wine seems to confirm that the leaders of Judah believed they would receive such blessings because of their status as God’s people, but Jeremiah flips the blessing on it’s head. Instead of wine being a blessing, it is an instrument of destruction as it will make the leaders drunk, and they will destroy themselves. The covenant blessings, meant for good, will destroy if misused. The coming destruction and drought foretold in chapter 14 is the inverse of the covenant blessings. Instead of forgetting the people’s sins, God will remember them.

The rest of chapter 14 and 15 keys in on that theme of true and false prophets. The prophets have become untrustworthy. Now, even were Samuel and Moses praying for them, it would not deliver Israel. The worst kinds of judgment proclaimed by the prophets will now fall on the prophets: famine, sword, and finally exile. Chapter 16 contrasts with the children of the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah’s children were named as signs of God’s coming actions. Jeremiah is to have no children, because of God’s coming actions. There is another turn in the last half of 16, where God promises eventual restoration. This will be a restoration so dramatic that it will displace the Exodus as the defining story of God’s people. God says he will be sending fishers and hunters to gather his people (fishers of men, anyone? Jesus had read Jeremiah). All this is little comfort to Jeremiah, who launches into another lament/complaint in chapter 17. Like his admission in chapter 10, here he submits to God’s will in a paraphrase of Psalm 1.

Finally, God responds with a simple task for Jeremiah: go to the city gate and tell the people that if they only keep the sabbath, that he will relent of his judgment. There is no mention of all the covenant regulations. Just keep the sabbath, and God will bring the people back to Jerusalem and reestablish the kingdom. That all they have to do. Of course, God already told Jeremiah what would happen. These people will not listen to you.