Reading: Jeremiah 30-32, Psalm 21
Yesterday, we passed the apex of the book of Jeremiah, and we are finally starting to get some good news. The true prophet met the false prophet in a battle of prophetic street theater and the true prophet won. We know that because the story tells us that the false prophet was cursed by God and died seven months later. Of course, the people standing there watching this ox yoke drama unfold had no idea who was the true prophet based on that, because it hadn’t happened yet. They would have had to do a little more legwork to figure it out. Since we learn this week that Jeremiah ended up imprisoned for his continued announcement of God’s intention to smite Jerusalem, we can assume they were not yet desperate enough to do the necessary research.
There were people who would, though. Far away, in Babylon and Assyria and all the other places the people of Israel had been exiled, there were quite a few desperate people. Refugees from their home, in a culture that largely despised them, at least some of God’s people were ready to listen to God’s voice. Jeremiah sends them letters, telling them that there is hope, even if it is a long way off, and they should not stop teaching their children to be the people of God. The day will come when the despised exiles, the desperate ones, will return to their home.
The false prophet Hananiah was false because he predicted a quick end to the rule of Babylon, breaking Jeremiah’s ox yoke as a sign act. Today Jeremiah is told to write down some prophecies that reveal that Hananiah was only wrong about timing: God fully intends to break the rule of Babylon, and even uses the ox yoke metaphor. Hananiah’s problem wasn’t that he didn’t trust God to take action to save his people, it was that he thought he could determine the timing of God’s actions. Jeremiah, the depressed prophet, has no such illusions.
In his imprisonment, God gives Jeremiah a vision of the coming hope and restoration of Israel. Though he does not get quite as sweeping a vision of the future as recorded in the book of Isaiah, Jeremiah is shown the restoration of Jerusalem, the return of the exiles not only of Judah but of the northern kingdom of Israel, and winds up his vision with the promise of a new covenant. This dramatic promise, in chapter 31:31-34, is simultaneously one of the most surprising and most easily predicted promises of God in the Scriptures.
It is surprising because it occurs in Jeremiah, a book that until the confrontation with Hananiah was almost entirely about judgment, wrath, and unavoidable disaster. The hope offered before Jeremiah 28 is pretty much limited to I will not make a complete end of you. You’ll only be mostly dead. Very comforting. Now, though, God makes a promise of radical transformation and restoration. He already promised in yesterday’s reading that the restoration after the exile will be so dramatic it will replace the Exodus story as the guiding narrative of his people. Now he continues with that comparison, saying he will swear a new covenant, better than the one he made with the people of Israel at Sinai. This covenant will, in it’s completed form, transform the hearts of the people.
It is predictable because this promise appears in Deuteronomy 30. Or rather, there is a promise that this will be a promise. Moses tells the people in his last address that he is fully aware that they will be terribly disobedient, and bring on themselves all the curses in the covenant stipulations. Moses is a keen observer of the human problem. But then he says there will be a day when God circumcises the hearts of the people. Jeremiah’s prophecy is that promise. Moses has been proved wholly correct- the people have now received every curse that was promised to them in the Sinai covenant. Exile is the last one. It has already begun, and it’s fulfillment is fast approaching. The only thing left for God to do is to make all things new.
Having received this dramatic prophesy, which he is to write down for the future generations, Jeremiah is instructed to go buy a field. There are times when I think God just likes messing with the prophets. Jeremiah gets some strange direction, though they pale to the bizarre activities of Ezekiel that we will read about in a couple of weeks. All this buildup, now go buy a field from your cousin. Now, bear in mind that this is in the middle of a war. At that time the king of Babylon was besieging Jerusalem. Also, Jeremiah the prophet was shut up in the court of the guard that was in the palace of the king of Judah. We are besieged, you are in prison, go buy a field. Some people blame Jeremiah for being dull at the end of this chapter, when he begs God to explain what is going on. Those people are not paying attention to Jeremiah’s circumstances. The remarkable thing about Jeremiah is not that he asked God, in effect, “What the Heck?!” What is remarkable is that he obeyed. Jeremiah buys the field, and has his servant, scribe, and probably heir, Baruch, put the title deed in an big clay pot. The kind that things don’t go bad in. The kind that kept the Dead Sea Scrolls largely intact for two thousand years. It’s being kept safe for a while. A long while. God is doing two things- providing a sign act that there will be a day when regular life in Jerusalem goes on, and providing a future inheritance for Jeremiah’s family. That land will have title in Jeremiah’s name whenever the exile is over and the land restored. His obedience will have reward.