Reading: Jeremiah 40-44, Psalm 24

Hey, all of Jeremiah’s prophecies have come true! Now everyone will listen to him and to the words he gets from God and everything will be just great, right? After all, it’s really just bad leadership that causes all our problems. No? Well, as least the societal injustices have been rectified when Nebuzaradan took away the rich people and distributed their possessions to the poorest of the land. Certainly now that there is a kind of wealth equality everyone will be happy, right? Not so much? Okay, well at least there were a few people left in the promised land. There will still be a good number of the people of Israel who worship the God of Israel there. It’s not like they are going to all go back to Egypt.

The closing of the narrative in the book of Jeremiah is a tragic unfolding of the human problem. Everything Jeremiah said would happen has happened. The Babylonians are now in charge, but being somewhat savvy imperialists, they set a respected Israelite in charge of the land- Gedaliah. As long as there isn’t too much trouble, the Babylonians are willing to let these Jews rule themselves. Unfortunately, there is too much trouble. Though the land is wide open and there are whole cities with their land for the taking by the few remaining people of the land, they are unable to live in peace. Within months, a guy named Ishmael hatches a conspiracy that leads to Gedaliah’s murder and a plot to take everyone to join the Ammonites. Because, you know, the Ammonites have such a good history with Israel. Meanwhile, another group of the poor who were left in the land hear about this, and they go rescue the people who have been taken by Ishmael’s conspiracy.

So what is Jeremiah doing during all this hullabaloo? Well, following the capture of the city, the Babylonians are really rather nice to him. They invite him to come to Babylon with them, where he will be honored and taken care of, or to stay in his homeland if he so chooses. This is really pretty magnanimous. As a priest and known voice of the God of Israel, Jeremiah was a risk. Leaving him alive in the land of Israel was taking the risk that he would stir up the people to rebellion. But Jeremiah had been prophesying the same message for a long time now: do not fear the king of Babylon. Live in peace. He even sent a letter to the first wave of exiles telling them to work for the welfare of the city of Babylon. Jeremiah’s history gives him the opportunity to stay in the land, and he takes it. So Jeremiah is there to ask what to do next. We are told that all the people from the least to the greatest came and asked Jeremiah to pray to the God of Israel for direction. Jeremiah agrees, and they swear to be obedient to what God says to do. This should go well.

God’s direction is basically don’t do anything. Stay in the land. Live in peace under the authority of Babylon until the time God chooses to bring back the remnant of Israel. This is not a tall order. The one thing God says not to do is go to Egypt. That whole Exodus story, you know, was kind of about getting out of Egypt. You can do pretty much whatever here in the land, just make sure you do not go down to Egypt.

So of course everyone wants to go to Egypt. You are telling a lie, they accuse Jeremiah. They blame…. Baruch? Yeah, apparently they think Jeremiah’s scribe is somehow setting Jeremiah’s prophesies against them. Maybe they had a falling out, we are not told. The point is, the people, who have literally just sworn to be obedient to the direction of the God of Israel, which they have asked for, directly repudiate that direction and accuse the prophet of being a liar. Then, they go one better. As for the word that you have spoken in the name of the Lord, we will not listen to you. But we will do everything we have vowed, make offerings to the queen of heaven and pour out drink offerings to her, as we did, both we and our fathers. They will be continuing their idol worship, because they turned out so well in the past! Really, humans have a problem. Of all of the obnoxious interactions that Jeremiah had with the kings and leaders of Israel, I can’t help but think that this must have been the most depressing. Exile and destruction have come to Judah, and this is still where the people are at. Surely Jeremiah at least hoped he was done with prophesies of doom and destruction after watching Jerusalem burn. But no, his prophesies of judgment are not over with.