This week, we shall continue the study of the book of Jeremiah in the
Old Testament.
This chapter is likely a collection of sayings that concern and apply to the several kings of Judah after the death of Josiah.
22:1-9—The Message to the King: Whoever the king was, this message obviously applies to all the kings of Judah after Josiah:
(1) Why does God remind the king of Judah that he is sitting on David’s throne? (v. 2)
(2) Of all the duties of the king, why would God put such an emphasis on doing what is just and right? (v. 3)
(3) In giving such a command or reminder, why does the
Lord show concern particularly to the following?
a. The rescue of the oppressed and robbed
b. The wrong and violence done to the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow
c. The shedding of innocent blood
d. What is the implication to us today?
(4) What blessings and curses are pronounced for his obedience or disobedience to this command? (v. 5)
(5) The curses on the palace are expanded in vv. 6-9:
a. From the contrast given in vv. 6-7, what pride might the king have of his palace?
b. What impact should this warning have on him?
c. What effect does the Lord wish to achieve from the question and answer in vv. 8-9?
22:10-17—Message to Jehoahaz (see Note below)
(6) Why does the Lord ask the people not to mourn for the dead king (i.e. the godly Josiah), but weep bitterly for his successor? (vv. 10 -12)
(7) His sins as exemplified by his palace are highlighted in vv. 13-17.
a. How extravagant is his palace? (v. 14)
b. Is extravagance in itself a sin? Why or why not?
c. What are his sins in addition to extravagance itself as expressed in the following?
- His dealing with his laborers (v. 14)
- In his attitude of being a king on David’s throne
(8) The Lord compares his father Josiah with him (vv. 15-17).
a. In particular, how did Josiah define the meaning of “knowing the Lord? (v. 16)
b. How different is he from his father?
(9) What is the main message for you today and how may you apply it to your life?
Note:
“This Shallum, who became king in his father Josiah’s place, can be none other than Josiah’s successor, who is called Jehoahaz in 2 Kings 23:30ff” (K&D, 208). He succeeded Josiah on his death but was almost immediately deposed by Pharaoh Necho and deported to Egypt three months later (2 Ki. 23:31-35).
“Is that not what it means to know me?” (Jer. 22:16)
Sometimes, we make things too deep or complicated when it comes to our understanding of knowing God. A much simpler definition is given by the Lord to King Jehoahaz when He compares him to Josiah. This what the Lord says, “Does it make you a king to have more and more cedar? Did not your father have food and drink? He did what was right and just, so all went well with him. He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well. Is that not what it means to know me?” (22:15-16).
Not that doing these things makes Josiah come to know God, rather it is by doing these things as a king that he shows he really knows God, and these things include:
- Understanding what it means to be a king under the covenant of God: Josiah understands what it means to sit on the throne of David, and that is not for personal gain of power, pleasure and glory, but to shepherd God’s people. Therefore, he lives a life of contentment, being satisfied with having food and drink, and not go after living a life of luxury.
- Understanding the plight of the poor and marginalized: While “we always have the poor”, as the king has the authority to right the wrong and seek justice for the oppressed and the needy, Josiah understands that it is the primary duty of his role.
In other words all who claim to know the Lord have to live out the above understandings in that (1) we all have a covenantal relationship with the Lord—we are purchased by the blood of Christ and we no longer belong to us, nor do we live for ourselves, but for God, and that is expressed in a life of contentment, and (2) we do understand our specific role in His kingdom—we may not be in a position of a ruler, but we all have our specific roles and what God demands is that we be faithful in the discharge of our role which may be a mother, a teacher or a student. To live out the above understandings proves that we do know God!
22:18-23—Message to Jehoiakim
(1) What kind of judgment is pronounced for this king? (vv. 18-19)
(2) How pitiful will his death be?
(3) What particular sin is mentioned of him? (vv. 20-21, also see Note below)
(4) What will become of those people (v. 22) and things (v. 23) he relies on and take pride in?
(5) To what does the Lord liken the pain he would suffer? (v. 23)
22:24-30—Message to Jehoiachin: Pronouncing His judgment on this king through delivering him into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar
(6) Why does the Lord compare it to pulling off a signet ring on His right hand? (v. 24)
(7) Why does the Lord use the term “hurling” in predicting his exile? (v. 26)
(8) In fact, the judgment extends beyond his exile: What will his exile lead to? (vv. 26-27)
(9) The message ends in a poem in sarcasm, using the “land”—Jerusalem—to mock Jehoiachin (vv. 28-30)
a. What does the image of a broken pot serve to depict?
b. To him, is having children a blessing or a curse?
c. What might be the significance of using the “land” as a witness?
(10) What is the main message for you today and how may you apply it to your life?
Note:
The people of Judah are to lift up their wailing cry “upon the highest mountains that it may be heard far and near. The peaks of the mountain masses that bordered Palestine are mentioned, from which one would have a view of the land, namely, Lebanon northwards, the mountains of Bashan [Ps. 86:16] to the north-east, those of Abarim to the south-east, amongst which was Mount Nebo…” (K&D, 212).
“He will have the burial of a donkey—dragged away and thrown outside the gates of Jerusalem.” (Jer. 22:19)
There are those who cast doubt on either the authenticity of this prophecy about the tragic death of Jehoiakim (Jer. 22:18-19) or its accuracy simply because neither biblical nor secular history gives an account of his death. Allow me to quote the words of Keil and Delitzsch in response to such critics:
“There is no record of Jehoiakim’s funeral obsequies or burial in 2 Kings 24 and in Chronicles, there is not even made of his death…The absence of direct testimony to the fulfillment of the prophecy before us can be no ground for doubting that it was fulfilled, when we consider the great brevity of the notices of the last kings’ reign by the author of the books of Kings and Chronicles.”
(K&D, 212)
In fact, this is the beauty of Biblical prophecies. Thousands upon thousands of prophecies in the Bible have been fulfilled in the last 4,000 years, and that include the 333 prophecies in the Old Testament concerning Jesus Christ, as Dr. Kennedy, author of Evangelism Explosion points out. This serves to affirm the words of the Apostle Peter in that, “no prophecies was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.” (2 Pet. 1:21). As a result, we can have confidence that those prophecies in the Bible concerning the future of the world and the coming of God’s Kingdom which have yet to be fulfilled will also come to pass, and they are far more accurate than tomorrow’s newspapers.
23:1-8—Message to the Shepherds (the Rulers of the People)
(1) What should be the duties of the shepherds (i.e. Rulers)? ( v. 2)
(2) What have the rulers done in not bestowing care on the people? (v. 2)
(3) How will God intervene specifically? (vv. 3-4)
(4) God promises to raise up the Key Shepherd (vv. 5-6)
a. What is He called? (v. 5)
b. What does it mean? (see Isaiah 11:1-10)
c. What will He do? (v. 5)
d. In saving Judah and Israel, what will He be called also? (v.6)
(5) Why will their future deliverance be so great that it will replace the memory of their deliverance out of Egypt?
23:9-18—The Lying Prophets
(6) Jeremiah says he is totally devastated by the
holy words and the Lord (v. 9). What is it because of?
a.The sheer hearing of the words
b. The horrible sins of the prophets
c. The severe punishment pronounced by the Lord
(7) While the rulers are “shepherds” (23:1), what should the prophets be? What power do they possess? (v. 10)
(8) How particularly wicked are their sins? (vv. 10-11)
(9) What will their punishment be? (vv. 12, 15)
(10) In comparison to the prophets of Samaria (i.e. those of the northern kingdom that had fallen), who are more evil in your opinion? (vv. 13-14) Why?
(11) Where do these prophets get their messages from? (vv. 16-18)
(12) Who are those that heed their messages? (v. 17)
(13) What is the main message to you today and how can you apply it to your life?
“They keep saying to those who despise me…And to all who follow the stubbornness of their hearts…” (Jer. 23:17)
After delivering a stern message of warning to the kings (chapter 22), followed by a message to the shepherds (i.e. the rulers), fittingly the Lord now turns His anger against the spiritual leaders, the prophets.
It is obvious that these prophets have turned into professional clergymen, making what they do almost like a secular career. As a result, they, together with the priests, are “godless”, and worse, they carry out their wickedness in the temple of the Lord (23:11). With their blatant sinful lifestyle including the committing of adultery (23:14), one wonders why the people would believe their messages. The same question is often asked today in the churches where pastors or leaders have committed serious sins like adultery or embezzlement and yet there are those who blindly stand behind them.
The Lord, through Jeremiah, has given us a very clear answer. Those who blindly listen to and follow these wicked prophets are those who have already despised the Lord and followed the stubbornness of their hearts (23:17). Therefore it is not a matter of a lack of discernment, but a matter of who they are. The prophets are really preaching to the “converted”—those who have been converted to follow their evil ways.
The Lord is only just getting started in His charges against the prophets:
23:19-22—The Failure of the Prophets
(1) How does the Lord express His anger against the prophets? (vv. 19-20)
(2) How does the Lord desire the prophets to serve Him? (v. 22)
(3) The prophets have failed Him by not standing in His council (vv. 22, 18). What does it mean to stand in His council?
23:23-29—The Lies of the Prophets
(4) What is the tactic the prophets used to propagate their lies? (v. 25)
(5) Why is such a tactic so effective in making the people to forget God’s name? (v. 27)
(6) Why does the Lord point out to them that He is also a God far away? (v. 23)
(7) How powerful are those who truly possess the Word of God? (v. 29)
23:30-33—“I am against the Prophets”
(8) How many times does the Lord say He is against them?
(9) Why did the Lord not appoint them as His prophets?
(10) What is the main message to you today and how may you apply it to your life?
“I have heard what the prophets say who prophesy lies in my name. They say, ‘I had a dream! I had a dream' .” (Jer. 23:25)
In His fierce attack against the prophets, the Lord focuses on their use of dreams as a tool by the prophets to make the people forget His name (23:27), comparing them to the same outcome of their ancestors through Baal worship. This same tool is still being used by those who are trying to lead people astray today.
The use of dreams is quite attractive to
the naïve of the things of the Lord, for these reasons:
1. It is so personal that others cannot simply dispute their experience.
2. It sounds extremely spiritual, and would make the people think that they are so close to the Lord, and that they must be very special to the Lord.
However, once people believe in their dreams as from the Lord, it becomes a license to propagate teachings that are not necessarily biblical. This is how cults are formed.
I am not saying that the Lord does not use dreams to speak to people these days. He does, especially to those Muslims who seek Him genuinely, and we hear many reports of them seeing Jesus, and as a result they renounce Islam and follow Christ. But to rely on dreams as teachings, and not the revealed words of God in the Scriptures, is a totally different story.
23:33-40—Result of Forgetting the Word of God
(1) Since the people (and the prophets) did not really care about God’s words, why would they ask for the “oracle” (the word means burden) of the Lord?
(2) Some commentators suggest that they asked as to ridicule, as the prophecies of Jeremiah have yet to come to pass. What do you think?
(3) What was God’s answer and why? (v. 33)
(4) What will happen to those who pretend to have an answer from God? (v. 34)
(5) And for all the people, they will become the “oracle” (vv. 35-36). What does it mean?
(6) What eventually will cause all to stop prophesying falsely? (vv. 37-38)
(7) The abandonment pronounced in v.33 is now reiterated (vv. 39-40).
a. What is the result of forgetting God’s words?
b. While they have forgotten God’s words and are now forgotten by God, what remains not to be forgotten?
24:1-10—The Vision of Two Baskets of Figs (see Note below)
(8) What might be the significance of the two baskets of figs being set “before the temple of the Lord”? (v. 1)
(9) As
Jeremiah’s prophecies of destruction are coming to pass, consider the following:
a. What should the people and their kings regard as their plight?
b. How will those being exiled look at their situation?
c. How will those who remain and are not captured look at their situation?
(10) What is the message of the good figs?
(11) What will it mean to those who are already in exile?
(12) What is the message of the bad figs?
(13) Will they remain in their land for long? Why or why not?
(14) Why would God treat those who remain so harshly?
(15) What is the main message to you today and how may you apply it to your life?
Note:
“The historical background of this vision is the first deportation of the people in 597 B.C. After the exile of Jehoiachin and the leading citizens of Judah (2 Ki. 24:10-17), those who remained seemed to have been full of optimism for the future. The new king Zedekiah even became involved in a conspiracy with the surrounding peoples for further rebellion against Babylon (ch. 27). The false prophets spoke of a quick return of the exiles from Babylon (ch. 28). Jeremiah saw that the attitude of the king and his supporters in Judah was wrong.”
(NICOT, 507)
“For you will no longer remember the oracle of the Lord, because every man’s own word will become the oracle...” (NASB) (Jer. 23:36)
This section about the people asking about the oracle of the Lord is a difficult one to understand, partly because of the play on the word “oracle” which also literally means a “burden” and also because of the various translations of vv. 37-38. However, the main message is very clear: Like a burden, God will cast the people away.
In the larger section of rebuke against the false prophets (23:25-40), Jeremiah makes it clear that the prophets are guilty of making the people forget about the name of the Lord (v. 27), while the people are guilty of treating the words of God as a burden. As a result, God will deal with them fittingly with the following punishments:
- They will be forgotten by God and the only thing that will not be forgotten will be their “everlasting reproach” and their “everlasting humiliation”.
- They will become a burden to the Lord to the point that He will cast them away from His presence (vv. 39-40).
As I reflected on these two fitting punishments, I wondered which one of the two might be worse!
I believe that reproach and humiliation, as horrible as they are, might still be bearable, but being thrown away from the presence of God as if it is a burden is the ultimate curse!
I remember as a child, when I was often punished for my misdeeds by my parents, there were always physical pain and humiliation, but the worst was when I was told to leave home and “never come back again”. Although I knew it was always an empty threat, it was enough to make me ask for forgiveness and promise never to do it again. Imagine, being driven from home was unthinkable. Therefore being driven away from God’s presence has to be the most horrific punishment anyone can receive!
The fate of Israel of old should be a stern warning to all who have yet to receive God’s forgiveness in Christ Jesus!
(1) Since Josiah reigned in Jerusalem for 31 years (2 Chr. 34:1), how long has Jeremiah served as a prophet under this godly king, and how many years hence has he delivered the words of the Lord since Josiah’s death until this time? (v. 3)
(2) How did Jeremiah sum up the messages of the prophets? (vv. 5-6)
(3) What was the main message?
(4) What has been the reception by the people of the words of God through various prophets including Jeremiah? Why? (v. 7)
(5) What punishments were pronounced because of their sins? (vv. 9-11)
(6) How imminent was the invasion by Nebuchadnezzar? (See Dan. 1:1 which might imply that Nebuchadnezzar began his move in the third year of Jehoiachim’s reign, but putting the city under siege later in his 4th year.)
(7) However, what punishment would also befall Babylon, the invaders?
(8) Why? (v. 14)
(9) What is the main message to you today and how may you apply it to your life?
“For twenty-three years—from the thirteen year of Josiah son of Amon king of Judah until this very day—the word of the Lord has come to me and I have spoken to you again and again but you have not listened.” (Jer. 25:3)
This particular message in the fourth year of Jehoiakim gives us a bit more information and insight into the ministry of Jeremiah.
We know that Jeremiah was called at a young age and he called himself “a youth” or a child (1:7). It is likely that he was really in his late teens. And now, we know that he was called to be a prophet in the 13th year of King Josiah who would be 21 years old by then as he ascended to the throne at the age of eight (2 Ki. 22:1). In other words, God has begun a youth movement in turning the people back to Him, using a young king and a young prophet. And, for 19 years, till the death of Josiah in his 31st year, Jeremiah was already preaching the impending judgment of God which should serve as a powerful incentive to steer the people beyond superficial religious fervor under the dramatic reformation spearheaded by King Josiah. Unfortunately, because of the external religious fervor restored by the king and the other prophets preaching “peace, peace” (6:14), his message had by and large fallen on deaf ears.
Now, with the death of Josiah, the people were showing their real colors with successive kings after Josiah quickly turning the nation back to idol worship (2 Ki. 23:23, 37). So, four years into the reign of this evil king Jehoiakim, and with the invasion of Nebuchadnezzar being very imminent (likely besieging Jerusalem later that year; see Dan. 1:1), the message of Jeremiah took on an added urgency. Alas, his message was not only ignored, as we read in Jeremiah 36, but the king was so enraged by the message that he “cut it with a scribe’s knife and threw it into the fire…until the scroll was consumed in the fire that was in the brazier” (36:23) and the Bible remarks that “Yet the king and all his servants who heard all these words were not afraid, nor did they rend their garments” (36:24).
I do not have to repeat here the judgment pronounced again on them by Jeremiah (25:9-11) which, of course, had come to pass not long after this message. However, as I recently had the chance to visit some of the monuments of the holocaust in Europe, I wonder what it might take for the people of Israel to finally heed the messages of the prophets. Jeremiah gives the answer to my question in the rest of the chapter.
Wrath against the nations:
(1) In this vision what did Jeremiah see? (v. 15)
(2) Why does the Lord use a cup of wine to depict His wrath? (v. 16)
(3) In his vision, who were the peoples and nations that were made to drink this cup of wrath? (vv. 18-26)
(4) Why would it include nations that had not been enemies of God’s people?
(5) Can any of these nations be immune to the wrath of God? (v. 28)
(6) Why? (v. 29)
(7) In describing the wrath of God upon all the inhabitants of the earth, where did the roar of the Lord come from and what does it mean? (v. 30)
(8) On what basis will He judge mankind? (v. 31)
(9) How great and severe will this judgment be? (v. 33)
(10) Why does the Lord appeal to the shepherds (the leaders of the nations) in particular? (vv. 34-36)
(11) Will there be a safe place on earth that can be immune to this disaster? (vv. 37-38)
(12) What is the main message to you today and how may you apply it to your life?
“The peaceful meadows will be laid waste because of the fierce anger of the Lord.” (Jer. 25:37)
Unlike previous messages in the forgoing twenty or more chapters, many of the messages delivered by Jeremiah bear out the exact historical setting, and chapter 25 is one of them.
It is generally believed that this message was delivered shortly before the invasion of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. What makes this particular message special is not just the imminence of the judgment but also the immediate pronouncement of the judgment of Babylon itself, limiting this awesome world power to a mere span of seventy years in world history (25:11). This was certainly authenticated by secular history (roughly from the rise of Nebuchadnezzar in 604/5 B.C. to the end of Babylon in 536 B.C.) and it obviously demonstrates that God is totally in control of world history, which only serves to bring about the ultimate plan of the consummation of the coming of the Kingdom of God. However, the uniqueness of this prophecy also lies in the ultimate judgment of all nations and all inhabitants of the earth set in a “court setting” (NICOT, 519) as the Lord roars from His “holy dwelling”, all because of the wickedness of the people of the earth (25:30-31).
It is important to note that the judgment applies to “all the kingdoms of the earth” (25:26), and none is immune, not even “the peaceful meadows” (25:37). Of course, this world-wide judgment speaks of a time beyond the immediate invasion of Babylon, but refers to the judgment of God in the End-time, which is often referred to as “the Day of the Lord”. We do not wish such horrific sufferings on anyone, but the truth of the matter is, if anyone—Jews and Gentiles alike, does not repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, there is simply no safe haven on earth where one can hide from the wrath of God on that day!