Recap

So far in Jeremiah we’ve looked at Jeremiah’s calling and accusations against Judah, and then the destruction of Jerusalem. The book of Jeremiah is a collection of messages and poems by the prophet Jeremiah, who was a prophet to Judah immediately before their exile. We read as God called Jeremiah to be his mouth pieces to Judah to weed out corruption and idolatry in Judah. The people would not listen to him, but his teachings would serve as a foundation for the people after they’d been exiled.

Jeremiah then started off focus on the people’s relationship with God. God had been the one who led them out of Egypt, but they quickly forgot that. The Israelites instead chose to worship other gods, essentially committing adultery against God. The same thing happened when the nation split into the two kingdoms; Israel in the north and Judah in the south.

We read as Jeremiah tried to lead the people to repentance, but they would not listen. He grieved the destruction he knew was coming to Judah, likening it to decreation. Returning the land to its state before God created it. Again, Jeremiah called the people to repent, but God tells Jeremiah not to pray for them. Their opportunity to change has gone. The era of wise men is gone. It's time for the women who mourn to lead.

We saw the first few cracks for Jeremiah. He was being persecuted and sometimes it looked like wicked people are flourishing. God encouraged Jeremiah that punishment was coming. We read as Jeremiah wrestled with his job. He tried to intercede for the people again, but God told him not to. Instead, Jeremiah has to settle with being hated and mocked by the people.

As Babylon came and started taking some people into exile, God warned them that they would be in exile for seventy years. Then he would punish Babylon for its wickedness along with the other nations.

Then came messages of hope. God will reunite and restore the nation of Israel. They will rejoice and flourish in their land again. God will make a new covenant with them that he will write on their hearts. As a sign of this hope, God got Jeremiah to buy some land and then to bury the deeds for the land in a jar so that the generation that comes out of exile can dig it up. Yes, things are hard now, but God will bring life where there was death.

But for now, the people were digging their own graves. They set their slaves free, only to re-enslave them again. We had the example of the Rechabites who held on to commandments passed down their family, while the Israelites couldn't hold on to commandments given directly by God. King Jehoiakim would rather throw Jeremiah’s teachings into the fire and see him dead than listen to them.

We read how Jeremiah was arrested and then saved from being killed by an Ethiopian man. Jeremiah remained under arrest until Babylon came and sacked Jerusalem. They led the people, including king Zedekiah, into exile. The king of Babylon freed Jeremiah and placed him under the responsibility of one of his officials.

Jeremiah 40-44

While previously we’ve jumped back and forth in time, the rest of Jeremiah is focused on the period after the fall of Jerusalem. The guard official who has been given responsibility of Jeremiah decides to set him free and give him some options. He can come with this official back to Babylon and live with him there. He can stay in Judah and live with the new governor of Judah, Gedaliah, that Babylon has put in charge. Or he can go somewhere completely different.

Jeremiah decides to go stay with Gedaliah. All those who had been left in Judah, including captains of soldiers that had been posted in areas not hit by Babylon, came to see this new governor that had been put in charge of them. Gedaliah encouraged them to not be afraid, but to come and enjoy their new life, serving under Babylon.

These men seemed to agree and so they moved to all be near to one another and began to live rich lives of abundant harvests. A little later, some of the captains came to Gedaliah to warn him that the Ammonites were sending an assassin called Ishmael to kill him. Gedaliah ignored them, assuming they were lying.

Ishmael came to visit Gedaliah and while at his table, killed him, and then all those from Judah that were in the town. He then killed some men that had come south to make an offering at the now destroyed temple in Jerusalem. He spared ten of the men who gave up all the offerings they had brought.

Ishmael began filling the cisterns with all the dead bodies he was producing. He had clearly also taken some people captive, planning to take them back with him to the Ammonites. But then one of the captains still living in Judah, Johanan, rallied all the people together to fight against Ishmael and his men, and they chased him away, rescuing all the captives.

The people then came to Jeremiah to ask him what they should do next. Jeremiah went away for ten days to pray. When he came back, he told the people that God was saying to stay where they were. If they stayed in Judah, then he will prosper them and cause them to flourish. God will protect them from any danger.

But if they reject God's support and try to save themselves by going to Egypt for safety, God will punish them. He will bring the very destruction they fear in Judah to haunt them in Egypt. But the people refuse to believe Jeremiah and decide to go to Egypt, taking Jeremiah with them.

While in Egypt, God gives Jeremiah another visual demonstration to speak to the people. He is to take two large stones and place them in cement outside Pharoah's palace. Jeremiah is to show these stones to the people of Judah in Egypt and tell them that the king of Babylon will come and build a throne for himself on these stones.

God will cause him to come and bring destruction to all of Egypt, including the people of Judah in it. There is much idolatry and worshipping of false gods in Egypt, and God will use this as an opportunity to destroy all that.

Then God came to Jeremiah again, to speak against his people in Egypt. Not only have they rejected God's protection by coming here to Egypt, but now they have started worshipping Egyptian gods and bringing them offerings. He once again declares that he will destroy his people who have rejected him.

This time, the people pushed back. They don't care what Jeremiah has to say; they are going to continue making their offerings to the Egyptians gods, specifically the queen of heaven. They even argue that the reason they have suffered in the past is that they hadn't made offerings to the queen of heaven.

Jeremiah points them to their history. He reminds them that they made offerings to false gods in Judah and God destroyed Judah and made it a wasteland because of them. The very fact they are now in Egypt is because they had been worshipping false gods, and now they're going to continue doing that to try to make things better?

So Jeremiah encourages them to continue whatever they have decided to do. God has already decided to destroy them. He is sending the king of Babylon to come and destroy Egypt with them in it.

Psalm 22

Psalm 22 is one of the most famous of the lament psalms. It is the psalm that Jesus quoted on the cross (Matthew 27:46). Biblical lament is whenever a person takes their pains, hurts, and frustrations before God. It tends to include four steps; turning to God, bringing the complaint, making a request of God, and then declaring trust in God.

Throughout this psalm, we see the psalmist go back and forth through each of these steps. Sometimes complaining about their sufferings, other times asking God to do others, and then moments of trusting in God before turning back to their sufferings. This psalm is attributed to king David.

The psalm is rich and full of meaning and layers. The structure of the psalm is a chiasm where the passage mirrors itself.

a) Psalm 22:1-2 - God feels absent

b) Psalm 22:3-5 - But God delivered our ancestors

c) Psalm 22:6-8 - Yet I am worthless

d) Psalm 22:9-11 - Do not forget me, God of my youth

e) Psalm 22:12-13 - Enemies surround me

f) Psalm 22:14-15 - My strength is worn out

e) Psalm 22:16-18 - Enemies surround me

d) Psalm 22:19-23 - Deliver me from my enemies

c) Psalm 22:24-25 - God is faithful

b) Psalm 22:26-27 - People will praise God

a) Psalm 22:28-31 - God is king

While the idea of complaining to God can offend of a lot of Christians today, it has a deep rooted history in the Bible. Here the psalmist is letting God know that it feels like he has been abandoned. Why has God forsaken them? It’s like he doesn’t answer them.

The psalmist then pulls themselves back a little by focusing on God’s past record. God saved and delivered their ancestors. They were able to trust in him, and he never put them to shame.

But then, turning back to his own life, the two don’t seem to line up. The psalmist’s ancestors may have not been put to shame, but he sure has. He is mocked and despised, and all for putting his trust in God.

Again, the psalmist tries to pull himself back from the pit of despair. He reminds himself, and God, on all the times that he has been able to trust God in the past. This leads him to ask God to be close to him through these struggles.

Then the psalmist mentions the ‘strong bulls of Bashan’ (Psalm 22:12). This reference might be lost to us, but at the time it carried a lot of meaning. Bashan was a place to the north of Israel that was linked to the spiritual rebellion.

It was where a lot of cultic worship happened in the northern kingdom and is also believed to be the site of one of two golden calves made by one of the northern kings (1 Kings 12:25-33). For some it was seen as the gateway to hell.

So for the psalmist, the ‘bulls of Bashan’ would have been an Ancient Near Eastern equivalent of saying the ‘hounds of hell’. It felt like the very forces of death and darkness were surrounding them.

Which brings us to the psalmist's lowest point. Their strength is gone, and they feel wasted away. It’s at this point the structure begins to reflect itself. Just as the psalmist fell surrounded by death and darkness, they are also surrounded by a more tangible threat of enemies seeking to destroy them.

But now they’ve finally reached a point where they can reach out and hold properly to God in the midst of their pain. Just as they had previously asked God to not forget them, the psalmist now asks that God defeats their enemies.

While they had only been able to focus on their own worthlessness, now they turn to God’s goodness and faithfulness. Where God has been faithful to ancestors of the past, the psalmist of the present and others will praise God now and forever.

The psalm began with the confession that it felt like God was absent and his people groan, unable to find rest. It now ends with the declaration that God is king and his people shall prosper.

Psalm 22 is an incredible lament psalm that works through some of the deepest suffering and turmoil can experience. But all the way through it models for us how to wrestle with these things, so that we can ultimately stand in who God is and trust in his goodness.