GEMS FROM JEREMIAH (10) “The last few dominos: The Life & Times of Jeremiah”, part IV

 


“The words of Jeremiah son of Hilkiah, of the priests who were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, to whom the word of the Lord came in the days of King Josiah son of Amon of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign. It came also in the days of King Jehoiakim son of Josiah of Judah, and until the end of the eleventh year of King Zedekiah son of Josiah of Judah, until the captivity of Jerusalem in the fifth month.” (Jer. 1.1-3).

     With its victory at Carchemish in 605 B.C., Babylon had replaced Assyria as the dominant empire of the Ancient Near East.  By now, it was a familiar scenario – the forces of the eastern empire would move westwards along the fertile crescent surrounding the Euphrates River, and then invade the Levant “from the North” as they descended along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, sometimes going so far as to invade Egypt, sometimes stopping to remind their Israelite/Judahite vassals of what was expected of them, or worse…[1]

     By the fourth year of Jehoiakim’s reign (604 B.C.), Jeremiah has been prophesying for 23 years (Jer. 25.3), and he engages Baruch, a scribe, to record his prophetic messages in a scroll (Jer. 36.1-4).  He sends Baruch to read the scroll in the Temple courts; word gets to King Jehoiakim, who confiscates the scroll and cuts it into pieces as it is being read to him and throws the strips of parchment into the fire (36.22-23).  From this point on, Jeremiah’s life is in danger, and he spends his time either in hiding or imprisoned within the Palace/Temple precincts.  There are several plots to kill him, but, through the help of friends, Jeremiah always manages to elude his enemies (Jer. 36-39).

     The fourth Book of Kingdoms[2] reminds us that Judah’s destruction is guaranteed because of the sins of King Manasseh (2 Kgs 24.2-4).  Seven years after having burned Jeremiah’s scroll, Jehoiakim died and his son Jehoiachin became king.  Three months later, in 598, the Babylonians laid siege to Jerusalem and Jehoiachin surrendered the city (2 Kgs 24.10-16).  In fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy, the Babylonians plundered the palace and the Temple (cf. 2 Kgs 20.12-18).  Not only that, but Nebuchadrezzar himself oversaw the exile to Babylon of Jehoiachin, the royal family and the Jerusalem nobility, including a young priest named Ezekiel (cf. Ez. 1.1-3; Jer. 24).  This was the first of three deportations to occur during the next 8 years.[3]  Nebuchadrezzar placed Jehoiakim’s brother, Zedekiah[4], on the throne of Judah (2 Kgs 24.17).  He would be the last descendant of David to rule in Jerusalem (cf. 2 Samuel 7.16).  All of Jeremiah’s (and others’) prophecies were tortuously coming true…


[1] In 605, Nebuchadnezzar had deported some Jerusalem nobles to Babylon (cf. Daniel 1.1-7).

[2] As 2 Kings is called in the Tanakh (i.e. Hebrew Bible).

[3] Cf. Merrill C. Tenney, ed. The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible 2, Grand Rapids: Regency, 1976, pp. 424-26.

[4] Josiah’s third son.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A 40-DAY JOURNEY WITH THE KING: Lenten reflections from Mark’s Gospel (5)

Image
“A leper came to him begging him, and kneeling he said to him, “If you choose, you can make me clean .”   Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, “I do choose. Be made clean !” Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean .   (Mk. 1.40-42)      Along with exorcisms, Jesus performs many healings of various physical ailments in the early chapters of Mark’s Gospel.   Jesus’ first healing is that of Simon’s mother-in-law (1.29-31).   With the restoration of the leper, we begin to understand the meaning of Jesus’ healings (and exorcisms).   The thrice-repeated word “clean” in the above passage reveals what is truly going on when the King restores the members of the people of God to wholeness.   Leprosy rendered its victim “unclean”, i.e., it proscribed that person from participation in the life of the community, of both civil society and the worship/litur...
Read more

The Protestant Reformation - good news?

Image
  The study of Reformation Europe makes many Christians wish that they had lived in the 16th century. Name 1) Some good reasons for not living in the sixteenth century and 2) Some ways in which we can live more deliberately as Christians today because of the events of that century. How should it and how should it not make a difference?    Some good reasons for not living in the 16th century include the climate of religious intolerance and violence.   Religious affiliation and observance were compulsory and imposed on the people by the state, especially it seems, in Protestant countries.   There was no freedom of conscience, except perhaps in England during the reign of Elizabeth, where the windows to people’s souls remained shut to the state, so long as they publicly conformed to the monarch’s religion (as enforced by parliament).   One may have thought that Luther’s appeal to conscience at the Diet of Worms would have inspired a broader and more sensit...
Read more

“Walking the tightrope” (St. Luke’s: Wednesday, August 22nd, 2018: Ez. 34.1-11; Ps. 23; St. Mt. 20.1-16)

Image
Ancient relevance.   Any conscientious catholic who has the habit of watching the news cannot help but notice a direct link between today’s first reading and what is going on in the Church these days.   Last week, a grand jury released a report detailing the results of their 2-year long investigation into dozens of clergymen who had abused upwards of 1,000 children in various dioceses in the state of Pennsylvania.   Every time cases of the abuse of children by priests and religious come to light, we are reminded that we live in a world – and are part of a Church – deeply infected by evil .   And of course, let’s not forget that the line between good and evil runs through each one of us (cf. Solzhenitsyn).   In today’s first reading, the prophet Ezekiel proclaims an oracle of judgment against the false “shepherds” of God’s “flock”.   Instead of caring for, protecting and nurturing God’s people , Israel’s leaders had exploited the people for their...
Read more