Jeremiah lives and prophesies in one of Israel’s worst eras, the final decades of the kingdom. The king and many people of the nation regard Jeremiah as a traitor because he cannot assure them that God will preserve the city and temple from destruction as the prophet Isaiah had promised a hundred years earlier. Jeremiah smashes pottery to show what the growing power of the Babylonians will do to their nation. He wears a yoke to show Israel will become Babylon’s vassal.
In 598 B.C. the Babylonians lay seige to Jerusalem and take many citizens captive. The struggle continues until 587 when the Babylonians destroy the city and temple and take most able-bodied workers captive, scattering the people to “the ends of the world.”
Jeremiah suffers with his people through the sieges and defeat. As destruction looms with increasing certainty, the prophet speaks just as confidently of God’s faithfulness. He primes his people’s hopes that God will find and save them, even scattered to other nations.
The prophet describes the people shouting for joy and exulting before other nations because their God has saved them and brought them back from the ends of the world. In these words we glimpse Israel at worship.
The community is to “sing aloud with gladness, to raise shouts for the leader of the nations.” Shouting, loud singing, the sounds of trumpet and harp, timbrel and dance, strings, pipes, loud crashing cymbals are part of Israel’s celebrative worship. The psalms again and again describe a worshipping community which expresses its belief, its joys and sorrows, its hopes and fears, in the form of song, dance, music, proclamation.
Shout for joy.
Shout with joy for Jacob,
exult at the head of the nations;
proclaim your praise and say:
“Save, O God, your people,
the remnant of Israel.”
See, I will bring them back
from the land of the north;
I will gather them
from the ends of the world
with the blind and the lame
in their midst,
the mothers and those with child.
Jeremiah 31.7-9
- Who speaks of God’s faithfulness today and gives you hope in the midst of change?
- How do you pray besides in words?
- What is the spirit of your congregation at worship? What might enhance the ways you express your praise?