Israel’s prophets speak publicly for God before king and people, but none so disturbingly as Jeremiah. His words interpret the signs of his time, the decades before the fall of Jerusalem in 587 B.C. His vocation as God’s prophet involves him in the suffering and defeat of his people.
Ancient superpowers crisscross Israel in a three-cornered struggle for power in these decades. Assyria, the nation that defeated the northern kingdom of Israel in 721 B.C., weakens and falls to the Babylonians in 612. Egypt marches north to take back land.
Israel’s King Josiah, the great religious reformer who ruled in Jeremiah’s youth, tries to stop Egypt but is killed at Megiddo in Galilee in 609. Judah, the southern kingdom of Israel, becomes an Egyptian vassal state until the Babylonians defeat Egypt in 605 and make Judah a Babylonian vassal.
Jeremiah speaks warnings to Israel’s king and people, calling them to repent and seek God’s help. After King Jehoiakim burns Jeremiah’s writing, the prophet sees no hope for his people. He speaks words of God’s inevitable judgment.
In fact, Jeremiah sees Nebuchadnezzer, the Babylonian leader, as the instrument of God. This is a traitorous view for which Jeremiah is left to die in a cistern. An Ethiopian helps him out.
Jeremiah continues his thankless prophetic mission in the reign of Judah’s last king, Zedekiah. At one point Jeremiah wears a yoke to dramatize the word of judgment God has him speak. “Bring your necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon,” he tells the king. “Why should your people die by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence as God has spoken concerning any nation that will not serve the King of Babylon” (27.12-13).
King Zedekiah listens to the prophet Hananiah, who tells him what he wants to hear. Hananiah promises Zedekiah in God’s name, “I have broken the yoke of the King of Babylon.”
Jeremiah can only walk away when he hears Hananiah. God gives him no other words than those which urge the king to surrender to Babylon.
Later Jeremiah does receive a word from God about Hananiah and denounces this prophet, telling him he will be dead in a year. Sunday’s reading probably comes from the time of Hananiah’s death, which shows Jeremiah speaks truth.
Jeremiah’s lament
I hear many whispering, “Terror is all around! Denounce him! Let us denounce him!” All my close friends are watching for me to stumble. “Perhaps he can be enticed, and we can prevail against him, and take our revenge on him.”
But God is with me like a dread warrior; therefore my persecutors will stumble, and they will not prevail. They will be greatly shamed, for they will not succeed. Their eternal dishonor will never be forgotten.
O God of hosts, you test the righteous, you see the heart and the mind; let me see your retribution upon them, for to you I have committed my cause.
Sing to God; praise God who has delivered the life of the needy from the hands of evildoers.
Jeremiah 20.10-13
- Who among us in our public life do you regard as a true prophet? As a true leader?
- Act as a public prophet this week by writing a letter to the editor on a local or national issue or by speaking out at a public meeting.