Get Ready
Jeremiah prophesied to the last four kings of Judah. His message was that political and military alliances would not save the nation – only returning to worshipping God would protect the kings and the people. But even though he painted a graphic picture of the coming destruction, the people ignored him.
Author
Scholars generally agree that Jeremiah, the prophet to Judah (the southern kingdom), wrote the book that bears his name as well as Lamentations, which follows. His father was a priest in a small village near Jerusalem. God called Jeremiah when he was a teenager and he prophesied during the reigns of the last four kings of the independent Jewish nation.
Some scholars look at Jeremiah’s lack of organization and conclude that an unknown author (or authors) compiled the prophet’s work sometime after he died. But the book includes an incident which could explain this disjointedness: after twenty years of prophecy God told Jeremiah to write down his messages. Jeremiah dictated the work to his secretary, Baruch, and sent him to read them to the king (Jeremiah had been banned from the court because of his prophecies). The king cut the scroll into several pieces and burned them [36:22-23]. Jeremiah responded by dictating a second version, including “many similar words,” [36:32] that were not in the first.
Lamentations does not identify its author but scholars agree that Jeremiah probably also wrote this. Both books deal with the end of the kingdom of Judah; Lamentations focuses mostly on Jerusalem and its destruction. In addition there is great similarity in the poetic lan- guage and some of the images.
Context
Jeremiah’s ministry covered the last forty years of Jewish independence before the Babylonian conquest and captivity in 587 BCE. He began in the middle of King Josiah’s reign when the people were following God’s law and avoiding pagan practices.
But Josiah’s successors reverted to the idolatry and political alliances that had led the northern kingdom of Israel into captivity 120 years earlier. Egypt, Assyria and Babylon were fighting for control of the region and Judah’s kings attempted to play them against each other. Jeremiah insisted that safety lay in returning to worshipping the Lord. For this message he was banished from the court and branded a traitor. The Egyptian alliance failed to protect Judah; Babylon defeated Egypt in 605 BCE and destroyed Jerusalem eighteen years later. All the Jewish leaders were led to captivity in Babylon, just as Jeremiah had prophesied.
Structure
As mentioned above, Jeremiah has no apparent structure. It moves from one king to another, from politics to history to personal experiences with no discernible pattern or chronology.
There is a rough division between the first part, which is poetry and generally deals with Jeremiah’s messages of God’s judgment of Judah and its rulers and the second part, which is primarily narrative writing. While it does include some prophesy, it focuses on the inter- actions between Jeremiah and the rulers of Judah as the kingdom is crumbling. The second section also has a description of Jerusalem’s destruction and the story of Jeremiah’s escape to Egypt.
Major Themes
Covenant – the relationship between God and his people, Israel, is the major subject of the book.
God had promised Abraham that he would be the founder of a great nation. God kept that promise in the united kingdom of Israel under David and Solomon, even though the Jewish people had continually broken the covenant and worshipped the idols of their pagan neighbors.
By Jeremiah’s time it was clear that the covenant was not working. It was being broken by all the people, from the king and his court to the people in the streets of Jerusalem. God told Jeremiah the covenant “written” on stone tablets would be scrapped and replaced with a covenant written on the peoples’ hearts. More than 500 years later Jesus would bring the new covenant to life by sacrificing his own life on the cross.
Jeremiah was a poet as well as a prophet. His book contains some of the most memorable images of God and his relationship to Israel in the entire Bible. In some instances he was a living symbol of what would happen to Judah. At one point he wore a yoke on his shoulders to demonstrate the yoke of captivity the people were about to experience in Babylon. Near the end of his ministry he followed God’s direction to buy a piece of property in his hometown (Anathoth). The property was absolutely worthless because of the impending destruction of the country, but Jeremiah demonstrated God’s ultimate promise to restore his people and – more importantly – continue his relationship with them.
Lamentations expresses the prophet’s extreme grief over the loss of Jerusalem. The city was literally God’s “home” in this world. His earthly presence dwelt in the Temple of God, which Solomon built according to God’s direction. It was much more than the seat of gov- ernment for the nation; it was the place of meeting between God and his people.
Get into the Word
1. Who wrote these books? Why do some people think there was a different author? What does the book itself say about the author(s)? What were the circumstances of writing this book? When were the books probably written?
2. What is the subject of the books? What was the situation facing the nation? Facing the rulers? Facing the prophet? What other nations were involved with Judah? What was their goal?
3. Why was this a significant time for the nation? For the Jewish people? What was causing the problems Judah had to deal with? What did Jeremiah tell the kings to do? How did they respond to his suggestions? What did Jeremiah predict would happen to the nation? To the people?
4. How is Jeremiah organized? What is a possible reason for this situation? What are the two general parts of the book? How is Lamentations organized. Why do you suppose the books are so different in structure? Does this help or hinder understanding?
Bible Trivia:
In contrast to Jeremiah, the book of Lamentations has structure. Each chapter is a poem and three of them (1, 2, and 4) are acrostics, a literary device in which each stanza begins with the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet (which had twenty-two letters).
5. What is the major focus of Jeremiah? Why was this a significant subject for him? Why was it important for the Jewish people? For the nation?
6. What was the problem with the covenant in Jeremiah’s time? How long had this been a problem? How did God feel about the situation? What did he say he was going to do as a remedy?
7. What did Jeremiah do to get his message to the people of Judah? What “living sym- bols” did he use? How do you think the people responded to these actions. How might you have responded if you had been there?
8. What subject does Lamentations deal with? How does the author feel about this subject? Why do you think he feels so strongly about this subject? Why was Jerusalem so important to Jeremiah? To the nation? To the Jewish people?
35: The potter and the clay – Jeremiah
18:1-19:13
Get Ready
If you knocked over a heirloom vase, would you rather it smashed into a hundred small chips and fragments or it broke into four or five larger pieces? Explain your choice? (Hint: if it smashed into a hundred pieces it is clearly beyond repair.)
The Word
18 The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD:
2 “Come, go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you hear my words.” 3 So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel. 4 The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as seemed good to him.
5 Then the word of the LORD came to me:
6 Can I not do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done? says the LORD. Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. 7 At one moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, 8 but if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will change my mind about the disaster that I intended to bring on it.
9 And at another moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, 10 but if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will change my mind about the good that I had intended to do to it.
11 Now, therefore, say to the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: Thus says the LORD: Look, I am a potter shaping evil against you and devising a plan against you. Turn now, all of you from your evil way, and amend your ways and your doings.
12 But they say, “It is no use! We will follow our own plans, and each of us will act according to the stubbornness of our evil will.” . . .
19 Thus said the LORD: Go and buy a potter’s earthenware jug. Take with you some of the elders of the people and some of the senior priests, 2 and go out to the valley of the son of Hinnom at the entry of the Potsherd Gate, and proclaim there the words that I tell you. 3 You shall say: Hear the word of the LORD, O kings of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem. Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: I am going to bring such disaster upon this place that the ears of everyone who hears of it will tingle.
4 Because the people have forsaken me, and have profaned this place by making offerings in it to other gods whom neither they nor their ancestors nor the kings of Judah have known; and because they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent, 5 and gone on building the high places of Baal to burn their children in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, which I did not command or decree, nor did it enter my mind.
6 Therefore the days are surely coming, says the LORD, when this place shall no more be called Topheth, or the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of Slaughter. 7 And in this place I will make void the plans of Judah and Jerusalem, and will make them fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hand of those who seek their life. I will give their dead bodies for food to the birds of the air and to the wild animals of the earth. 8 And I will make this city a horror, a thing to be hissed at; everyone who passes by it will be horrified and will hiss because of all its disasters. 9 And I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and all shall eat the flesh of their neighbors in the siege, and in the distress with which their enemies and those who seek their life afflict them.
10 Then you shall break the jug in the sight of those who go with you, 11 and shall say to them: Thus says the LORD of hosts: So will I break this people and this city, as one breaks a potter’s vessel, so that it can never be mended. In Topheth they shall bury until there is no more room to bury. 12 Thus will I do to this place, says the LORD, and to its inhabitants, making this city like Topheth. 13 And the houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah shall be defiled like the place of Topheth—all the houses upon whose roofs offerings have been made to the whole host of heaven, and libations have been poured out to other gods. NRSV
Get into the Word:
1. Who is speaking to Jeremiah? What does he tell him to do? What does Jeremiah see? What happens as he watches? What is the outcome?
2. What does God tell Jeremiah about the incident? How does he interpret it? Who is God really talking about? How might God respond to Israel? How could things change for the nation? What would the people have to do? 3. How do the people re- spond when Jeremiah delivers God’s message? What does this say about the people?
4. What does God tell Jeremiah to do next? Where is he supposed to go? Who should go with him? Why do you suppose God chose this spot?
5. What is Jeremiah supposed to tell the people with him? What is God promising to do to the nation? Why is God so angry with Judah? What have they been doing in that valley? What are the de- tails of God’s plan?
6. What is Jeremiah to do at the end of his message? How does this underscore God’s promised actions to Israel?
Get Personal:
How has God “reworked” you to deal with the “spoiled” aspects of your life? How has this felt to you? How has God helped you understand the need to be “reworked?” How has this affected your walk with Christ?
Notes . . .
18:3. Wheel — literally “two stones” – a potter’s wheel consisted of two round flat stones with the top one turning on a pivot in the bottom stone.
18:4. Reworked — a potter does not throw out the clay when the pot has a flaw – by adding water and reworking the clay the potter can produce a new, more perfect vessel. In vv. 7-9, God tells Jeremiah that he reserves the right to “rework” a nation if it repents. For Christians God promises to “rework” us to be more like Jesus (but the process involves destroying the flawed pot).
18:12. It is no use! — the people ignore Jeremiah’s warning, possibly indicating that their hearts were so hard, like clay that has dried out, they could not be reworked.
19:1. Elders . . . senior priests — God wants the leaders to hear his message.
19:2. Son of Hinnom — a valley on the southern edge of Jerusalem that was known for Baal worship during the reigns of Ahaz and Manasseh. King Josiah cleansed it to prevent further idolatry.
Potsherd Gate — its location is unknown (though obviously somewhere near the valley). 19:5. Burn their children — one particularly gruesome aspect of Baal worship was offering children as sacrifices to the god “Molech.”
19.9. Eat the flesh — there are records of cannibalism in the region during times of extreme famine or (as will happen to Jerusalem) siege by an opposing army [check 2 Kings 6:24-31 and Lam 4:10 for examples].
19:11. Breaks a potter’s vessel — this image was also used to describe the destruction of Ur (approximately 2000 BCE).
Topheth — the name of the area or altar on which the children were sacrificed [v.19:5].
19:13. Offerings on roofs — some pagan rituals involved sacrifices of burning incense of the roof of a person’s home [check the references in 2 Kings 23:12 and Zeph 1:5].
Memory Verse
I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people, [Jer 31:33].
Next Lesson
Lamentations 3: God’s stead- fast love endures.
