Jeremiah 46-52: Prophecies against Other Nations

What's interesting to me about the prophets is that they have prophecies to other nations (that is, besides Israel and Judah) at all.  After all, Israel and Judah are the nations God sent them to.  So I think in a way these prophecies were for their benefit, to show them that God wasn't just picking on them, and also that the nations around them who were corrupt or whatever would get punished too.  Also there are asides in some of these that are directly for the Jews - for instance, at the end of the prophecy against Egypt God tells his own people that even though he's going to destroy Egypt, he's going to save the nation of Israel - they're going to be punished, but not wiped out completely.

The other interesting thing to me about these prophesies are that sometimes God says he's going to completely destroy a nation - such as Kedar and Hazor and Babylon - but with some of the other nations, God promises eventual restoration.  He says, "I will restore the fortunes of _____" sometime in the future, and he says it of Moab, Ammon, and Elam.  I have no idea who Elam is, but Moab and Ammon were the sons of Lot's daughters (and also of Lot . . . eww), so they were kind of cousins to the Israelites.  So that's kind of neat I guess.

In the prophecy against Babylon, God promises to return Judah to the promised land and that in those days "search will be made for the iniquity of Israel, but there will be none; and for the sins of Judah, but they will not be found; for I will pardon those whom I leave as a remnant."

The wording at the end of that sentence is very important for Christians, I think - "for I will pardon those whom I leave as a remnant."  I have been reflecting recently on the difference between a pardon and an exoneration in legal terminology.  When a defendant is exonerated, it means that it is officially declared they did not commit the crime and therefore cannot be charged for it; they are innocent.  A pardon is when a person who has already been convicted of a crime is forgiven of that crime.  It's still understood that they were guilty of the crime, but they no longer have to serve the consequences of doing it (jail time or whatever it is).

When we are saved, we are not exonerated.  God, for whatever reason, doesn't remove our pasts and make it so that we never sinned.  He also doesn't pretend like we never sinned (God doesn't pretend, I don't think). Instead he gives us a pardon: he says "yes, you did these crimes against me, but you are no longer responsible for the punishment - I'll take care of that."  He frees us from our prisons and lets us live again.  And it's not because we deserved it.

Some people might think it's unjust of God to pardon criminals, especially if they don't do anything to deserve that pardon.  God is just - he does require that the debt be paid - but it was paid by Jesus when he shed his innocent blood in our place.  God is just, but he is also merciful, and he loves us so much that he made a way to come to us when we lacked the strength to go to him.  The great thing about God is, and Jeremiah 51 makes this point, nobody can tell God he did the wrong thing and get him in trouble for it.  When I was in college, my history professor was the chair of the history department.  He would cancel class from time to time when he was going to visit his grandchildren out of state or something like that.  And nobody could tell him not to, because he was the head of his department (I guess the dean or vice president or president could've told him not to, but on the other hand he'd been there longer than any of them put together so they pretty much let him do things the way he wanted).  There's nobody above God.  He gets to make the rules.  That would be a scary thought if you didn't trust God.  If you believe that God is good and just, then it's a comfort.

In chapter 52, the fall of Jerusalem is described again, including the blinding of Zedekiah and the murder of his sons (not in that order).  But at the very end it says that Jehoiachin, who was the king of Judah before Pharaoh put Zedekiah up, finds favor with the king of Babylon (this is after Nebuchadnezzar), and the king restores him to his former title, although he stays in Babylon, and he gets to eat at the king's table the rest of his life.  I don't really know why the king of Babylon did that or what affect it had on Jehoiachin or the people of Judah, but I think it's a nice note to end such a depressing book on.

Isaiah 32-39: More Prophecies and a History Lesson

Okay, so I'm behind again, but only a little.  The great thing about Isaiah is I can lump a lot of chapters together pretty easily because it's a lot of words about a few key ideas.

And the first key idea in this passage is what the heading in my Bible calls "The Glorious Future."  As before, this is describing a time in the future when there will be a righteous king and basically the world will be the way it should be - people will listen to the truth, understand what's right, and cheaters really won't prosper, and that sort of thing.  But then he switches gears again and talks about trouble that is coming, and it seems to me that this time he gives a deadline: about one year from when he is speaking is when things are really going to go downhill and Jerusalem will be abandoned.  But then it says that the Spirit will be poured out on us, and everything will become good again.

So then Isaiah talks more about the judgment that's to come, and how basically the instruments of judgment will be judged themselves because they aren't righteous either.  And then he describes the God who is doing all this, how God is going to be exalted in all this, how He is the source of security, and how those who live according to His laws are the ones who will be able to stand the judgment because God will save them.

Then it talks about a more universal judgment (I think the last chapter was talking about Judah specifically) and how God is going to judge all the nations for their wickedness and the whole earth - the whole of creation - will be affected by it, even to the mountains and the sky.  I think this is describing the Day of the Lord - the final day of judgment - but Isaiah specifically mentions Edom in this particular chapter and says that it's going to be completely uninhabitable for men and that only wild animals will live there.

And once again, there's a full-circle effect when Isaiah talks again about a future time of peace and prosperity for Judah.  This has another favorite verse of mine, verse 4, which says: "Say to those with anxious heart, 'Take courage, fear not. Behold, your God will come with vengeance; The recompense of God will come, But He will save you.'"  There's a song based on this verse that we sang in church when I was little, and I really liked it.  In my Bible, whenever I read a line that I know from a song, I put a little music note mark next to it.  It's so neat to see where the songs I know from church originated.

Then there's a history lesson, and I think it's almost word-for-word from 2 Kings.  It's the story about Sennacherib invading Judah during the reign of Hezekiah, and how the army commander taunts the people, but they don't say anything back, and how Hezekiah prays and asks God to deliver them, and He does.  What I didn't mention last time was that Isaiah was involved in this story.  See, when Hezekiah hears what's happening, he sends for Isaiah and asks him to pray for the people who are left in Jerusalem.  Isaiah tells them not to be afraid of Sennacherib or of Rabshakeh (that's the name of the army commander, I think it's funny) because God will make them leave and Sennacherib will die in his own land.  That's basically all Isaiah says, and it happens just as he predicted.  We see Hezekiah's prayer again and God's response and the aftermath, how Sennacherib departed from Judah and was later killed by his own sons while worshiping a false god at home.  Kind of ironic, isn't it?  Sennacherib's commander bragged on and on about the powerlessness of all these other nations' gods and the might of Sennacherib.  Well, in the end, neither Sennacherib's own might nor his own god were able to save his life.

Then we have the story of Hezekiah's sickness again, and it's the same story again except for this time there's a poem that Hezekiah writes after his recovery about being sick and God healing him.  And finally, the story that makes me cringe, about the king of Babylon paying a courtesy visit to Hezekiah and Hezekiah showing him all the valuable stuff that the king of Babylon thinks would look great in his own house.  And of course, since we've already read Kings, we know exactly what's going to happen.  But in case we didn't, Isaiah tells us.

So what I think is cool about this passage is that after a bunch of prophecies about what's going to happen someday, we see a story about some of Isaiah's prophecies coming true.  So we know he's not just making all this up, and I think this story is to sort of silence the nay-sayers.

This was probably my shortest entry in a while, but I am saving the next passage for next time, because it's one of my favorites.

Isaiah 13-23: Judgments Against Other Nations

Okay, I know this is a huge chunk of chapters, but I'm going to catch up to where I've read today (although I'm a little behind in my reading).  Basically, I'm lumping these chapters together because they all have something in common: they are (mostly) not about Israel and Judah.  These are prophecies about the falls of other nations.

The first one to be named is Babylon. Basically it says that God is going to use Babylon to carry out his judgment against Judah, but then it says that God will judge the whole earth.  Isaiah mentions something that becomes a common theme in prophetic books: the day of the LORD.  It's the day when God will judge the earth once and for all, and it will be so terrifying that even the sun, the moon, and the stars will not shine.  Then going back to Babylon, Isaiah says next that Babylon will fall to the Medes.  I wonder what the state of the Mede empire was at this time.  They're from Persia, I think.  And Isaiah talks about Israel, once it's been restored, taunting Babylon once it's been conquered

This is where there's that famous line where it calls Babylon "star of the morning" and "son of the dawn."  In Hebrew, those nicknames are pronounced Lucifer.  I'm not sure when the idea that Lucifer was Satan, the devil, first came about, but this is one of the two passages of Scripture that mention this name (the other uses it to describe the king of Tyre).  Scripture never actually says that Lucifer = Satan, so this passage may or may not be referring to him.  I just wanted to point that out.

Next there's a quick judgment against Assyria and one against Philistia.  Following this is a longer judgment against Moab and another long one about Damascus, which was in Aram.  Basically, they're all going down.  Then there's a prophecy about Ethiopia, but I don't really get it.  I'm not sure whether it's saying that bad things are going to happen to them or not, but it seems to say that the Ethiopians will serve God.  And you know, Ethiopia was one of the first Christian nations.

Then Isaiah talks about Egypt, and it's basically the same story - they'll be conquered by somebody else, all the proud people will be humiliated, the land will be desecrated, etc., but it says that the affliction will make Egypt return to God, and then God will heal them.  In fact, he talks about Egypt almost the same way that he talks about Israel: it says God will send a Savior to deliver them, that God will make himself known to Egypt and they will know him, they will worship Him, etc.  I know that Egypt was a Christian nation for a time, before it became Muslim.

There's a short break here - God tells Isaiah to go around naked and barefoot for three years, to serve as a sign against Egypt and Cush (Ethiopia) because they will be taken captive by Assyria.  I find all this really interesting, actually.  Did these other nations hear Isaiah's prophecies about them?  Did he travel to them or send messages so they would know what was going on?  God sent the prophet Jonah to Ninevah; I wonder if he sent other prophets to other nations, especially since it seems he is very concerned with them.

Then he talks again about Babylon falling, and then there's a really short one about Edom, but I don't know what it means.  It's just somebody asking "Watchman, how far gone is the night?" and the watchman replying "morning comes but also night. If you would inquire, inquire; come back again."  I don't really know what that means.  Any ideas?  And then another short one about Arabia, and I don't so much get that one either.  I think it's saying that Arabia will lose its splendor and suffer some kind of loss.

Then there's a prophecy about something called "the valley of vision."  I don't know where that is, but they are going to be in mourning and suffering, but then God will set up somebody named Eliakim and put him over Judah, so I guess the valley of vision is something to do with Judah or Jerusalem.  But he's going to fall too.

Finally there's a judgment against Tyre.  I'm not sure where Tarshish is in relation to Tyre, but it's mentioned a lot too.  Like all the other places, it's going to be destroyed, but only for 70 years.  Then it will rise again and be just as bad as it was before.

So from reading this passage, I learned that I don't know very much about what's happening here.  I know a pretty good amount about Israel, but when it comes to all these other places, I don't have a clue.  I don't know if these prophecies came true or if we're still waiting for at least some of them.  I always thought I knew a lot about the Bible, but I've found an area where I need more study.

2 Kings 21-25: The End of Judah

Now we've come to my third favorite king (David is my second): Manasseh.  However, I'm not going to tell you why he's my third favorite king, and it's not going to make sense either unless you've read 2 Chronicles, because Manasseh is bad.  He is arguably the most evil king of Judah, because it is Manasseh's evil acts that move God to decide to hand Judah over to Babylon, and do it soon.  Manasseh rebuilds the high places that Hezekiah had just gotten rid of, he puts altars to false gods in the temple, he worships heavenly bodies, he sacrifices his son, he practices witchcraft and divination, and so forth.  It says that "Manasseh seduced them [Judah] to do evil more than the nations whom the LORD destroyed before the sons of Israel."  Remember that when the Hebrews took the promised land, they were not just fulfilling God's promise to give the land to Abraham; they were executing God's judgment against the sins of the Canaanites.  The Canaanites were so evil and so unrepentant for so long that God decided to wipe them out.  Judah, under the reign of Manasseh alone, becomes even more evil than the people they destroyed.  That is bad.

And this is all that the book of Kings has to say about Manasseh.  I find that really odd, because there is a lot more to his story than this, but since the Tanakh puts Chronicles at the very end, you won't find out the twist for a long while.  So you'll just have to sit there and wonder why the heck this evil evil person is my third favorite king of Judah.

Manasseh's son Amon becomes king, and he is evil like Manasseh.  His servants conspire against him and assassinate him, but the people of Judah round up the conspirators and execute them, and put Amon's son Josiah on the throne.  Josiah is a mere eight years old at the time, the second youngest king in Judah's history (Joash was 7).  Josiah is a good king, a very good king.  While some of his servants are sprucing up the temple, they find the book of the Law and bring it to Josiah and read it to him.  When Josiah hears the words - the words of Moses, the first five books of the Bible - he tears his clothes.  He is totally convicted - and this is a good king already, remember.  He wants to know what is going to happen to his country because they have not kept God's laws, so he sends people to ask this prophetess named Huldah, and she tells them that God's wrath is burning against Judah, but because Josiah heard the words of the LORD and paid attention to them, the destruction God has planned for Judah is not going to happen during his lifetime.  So then the king gathers all Judah together and reads the entire Torah to them and makes a covenant with them before God to keep the Law and follow Him with heart and soul.  Then he institutes a bunch of reforms, and chapter 23 lists all the bad stuff that he eradicated from Judah, and it's cool.  Josiah did not do things halfway, I'm thinking.  He gets rid of all the altars everywhere to every god and goddess, he destroys the place where people burned their sons and daughters, he tears down the houses of the male cult prostitutes, he defiles the high places that had been rebuilt by his grandfather, he executes all the priests to false gods, and basically just goes on a rampage throughout his whole country, destroying everything that had been an idol for Judah.  Finally, he goes back to Jerusalem and reinstitutes Passover, which has not been observed since the days of the judges.  That means even David and Solomon did not observe Passover - this book has been lost for a long time.

And just like Hezekiah, the author of this book tells us that "before him there was no king like him who turned to the LORD with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might, according to the law of Moses; nor did any arise after him."  Hezekiah, it seems, followed the LORD from the beginning.  It seems almost like Josiah turned to God because of the Torah that was found in the temple.  Maybe if that book hadn't been found, he would have just been okay.  I really believe that the Bible, even though it was written a long time ago and each book was written specifically for a particular group of people in a certain time and place, is relevant to every generation and every culture.  The Torah was already old when Josiah heard it for the first time, and he realized that those words were for him.  I think we should have the same response to God's Word that Josiah did.

Unfortunately, God has already made up his mind about Judah, and he is still going to let them get conquered by Babylon - but not just yet.  Just like he did with Canaan, he is waiting until they are past the point of no return.

Josiah's son Jehoahaz becomes king, and dangit, he's evil.  After having such a great dad, I'm at a loss as to why Jehoahaz turned away from all the good that had been accomplished in the preceding chapter.  It just goes to show you, people are individuals.  I don't know what kind of dad Josiah was, but there comes a point at which you can't guarantee the outcome of your child's life, I guess.  I'm not a parent yet, and that's already a scary thought to me.

Up to this point, it seems like Judah has had a fairly okay relationship with Egypt, but now the pharaoh imprisons Jehoahaz and sets up a different son of Josiah, Eliakim, in his place.  Jehoahaz, unfortunately for him, is held captive in Egypt and dies there.  Eliakim, meanwhile, is renamed Jehoiakim by Pharaoh, and has to pay him tribute.  He is also bad, by the way.  It's starting to look like all the good that Josiah did, was for nothing.  It only lasted one generation!

So now Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, starts encroaching on Judah.  At first Judah becomes kind of a vassal state or something, because it says that Jehoiakim serves him for three years.  But then he rebels, and so marauders from a bunch of different nations - Chaldeans, Aramenas, Moabites, and Ammonites - start attacking Judah, and the author tells us it was at the command of God, to carry out his judgment because of the sins of Manasseh.  Man, how would you like to be held responsible for the downfall of your whole entire country?  It just goes to show you, leaders and authority figures are held to a higher standard of accountability than everybody else, because they are examples, and they can influence people to follow God or not.

Jehoiakim dies and his son Jehoiachin becomes king (you can tell a country is nearing its end when the names become less and less creative).  Egypt has all but fallen to Babylon by now, Jehoiachin is only 18, also does evil in God's sight, and he only lasts three months before Nebuchadnezzar sends his army to Jerusalem.  Jehoiachin surrenders and is taken captive along with his family and a ton of people from Judah - the brave, the strong, the skilled, the talented, the educated.  Nebuchadnezzar sets up I guess Jehoiachin's uncle? Mattaniah as king, renaming him Zedekiah, who is also evil, and he tries rebelling against Nebuchadnezzasr.  So Nebuchadnezzar marches again against Jerusalem and pretty much just demolishes the city.  He kills Zedekiah's sons in front of him, then brings him to Babylon bound, and the whole of Jerusalem is burned.  Some random person named Gedaliah is appointed as governor over what's left of the people of Judah, who advises the people to serve Nebuchadnezzar - because as long as they paid tribute to him, he really was a pretty reasonable guy I think.  But a bunch of people flee to Egypt, although I'm pretty sure it was also under Babylon's control to some extent.

Remember Jehoiachin?  He's still in Babylon in prison, but he gets released and Nebuchadnezzar puts him back on the throne of Israel and treats him nicely, because he knows that Jehoiachin is going to be submissive.  And it works out pretty well for Jehoiachin after that.  He stays under Nebuchadnezzar's thumb, but he gets to keep his life, and his job, and he actually gets paid to be king for the rest of his life.  And that is the end of the story.

So man!  Judah sure went out with a bang.  I have to wonder, all those kings who tried rebelling against Nebuchadnezzar, it doesn't say any of them tried seeking God during that process.  And what I wonder is, if they had turned to God, would things have turned out differently?  God had already made up his mind to destroy Judah because of Manasseh, but because Josiah was repentant, he delayed the destruction.  I really think that if any of the successive kings had been good like Josiah, God would not have brought the destruction so soon.  But I think God knew what was going to happen.  It's sad, because Josiah tried so hard to turn the country around, but in the end it didn't work.  I don't know why.  In the end I guess that the people of Judah had hardened their hearts, and when you get to that point, it's very hard to turn back.

Believe it or not, from here the Tanakh goes to Isaiah.  So when next I write, we will be hearing from the Prophets.