The where and when of the book of Jeremiah may not be very interesting to anyone but me. Yet I think the orchestration of the destruction of Jerusalem is a pretty amazing sequence of events. And as much as I love to go back to the beginning (!) I'm only going to go back to the time of King Hezekiah.
Hoshea was the last king of Israel. Scripture makes it very clear why Israel was destroyed. In fact, such well know prophets as Elijah and Elisha had been telling Israel to return to God from it's very beginning. I Kings 17, which tells us about the Assyrians conquering Israel during Hoshea's reign, also tells us very clearly why.
"All this took place because the Israelites had sinned against the Lord their God, who had brought them up out of Egypt from under the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. They worshiped other gods and followed the practices of the nations the Lord had driven out before them, as well as the practices that the kings of Israel had introduced. The Israelites secretly did things against the Lord their God that were not right." Verses 7-23 recite some of the specifics. We will get more into those specifics next post when we look at what was going on in Judah in particular preceding it's destruction. With Israel gone, scripture says, "Only the tribe of Judah was left, and even Judah did not keep the commands of the Lord their God. They followed the practices Israel had introduced."
But Judah had something going for her; King Hezekiah.
1 Kings 18:5 says Hezekiah trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel. "There was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before him or after him. He held fast to the Lord and did not cease to follow him." So when Sennacherib, the Assyrian king kept right on marching south toward Judah, Hezekiah did two things.
First, he gave Sennacherib all the silver in the temple and in the treasuries of the royal palace. [11 tons of silver and 1 ton of gold, actually!] Still, the Assyrians came right up to the gates of Jerusalem and called for the king. In a famous account, the field commander called out to the city, "Are you depending on Egypt? Are you depending on your God to deliver you?"
18:28 records the arrogance of the Assyrian king. "Do not let Hezekiah deceive you. He cannot deliver you from my had. Do not let Hezekiah persuade you to trust in the Lord when he says, 'The Lord will surely deliver us..." And he makes a very persuasive point; none of the other gods have been able to save their people from Assyria.
King Hezekiah and all his officials tore their clothes, put on sackcloth and went to the Temple. Then they sent a message to Isaiah to pray for the remnant.
Isaiah's response was very amazing. He said not to be afraid of the blasphemous words of the Assyrians. [vs 7] "Listen! I am going to put such a spirit in him that when he hears a certain report, he will return to his own country and there I will have him cut down with the sword. " And that's exactly what happened. Not only that, but during the night the angel of the Lord slaughtered 185,000 Assyrian soldiers. Assyrian didn't trouble Judah again. In fact Assyria was eventually to fall to the nation of Babylon.
Hezekiah had great favor with God and great trust in him..... but I need to keep going.
Hezekiah's young son Manasseh became king after him. He was one of the worst. He did more evil than the Canaanites had. His son Amon wasn't any better. He was so bad that his own officials assassinated him and made his son Josiah the king.
This is where it gets really interesting. Josiah was only 8. He was righteously brought up and walked in all the ways of his ancestor, David. I think Jeremiah had something to do with that. Jeremiah 1:1-4 says in the 13th year of the reign of Josiah.... Josiah would have been 21.... the word of the Lord came to me..." The young prophet, Jeremiah started predicting the destruction of Judah....and why not? Judah was living the same godless lives Israel had before them.
In the 18th year of Josiah, five years into Jeremiah's ministry, Josiah sent to Hilkiah the high priest asking him to repair the temple. The temple, during the half century of evil kings, had evidently fallen into that much of a run down state. During the remodeling Hilkiah [did you remember that he was Jeremiah's father?] FOUND THE BOOK OF THE LAW! Not only was the temple in a terrible state; evidently the entire worship of God had fallen to the same level.
Josiah instituted wide reaching reforms. And were they needed! Listen to this! "Remove from the temple of the Lord all the articles made for Baal and Asherah and all the starry hosts." "He did away with the pagan priests appointed by the kings of Judah to burn incense on the high places..." "He broke down the shrines at the gates of the city.""He desecrated Topheth...so no one could use it to sacrifice his son or daughter in the fire to Molech." "He removed the horses dedicated to the sun." He even got rid of some sites remaining from Solomon's time! the list is remarkable. [2Kings 23:1-25]
Interestingly enough, throughout Josiah's reform, Jeremiah continued to prophesy against Judah. And 2 Kings 23:26 says the Lord didn't turn away his fierce anger from Judah. Evidently the King turned to God, but the nation did not.
At this time the Egyptian King, Neco, sent an army to the Euphrates River to join forces with Assyria, [against the upstart Babylon?] For some reason, Josiah went out to fight with him. He was killed and his son Jehoahaz became King. Judah came under the rule of Egypt. Jehoahaz paid 3.4 tons of silver to Neco through taxing the people of the land, yet Neco took the young king captive to Egypt where he died.
Jehoiakim was also Josiah's son, stepbrother to Jehoahaz. He became king by the appointment of Neco and about the same time Nebuchadnezzar became King of Babylon, challenging Assyria's control. If you check out a map you can see that tiny little Judah was just a pygmy caught between two giants. Jehoiakim soon became a Babylon's vassal.
Although Josiah had been a man of God, Josiah's reform had not touched the hearts of the people. His two sons who followed him were not godly. But now a big thing had changed. Something was different than when Hezekiah was king. God wasn't there for them any more.
Jeremiah's message was different than Isaiah's, and this is what has always drawn me to Jeremiah. How would you like to be the Prophet whose message was, God is gone.
Jeremiah 3:4-5. "You have the brazen look of a prostitute; you refuse to blush with shame. Have you not just called to me, 'My Father, my friend from my youth; will you always be angry with me?' This is how you talk, but you do all the evil you can."
During the reign of Josiah, the message had been to return; return to Me. But they would not.
In chapter 11 Jeremiah formally reviews the terms of the covenant God made with Israel [undivided then, therefore Israel included Judah] . "This is what the God of Israel says; 'Cursed is the man who does not obey the terms of this covenant, the terms I commanded your forefathers when I brought them out of Egypt, out of the iron-smelting furnace. I said Obey me and do everything I command you, and you will be my people and I will be your god. Then I will fulfill the oath I swore to your forefathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey---the land you possess today."
Clearly they had broken the covenant, and by that act gave up both the land and the protection of God. Under the very clear terms of the covenant, they were cursed.
Then in verse 14, these instructions to Jeremiah. "Don't pray for this people nor offer any plea or petition for them, because I will not listen when they call to me in the time of their distress." vs 17, "The Lord Almighty, who planted you, has decreed disaster for you, because the house of Israel and the house of Judah have done evil and provoked me to anger by burning incense to Baal."
The men of Anathoth, the priests from Jeremiah's own home town, hatched a plot to try to kill him. It would not be the last such plot.
King Jehoiakin revolted against Nebuchadnezzer and was immediately taken to Babylon and killed. Neco lost the disputed land between Egypt and the Euphrates River to Nebuchadnezzer and decided to stay home. The stage was set for the end.
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