BibleProject | One Story That Leads to JesusSample

The truth can be a bitter pill to swallow. Jeremiah’s severe message to the Southern Kingdom was never popular. As a result, neither was he.

In today’s reading, Yahweh sends Jeremiah to plead with the people of Jerusalem: If you turn around and stop engaging in this catastrophic evil, Yahweh will relent from sending catastrophic judgment. But the people’s resistance to Jeremiah and his message grows increasingly more hostile. The temple crowds become so outraged by Jeremiah’s dire warnings that they threaten to kill him.

The following story (starting in chapter 27) picks up several years later. By this point, Babylon has already invaded Jerusalem once, looting the temple treasury and exiling the city’s entire elite class. With Judah’s future hanging by a thread, Jeremiah warns the people that serving Babylon is their only hope of survival. The prophet walks around the city wearing a wooden livestock yoke—a symbol of Israel’s inevitable subjugation to Babylon—in a dramatic attempt to get the people’s attention. (At least Jeremiah got to keep his clothes on.)

The people double down on their refusal to listen. A brazen false prophet named Hananiah tries to one-up Jeremiah’s prophetic sign act by breaking the yoke on Jeremiah’s neck. “Don’t worry,” Hananiah announces, “within two years, Yahweh will break Babylon.”

Hananiah’s fiction is simpler, more comfortable, and easier for the Israelites to stomach. Jeremiah’s truth hit hard. God will indeed break the yoke of Babylon, but it’s going to be a lot longer than two years. Think more like several decades.

Jeremiah urges the people to accept reality and to settle down. Get married. Plant gardens. Make yourselves at home, because Babylon’s going to be your home for a long while. He even tells them to “seek the peace of the city” they live in (Jer. 29:7). This suggests they can live as Yahweh designed them to, even under oppressive rule.

Reflection Questions

• Can you think of anyone later on in the biblical story who faced death threats after delivering a severe message in Jerusalem’s temple? (Look at Mark 11:15-18 if you need a hint.) What does this parallel reveal about the religious leadership of Israel in both stories?
• The stories in today’s reading take place during the reigns of Jehoiakim (Jer. 26:1) and Zedekiah (Jer. 27:1, 28:1). Take a moment to review the stories of these kings in 2 Kings 24. How might this context help you understand Jeremiah’s warnings to the Southern Kingdom?