My friends, we are two-thirds of the way through the bible! Now that's progress! Just a few more chapters left in Jeremiah and then onto Lamentations tomorrow.
Today's reading was kind of fun, consisting of more narrative than boring verse about God's omnipotence and stuff. Chapter 38 starts off with Jeremiah being arrested and thrown into a cistern again. One of the eunuchs petitions the king, saying, "Your majesty... these men have acted viciously in their treatment of the prophet Jeremiah. They have thrown him into a cistern, and he will die of hunger where he is, for there is no more bread in the city" (Jeremiah 38:9). Well if there's no bread IN THE CITY won't he die of hunger even if he's not in the cistern? Regardless, Zedekiah pulls him out and asks if the prophet might give him some advice. Jeremiah is reasonably pretty wary of this, saying, "If I speak out, you will certainly put me to death; if I offer advice, you will disregard it" (Jeremiah 38:15), but Zedekiah promises to play nice and Jeremiah tells him that he must surrender to the king of Babylon. After their chat, Zedekiah asks that Jeremiah keep the conversation private, probably because he doesn't want everyone to know that he's consorting with such a big loser. It's kind of like when you were in elementary school and your mom set up a playdate with the class weirdo to be nice, and sure you played Kirby's Dreamland 2 together and it was sort of fun, but no one at school has to know about that, right? RIGHT?!!!
Jerusalem is finally besieged in chapter 39; the Judean nobles and Zedekiah's sons are slain before his eyes, which are subsequently gouged out, leaving him blind. The Babylonian king Nebuchadrezzar instates a fellow named Gedaliah as a sort of puppet governor, and exiles everyone except for the poorest class of citizens, who are allowed to live in the vineyards and stuff.
One thing I wanted to clarify -- because I really did not get this until right now when I just looked it up on Wikipedia -- is that the Chaldaens and the Babylonians are the same people. I was under the impression that two different groups were attacking Israel, but it's actually the same one. Oops! Good to know!
The Babylonian king is really nice to Jeremiah, and after everyone is captured tells him that he can choose to go to Babylon or remain in Judea, recommending that he "go back to Gedaliah... and stay with him among your people" (Jeremiah 40:5). Gedaliah seems like a pretty chill guy, but his reign over Judea doesn't last very long because in chapter 41 the Ammonite king sends a fellow named Ishamel to assassinate him. Ishmael spends the remainder of chapter 41 killing a shit ton of people and throwing their bodies into a cistern. Now that's what I'm talking about! This kind of stuff is why I read the bible.
Ishmael gathers up the survivors and starts heading towards Ammonite territory, but on the way is attacked by a squadron led by a guy named Johanan, and Ishmael has to flee. The people are still pretty afraid of him and ask Jeremiah if they should resettle in Egypt or remain in Judea, but when he tells them to stay in the promised land they totally blow him off and go to Egypt anyway. Why even bother asking?! Weirdly enough, they blame Jeremiah's trusty scribe pal for the unsatisfactory answer, saying, "You are lying! The Lord our God has not sent you to forbid us to go and make our home in Egypt; it is Baruch son of Neriah who is inciting you against us" (Jeremiah 43:2-3). Well, okay. Whatever you say, guys. I always thought Baruch was sort of an asshole too.
Once the people leave, God tells Jeremiah to go to Egypt and tell the people that because they were disobedient, the Babylonians are going to come find them and "set fire to the temples of the Egyptian gods...[and] scour the land of Egypt as a shepherd scours his clothes to rid them of lice" (Jeremiah 43:12). Now, to me this seems kind of unfair. Why are the Egyptians being punished too? They're just nice people who like eyeliner and painting on walls! What did they ever do to you, God?
In chapter 44 God goes on to talk about EXACTLY HOW PISSED HE IS, saying, "I have sworn by my great name... that my name will never again be invoked by any of the Judeans" (Jeremiah 44:26). I love that he swears by himself, because it'd be sort of schizophrenic for him to say, "I swear to God!" He has to say, "I swear to me!"
That's good stuff!
The last four chapters of today's reading are more of those boring "prophecies against foreign nations." They sort of come out of nowhere too, considering God was JUST TALKING ABOUT how mad he is at the Jews. According to the footnotes, this is a "note of comfort" on which the book concludes. Well, how nice. How nice and boring.
Actually, I forgot! There was one line I liked! On Moab: "Make Moab drunk -- he has defied the Lord. / Let Moab overflow with his vomit / and become in turn a butt for derision. / Was not Israel your butt?" (Jeremiah 48:26-27)
Was not Israel your butt? Until tomorrow, I ask you to mull over this question. Is Israel your butt? And if not, what is your butt?
No comments:
Post a Comment