AUGUST

AUGUST

AUGUST 1

Judges 15; Acts 19; Jeremiah 28; Mark 14

EVENTUALLY THE CLASH BETWEEN Jeremiah and the false prophets becomes concretized in one particular contest—that between Jeremiah and Hananiah (Jer. 28). The issue could not be clearer. Jeremiah insists that unless Judah repents, its capital city Jerusalem will be destroyed, most of its population will perish, and the remainder will be sent into captivity. Hananiah insists that within two years of his utterance, i.e., within two years of 594 B.C. (still seven years before the ultimate destruction took place), there would be a miraculous deliverance from God. The rightful king, Jehoiachin (who had already been in exile for three or four years), would be restored to his throne, and the treasures that had been taken from the temple would be returned. Both prophets speak in the name of the Lord. Whom should the people believe, and why?

In this case, there are two useful time markers by which to test things. First, Hananiah stipulates that his prophecy will be fulfilled within two years (28:3). When that does not occur, there are still about five years to the final catastrophe—plenty of time for the people to repent. Second, we are told that shortly after the dramatic confrontation between Jeremiah and Hananiah in the temple, the word of the Lord comes to Jeremiah regarding Hananiah’s impending death, imposed by God himself: “This very year you are going to die, because you have preached rebellion against the LORD” (28:16). Seven months later, Hananiah dies (28:17). Should not the entire nation take notice and turn to the Lord?

In fact, there is a more dramatic marker for those with eyes to see. Jeremiah insists: “From early times the prophets who preceded you and me have prophesied war, disaster and plague against many countries and great kingdoms. But the prophet who prophesies peace will be recognized as one truly sent by the LORD only if his prediction comes true” (28:8-9). This is a remarkable insight. Jeremiah does not deny that a faithful and godly prophet, in a particular historical circumstance, might prophesy peace. But he treats the possibility as so improbable that implicitly he advocates a certain healthy skepticism until the predicted peace has actually come to pass. By contrast, the normal and expected themes of faithful prophets have to do with prophesying “war, disaster and plague against many countries and great kingdoms.” This is not because prophets are a dour and morbid lot. It is because faithful prophets deal with sin and its horrible consequences, and call people to flee from the wrath to come. Jeremiah insists that this lies at the heart of genuinely prophetic ministry. Does it lie at the heart of yours?

AUGUST 2

Judges 16; Acts 20; Jeremiah 29; Mark 15

MORE THAN THREE THOUSAND people were transported to Babylon (including King Jehoiachin) in the deportation of 597 B.C. (Jer. 52:28). Doubtless many of these people earnestly hoped for a speedy return to Jerusalem. Their longings made them easy prey for “prophets” who kept their hopes alive by promising them the sorts of things they wanted to hear. The prophet Ezekiel, himself an exile, repeatedly denounced these false prophets (as we shall see in the meditations for September). Back home in Jerusalem, Jeremiah heard of these developments and resolved to write a letter (Jer. 29), which was duly hand-delivered (29:1-3).

This letter begins with an exhortation to settle down, to seek the good of the city where the exiles are located (the largest settlement was close to Nippur, near the Kebar canal). “Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper” (29:7). This is linked to a warning not to be deceived by the false prophets.

Jeremiah then sets out the destiny of three groups:

(1) Those already in captivity (29:10-14): God plans to restore them to Jerusalem after the seventy years of Babylon’s ascendancy. This is bound up with a transformation of heart: “Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you . . . and will bring you back from captivity” (29:12-14).

(2) Those still in Jerusalem (29:15-19): Far from being the means of the salvation of the exiles, they themselves will be punished. They are the “poor figs” (29:17; cf. chap. 24). Those who are not destroyed will be scattered into exile themselves (29:18). Location near the temple is inadequate protection. Regardless of their location and religious ritual, they will be destroyed, because “they have not listened to my words . . . words that I sent to them again and again by my servants the prophets” (29:19). And then a warning for the recipients of the letter: “‘And you exiles have not listened either,’ declares the LORD” (29:19).

(3) The false prophets in Babylon (29:20-23): Two are specifically named: Ahab son of Kolaiah and Zedekiah son of Maaseiah. We know nothing more of them than what is written here. They are not to be confused with other Ahabs and Zedekiahs in Scripture. As is commonly the case, their false message about God went hand in hand with immorality in their lives. And God knows; he always knows (29:23).

AUGUST 3

Judges 17; Acts 21; Jeremiah 30—31; Mark 16

JEREMIAH 30—31 INTERRUPTS THE biographical material on Jeremiah with a group of utterances about the restoration of Israel and Judah. Sometimes both of the kingdoms are named (30:3); sometimes both are subsumed under “Jacob” (30:7) or “Israel” (30:10; 31:1). As in the prophecy of Isaiah, only the context determines whether “Israel” refers to the northern kingdom, already in exile for more than a century, or to all of “Jacob” (or, more precisely, that part that hears and returns to the land). The “incurable” wound and “injury beyond healing” that they have suffered is the result of their sin (30:12-14)—an invariable reality this side of the Fall. “‘But I will restore you to health and heal your wounds,’ declares the LORD” (30:17). Two high points:

(1) Jeremiah 31:15: Rachel, one of the matriarchs, whose tomb was near Ramah about five miles north of Jerusalem (1 Sam. 10:2-3; Josh. 18:25), is here pictured weeping for her “children” who were transported in 722 B.C. (when the northern tribes went into exile) and again in 587 (when what was left of the southern kingdom was transported, Jer. 40:1). Matthew 2:17-18 insists these words are “fulfilled” (typologically) when mothers weep again in the wake of the slaughter of the innocents connected with Jesus’ birth. For although the exiles returned to Jerusalem during the Persian period, the most magnificent features surrounding the end of the exile did not begin to unfold until the coming of the Messiah.

(2) Jeremiah 31:29ff.: This promise of a new covenant is extraordinarily penetrating. Because of the tribal, representative nature of the old covenant, the people had coined a proverb: “The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge” (31:29). Under the Mosaic covenant, special people—prophets, priests, kings, and a few other individuals—were especially endowed with the Spirit, and had the task of representing the people to God, and God to the people. “Know the Lord,” they exhorted them. And because of this tribal, representative structure, when the leaders fell into sin (“have eaten sour grapes”), the entire nation fell into corruption and suffered destruction (“the children’s teeth are set on edge”). But under the new covenant the proverb will no longer apply (31:30ff.). All those under the new covenant will know the Lord: God will put his law in their minds and write it on their hearts (31:33). There will no longer be mediating teachers, for all will know him (31:34); teachers will merely be part of the body, not mediators with an “inside” knowledge of God. And the forgiveness of sins will be absolute (31:34).

Identify where these themes are picked up in the New Testament.

AUGUST 4

Judges 18; Acts 22; Jeremiah 32; Psalms 1—2

AT ONE LEVEL, PSALM 2 CAN BE understood entirely within the framework of the life of a Davidic king—even of David himself. He has conquered the surrounding nations. If they rebel, they are plotting together “against the LORD and against his Anointed One” (2:2), i.e., his “messiah,” an expression that can refer to any anointed king of Israel, or to the ultimate Messiah. If they try to throw off the fetters of their obligations to Israel (2:3), they must reckon with God: “The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them” (2:4). He rebukes them in his anger, for he is the One who has installed his King on Zion (2:5-6).

Now the king himself speaks. He testifies to this same installation, i.e., to his own installation as king, using forms of speech common in the ancient Near East. At the king’s installation, he becomes the “son” of the god who extends primary sovereignty over that people. Yahweh himself uses that language: the king of Israel becomes God’s “son” at his installation, committed to seeking his “Father’s” glory and good, reflecting his character and will (2:7). God is so much in control of all nations that the Davidic king need only ask, and God will give him absolute sovereignty over the nations (2:8-9). The kings ought therefore to be wise, and warned (2:10). “Serve the LORD with fear. . . . Kiss the Son [i.e., the Davidic king], lest he be angry” (2:11-12).

But there are at least two elements that warn us against thinking the psalm’s meaning is exhausted in one of the ancient Davidic monarchs. First, early in the life of the Davidic dynasty David became a type or model of the ultimate “messiah” from this line, the ultimate “David.” One can easily find explicit references to this figure centuries later (e.g., Isa. 9; Ezek. 34). Typological reasoning might run like this: if the historical King David was God’s agent to rule over the nations that surrounded him, how much more will great David’s greater Son, the Davidic king par excellence, rule over the nations? Second, there are several hints in the psalm that suggest something more than an early Davidic king. He subdues the “kings of the earth” (2:2), which sounds pretty comprehensive (though it could mean “the kings of the land”); this “Son” is promised “the nations” and “the ends of the earth” as his possession—a lot harder to dismiss. The final blessing (2:12) sounds vaguely pompous for anyone other than the ultimate Messiah. Each of these expressions can be “explained” (or “explained away”): they might, for instance, be examples of hyperbolic language. But taken together, they do not so much point away from the historic David as point beyond him. Reflect on Acts 4:23-30.

AUGUST 5

Judges 19; Acts 23; Jeremiah 33; Psalms 3—4

IN THE VISION OF RESTORATION provided by Jeremiah 33, the last half of the chapter focuses on the restoration of the Davidic throne and related matters (Jer. 33:14-26). Some observations:

(1) Verses 15-16 largely repeat 23:5-6 (see meditation for July 27). The words are described as God’s “gracious promise” (33:14), i.e., the promise he made to Israel a little earlier through Jeremiah, and to which he again draws attention now that Jeremiah is imprisoned in the courtyard and the doom of the city is not long delayed. The destruction of the city is imminent, the exile of the people all but inevitable—and God wants both Jeremiah and the people to look beyond the impending disasters and contemplate his promises that await sure fulfillment. That is a substantial part of what it means to walk by faith.

(2) On the whole, Jeremiah does not disclose as much about the coming of the Messiah as does Isaiah—or, more accurately put, what he discloses is more diffuse and less focused. Nevertheless he depicts the coming one as the good shepherd (23:4; 31:10), the righteous Branch (23:5; 33:15), and as David the king, the Lord’s servant (30:9; 33:21, 26).

(3) The certainty of God’s covenant with David is tied to the certainty of God’s covenant with the day and the night (33:19-21)—in other words, to the utter reliability of God to maintain his ordered universe. The stability of the Davidic monarchy is not likened to the morning mist that passes away, but to the daily cycle, whose regularity depends on the faithfulness and reliability of a powerful, providential God. Although all that will be seen of the Davidic dynasty for a while will be a poor stump, yet God himself will make “a righteous Branch sprout from David’s line” (33:15).

(4) Slightly more surprising, and certainly rarer among the prophets, is the promise that the Levites will not fail to have a man stand before God and offer the prescribed sacrifices (33:18, 21). This may refer to the postexilic years when the temple was rebuilt and the Levitical sacrifices were reconstituted. But this same Jeremiah has also foreseen a new covenant, an announcement that makes the Mosaic covenant obsolete in principle (Heb. 8:13). Indeed, four centuries before Jeremiah, David foresaw the rise of a Melchizedekian priesthood (Ps. 110) that anticipated the end of the Levitical system and a change in the Law (Heb. 7:1112). From a canonical perspective, perhaps the ultimate typological fulfillment of this passage is in the kingdom of “priests” arising from the work of the great David (1 Pet. 2:5; Rev. 1:6).

AUGUST 6

Judges 20; Acts 24; Jeremiah 34; Psalms 5—6

BOTH INDIVIDUALS AND LARGER communities sometimes vow, under the pressure of desperation, to reform themselves and devote themselves to pleasing God. When the pressure abates, they rescind their promises and return to their self-centered sin. Their fickleness becomes transparent. The judgment or disaster threatening them does not really teach them the ways of righteousness or instruct them to turn from sin. They simply want relief, and if a vow before the Lord can achieve it, why, then they will vow. But that does not mean they really try to keep their vows.

That is the sort of pathetic drama that unfolds in Jeremiah 34. Nebuchadnezzar is at the gates of Jerusalem (34:1). Motivated by sheer desperation, King Zedekiah leads the people in a covenant that proclaims freedom for all slaves (34:8). The Mosaic covenant had in principle greatly ameliorated slave conditions by limiting servitude to six years (34:14; Ex. 21:2; Deut. 15:1, 12). A stream of prophets—Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah—excoriated the covenant people for their callousness, for their mercenary defiance of God’s Law, especially in the matter of slavery. And now Zedekiah leads the Jerusalemites in this major reform.

From other sources (see meditation for August 9) we know that news reached the armed forces of Babylon to the effect that an Egyptian army was advancing to relieve Jerusalem. So far as we know, this report was untrue. Nevertheless the Babylonian army withdrew to face this new threat from the south. To the citizens of Jerusalem, this must have seemed like almost miraculous relief. Stupidly, sinfully, wickedly, the former slave-owners “changed their minds and took back the slaves they had freed and enslaved them again” (34:11). Their real hearts are thus completely exposed.

Inevitably, the Babylonian forces discover there is no threat from Egypt, and the siege closes in again. There is no hope of relief this time. Who will believe any of their acts of “repentance” now? God declares, “But now you have turned around and profaned my name; each of you has taken back the male and female slaves you had set free to go where they wished. You have forced them to become your slaves again” (34:16). They have not “proclaimed freedom” to their “fellow countrymen” (34:17). So the only “freedom” they themselves will experience is the freedom to fall by sword, plague, and famine (34:17).

What hope is there for people who put on a show of “repentance” calculated to earn some mercy, but who return like a dog to its vomit and like a pig to its muck (2 Pet. 2:20-22)?

AUGUST 7

Judges 21; Acts 25; Jeremiah 35; Psalms 7—8

PSALM 8 IS A PRICELESS JEWEL that celebrates the glory and goodness of God disclosed in creation. With a wonderful brevity, David provides a heady mixture of awe and barely restrained joy. Without overlooking the evil in the world (8:2), he focuses on elements of the created order that reflect God’s majesty. Even the heavens are inadequate to the task (8:1b), yet God has ordained that his praise should be on the lips of children and infants (8:2). “O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” (8:1, 9); appropriately, the psalm begins and ends with God himself.

In large part, the psalm focuses on the place of human beings in this God-constructed, God-centered universe. The central rhetorical question is, “[W]hat is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?” Variations of this question carry different overtones, depending on the context. The question may beg for respite (Job 7:17), hide in shame in the face of human sin (Job 25:6), or undermine human arrogance (Ps. 144:3-4). In the context of Psalm 8, the question expresses stunned awe as the psalmist glimpses the surpassing greatness of the universe and reflects on human smallness and massive significance: astonishingly, God is “mindful” of “man,” which means much more than that he “remembers” us (as if Omniscience could forget!). Rather, the word has overtones of compassion, as the parallel line shows: he cares for us. What is glorious is the relationship. Indeed, here is one of these human beings addressing this great and majestic God personally: “that you are mindful . . . that you care.” One commentator reminds us that the appropriate inference Isaiah draws from the glory of God’s ordered heavens is not his remoteness but his “eye for detail” (Isa. 40:26ff.). The universe was not designed to be vast and meaningless, but to be a vast home for God’s people (Isa. 45:18; 51:16). Indeed, the vision of Psalm 8 harks back to the creation account (Gen. 1—2). This creature, this small being, this God-blessed human, is designed to serve as God’s co-regent over the entire created order of this planet (8:6-8).

Two further reflections: First, this account of human beings is vastly removed from contemporary visions that picture us as the accidental byproducts of cosmogony, neither significant nor intrinsically good or evil. Second, the Epistle to the Hebrews, reflecting on Psalm 8, recognizes how far short we human beings fall from our purpose in creation, and finds hope in the fact that we see Jesus as the prototypical Man of the consummated order still to come (Heb. 2:5-13).

AUGUST 8

Ruth 1; Acts 26; Jeremiah 36, 45; Psalm 9

THESE TWO CHAPTERS, JEREMIAH 36, 45, provide valuable insights into two realms: the relationship between Jeremiah and Baruch, and how Jeremiah’s prophecies came to be written down.

(1) Baruch, son of Neriah (36:4) and brother of Seraiah, who was a staff officer serving King Zedekiah (51:59), first appears in this book in chapter 32, where he serves as a legal witness. It now transpires that Baruch was Zedekiah’s amanuensis (his scribe, more or less his secretary).

(2) Clearly at some point Baruch thought that being attached to a prophet like Jeremiah would contribute to his advancement. He is deeply disappointed to find things not working out that way (Jer. 45). The import of the messages he has been transcribing sinks into his own soul, and he is terribly depressed. Jeremiah responds in two ways. (a) He rebukes the young man for thinking so narrowly of his own future when the entire nation is going down. That is a rebuke that many in the individualistic West need to hear. (b) He provides him with some assurance: despite the catastrophe about to fall on the city, Baruch will survive.

(3) We are not always provided precise information as to how the revelation God gave to particular prophets reached the written form we have in the Bible. Here the information is wonderfully specific. God himself instructs Jeremiah to write the words down, and Jeremiah carefully dictates them to Baruch, who transcribes them. Since this was the fourth year of Jehoiakim’s reign (36:1), it was 605/604 B.C., the year of the Battle of Carchemish when Babylon replaced Egypt as the regional power.

(4) It appears that, at least at first, the written form of Jeremiah’s prophecies carried more weight with the authorities than the oral form for which Jeremiah was incarcerated (36:8-19). Even today a public medium—newspapers, radio, television—is more likely to be believed than mere word of mouth from a friend. The tragedy is that when the king hears the words read to him, he responds with cynical defiance, cutting up the scroll section by section and throwing it into the fire. His action provides an ugly foil to the response of King Josiah when the rediscovered law scroll was read to him (2 Kings 22:11). Worse yet, if what he is destroying really is the scroll of God’s words, how utterly stupid to think that God’s words can be overthrown and destroyed so easily. Is God’s memory so short that he cannot remember what he has said? Can he not raise up human servants who will transcribe the material afresh and even include fresh revelation (36:2732)? So too with all the efforts across history to destroy the Scriptures: is God so impotent that he cannot defend his words and destroy those who mock them?

AUGUST 9

Ruth 2; Acts 27; Jeremiah 37; Psalm 10

WE HAVE SEEN AGAIN AND AGAIN that the flow of the book of Jeremiah is rarely chronological. Here we jump from the reign of Jehoiakim in chapter 36 to Zedekiah (Jer. 37), the puppet monarch installed after the last legitimate king of Judah, Jehoiachin, was transported to Babylon in 597 B.C. The date is 589—588. The two incidents described in this chapter reflect the further degeneration of the leadership and illustrate yet again God’s forbearance.

(1) The first incident (37:1-10) is apparently precipitated by the fact that Pharaoh Hophra of Egypt made a show of marching out to confront the Babylonians and relieve Jerusalem. The report was sufficiently troubling to the Babylonians that they temporarily lifted the siege of Jerusalem and turned to this new threat. Zedekiah sends some emissaries to Jeremiah, asking for his intercession—presumably to make this temporary respite permanent. Jeremiah responds with the words of 37:7-10: the reprieve is temporary, the Babylonians will return, Jerusalem will be destroyed. So do not be deceived into thinking otherwise.

(2) During the reprieve, Jeremiah tries to leave the city by the Benjamite gate, apparently with the intention of inspecting his newly acquired property in Anathoth (37:11-21; cf. 32:9). But he is arrested, beaten, and imprisoned under a charge of desertion. The officials do not believe a word the prophet says, so he remains incarcerated in an underground dungeon in the home of the secretary of state. The officials are very different from their predecessors under Jehoiakim (26:19; 36:19), who seemed to be open to Jeremiah but who were under the thumb of a stubborn and wicked monarch. Here the officials are contemptuous of Jeremiah and frankly cruel to him, while King Zedekiah, more out of desperation and fear than principle, tries to keep in contact with Jeremiah and finally makes his incarceration less painful.

All this suggests that in any hierarchy, including government and church, there are many different ways for things to go wrong. Sometimes there are a lot of weak, indecisive, but not profoundly amoral underlings being manipulated by a wicked leader. Sometimes there is an indecisive leader who is being controlled by a packet of incompetent, unfaithful, evil underlings.

Reflect: “Why, O LORD, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble? In his arrogance the wicked man hunts down the weak, who are caught in the schemes he devises. He boasts of the cravings of his heart; he blesses the greedy and reviles the LORD. In his pride the wicked does not seek him; in all his thoughts there is no room for God” (Ps. 10:1-4).

AUGUST 10

Ruth 3—4; Acts 28; Jeremiah 38; Psalms 11—12

IT IS NOT EASY TO SEE HOW the events of Jeremiah 38 are tied to the events of Jeremiah 37:11-21. Some think they are two entirely separate episodes in the life of the prophet; others think Jeremiah 38 is an expansion of the previous chapter. However one resolves the issue, the final exchange in this chapter between Jeremiah and King Zedekiah demands serious reflection.

The events themselves are easily understood. For several decades Jeremiah has been preaching the imminent destruction of Jerusalem. For the most part, he has been ignored or mocked. With Nebuchadnezzar’s troops all around the walls, however, Jeremiah’s credibility is doubtless at an all-time high. So when he reports that the Lord says that anyone who remains in the city will die by sword, famine, or plague, while those who surrender will survive (38:2), he is much more likely to be believed than he would have been five years previously. The city’s officials, however, not believing that these words are from the Lord, see this religious God-talk as nothing more than treason—treason with the pernicious effect of undermining the confidence of the remaining troops.

The punishment Jeremiah faces is unpleasant. Most dwellings in Jerusalem in this period had cisterns, often bottle-shaped, for retaining drinking water. This one was unused, but had thick mud in its bottom. Left for very long in this place, probably without food and water, Jeremiah would die.

What saves Jeremiah, humanly speaking, is the fact that King Zedekiah still seeks his counsel. Jeremiah does not pull any punches. Though it is politically inexpedient, Jeremiah tells the king that he should obey the Lord and submit to the Babylonians: the alternative is the route to disaster (38:20-21). Perhaps Zedekiah found this hard to believe for historical reasons: the pattern of siege warfare meant that because he had resisted even this far, he was slated for execution even if he surrendered. Doubtless he also found Jeremiah’s words hard to believe for another reason: he was still far too dependent upon his “friends”—who, Jeremiah insists, would one day be mocked as useless allies who led the king into the mud (38:22).

The juxtaposition of chapters 37 and 38 (yesterday’s meditation and today’s) is no accident. Leadership of God’s people can go disastrously wrong at the top, with the underlings being better but too weak or afraid to effect the desperately needed change (Jer. 37). Or leadership may be weak or corrupt throughout the hierarchy, with the top figure too indecisive or too much of a wimp to clean things up. Saddest of all are the Christian institutions where weakness or corruption prevails at both levels.

AUGUST 11

1 Samuel 1; Romans 1; Jeremiah 39; Psalm 13—14

A FRIEND OF MINE ONCE GAVE a university evangelistic address under the title, “Atheists Are Fools and Agnostics Are Cowards.” Needless to say, he drew a considerable crowd, even if the crowd was pretty hostile. Whether or not this was the tactically wise thing to do in that setting may, I suppose, be debated. What should not be debated is that my friend was being faithful to Scripture: “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God’” (Ps. 14:1). Indeed, if anything, the text of Scripture is stronger than the English suggests. The word rendered “fool” is in Hebrew a term of moral opprobrium suggesting perversity, churlish and aggressive perversity. Paul certainly understood the point: “Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools” (Rom. 1:22). After all, “what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them” (Rom. 1:19); and “since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind” (Rom. 1:28). The Bible’s view is that in the last analysis atheism is less the product of misguided searching, a kind of intellectual mistake, than a defiant and stubborn rebellion.

The fact that atheism is not widely seen that way is itself an index of our depravity. In fact, the best-informed atheists commonly acknowledge the connection between morality and belief, between immorality and unbelief. There is a famous passage in Huxley that acknowledges that one of the driving forces behind atheistic naturalism is the desire to tear away any sort of moral condemnation of otherwise condemned behavior. In a passage scarcely less famous, Michel Foucault, one of the theoreticians behind postmodernism, frankly acknowledges that it became important for him to destroy traditional notions of truth and morality because he wished to justify his own sexual conduct. A few years ago, Foucault died of AIDS.

We must not misapply this text. Within the framework of their own presuppositions, there are many honest atheists. But the framework itself is wrong. That framework is never established by a single individual. It is built up piece by piece until certain beliefs are culturally possible, then probable, then almost inevitable—and each generation, each individual, has contributed to this massive rebellion, this lust for autonomy that refuses to recognize the rights of our Maker and our obligations to him. Atheism becomes not simply an individual choice but a social degeneracy. The ultimate result is the sweeping condemnation of Psalm 14:2-3. Compare Romans 3:10-18: sin is not merely ubiquitous but universal, and results in massive social damage (Psalm 14:4-6). At the end of the day, there is no help but in the Lord (14:7).

AUGUST 12

1 Samuel 2; Romans 2; Jeremiah 40; Psalms 15—16

WHEN JERUSALEM FELL IN 587 B.C. (Jer. 39), Zedekiah was punished horribly, though leniently by the standards of siege warfare of the day. As for Jeremiah, probably the reports of his prophecies about the fall of Jerusalem soon filtered through the captives to Nebuchadnezzar (who was not himself at Jerusalem, but maintained regional headquarters at Riblah, leaving the final assault to his commander Nebuzaradan). In consequence the emperor gave orders that Jeremiah was to be well-treated (39:12). Initially that order was carried out, and Jeremiah was turned over to Gedaliah (39:13-14), who became the new governor of the region after the imperial troops had withdrawn, taking countless captives into exile.

That sets the stage for Jeremiah 40. The framework of the story is simple enough; the closing verses of the narrative evoke reflection on a terribly important theme. First, the framework: Those who were to be transported to exile were gathered at Ramah, which served as a rallying point about five miles north of Jerusalem. Despite Nebuchadnezzar’s instructions to leave Jeremiah with Gedaliah, somehow the prophet was swept up in this group (40:1). Anyone familiar with the confusion of war understands how easily this could have happened. The commander Nebuzaradan freed him and offered to take him to Babylon; probably it would have added to the commander’s prestige back home to be the patron of a great prophet who had predicted Babylon’s success. But Jeremiah was free to make his own decision, and he opted to stay with the remnant in Judah. Nebuzaradan provided him with food and a gift (40:5)—one more instance of the principle that a prophet is often honored by everyone except those closest to him (cf. Matt. 13:57).

But the account rushes on to describe the early stages of Gedaliah’s governorship. On almost all fronts he did the right thing. He encouraged the poor to settle down and till the land and gather the harvest. He drew in the Jewish “army officers still in the open country” (40:13), a potentially dangerous guerrilla force that might have broken out in the kind of anarchy that would have angered Babylon again. Even those who had fled to nearby countries began to return home (40:11-12), reassured by the moves Gedaliah was making to ensure stability. But Gedaliah’s great weakness was that he could not believe ill of people. Despite all the evil of the previous years, he still did not believe that evil happens, that evil people do evil things, that leadership must sometimes oppose evil. On so many fronts he was a good man. But he paid for his Pollyannish optimism with his life.

AUGUST 13

1 Samuel 3; Romans 3; Jeremiah 41; Psalm 17

THE ACCOUNT OF GEDALIAH’S assassination and its aftermath (Jer. 41) is brutal and ugly.

(1) The man responsible for Gedaliah’s death, Ishmael son of Nethaniah (40:8; 41:1), was a man of royal blood, and may have been incensed because he was not the one the Babylonians appointed to rule the people. It is always shocking to see people scrambling for power even when there is nothing more than disaster and poverty over which to exercise power.

(2) The depth of Ishmael’s perfidy is powerfully portrayed. To kill people at a meal you are sharing was far more shocking in the sixth century B.C. than in our own, inured as we are by Agatha Christie novels and the like. Moreover, Ishmael’s rage boils over so that others are assassinated, including the Babylonian troops left behind to keep an eye on things. The motive impelling the next atrocity (41:47) is uncertain: Ishmael may still have been suspicious of anyone interested in serving Gedaliah (41:6). Or in the still terribly unstable political situation following the war, he may have been intent on robbery and mayhem. The latter view is favored by the fact that some of the pilgrims save their lives by telling Ishmael of a food cache (41:8).

(3) Johanan son of Kereah was the one who first warned Gedaliah of Ishmael’s conspiracy (40:13-14). Now he is equally quick to put together a band and go after Ishmael and his men and those they have taken captive (41:11-12). Even though Ishmael and eight of his men escape, the captives are rescued (41:14-15).

(4) Now Johanan must ask himself what to do. He and those with him are afraid that when the murder of Gedaliah and the others is reported back to Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar will be so filled with rage that he will send back powerful army units and kill everyone who is left. So Johanan starts south, heading for Egypt, stopping near Bethlehem (just south of Jerusalem) to gather together those who want to escape with him.

(5) Theologically, all of this is part of the utter devastation befalling Judah. The city and temple have been destroyed. The Davidic dynasty has ended. All of the leaders, craftsmen, priests, and the like have been deported in waves (see 52:2830). And now, just when it seems that a good man, Gedaliah, might somehow nurse this broken nation back through slow recovery to real economic and political health, he is assassinated, and the few remaining leaders fear the Babylonians and plan to flee to Egypt. Unaware of what they are doing, they thus bring to perfect fulfillment the prophecies of utter doom that Jeremiah has pronounced for four decades.

AUGUST 14

1 Samuel 4; Romans 4; Jeremiah 42; Psalm 18

THERE IS AN OLD JOKE about a reprobate who absorbs just enough religion to think he should try to get his life in order. He goes to a minister, who tells him that the best thing he can do is turn away from his whiskey, his women, and his gambling. The old boy looks thoughtful for a few moments and then says, “You know, I don’t think I deserve the best. What’s second best?”

One might have thought that in the wake of the disastrous destruction of Jerusalem, long predicted by Jeremiah, the prophet would have enormous credibility among the survivors. The sad reality is that he has enough credibility for them to consult him, but no more (Jer. 42). What they want is divine approval for the plan they themselves have already concocted. They do not want God’s best, or God’s will, but God’s approval of their will. Jeremiah carefully seeks God, and ten days later (42:7) the word of the Lord comes to him. The substance of the message is this: stay in Judah, and God will protect you; fly to Egypt, and God will take this as a further sign of rebellion, and God’s wrath will pursue you and destroy you there, just as it recently destroyed so many in and around Jerusalem. Even as he is delivering this message, Jeremiah sees that it is not going down very well, and that the hostility against it—and against him—is deep. The next chapter (Jer. 43) records the sneering skepticism and the resolve of the leaders to disregard Jeremiah and his messages, to dismiss his words as outright lies, and to collect the remnant of the people and travel to Egypt. That is what they do, bringing Jeremiah with them.

Most movements that spring up from the fertile soils of Christendom appeal, in one way or another, to the will of God. Few probe the will of God very deeply. God is for evangelism; therefore he is for the way we are proposing to do evangelism, and we invoke his will to sanction our methods. God is love; therefore he is against church discipline except in the most egregious cases (which either never arise, or, if they do, by the time they do they too are covered by the love of God), and we invoke God’s will to sanction our determined niceness. God wants his people to be separate and holy; therefore we must withdraw into huddled isolationism and lob hateful barbs against all who disagree with us, and we invoke God’s will to authorize our tearless harshness and ruthless condescension. These wretched pits are terribly easy to fall into. All it takes is resolution, and no more real interest in the will of God than what we need to sanction our preferences.

AUGUST 15

1 Samuel 5—6; Romans 5; Jeremiah 43; Psalm 19

PSALM 19 IS ONE OF THE precious gems of the Psalter. It has three sections. The first delights in the wordless disclosure of God in the universe (19:1-6); the second exults in the clarity, perfection, and wealth of God’s written revelation (19:711); after a transitional verse (19:11), the third section portrays the appropriate response of the believer, a response full of self-examination and godly resolve.

If ancient Israel was sometimes inclined to worship the created order—sun, moon, stars—our generation is more inclined to marshal arguments that make them the product of impersonal forces and nothing more. Both stances are abominations. Owing to our culture’s prevalent philosophical commitment to naturalism, the powerful evidence of intelligent design is marginalized until we can no longer see the obvious: “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands” (19:1). The paradox of wordless utterance is delightful, as is the vision of irrepressible speech: “Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world” (19:2-4).

But it is in connection with his written self-disclosure that the covenant name of God, Yahweh (“the LORD” in many of our English Bibles), appears seven times (19:7-11). The six predications (19:7-9) overlap somewhat, but together they project a vision of written revelation that anticipates the even fuller exposition of Psalm 119. One of the striking things about these six affirmations is that several of them are not merely abstract. The text not only says something about the words of God, but about their function in the lives of those who absorb them and follow them. For instance: “The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy” (19:7): that is so, but the psalmist does not leave things there. Precisely because the LORD’s statutes are trustworthy, they serve to make wise the simple. Again: “The precepts of the LORD are right” (19:8)—a point strengthened in the next verse: “The ordinances of the LORD are sure and altogether righteous” (19:9). But that is precisely why they give joy to the heart (19:8): we are dealing with the Lord’s righteous precepts and ordinances, so they are never corrupt or manipulative.

What these two spheres of revelation demand is more than awe in the face of transcendent power, and more than personal delight in the personal, talking God—but both. Indeed, the appropriate response is repentance and faith, and zealous prayer that God himself would purify us within and make our words and meditations pleasing in his sight (19:12-14).

AUGUST 16

1 Samuel 7—8; Romans 6; Jeremiah 44; Psalms 20—21

SO FAR AS WE KNOW, JEREMIAH 44 contains Jeremiah’s last prophecy. The prophecy of the next chapter is explicitly dated to an earlier period, and probably the miscellaneous prophecies against the nations, found in chapters 46—51, all stem from an earlier period as well. So far as the record goes, the words before us are Jeremiah’s last public utterance.

One cannot say that Jeremiah’s ministry ended on a high note. We are all called to be faithful; some are called to be faithful in troubled and declining times. One dare not measure Jeremiah’s ministry by how many people he convinced, how many disasters he averted, or how many revivals he experienced. One must measure his ministry by whether or not he was faithful to God, by whether or not God was pleased with him. And so, finally, it is with each of us. I doubt that many of us living in the West have fully come to grips with how much the success syndrome shapes our views of ourselves and others—sometimes to make us hunger at all costs for success, and sometimes, in a kind of inverted pseudospirituality, to make us suspicious at all costs of success. But success is not the issue; faithfulness is.

What we find in this chapter is irretrievable rebellion. The Jews in Egypt—both those who have just descended there, and those who apparently had settled there earlier in an attempt to escape the troubled times back home—have merely replaced the Canaanite gods they used to worship at home with the Egyptian gods all around them. Their reading of their own history is entirely different from Jeremiah’s. They hark back to the time when they “stopped” their pagan worship (44:17-18): probably they are thinking of the reform under King Josiah. All the disasters that have befallen them have taken place since then. So what they must do, they reason, is serve the Queen of Heaven and the other pagan deities, and they resolve on this course.

There are two important lessons to be learned. First, you can always read history to make it prove almost anything you want. This does not mean that we are not to learn anything from history, for God himself tells the people what they should have learned. It means that what the people of God should learn from history must be shaped by the lens of God’s written revelation, by his prophetic word, by our covenantal vows. We cannot expect pagans always to agree with our reading of history. Second, this chapter demonstrates, in the harshest terms, that there is no hope for the covenant race, none at all, apart from the intervention of grace.

AUGUST 17

1 Samuel 9; Romans 7; Jeremiah 46; Psalm 22

A COMMON THEME AMONG THE biblical prophets is that God is sovereign over all nations. To most who read these pages that seems obvious. But in the ancient world, most nations had their own gods. So when a nation went to war, the people prayed to their own gods; if a nation was defeated, so were their gods. Clearly they were not as strong as the gods of the ascendant nation.

But the God of Israel keeps telling her that he is the God over all the universe, over all the nations. He is not a tribal deity in the sense that they own him or that he is exclusively theirs. That is why in many chapters of Isaiah and Jeremiah God insists that he himself is the One who is raising up Assyria or Babylon to punish the people. In other words, the defeat of Israel does not signal the defeat of God. Far from it: this God keeps insisting that if Israel is defeated and punished, it can only be because he has ordained it—and he does this by utilizing the very nations Israel fears.

But there is another side to the story. If God uses these various pagan nations, so also does he hold them to account. Of course, they cannot be expected to submit to the entire Law of Moses—after all, they are not part of the covenant community. Nevertheless God holds pagan nations to standards of decency and basic righteousness. So after using Assyria to chasten the northern kingdom of Israel, God turns around and chastens Assyria for her arrogance (Isa. 10:5ff.; see meditation for May 12). In the same vein, some of Israel’s prophets pronounce words of judgment and warning, and sometimes of hope, against the surrounding nations over which their own God is utterly sovereign. That is what is found in Jeremiah 46—51 and elsewhere (e.g., Isa. 13—23; Ezek. 25—32; Amos 1:3—2:3).

The chapter before us (Jer. 46) opens the larger section with a word from the Lord concerning Egypt. The first part (46:2-12) details Egypt’s decisive defeat at the battle of Carchemish in 605 B.C., when the Babylonians rose to supremacy in the region. The second part (46:13-26) anticipates a further defeat of Egypt at the hands of Babylon, this time under Nebuchadnezzar. This almost certainly refers to the same assault predicted in 43:10—part of the reason why the Jews remaining in Judah were not to go down to Egypt (as they did, about 586). That assault is not reported in Scripture, but inscriptional evidence records that Nebuchadnezzar invaded Egypt in a punitive expedition in 568—567.

Why is this chapter included in the book at this point?

AUGUST 18

1 Samuel 10; Romans 8; Jeremiah 47; Psalms 23—24

THOUGH A SHORT CHAPTER, JEREMIAH 47 is full of interest. It begins with a prophecy regarding the destruction of the Philistine city-states along the coast, and ends with one of the most thought-provoking bits of anguish in the latter part of this book.

First, the prophecy (47:1-5). Its precise timing is a trifle obscure: it came to Jeremiah “before Pharaoh attacked Gaza” (47:1). This may have taken place when Pharaoh Neco of Egypt marched north to attack Haran in 609 B.C. Gaza, one of the Philistine city-states, was on the route. But although this shows the prophecy came to Jeremiah before the days of Egyptian ascendancy were past, it did not concern Egyptian aggression, but Babylonian: the waters that “overflow the land and everything in it” rise “in the north” (47:2)—the direction from which the Babylonian might would come. The word picture of the subsequent destruction is not pretty. Panic will be so acute, Jeremiah insists, that fathers will abandon their children (47:3). Verse 4 may be improperly translated. The Hebrew is literally “to cut off Tyre and Sidon,” and the expression may mean that any help from these Phoenician cities is prevented from reaching the Philistine cities farther down the coast. In any case it is the Lord who destroys the Philistines, whatever the agency (47:4). Gaza and Ashkelon (47:5) were two of their principal cities. “Caphtor” (47:4) is the ancient name for Crete, from which the original Philistines came—so to say that the Lord is about to destroy “the remnant from the coasts of Caphtor” is a poetic way of saying that the Lord is about to destroy the Philistines.

Second, the final thought-provoking anguish (47:6-7). In colorful imagery, Jeremiah pictures the Philistines (according to the NIV) addressing the sword of the Lord: “‘Ah, sword of the LORD,’ you cry, ‘how long till you rest? Return to your scabbard; cease and be still’” (47:6). This supposes that the Philistines recognize that it is Israel’s God, the Lord himself, who has brought judgment on them at the hands of the Babylonians. Although it is possible to understand the Hebrew that way, strictly speaking the words “you cry” are not found in the text: they have to be inferred. But if they are simply omitted, then it is Jeremiah himself who is addressing the sword of the Lord. The Philistines may be pagans, and they may often have oppressed Israel, but now they are about to get pounded—and by the Babylonians, Judah’s premier enemy. So Jeremiah intercedes for the Philistines. But the final verse shows that he understands perfectly well that he cannot command God’s sword. The Lord himself has commanded it, the God of just judgment, and it will do its work. So also on the last day.

AUGUST 19

1 Samuel 11; Romans 9; Jeremiah 48; Psalm 25

ONE OF THE STRIKING FEATURES OF the Psalms, especially the psalms of David, is the theme of enemies. This makes some Christians nervous. Does not the Lord Jesus tell us to love our enemies (Matt. 5:43-47)? Yet here David prays that God will not let his enemies triumph over him (Ps. 25, especially v. 1), calls them “treacherous” (25:3), and complains that they have increased and fiercely hate him (25:19). It is inadequate to ascribe the two stances to differences between the new covenant and the old.

Preliminary reflections include:

(1) Even Jesus’ teaching that his followers love their enemies presupposes that they have enemies. Jesus’ requirement that we love our enemies must not be reduced to the sentimental notion that we all become so “nice” that we never have any enemies.

(2) New Testament believers may have enemies who must at some level be opposed. The apostle Paul, for instance, says that he has handed Hymenaeus and Alexander over to Satan to teach them not to blaspheme (1 Tim. 1:20). Both 2 Peter 2 and Jude deploy pretty colorful language to denounce fundamental enemies of the Gospel. Even if his language belongs to hyperbole, Paul can wish that the agitators in Galatia would emasculate themselves (Gal. 5:12). The Lord Jesus himself—the same Jesus who, while dying on the cross, cries, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34)—can elsewhere denounce his enemies in spectacularly colorful language (Matt. 23). It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that, unless we are to accuse the apostles and Jesus of hypocritical inconsistency, the demand that we love our enemies must not be reduced to the sentimental twaddle that merely smooths enemies out of existence.

(3) A very good case can be made for the view that the primary concern of Matthew 5:43-47 is to overthrow personal retaliation, to eschew the vendetta, to overcome the evil we receive by the good we perform, to absorb the hatred of an opponent and return love. But none of this denies for a moment that the other person is an enemy. Moreover, those in leadership may, out of love, feel obligated to protect the flock by chasing out a wolf in sheep’s clothing, by exposing the charlatan, by denouncing the wicked—without succumbing to personal venom.

(4) One measure of whether one’s response is the hatred of vengeance or something more principled that cherishes God’s holiness and leaves room for forbearance and love, is the set of associated commitments. In David’s case, these include trust (25:1-3, 4-5, 7b, 16, 21), repentance and faith (25:7, 11, 18), and covenantal fidelity (25:10).

AUGUST 20

1 Samuel 12; Romans 10; Jeremiah 49; Psalms 26—27

PSALM 27 SHARES SOME THEMES with its nearest neighbors (Pss. 26, 28) but is more exuberant than either.

(1) The Lord is my light (27:1-3). Light is an evocative figure for almost everything good: truth, knowledge, joy, moral purity, revelation, and more. Here the word is linked with “salvation” and “stronghold” (27:1); light is associated with security. David faces enemies who attack him like a pack of wolves, but if the Lord is his light and salvation, David will not be afraid. With a God this sovereign, this good, this self-revealing, this delightful, how will he not also be our security?

(2) The Lord is my sanctuary (27:4-6)—in the double sense that the word has in English. On the one hand, the theme of the first three verses continues: God is David’s sanctuary in the sense that he is David’s protection, his stronghold: “in the day of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling” (27:5). But on the other hand, this “sanctuary” spells infinitely more than mere political security: “One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life” (27:4). This does not mean that David entertains a secret, impossible desire to become a Levite. Rather, he has a profound passion to live his life in the presence of the living God. That is the locus of security.

(3) The Lord is my direction (27:7-12). David does not envisage his relation with God as something static, but as his lifelong pursuit. Moreover, he understands that this pursuit simultaneously shapes him. If he seeks God’s face as he ought (27:8), if he begs for mercy so that God will deal with him in compassion and not in wrath (27:9-10), then he will also learn God’s ways and walk in a straight path (27:11). This cannot be said too strongly or too often: to claim that one is pursuing God without concomitant reformation of life and growing conformity to the ways of God is wicked and dangerous nonsense.

(4) The Lord is my hope (27:13-14). However true it is that God is the believer’s refuge, sometimes in this broken and fallen world it does not feel like it at the moment. The truth is that God’s timetable is rarely the same as ours. Often he demands that we wait patiently for him: his timing is perfect. His vindication of his people often takes place in history (27:13), but rarely as soon as we want; nevertheless his ultimate vindication is priceless. “Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD” (27:14).

AUGUST 21

1 Samuel 13; Romans 11; Jeremiah 50; Psalms 28—29

THE CLOSING VERSES OF Psalm 28 bring together several themes prominent in biblical theology:

(1) The first and most obvious one is the unrestrained praise in 28:7: “The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped. My heart leaps for joy and I will give thanks to him in song.” Here is no faith of mere resignation; here, rather, is a faith that wells up from (or produces?) a heart that “leaps for joy” and expresses itself in thankful song. One cannot read the Psalms without recognizing that genuine faith does not produce a merely stereotypical emotional response. Given different sets of circumstances, genuine faith may be tied to an almost desperate trust and anguished petition, to quiet confidence and steadfastness, to praise that bursts the borders of exuberance into spectacular spontaneity. In this passage faith is closest to the latter, for the Lord has already heard David’s cry for mercy (28:6).

(2) Throughout the first seven verses of the psalm, David’s petitions and praises are in the first person singular; they arise from his status as an individual. The last two verses focus on God’s “people” (28:8-9), his collective “inheritance” (28:9). So far as language goes, this is effected in part through David’s meditation on God’s “anointed one” (28:8), the word that ultimately generates our “messiah.” As the king, David himself is of course the royal “anointed one,” the royal “messiah.” But as God has heard his prayers, shown him mercy, and called forth his joyous praise, so his individual experience ought to be a paradigm for the covenant community at large. He represents them, and there is a profound sense in which they are collectively God’s “anointed one,” his “son” (cf. Ex. 4:22—another title applied both to Israel at large and distinctively to Israel’s king). The expression “anointed one” in a Davidic psalm inevitably prompts us to think of the king; the parallelism in verse 8 shows that the expression here refers to Israel: “The LORD is the strength of his people, a fortress of salvation for his anointed one” (italics added). The thoughtful reader reflects on the ways in which David and the people are linked—and on the ways in which Jesus the Messiah (i.e., Jesus the Anointed One) not only springs from David’s line, but shows himself to be both the ultimate Davidic king and the ultimate embodiment of Israel.

(3) The last line calls to mind a delightful truth: “Save your people and bless your inheritance,” David writes; “be their shepherd and carry them forever” (28:9, italics added). Reflect on such passages as Psalm 23; Ezekiel 34; Luke 15:1-7; John 10; 1 Peter 5:1-4.

AUGUST 22

1 Samuel 14; Romans 12; Jeremiah 51; Psalm 30

MANY A CHRISTIAN HAS experienced the almost ineffable release of being transported from despair or illness or catastrophic defeat or a sense of alienated distance from God, to a height of safety or health or victory or spiritual intimacy with our Maker and Redeemer. Certainly David had such experiences. Psalm 30 records his pleasure during one of those transports of delight.

The psalm divides into three parts. In the first (30:1-5), David depicts the marvelous transformation. In the second (30:1-6) he describes the complacency that drove him down in the first place, whether prior to the first five verses or in another cycle of the same thing. In the last section (30:11-12), he concludes with the same exuberant joy he displays in the first five verses, as he bursts the boundaries of language to depict the glorious transformation when wailing is turned into dancing, and sackcloth into the garments of joy.

The list of contrasts in the psalm captures the heart and the imagination. Here we may reflect on one pair of such contrasts: “For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime; weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning” (30:5).

David is writing from his perspective as a member of the covenant community. Almighty God is linked by solemn oath and covenant with them. If they sin, God does not write them off: “his anger lasts only a moment”; his punishments, however severe, are temporary. His basic stance toward them is gracious: “his favor lasts a lifetime.” And since the earlier verses show that David is thinking not of the nation but of his individual experience, what is true for the people of God as a whole is true for him in particular: God may punish him for various reasons, but God’s fundamental stance toward him is merciful and gracious, lasting a lifetime. Basking in the conscious presence and blessing of God, David looks back on his recent experience and exults in the fact that “weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.”

There are many such contrasts in Scripture, not a few of them bound up with the new covenant. The apostle Paul can speak of “our light and momentary troubles” (though by our comfortable Western standards his troubles were neither light nor momentary!). These achieve for us “an eternal glory that far outweighs them all” (2 Cor. 4:17)—and on such a scale they truly are light and momentary. Paul is merely following Jesus, “who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb. 12:2).

AUGUST 23

1 Samuel 15; Romans 13; Jeremiah 52; Psalm 31

THE HISTORICAL APPENDIX TO the prophecy of Jeremiah (Jer. 52) imposes a “spin” on the book as a whole. Without it, certain points would be left hanging—that is, they would still be there within the body of the book, but they would not be highlighted as powerfully as they are with this appendix to flesh them out.

First, it may be useful to offer notes on several of the historical details of this report. It is rather surprising that no mention is made of Nebuchadnezzar’s instructions for the protection of Jeremiah. But in fact, the interest lies in the large historical movement, not in Jeremiah’s personal circumstances. Some of the details complement the historical account provided by 2 Kings 25. Second Kings, for instance, does not mention Zedekiah’s imprisonment (Jer. 52:11). Seraiah the chief priest (52:24), one of the leaders who were executed, was grandson of Hilkiah, the high priest under Josiah, who traced his descent from Aaron (cf. 1 Chron. 6:13-15). The report of the numbers transported (52:28-30) is much lower than the figures given in 2 Kings 24. Probably the figures in Kings reflect the total, while the figures here refer to adult males or adult males of a certain rank. The variation in dates between 2 Kings 25:8 and Jeremiah 52 reflects, respectively, the Judean and the Babylonian methods of reckoning years of reign. Nebuchadnezzar’s son, Evil-Merodach (52:31—Amel-Marduk in Babylonian sources) reigned only one year (561—560 B.C.). Babylonian records confirm that Jehoiachin was among those who enjoyed this emperor’s largess.

Second, we should isolate the theological effects of reading this chapter at the end of the book. Two elements stand out. (a) The historical details remind the reader that everything predicted by Jeremiah came to pass. Because Jeremiah is not named, the flavor is stronger yet: everything that God said he would do, he did. The sin of the people was persistent, unrepented, corroding, perverse. Far from softening the people, the promise of judgment, which God out of mercy delayed and delayed, merely bred hardness of heart. But the promised judgment finally fell. One is reminded of the reasoning in 2 Peter 3. (b) The closing verses of the chapter (52:31-34) describe how the legitimate Davidic king was finally released from his imprisonment and treated with honor during the closing years of his life. Of course, he never returned to Jerusalem or to any part of the land of Israel. But thoughtful readers cannot help reflecting on the fact that the book does not finally end in judgment. There is still the whisper of hope. God is not yet finished with the Davidic dynasty. The first adumbration of the promises of the prophecy of Jeremiah fall across the horizon.

AUGUST 24

1 Samuel 16; Romans 14; Lamentations 1; Psalm 32

BEFORE SAYING SOMETHING ABOUT Lamentations 1, I should offer a few observations on the book as a whole.

(1) In Hebrew, the first word of the book means “Oh, how [deserted is the city],” and this first word becomes the title in the Hebrew Bible. Later Jewish writers referred to the book either by this word or by another Hebrew word that means “lamentations.”

(2) Early Greek and Latin translations of this short book assign it to Jeremiah the prophet. This is entirely possible, but strictly speaking, the work is anonymous.

(3) Lamentations is made up of five poems, five dirges, each occupying one chapter. The first four are acrostics: i.e., the twenty-two consonants of the Hebrew alphabet introduce, respectively, each of the twenty-two stanzas in each poem (though there are slight irregularities in chapters 2, 3, and 4). In the first three poems, each stanza is normally made up of three lines in some kind of parallelism (with two exceptional four-line stanzas, 1:7; 2:19). In the third poem, each line of each stanza begins with the same Hebrew consonant that introduces that dirge. The fourth poem has only two lines for each stanza. Though it is poetry, the fifth lament is not an acrostic, but consists of twenty-two lines that resemble some psalms of corporate lament (e.g., Pss. 44, 80).

(4) No linear flow of thought sweeps through each chapter or through the entire book. Certain themes keep reappearing, of course, but by and large the book is impressionistic, full of powerful images that reinforce a small number of burning truths.

If Job deals with the calamity that befell a righteous man, and thus with the problem of innocent suffering, Lamentations deals with the calamity that befell a guilty nation. Those who sow the wind will reap the whirlwind. While honestly and powerfully portraying the suffering of the nation, these poems vindicate God: God, not human beings, is in control of history, and God will not be mocked. Justice ultimately will prevail in the drama of history, because God is just.

Two final challenges. (a) Read through this first chapter and identify each of the powerful images the writer casts up, asking what it contributes to the chapter and how it is related to other biblical passages (if at all). For instance, verse 10 calls to mind that only the high priest could enter the Holy Place—and now raw pagans not only have entered but have ravaged the temple. Theologically, this is tied to the fact that the glory of God abandoned the temple (cf. Ezek. 8—11), demonstrating, among other things, that the presence of God is more to be sought than the building. (b) What is godly about 1:21-22?

AUGUST 25

1 Samuel 17; Romans 15; Lamentations 2; Psalm 33

THIS DELIGHTFUL HYMN OF PRAISE (Ps. 33) focuses on what God is and what he does. It is so wonderfully fecund that here I can do no more than draw attention to some of its evocative themes.

(1) The Lord is righteous, and “it is fitting for the upright to praise him” (33:1). Faithful and thoughtful worship turns in part on adoration of God for his character. Those who reflect the same character, however feebly, will most hungrily worship him for his perfections. Thus godly praise is tied to the moral transformation of the worshiper.

(2) The psalmist envisages creativity in music, consummate skill on the instruments, and fervor (33:3)—a combination fairly rare in evangelical corporate worship.

(3) God’s character and God’s work cannot be separated from his word (33:49). This is not only because God’s word is as righteous, true, reliable (“faithful”), and loving as he is, but because God’s word is effective—something nowhere more clearly seen than in creation: “By the word of the LORD were the heavens made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth” (33:6).

(4) God is utterly sovereign. He foils the plans of the nations; no one ever foils his plans (33:10-11): “the plans of the LORD stand firm forever, the purposes of his heart through all generations.”

(5) Although God is sovereign over the entire human race, and is the judge of all, yet he is peculiarly the God of his own covenant people (33:12-15).

(6) Nations are never saved by mere might, apart from the blessing and sanction of God. Of course, God might well use the big guns, and his sovereign providence operates even in the preparation of the mighty empires that chastened his own people. But to trust the big guns is to forget who gives strength and wealth and blessing. Moreover, the Lord is perfectly capable of overturning any nation of any size, of spiking the big guns. “A horse [or a tank] is a vain hope for deliverance; despite all its great strength it cannot save” (33:17). The ultimate hope is in the Lord: “But the eyes of the LORD are on those who fear him, on those whose hope is in his unfailing love” (33:18).

(7) Granted that this is the sort of God who is really there, that this is the God we worship, the three closing verses are as inevitable as they are jubilant. Here is the proper grounding for godly hope: “We wait in hope for the LORD;he is our help and our shield. In him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in his holy name. May your unfailing love rest upon us, O LORD, even as we put our hope in you” (33:20-22).

AUGUST 26

1 Samuel 18; Romans 16; Lamentations 3; Psalm 34

IT IS DIFFICULT TO DECIDE whether the first part of Lamentations 3 describes the experience of an individual (perhaps Jeremiah), or if the individual is a figure representing the entire nation as it has been forced into catastrophic defeat, poverty, and exile. Several lines favor the former view (e.g., 3:14, where the individual has become the laughingstock “of all my people” rather than of the surrounding peoples). The book as a whole, and the plural “we” that dominates most of the second half of this chapter, slightly favor the second view.

But more important than deciding this issue is the striking way in which hope or confidence twice break out in the midst of the most appalling distress. The first instance is in 3:22-27. Despite the horrible devastation, the writer says, “Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail” (3:22). Their sins merit more judgment than they are facing. They might have been wiped out. Only the Lord’s mercy prevented that from happening. However great their sufferings, the fact that they still exist testifies to the Lord’s graciousness toward them. God’s mercies renew themselves in our experience every day (3:23). Besides, the faithful will surely insist that what they want the most is not the Lord’s blessings but the Lord himself: “I say to myself, ‘The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him’” (3:24). This is a moral stance: it signals the end of the self-sufficiency and self-focus that thought it could thumb its nose at God. For this writer, the chastening is having its desired effect: it is driving people back to God.

The second block of hope is a retrospective on the preliminary ways in which the Lord has already answered (3:55-57), and which then becomes a plea for vindication (3:58-64). The stark simplicity of the first of these two passages is profoundly compelling, the heritage of many believers who have passed through dark waters: “I called on your name, O LORD, from the depths of the pit. You heard my plea: ‘Do not close your ears to my cry for relief.’ You came near when I called you, and you said, ‘Do not fear’” (3:55-57). The prayer for vindication that follows (3:58-64) must not be reduced to bitter vengeance. If God is just, then in the same way that he has chastened his own covenant people, he must mete out justice to those who have cruelly attacked others—even if it is that very attack that God has providentially deployed to chasten his own people. God himself elsewhere insists on this same point (e.g., Isa. 10:5ff.).

AUGUST 27

1 Samuel 19; 1 Corinthians 1; Lamentations 4; Psalm 35

THE FOURTH DIRGE (LAM.4) again casts up a variety of mental pictures to depict the suffering of the final siege of Jerusalem and beyond. It also lays out some of the reasons why the judgment was imposed, and ends in a whisper of hope.

The dirge opens by likening the people of Jerusalem to gold that has lost its luster (4:1). Like gold, they started off precious, but now they are treated like the cheapest clay pots (4:2). Under conditions of siege and transportation, food becomes so scarce that mothers can no longer nurse their children; even baby jackals are better treated (4:3-4). Proverbial for wickedness, Sodom was destroyed in a quick holocaust, “in a moment” (4:6). But the punishment of the poet’s people “is greater than that of Sodom” (4:6); siege warfare is a wretched, drawn-out affair, and the exile that follows it goes on and on. The theological assumption, of course, is that there are degrees of guilt: those with most knowledge of God’s ways have least excuse, and so they can expect severest judgment (e.g., Matt. 11:20-24). As for the nobility, they are as emaciated, degraded, and dirty as the rest, and therefore indistinguishable from the rest (4:8-9)—which is another way of saying that the leadership of the little nation has been destroyed. They are so filthy that they are physically and ceremonially unclean, like lepers who must eke out their existence where no one wants to have contact with them (4:14-15). “The LORD’s anointed” (4:20)—here a reference to King Zedekiah—proves to be of no help. “We thought that under his shadow we would live among the nations” (4:20)—that is, secure in the knowledge that he was in the Davidic line, the Lord’s anointed. But as the Lord has destroyed the city and the temple, so also has he removed the Davidic descendants from the throne.

Why did the Lord do this? “[I]t happened because of the sins of her prophets and the iniquities of her priests” (4:13). The writer does not mean to suggest that these were the only sinners, but that the religious leaders, who should have been doing the most to preserve the nation in covenantal faithfulness, led the nation instead in corruption and infidelity. Because of their own positions, far from staying the national decline, they abetted it and hastened it. Where is that true today?

The story does not end here. In mocking derision the writer tells nearby pagans that they might as well delight in the moment, for their turn will come. God’s justice will be imposed on them as well as on Israel—and one day the covenant community, though afflicted now, will put behind them every trace of the exile (4:21-22). The Lord’s Anointed will give them rest.

AUGUST 28

1 Samuel 20; 1 Corinthians 2; Lamentations 5; Psalm 36

IN THIS INFORMATION-RICH AGE, many of us have learned to be as brief as possible. That was one of the areas in which my own doctoral supervisor helped me a great deal: though my prose style is still too rambling, whatever leanness and precision it has owes a great deal to his thorough correcting of my work a quarter of a century ago. Efficient managers learn to be brief; computer programmers are rated on how briefly they can write precise code to do what needs to be done. Only a few contemporary authors (e.g., Tom Clancy and James Michener) get away with long, rambling books—and even then the editors have drastically trimmed them.

Yet here we are, quietly reading through Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, with Ezekiel to go, and we find ourselves circling around the same handful of themes again and again: sin in the covenant community, threatened judgment, then enacted judgment, first for the northern tribes, then for Judah. We recognize the subtle differences, of course: history, apocalyptic, oracle, lament, prayers. Here in Lamentations 5, the fifth dirge is cast as a long prayer: “Remember, O LORD, what has happened to us; look, and see our disgrace” (5:1). But haven’t you caught yourself saying to yourself more than once, “I know this is the Word of God, and I know it is important, but I think I understand now something of the history and the theology of the exile. Couldn’t we get on to something else?” We live in an age burgeoning with information, we cry for brevity, and the Bible at times seems terribly discursive. So we scan another chapter as rapidly as possible because we already “know” all this.

But that is part of the problem, isn’t it? Read through this chapter again, slowly, thoughtfully. Of course, it is tied to Israel six centuries before Christ, to the destruction of her cities and land and temple, to the onset of the exile. But listen to the depth and persistence of the pleas, the repentance, the personal engagement with God, the cultural awareness, the acknowledgment of God’s sovereignty and justice, the profound recognition that the people must be restored to God himself if return to the land is to be possible, let alone meaningful (5:21). Then compare this with the brands of Christian confessionalism with which you are most familiar. In days of cultural declension, moral degradation, and large-scale ecclesiastical frittering, is our praying like that of Lamentations 5? Have the themes of the major prophets so burned into our minds and hearts that our passion is to be restored to the living God? Or have we ourselves become so caught up in the spirit of this age that we are content to be rich in information and impoverished in wisdom and godliness?

AUGUST 29

1 Samuel 21—22; 1 Corinthians 3; Ezekiel 1; Psalm 37

EZEKIEL WAS JEREMIAH’S contemporary. Though he was born into a priestly family, Ezekiel was removed from the temple. In March, 597 B.C., he, young King Jehoiachin, the Queen Mother, the aristocracy, and many of the leading priests and craftsmen were transported seven hundred miles to Babylon. The young king was in prison or under house arrest for thirty-seven years. The exilic community, impoverished and cut off from Jerusalem and the temple, dreamed nostalgically of home and begged God to rescue them. They could not conceive that in another decade Jerusalem would be utterly destroyed. On the banks of the Kebar River—probably an irrigation canal swinging in a loop southwest from the Euphrates—the exiles tried to settle. And here, according to Ezekiel 1, when he was thirty years old and in the fifth year of his exile (i.e., about 593, still six years before the destruction of Jerusalem), Ezekiel received an extraordinary vision.

Detailed explanation of this apocalyptic vision demands more space than I have here. But some observations are crucial:

(1) In general terms, what Ezekiel sees is a vision of a mobile throne, the mobile throne of God. (I once preached on this passage to some hearing-impaired folk, and more than one thought I was saying it deals with the mobile phone of God!)

(2) The throne is made up of four “living creatures,” each with wings outstretched to touch the adjacent two at the wingtips, so that together the four creatures make a huge, hollow square. Inside this space there are torches, flashes of lightning, and fire. Each of the four living creatures has four faces—probably a way of signaling that God’s throne is intelligent (the human face), royal (the lion), strong (the bull), and compassionate (the eagle, cf. Ex. 19:4; Isa. 40:31). Beside each creature is a pair of wheels, intersecting each other so that they cannot fall over. The entire structure moves in straight lines, like a cursor on a monitor only in three dimensions, propelled by the wheels and additional wings of the living creatures, directed cohesively by the Spirit. Above the heads of the creatures, and supported by them, is a platform like a giant wok, sparkling like ice or hoarfrost. Above that is the throne of God.

(3) The importance of this mobile throne becomes clear later in the book. Here we must grasp two things: (a) The closer the vision gets to God himself, the more distantly he is described. The culmination—“This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD” (1:28)—elicits not an artist’s conception, but worship. (b) More broadly: visions of God always induce brokenness, humility, and worship (cf. Isa. 6; Rev. 1, 4—5).

AUGUST 30

1 Samuel 23; 1 Corinthians 4; Ezekiel 2; Psalm 38

IN SOME WAYS THE FIRST three chapters of Ezekiel hang together to describe Ezekiel’s early call and commission—the commission of a prophet called to serve in declining times. In the Old Testament, not all prophetic calls are the same. Elisha served as an apprentice to Elijah; Amos was called while he was serving as a shepherd; Samuel first heard the call of God when he was but a stripling. But prophets commissioned to serve in peculiarly declining times have some common features in their call. We cannot trace all of those features here, but one of them emerges with great strength in Ezekiel 2.

Here God tells Ezekiel what he is being called to do. He is being sent, God says, “to a rebellious nation that has rebelled against me” (2:3). He is being sent to the nation of Israel, at least that part of it that is in exile with him—and that part, of course, comprised the most gifted, the most learned, the most noble, the most privileged. From God’s perspective, they are merely “obstinate and stubborn” (2:4). Ezekiel is to tell them, “This is what the Sovereign LORD says” (2:4). So far God has not told Ezekiel what he is to say, i.e., the content of what the Sovereign Lord says. Rather, the rest of this chapter is devoted to making sure that Ezekiel understands that his ministry turns absolutely on one thing: passing on to this rebellious house the words of God. “You must speak my words to them, whether they listen or fail to listen” (2:7).

Of course, it is always important for prophets and preachers to speak God’s words faithfully. But it is especially urgent in declining times. In periods of revival and prosperity, the preacher may be viewed with respect, his faithfulness and insight lionized. But in declining times, those who truly speak for God will be taunted and threatened. The pressures to dilute what God says become enormous. Clever exegesis to make the text say what it really doesn’t, selective silence to leave out the painful bits, hermeneutical cleverness to remove the bite and sting of Scripture, all become de rigueur, so that we can still be accepted and even admired. But God is aware of the danger. From his perspective, success is not measured by how many people Ezekiel wins to his perspective, but by the faithfulness with which he declares God’s words. Anything less participates in the rebellion of this “rebellious house” (2:8). This calls for godly courage that drives out fear (2:6-7).

Precisely where are such faithfulness and courage most urgently demanded in the Western world today?

AUGUST 31

1 Samuel 24; 1 Corinthians 5; Ezekiel 3; Psalm 39

TWO OF THE THEMES OF Ezekiel 3, intrinsic to the call of Ezekiel, may usefully be elucidated:

First, the opening part shows how important it is for the prophet to empathize with God and his perspective. Trailing on from the closing lines of chapter 2 and into the beginning of chapter 3, Ezekiel in his vision is commanded to eat a scroll with “words of lament and mourning and woe” (2:10) written on both sides. Ezekiel eats it and reports that “it tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth” (3:3). Why would a scroll full of “words of lament and mourning and woe” taste sweet? The point of the vision is that God’s words become sweet to Ezekiel simply because they are God’s words. God really does know best; he knows what is right. Therefore even when his words pronounce judgment and calamity, there is a sense in which the prophet must be empathetic to God’s perspective.

Similarly in the next verses (3:4-9): Ezekiel is not being sent to some foreign culture where the first step is to learn the local language. He is being called to speak to the people of his own heritage. Nevertheless he will find them unwilling to listen to him, precisely because they are unwilling to listen to God (3:7). So God promises: “But I will make you as unyielding and hardened as they are. I will make your forehead like the hardest stone, harder than flint. Do not be afraid of them or terrified by them, though they are a rebellious house” (3:8-9). So in this head-butting contest Ezekiel is being enabled to side with God unreservedly. God sometimes raises up strong and obstinate leaders who, regardless of personal popularity, hunger to side with God. None of this means that Ezekiel has no fellow-feeling for the exiles; both the next verses and the rest of the book contradict any such notion. Nevertheless his commission is a call to empathize with God’s perspective and to be unyielding.

Second, this chapter contains a call to utter warnings and to be careful (3:1627). The theme of the watchman (3:16-21) recurs in the book (chap. 33), and can be explored later. But in the closing verses Ezekiel is forbidden to say anything—courtesies, greetings, political speeches, whatever—except for what God gives him to say. This state of affairs endures until the fall of Jerusalem, about six years away (Ezek. 33:21-22), when his tongue is loosed. This restriction adds weight to the times he does speak. It is also a challenge to everyone who speaks for God. All of our talk and our silences should be so calibrated that when we convey God’s words our credibility is enhanced and not diminished.

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