Ezekiel 13-24: Allegory of Prophecy

Last week we explored the prophet Ezekiel's mystical encounter with God. As I noted, description of mystical encounters are not to be taken as piece-for-piece parables or allegories. Rather, we may interpret certain images within them to arrive at a sense of what the encounter signifies.

Today we encounter a different form of revelatory experience: allegories or parables given directly from God to the prophet. These have a few different functions, such as the revelation of history through a riddle to trick the reader into accepting the Lord's propositions. Others indict directly. No matter how these stories are used, however, the symbolism is understandable and direct, corresponding to true historical events. Below are five examples of this sort of meaning making.

God's Faithless Bride
One of the most compelling accounts of Israel's shameful history comes in Ezekiel 16, titled in the New Revised Standard Version, "God's Faithless Bride." Here "the Lord God of Jerusalem" recounts the history in a highly stylized, metaphorical style.

Jerusalem was born "in the land of the Canaanites," (Ezekiel 16.3) phrasing that precludes ownership. Israel is a stranger here, the child of an Amorite father and Hittite mother. These, of course, were the people that preceded the Israelites in Canaan, the promised land.

Jerusalem is born an abandoned in an open field, receiving no birth rituals; her umbilical cord even remains uncut. No one pities the bloody flailing child but God, who happens upon her and commands her to, "Live! and grow up like a plant of the field." (Ezekiel 16.6-7) Jerusalem sprouts into full womanhood, though is still naked and bloody when God encounters her a second time:

I passed by you again and looked on you; you were at the age for love. I spread the edge of my cloak over you, and covered your nakedness: I pledged myself to you and entered into a covenant with you, says the Lord God, and you became mine.
(Ezekiel 16.8)

God washes the blood from Jerusalem's body and clothes her. He adorns her in fine clothing and jewelry, and gives her the finest food. Jerusalem becomes renowned for her beauty among the nations. Rising up from an ignoble beginning, Jerusalem is at its best.

Then things go awry. Jerusalem begins to whore herself to other me - that is, she turns to other gods. (This imagery is very common in biblical literature, and Ezekiel uses the unfaithful wife motif extensively.) Jerusalem even sacrifices her children - the most tangible sign of the covenant with her husband God - to the false gods.

In succession, Jerusalem is rebuked for whoring herself to the Egyptians, the Philistines, Assyria, and Chaldea (Babylon). The list parallels the troubled history of God's people: slavery in Egypt, conflict with Philistia, and a tumultuous relationship with Assyria and Babylon that alternated between submission and trade and armed conflict.

God notes that Israel's "whoring" is unique for its subversion of the sex-marriage economy. Generally prostitutes receive payment for their services. Jerusalem, however, renders services and makes payments to her clients. We can easily see why God would be angry with her behavior. Not only is his wife unfaithful, but she is giving to her lovers the very gifts that he gave to her.

For this God promises wrath. She will be delivered into the hands of her enemies - those who were once her lovers:

Because you have not remember the days of you youth, but have enraged me with all these things; therefore, I have returned your deeds upon your head, says the Lord God.
(Ezekiel 16.43)

While it might be easy to understand the need for retribution, the line that precedes this verse seems to speak with the voice of an abusive husband when read in a modern light:

So I will satisfy my fury on you, and my jealousy shall turn away from you; I will be calm, and will be angry no longer.
(Ezekiel 16.42)

God must expend all his anger before he will again accept his bride. This is not the portrait of domestic abuse popularized by Eminem - though one can see the parallels in a broken contract and a propensity to do harm.

This is on a completely different level, the breaking of a contract between God and an entire people. God offers the easy yoke to those that are faithful, but too many are reluctant to take that bear their faith entirely in God.

God returns in his excoriation to the image of family: Jerusalem as daughter of a Hittite and Amorite. The idea is expanded into a complete family of sinners. Samaria, the northern kingdom of Israel, is Jerusalem's elder sister, while the notoriously sinful city of Sodom is Jerusalem's younger sibling. Not even these cities are as sinful as Jerusalem, claims the Lord, though Sodom was destroyed long ago and Samaria has already been conquered. Indeed, the sisters will be restored even as Jerusalem languishes. Thus the city will feel shame for its sins.

In classical prophetic style, however, Jerusalem is promised salvation:

Yes, thus says the Lord God: I will deal with you as you have done, you who have despised the oath, breaking the covenant; yet I will remember my covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish with you an everlasting covenant.
(Ezekiel 16.59-60)

Though it has been noted by others that negative prophecies are most frequently correct, this one does come true in part with the ascension of King Cyrus.

The Useless Vine
Ezekiel 15 offers a sophisticated riddle that is meant to reveal the truth about Jerusalem through a clever reveal. The riddle works by introducing a situation and convincing the reader of a truth about it, before revealing that actually the situation is representative of something that directly affects the reader. In this way, riddle solvers indict themselves. This particular riddle goes as follows:

O mortal, how does the wood of the vine surpass all other wood -
the vine branch that is among the trees of the forest?
Is wood taken from it to make anything?
Does one take a peg from it on which to hang any object?
(Ezekiel 15.2-3)

Well, no, the reader replies. People do not use vine wood for pegs. Vines do not surpass any wood at all - all they are good for is burning.

The vine, of course, is Jerusalem. Indeed, says the Lord, this useless city will be burned. It will be consumed and made desolate because it has not positive use for God. It does not give back to the Lord in any way, so why should he not destroy it to create the more useful fire?

The Two Eagles and the Vine
The next reference to the vine of Jerusalem (Ezekiel 17) is highly allegorical, a riddle whose question is phrased in poetry and answer revealed in  prose.

A great eagle, representing the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar, removes the top of a Lebanon cedar, representing King Jehoiachin, and takes it away to a "city of merchants," representing exile. The eagle then takes a seed - the offspring of Jehoiachin, Zedekiah - who is initially loyal to the eagle and therefore prospers.

Soon another eagle appears, representing the pharaoh Psammetichus. The vine is drawn to its brilliant plumage and great wings, and its allegiance transfers. This is a fatal move, as Egypt is not able to protect Jerusalem against the angry Babylonian monarchy. There will be great struggle and destruction.

But eventually God will intervene, taking "a sprig from the lofty top of a cedar." (Ezekiel 17.22) It will be planted on the mountain height of Israel to proper. In fact, the sprig will grow to become the greatest of the nations: "Under it every kind of bird [certainly even great eagles!] will live; in the shade of its branches will nest winged creatures of every kind." (Ezekiel 17.23)

Not only will Israel be recognized, but God as well. All nations will finally bow before him:

All the trees of the field shall know
that I am the Lord.
I bring low the high tree,
I make high the low tree;
I dry up the green tree
and make the dry tree flourish.
I the Lord have spoken;
I will accomplish it.
(Ezekiel 17.24)

Judah the Lion
[Fun fact: Ariel means "Lion of God" in Hebrew]

Judah is frequently identified with a lion for Jacob's blessing of the tribal patriarch in Genesis:
Judah is a lion’s whelp; from the prey, my son, you have gone up. He crouches down, he stretches out like a lion, like a lioness—who dares rouse him up?
(Genesis 49.9)
Ezekiel picks up on this theme in chapter 19, a lamentation for fallen Judah, who was the great lioness. Here cubs were reared to be great lions, to catch prey and devour humans, but nations raise the alarm and capture them, afraid of the power that they wield. Here the lioness is the nation of Judah and the cubs it kings. Jehoahaz is deported to Egypt and both Jehoiachin and Zedekiah are exiled to Babylon. Though the lioness mother Judah attempts to raise strong offspring, here enemies are stronger than they.

The Vine Again
The lament abruptly transitions to an image of mother Judah as a vine of great mass and height in a vineyard. The vine is destroyed by various means: plucked up and cast down (armed conflict), dried by an eastern wind (siege warfare and famine), stripped of fruit (death, attrition), consumed by fire (conquered), and transplanted (exiled).

And the fire has gone out from its stem,
has consumed its branches and fruit,
so that there remains in it no strong stem,
no scepter for ruling.
(Ezekiel 19.14)

These verses have a remarkable resonance with Jacob's blessing of Judah in Genesis (mentioned above):

The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him; and the obedience of the peoples is his. Binding his foal to the vine and his donkey’s colt to the choice vine, he washes his garments in wine and his robe in the blood of grapes; his eyes are darker than wine, and his teeth whiter than milk.
(Genesis 49.10-12)

Oholah and Oholibah
Finally we come to Ezekiel 23, another parable of Judah's sin and God's retribution. "Born" in Egypt, the sisters Oholah (Samaria) and Oholibah (Judah) both become brides of the Lord and bear children. For the time being, at least, God overlooks the fact that they are "damaged goods" - that in Egypt they have already been dealt with sexually.

Oholah soon whores herself to the Assyrians, and is killed - not by God - but clearly in retribution for her unfaithfulness. Oholibah also lusts after the Assyrians, but soon turns to the Babylonians, then Egypt. The last of these is portrayed as a return to an old lover:

Thus you longed for the lewdness of your youth, when the Egyptians fondled your bosom and caressed your breasts.
(Ezekiel 23.21)

Jerusalem, which has not yet suffered exile (the "death" of Oholah) is therefore warned of impending fury that God will unleash, dealt through the armies of the vary nations Oholibah once loved. She will suffer the same fate as her sister. Says the Lord:

For they have committed adultery, and blood is on their hands; with their idols the have committed adultery; and they have even offered up to them for food the children whom they had borne to me.
(Ezekiel 23.37)

Judah will indeed be punished. But the beauty of God's relationship with his people is that there is always room for reconciliation.

The Boiling Pot
One final allegory comes in Ezekiel 24, a boiling pot to cook an animal. The imagery is complex, but it seems that the pot is rusted on the inside, making worthless the food cooked within. Furthermore, the blood that Jerusalem has shed is symbolically inside the pot, an image that God uses to incriminate the city. The Lord will also take a rusted pot, symbolic of Jerusalem, and heat it, so that the filth and rust within it is consumed. In this way, the pot will be cleansed. But the cleansing of Jerusalem clearly will have dire consequences for its people.

Thus concludes today's post.

As for me, this reading really brought out the feminist in me. The language of the bible is remarkable here in its portrayal of women and violence. Could it have been put another way and understood as poignantly? What do you think? Let me know in the comments!

Ezekiel 1-12: On the move

I have written much of the dialectical tension that shape the biblical narrative, the push and pull between the word of God and the will of humankind. Intertwined with this plot-forming device is the device of movement. Throughout much of Israel's history, it has moved toward and away from the promised land. Now, long after conquering the promised land, Israel finds itself again out of God's favor and out their proper space.

At this point in the biblical narrative, it seems that God's people are permanently removed from the promised land. After they are given the land of Canaan, they fail to fulfill their contract and are expelled. In popular parlance, they blew it. (But that's human nature, as the bible widely attests.) The Babylonian exile represents the first time that Israel feels the bitter pull toward the land they possessed for so long.

The literature that developed during the time preceding and following the expulsion deals with the sense of loss in different ways. The Book of Job teaches how to deal with injustice. Lamentations mourns present conditions and looks to God for a panacea. Psalms offers myriad interpretations of punishment and reward. Prophets, like Jeremiah and Isaiah (First, Second, and Third), bring to light improper worship practices and preach social justice, while they deliver both predictions of terror and prophecies of salvation.

Ezekiel responds to the plight of the exile, and as a part of this offers the reassuring image of God in motion. Judah, home of God's people and God's residence on earth, is destroyed by the Babylonians in 587 BCE. Therefore in his tenure as a prophet from 593 to 571 BCE, Ezekiel can be seen as comforting the exiles from the deportations from Jerusalem. Part of this comfort comes from Ezekiel's particular vision of God as a mobile deity.

God in Motion
The Book of Ezekiel opens with Ezekiel's vision of God's chariot, but before turning to that, it is important to note the setting. Ezekiel receives his vision "in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Chebar; and the hand of the Lord was on him there." (Ezekiel 1.3)

Jeremiah is the first prophet we encounter that prophesies redemption explicitely  from captivity, delivering a distinct message to his audience. Jeremiah was in Israel for his entire tenure, Isaiah 1 and 3 prophesied from Israel, and Isaiah 2 consists of God's direct message to Israel (without the explicit medium of a prophet).

God's Chariot
Ezekiel's vision of God's chariot takes place in 593 BCE, five years after the first exile, and still six before the second in 587.
 
I recommend reading the entire vision sequence of Ezekiel 1-3.11 to get the full effect of the literature. For those of you who would rather not, here is an artist's rendition, courtesy of Wikipedia:

A stormy wind from the north (the direction of Babylon) blows in a phantasm that can only be described using the noncommittal mystical terms such as like and as. The four living creatures of the vision have legs and arms for mobility, and for whatever reason only move directly straight, without turning. Never mind exactly why, as Ezekiel is trying to put into words an ineffable mystical experience. (A description of mystical experience is not part-for-part allegory, by the way, but a "translation" of a mystical encounter).

That being said, we may focus on the prominent images of movement throughout the vision to guess at what exactly Ezekiel is trying to say. Ezekiel writes of his encounter:

"As I looked at the living creatures, I saw a wheel on the earth beside the living creatures, one for each of the four of them."
(Ezekiel 1.15)

One wheel or four? Both? In a vision, it doesn't really matter. The image is that of a wheel, which might signify completeness or more likely movement.

As for the appearance of the wheels and their construction: their appearance was like the gleaming of beryl; and the four had the same form, their construction being something like a wheel within a wheel. When they moved, they moved in any of the four directions without veering as they moved. Their rims were tall and awesome, for the rims of all four were full of eyes all around. When the living creatures moved, the wheels moved beside them; and when the living creatures rose from the earth, the wheels rose. Wherever the spirit would go, they went, and the wheels rose along with them; for the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels. When they moved, the others moved; when they stopped, the others stopped; and when they rose from the earth, the wheels rose along with them; for the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels.
(Ezekiel 1.16-21)

These wheels are capable of special locomotion, made possible by a wheel within a wheel. Four sets of tall and awesome double wheels propel the cart/chariot wherever it goes, forward and backward, up and down. The device is free to move in any direction in three dimensions. Additionally, the wheels function as a symbol of divine attentiveness. Eyes adorn all four wheels, indicating God's ubiquitous knowledge and presence. God is not only mobile, but all-seeing as well.

Ezekiel's Second Vision: Transportation
After this encounter, Ezekiel heads to Tel-abib, to reveal God's message to the exiles there. Here again Ezekiel encounters God. A year later in Judah (592 BCE), Ezekiel encounters God in a vision:

...and the spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven, and brought me in visions of God to Jerusalem, to the entrance of the gateway of the inner court that faces north...
(Ezekiel 8.3)

The vision is very similar, a fact that is even made explicit:

And the glory of the God of Israel was there, like the vision that I had seen in the valley.
(Ezekiel 8.4)

Again, Ezekiel faces north, the direction from which the Babylonians attack. He is then transported to various parts of the city, where he encounters the abominations that still occur in Jerusalem. Ezekiel is warned of the future hardships before being brought back.

This section is notable because again God has a remarkable range of motion. He is not limited to the Jerusalem temple, but can observe and even interact with his people in captivity.

Again we see the details of movement in his encounter:

I looked, and there were four wheels beside the cherubim, one beside each cherub; and the appearance of the wheels was like gleaming beryl. And as for their appearance, the four looked alike, something like a wheel within a wheel. When they moved, they moved in any of the four directions without veering as they moved; but in whatever direction the front wheel faced, the others followed without veering as they moved. Their entire body, their rims, their spokes, their wings, and the wheels—the wheels of the four of them—were full of eyes all around. As for the wheels, they were called in my hearing “the wheelwork.” Each one had four faces: the first face was that of the cherub, the second face was that of a human being, the third that of a lion, and the fourth that of an eagle. The cherubim rose up. These were the living creatures that I saw by the river Chebar. When the cherubim moved, the wheels moved beside them; and when the cherubim lifted up their wings to rise up from the earth, the wheels at their side did not veer. When they stopped, the others stopped, and when they rose up, the others rose up with them; for the spirit of the living creatures was in them.
(Ezekiel 10.9-17)

God's capability of movement is a remarkable development, and has a great influence on prophets and God's people, as we shall see in future chapters and later books.

Lamentations: Poems and Synesthesia

Being midway through the bible,
I would like to analyze some poetry. I
Bid you stay with me - I will break down
Lamentations and
Explain the meaning of its lines.

Today we look at The Book of Lamentations, an intricate web of five interwoven poems, each of which speaks of the Babylonian exile in a different way. These are the events immediately following the book of Jeremiah, which can be read in 2 Kings.



The first four poems take the form of acrostic poetry. An acrostic poem is one in which the first letter of every line or verse is used to spell or say something, as in the short poem above. Poems 1, 2, and 4 of Lamentations spell out the Hebrew alphabet verse by verse, all 22 letters in order, from aleph to taw. Poem 3 intensifies poetic form, with 3 successive verses devoted to each letter. Poem 5 mimics the number of verses in poems 1, 2, and 4, but does not exhibit an acrostic form. For those of us who cannot read Hebrew, I created a visual display so you can see how the poems sounds.

Poem 1:

________________________

Poem 2:

________________________ 

Poem 3:

________________________

Poem 4:

________________________ 

Poem 5:

________________________ 

Read chronologically (how else are you going to read them?), the series of poems exhibits an intensifying effect through poem 3, before tapering in poems 4 and 5. This creates the sensation of a great buildup of emotion that peters out into ambiguity. Indeed, Lamentations shifts over the course of the poem from mere description in its opening:

How lonely sits the city
that once was full of people!
How like a widow she has become,
she that was great among nations!
She that was a princess among the provinces
has become a vassal.
(Lamentations 1.1)

to an ambiguous closing:

But you, O Lord, reign forever;
your throne endures to all generations.
Why have you forsaken us these many days?
Restore us to yourself, O Lord, that we may be restored;
renew our days as of old -
unless you have utterly rejected us,
and are angry with us beyond measure.
(Lamentations 5.19-22)

This ending question is very troubling. It explicitly doubts the relationship established by the covenant between God and Israel, something that has not been seen before, except perhaps in Job, where it was quickly rebuffed. The end of Lamentations leaves us with an open question. Is God still devoted to Israel? Will he indeed restore his people?

This question may close the work, but in fact it is the thesis of Lamentations itself. Over the course of five poems we view the exile of Jerusalem through the eyes of six different parties.

Lamentations 1
This poem features two narrators, an omniscient narrator in 1-11b and the personified City of Zion (Jerusalem) in 11c-22. After getting a metaphorical sense of Zion's suffering (Zion as virgin daughter, suffering for her uncleanliness), Daughter Zion cries out in her suffering for the metaphorical pains she has suffered both directly by God and by "false lovers."

Lamentations 2
A new narrator describes how the Lord has punished Israel, and mixes metaphor with particular horrors that Israel has suffered:

My eyes are spent with weeping;
my stomach churns;
my bile is poired out on the ground
because of the destruction of my people,
because infants and babes faint
in the streets of the city.
(Lamentations 2.11)

Then in the last two verse the poem reverts back to the voice of daughter Zion:

The young and the old are lying
on the ground in the streets;
my young women and my young men
have fallen by the sword;
in the day of your anger you have killed them,
slaughtering without mercy.

You invited my enemies from all around
as if for a day of festival;
and on the day of the anger of the Lord
no one escaped or surived;
those whom I bore and reared
my enemy has destroyed
(Lamentations 3.21-22)

Zion has clearly suffered, but the most emotional plea fittingly comes in the most poetically dense portion of the book, poem 3.

Lamentations 3
This poem takes the point of view of a male of Jerusalem, who describes the physical manifestations of oppression suffered by the residents of the city:

I am one who has seen affliction
under the rod of God's wrath;
...
He has made my flesh and my skin waste away
and broken my bones;
he has besieged and enveloped me
with bitterness and tribulation;
he has made me sit in darkness
like the dead of long ago.
(Lamentations 3.1; 4-6)

The male speaks for the people, those shot with arrows, those laughed at by their enemies, those afflicted by the siege of Jerusalem. Such is described in the first third of his lament. Then comes the recognition of God, which expands upon the first two poems in praising God's greatness and seeking his protection. Praise of God constitutes the latter two-thirds of the poem.

For the Lord will not reject forever.
Although he causes grief, he will have compassion
according to the abundance of his steadfast love;
for he does not willingly afflict or grieve anyone.
(Lamentations 3.31.33)

The narrator of Lamentations 3 knows that the Lord will one day defend him. He has called out to the Lord, and the Lord has apparently responded to him that his enemies will be judged for their actions. With God's apparent support, perhaps given through the words of Jeremiah or some other prophet, the narrator is confident that the Lord will pay back the deeds of Jerusalem's oppressors and restore his people to their proper place.

Lamentations 4
This note of hope is quickly subdued in the following poem, beginning from the first line:

How the gold has grown dim,
how the pure gold is changed!
The sacred stones lie scattered
at the head of every street
(Lamentations 4.1)

And so goes the rest of the poem, narrated by the community itself. Horrors are recalled, from the thirst of infants to the capture of King Zedekiah to even canibalism:

The hands of compassionate women
have boiled their own children;
they became their food
in the destruction of my people.
(Lamentations 4.10)

It is a truly dire situation, and yet the last two strophes of the poem speak of imminent salvation of God's chosen people.

Rejoice and be glad, O daughter Edom,
you that live in the land of Uz;
but to you also the cup shall pass;
you shall become drunk and strip yourself bare.

The punishment of your iniquity, O daughter Zion, is accomplished,
he will keep you in exile no longer;
but your iniquity, O daughter Edom, he will punish,
he will uncover your sins.
(Lamentations 4.21-22)

These hopeful lines of poetry are significantly briefer than the 45 strophes that praise God in Lamentations 3. Clearly the expectation of salvation is wearing thin by this point, as the eventual reward becomes vague. Indeed, by the end of the next poem, hope will seem to all but disappear.

Lamentations 5
This poem continues to address the Lord, and offers the bleakest picture of Judah's suffering: women raped, skin black from malnutrition, downtrodden people who suffer hunger and thirst. Their hearts are sick and their eyes have grown dim. In light of the circumstances, there is one last question for God:

But you, O Lord, reign forever;
your throne endures to all generations.
Why have you forgotten us completely?
Why have you forsaken us these many days?
Restore us to yourself, O Lord, that we may be restored;
renew our days as of old -
unless you have utterly rejected us,
and are angry with us beyond measure.
(Lamentations 5.19-22)

The closing of the poem - and the Book of Lamentations, reveals the potential for a great shift in Israelite belief. Up until this point, it has been common knowledge that the Lord supports and protects Israel. Now that view is being called into question. Why have they suffered so much and why do they continue to suffer? Will the Lord indeed intervene to save his people? Lamentations asks these very uncomfortable questions, and provides no answer. The bible, which has always praised God's greatness, even in times of oppression, here confronts a very difficult situation, and rather than finding an answer in God, finds no answer at all. The question hangs in the air for history to answer.

Jeremiah 19-52: A history of prophecy

The prophets who preceded you and me from ancient times prophesied war, famine, and pestilence against many countries and great kingdoms. As for the prophet who prophesies peace, when the word of that prophet comes true, then it will be known that the Lord has truly sent the prophet.
(Jeremiah 28.8-9)

So Jeremiah told Hananiah in his prophecies of the Lord's wrath against his unfaithful people. The postulate is remarkably accurate. Prophecies of peace are  uncommon and are often unfulfilled (see further, the book of Revelation). It is easier for a prophet to prophesy war, famine, and pestilence because this is the most common denominator of human existence. A prophet may easily look at political situations and make an informed oracle about the future. But what makes a prophecy truly compelling is the divine input. God is all-powerful and yet gives his people the freedom to break their covenant with him. If all obey God, the prophets contend, there will be no war, famine or pestilence. If the Israelites disobey God, they will be destroyed by their enemies, who are of course controlled by an all-powerful and wrathful God. Such is life.

In the first two posts on Jeremiah, we explored Jeremiah's personal persecution vis-a-vis Israel's, and examined some of the prophet's laments. Today's post takes a look at Jeremiah in a historical context. It is clear that his prophetic messages changed over time to address evolving political realities. Read one way, Jeremiah seems to even execute an about-face on earlier prophecies. In any case, Jeremiah worked in a very difficult time, and seemed to adapt his message to reject the status quo while still maintaining a certain amount of care for his fellow Israelites.

Jeremiah prophesied in a tumultuous time in Jewish history. His career as a prophet began in 627, the "thirteenth year of King Josiah of Judah's reign. This is the same year that Judah joined the other vassal nations of Assyria in revolting against the empire (a fact not mentioned in Kings). Josiah, who had ostensibly discovered the book of the Law of Moses (probably Deuteronomy), wished to reestablish the Davidic monarchy. Jeremiah firmly opposed this through his entire life, in favor of the older, God-centric expression of faith.

The Assyrians until this point had an adversarial relationship with the Jews. In 724 Hoshea, the last king of Israel, was carried away to Assyria for refusing to pay tribute as a vassal of the Assyrian king Shalmaneser and instead seeking the protection of Egypt. That same year the Assyrians began a three-year siege of Samaria, capturing the city and deporting its residents in 722 (2 Kings 17.1-6). By divine intervention (and creating a remarkable historical reality if this is in fact true), Judah avoided paying tribute to Assyria altogether, and continues to exist as a nation until 597.

Unfortunately for Judah, the Assyrian empire collapsed in 605, and Babylon showed interest in taking what Assyria could not. Though King Jehoiakim initially supported the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar beginning in 604, his tribute switched around 601 as Babylon's enemy Egypt seemed to gain power. Babylon grew in strength and conquered Jerusalem in 597. Wealthy and influential residents of the city were deported to foreign lands. The city was completely destroyed ten years later, and a second deportation exiled many of the remaining residents.

This is the political situation that Jeremiah found himself working in, adapting his message as times changed. Initially his oracles are against personal enemies and the corruption of Judah. The second theme is expanded upon over time so that the Babylonian conquest of Judah becomes seen as God's divine punishment on a wicked people. In fact, Jeremiah  initially urges his audience to acquiesce to Babylonian rule. "It will all get better if we wait it out," the prophet seems to say. Babylon is simply acting as an agent of God, who wishes to punish his people for failing to fulfill their terms of the covenant with him. Later in his career, however, Jeremiah begins to prophesy against Babylon, framing the empire as malignant oppressors who are now the enemies of God, not simply a tool that God used to discipline his people. In a great reversal of fortune, the conquerors will be conquered. These oracles are messages of hope, for the Lord's wrath will be guided away from God's people, back to the pagan nations.

Let's take a look at Jeremiah's evolving prophecy.

Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: I am going to turn back the weapons of war that are in your hands and with which you are fighting against the king of Babylon and against the Chaldeans who are besieging you outside the walls; and I will bring them together into the center of this city. I myself will fight against you with outstretched hand and mighty arm, in anger, in fury, and in great wrath. And I will strike down the inhabitants of this city, both human beings and animals; they shall die of a great pestilence. Afterward, says the Lord, I will give King Zedekiah of Judah, and his servants, and the people in this city—those who survive the pestilence, sword, and famine—into the hands of King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon, into the hands of their enemies, into the hands of those who seek their lives. He shall strike them down with the edge of the sword; he shall not pity them, or spare them, or have compassion.
(Jeremiah 21.3-7)

 This prophecy, delivered by Jeremiah to King Zedekiah of Judah, accurately predicts the destruction of Judah by the Babylonians. He attributes the disaster not to King Nebuchadrezzar, but rather the Lord, who is seeking vengeance on his unfaithful people by destroying them with pestilence, sword, and famine. Always it is the Lord's hand that guides Babylon in defeating his people. And because it is the Lord acting against the Judahites, it is okay, even honorable to surrender. The only real shame that Jerusalem will face is their humiliation before God. The city is doomed, but the people may keep their lives if they surrender:

And to this people you shall say: Thus says the Lord: See, I am setting before you the way of life and the way of death. Those who stay in this city shall die by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence; but those who go out and surrender to the Chaldeans who are besieging you shall live and shall have their lives as a prize of war. For I have set my face against this city for evil and not for good, says the Lord: it shall be given into the hands of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire.
(Jeremiah 21.8-10)

The oppression will not last forever, and Jeremiah indicates this in a prophecy from the Lord predicting the forthcoming righteous king of Israel:

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. And this is the name by which he will be called: “The Lord is our righteousness.” Therefore, the days are surely coming, says the Lord, when it shall no longer be said, “As the Lord lives who brought the people of Israel up out of the land of Egypt,” but “As the Lord lives who brought out and led the offspring of the house of Israel out of the land of the north and out of all the lands where he had driven them.” Then they shall live in their own land.
(Jeremiah 23.5-8)

The new united monarchy (though monarchy may be the wrong word because the oracle champions worship of God over an earthly leader) will mark a great new era in the history of Israel, the second return to the homeland. Interesting - no matter where the Israelites end up, they always return to the same place. Since the days of Abraham this family has been drawn to this area, the land that God promised them.


By chapter 30 we discover that not only will the house of Jacob return to its homeland, but the punishment it suffered at the hands of its oppressors will be redirected at the oppressors.

But as for you, have no fear, my servant Jacob, says the Lord, and do not be dismayed, O Israel; for I am going to save you from far away, and your offspring from the land of their captivity. Jacob shall return and have quiet and ease, and no one shall make him afraid. For I am with you, says the Lord, to save you; I will make an end of all the nations among which I scattered you, but of you I will not make an end. I will chastise you in just measure, and I will by no means leave you unpunished.
(Jeremiah 30.10-11)

For thus says the Lord: Just as I have brought all this great disaster upon this people, so I will bring upon them all the good fortune that I now promise them.
(Jeremiah 32.42)

That disaster will be redirected against a slew of enemies, peoples in whose lands the exiled Israelites have resided: Egypt, the Philistines, Moab, the Amonites, Edom, Damascus, Kedar, Hazor, Elam, and most especially Babylon. It is Babylon, of course, that gets the greatest and longest prophecies against it. Initially drones acting out the will of the Lord, they are viewed at the end of Jeremiah's career as harsh oppressors who must be punished for their vile deeds. And indeed they will be punished. By 538 King Cyrus of Persia will defeat the Babylonians and issue a decree allowing Israelites to return to their homeland and worship their God. Jeremiah's prophecy of restoration is partially fulfilled, but after the second exile, Israel will never be the same.