Broken Cisterns

Broken Cisterns

Jeremiah Chapters 2-6

Children of Wood and Stone

Though the chronology of the book of Jeremiah is not certain, the passages in chapters 2-6 seem to be taken from Jeremiah’s early sermons, probably during and perhaps towards the end of the reign of Josiah. It was during the reign of Josiah, of course, that Judah underwent a great revival and renewed its covenant with the Lord. The material both calls the people to repentance and speaks of the Babylonian invasion as a certainty, however, so it is not certain whether it was originally spoken during the reformation, but with prophetic insight into the fall of Judah, or at the end of Josiah’s reign, after the reformation had failed, or over a span of time from the beginning of the reformation until after the death of Josiah.

In Chapter 2, the word of the Lord given through Jeremiah declares the charge against the people: they have turned against the Lord and worshiped other gods. In verses 1-8, the Lord begins by recalling the past devotion of the people, comparing them to a bride. Though the Lord had no fault, the people followed idols, the priests did not seek the Lord, those who interpreted the law did not know the Lord, the leaders rebelled against the Lord, and the prophets prophesied by Baal.

In verses 26-28, The Lord says that the whole people, including the secular and religious leaders, are caught “red handed”. They have turned their backs on the Lord and have claimed that wood and stone – the material from which they made their gods – gave them birth. But, as is echoed throughout Chapter 2, these gods are false gods, and will be of no value in times of trouble.

How did this situation come to be? How could the people who saw themselves as the chosen ones turn their backs on the One True God to worship false gods? To answer this question, we would do well to consider what it means to worship. The people of Israel (currently the remnant of Judah, but the naming is a bit tricky, depending on what period of time you’re talking about) had been taught to practice sacrifice as a method of worship. As the people transitioned from a smaller, fiercely separate, nomadic tribe, to a larger, settled nation that became agrarian and began to interact with the local indigenous peoples, they began to notice that these indigenous peoples also had methods of worship that were similar to their own and they used them as part of their agricultural process. Since the people of Israel did not understand how their methods of worship were of any real value anyway, they did not see any harm in employing them towards other gods. Baal was a fertility god, or so they imagined. The Lord says they claimed to be children of wood and stone, because they sought life from gods they made for themselves.

If we are not as openly guilty of idolatry as the Israelites, it may only be because our idols are more abstract, but we are sometimes guilty of the more serious failings of which the Israelites were accused. First, they had turned their backs on God. How did they do this? Did they decide they no longer wanted God; that God was no longer good for them? No. “They did not ask ‘Where is the Lord.’” They stopped seeking the Lord. Also, they looked elsewhere for success. They were becoming farmers, and they looked around and said the people around them knew how to succeed, and they could figure it out for themselves, and they did not need God to do it for them. The book of Jeremiah is clear: we either succeed through God, or we do not succeed.

I Am your Husband

Having presented the case against the people, the Lord proceeds in Chapter 3 to act in a way in which we do not tend to think of as characteristic of the Old Testament God. That is, instead of declaring the people to be at fault and sending destruction upon them, the Lord calls plaintively and lovingly for the people to repent.

In verses 14-16, for example the Lord calls on the people to repent and, following on the earlier statement that the people had been a faithful bride, the Lord says, even though the people have sinned and have not yet repented, “I am your husband.” It is not God who changes. God’s love is always available. God always calls us to return. God always seeks a closer relationship with us, as these verses speak of the day when the Ark of the Covenant would not be missed, because the people would not see God as constrained to an Arc, or a tent, or a temple.

How Bitter it Is

In Chapter 4 it becomes clear that the people will not repent and the end will come. In verses 18-22 we have what appears to be the Lord speaking in the first and last verses but interrupted by a lament by Jeremiah, who can hardly bear such terrible prophecy. Jeremiah has the double agony of foreseeing the destruction of his people, and of telling them that it is their own doing, because the are skilled in doing evil, but do not know how to do good.

They Have Lied about the Lord

Chapter 5 continues the Lord’s condemnation of Israel and Judah, though it begins to say that the destruction will not be complete, and that some will remain. In verses 10-14, for example, the destroyer is commanded to strip off only those branches that are not the Lord’s. Also in this passage, the sin of the people is expressed in a new way: the charge is that they say the Lord will do nothing. We do not have any record of any such statement, but we do have a record of their actions, and although the people at some intellectual level may have known the consequences of their actions, they acted without fear or reverence toward God; they acted as if God did not matter. God will prove to be real. We do better to rely on it than to deny it.

I Am Bringing Disaster

Chapter 6 summarizes the situation. The people had abandoned the Lord, and disaster was coming upon them. In verses 13-15, the Lord says that the leaders of the people are ineffective, making claims of peace when there is the opposite, and putting a simple dressing on a serious wound. The Hebrew word which is translated peace is shalom, and it means more than the absence of military conflict. It may mean more than can be translated into English, but it certainly means personal, inner well-being. Though the leaders try to give the people a sense of well-being, they are not well; they have a deep wound that is self-inflicted, a wound which was inflicted when they separated themselves from God. Continuing in verses 16-20, the Lord says that the people have been given every opportunity, and have rejected them all. As a result, their worship has become unacceptable, and a disaster will befall them.

Broken Cisterns

And so here, already in the first six chapters of Jeremiah, we see Judah destroyed as a result of her infidelity. Because of the organization of the book of Jeremiah, we will get to see this happen more than once, but we should take this opportunity to consider the implications of the situation. It is clear from these chapters that the Lord is actively correcting the people, but if we expect God to reprimand us in material ways when we fail, do we also expect material favor when we follow God’s word? This is dangerous theology, and it is contrary to our experience, as we all know evil people who do well in this world, and those who strive to do good, but are beset by every difficulty in this life. It is also contrary to the teaching of Jesus, and certainly to the life of Jesus, who was the only one who lived a good life, yet he died, to the eyes of this world, poor, ridiculed, and alone.

As horrible as the invasion and exile of Judah was, there was something more going on. It is mentioned several times in these chapters, but perhaps the most familiar is in 2:13-19. Here the Lord says that the people have not only cut themselves off from the source of their life, but have established life for themselves, and this life will surely fail. This will be their punishment, the Lord says, to live with their choice, and to find how bitter it is to live without the Lord.

Paul tells us (Ephesians 5:20) that we should always be thankful to God for all things, and it is a hard saying. Sometimes it seems that someone, or everyone, or even our very God is against us; what is there to be thankful for? If we will remember, whatever it may seem, God is a very present help in times of trouble (Psalm 46). God does not want thanks for hard times, or any other empty praise. To abandon our broken cisterns and have faith in the fountain of living waters is true worship.