Fire in my Bones

Fire in my Bones

Jeremiah Chapters 16-20

The Days Are Coming

In these chapters, we get more of a sense of the life of Jeremiah, as the Lord directs Jeremiah to act out prophecies, and as Jeremiah’s words and actions bring him into confrontation with other people, in particular with people who claim to be servants of the Lord.

In the opening verses of Chapter 16, we are told that the Lord has instructed Jeremiah to refrain from marriage, mourning, and feasts. We must remember that Jeremiah received his calling as a young man and, though it is recorded quite a few chapters into the book, he must have received this instruction early on, as marriages were arranged very early – sometimes even before birth it could be planned that a child from this family should be wed to a child from that, and to remain unwed was simply not an option. Likewise, the ceremonial participation in mourning and feast times was compulsory, and to refrain from such things was not only to forsake family obligations, but to break social customs and become the subject of ridicule.

The Lord tells Jeremiah to do these things as a sign to the people that their days in the land are not long. As before, however, the prophecy of the fall of Judah is mixed with something more ominous. In verses 10-15, the Lord says this disaster will befall the people because they choose to worship other gods, and their ultimate punishment will be to server other gods. In God, there is always hope, and the Lord even amid these dire warnings, promises a day when the people will be called together again.

Trust and Obey

Chapter 17 is evocative of the old hymn “Trust and Obey” as it deals first, in verses 5-8, with the issue of trust. The imagery is beautiful, and has inspired more than one song. The strength of man is like a bush that comes up in the desert, and immediately withers, but the strength of the Lords is constant, even in the worst of times. This stark contrast is placed here without any context. Certainly, the idols which the people worshipped were man-made, so to trust in their idols was to trust in themselves, and this might be the reason for the message. These days, we tend to skip the graven images and worship ourselves more directly, making idols of ourselves, rather than for ourselves.

Another possible explanation is that the people were relying on their own military strength, or on alliances they could form with other nations, but neither of these would last. The metaphor does not tell us that the drought will not come, but that we can always rely on the Lord, in good times and in bad.

But trust is only a part of our covenant relationship with the Lord. In verses 19-27, Jeremiah is told to remind the people that they must also obey the word of the Lord, in this case the law regarding the Sabbath. This is a very dramatic picture for what seems like a minor point of the law (it is not even the complete commandment to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy) but when things are out of control, you have to start somewhere. The Lord was reminding the people that they must not only put away their trust in other gods (which were no gods) and their trust in themselves, but they must make an effort to have a holy and separate time to worship the One True God.

Potter and Clay

As in the first chapter, when the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah through visions of the almond branch and the boiling pot, so here in Chapter 18 the Lord gives Jeremiah a vision through an every-day event. In verses 1-12, we are told how Jeremiah goes to the house of the potter and sees the potter at work. The potter begins to make a clay pot, but there is some flaw in the work, and he destroys the first pot and remakes it into something else. The Lord says that this can happen to the people, but they can still repent and be saved. As we are told repeatedly elsewhere in Jeremiah, many of the people believed that the Lord would do nothing, but the metaphor of the potter shows a God who is active in the universe, changing and shaping lives.

In the final verses of the chapter (18-23) we read of some un-named people who conspire to attack Jeremiah, and of Jeremiah’s not-very-spiritual response. This is how we sound to the Lord sometimes. Fortunately, the Lord is smart enough not to do everything we ask.

The Broken Jar

In Chapter 19, the Lord again has Jeremiah to act out a prophecy, one in this case which is closely related to the epiphany at the potter’s house which is recorded in the previous chapter.

The pagan practices had ways of twisting good things into bad things. In this case, they had taken the idea of sacrifice and defiled it by sacrificing children. A terrible idea, of course, but you can almost imagine the logic: if the sacrifice of the first and best fruits was a good thing, then the sacrifice of something even nearer and dearer would be a better thing. The Lord, of course, had never wanted any such thing, and would never condone it.

In the previous chapter, the Lord spoke of the potter and the clay. While the clay is still yielding, it can be remade. When it is cast, it can no longer be reshaped. If it is broken, it is useless. In the previous chapter, we are told how God always seeks to involve us in his will. In this chapter, we are reminded that the Lord’s will must ultimately be accomplished, whether we choose to be involved or not.

Fire in my Bones

In Chapter 20, we have a brief account of the persecution of Jeremiah at the hands of Pashhur, a priest and the son of the chief officer of the temple. This account is followed by a lament by Jeremiah, who begins by saying he has been deceived by the Lord, and ends by saying that he wishes he had not been born. Jeremiah has certainly come a long way from Chapter 1, where the Lord warns him that all these things will happen, and says he knew Jeremiah before he was formed in the womb.

In the midst of this despair, though, Jeremiah knows that he cannot help but proclaim the word of the Lord, which he feels like a fire in his bones. The Lord used not only Jeremiah’s words but his life as a message to the people. When times were good, the people deserted the Lord. As a result, they could no longer call on the Lord when times were bad. Jeremiah could not stop himself from calling on the Lord, even though it brought him into conflict with the religious leaders of his day. As I live a life of both material and spiritual ease, Jeremiah’s life is a challenge to me today.