Chapters 40-44 of Jeremiah take on a different narrative style of writing than the previous chapters, and as I read them, I couldn’t help but feel I was reading an action-adventure story, albeit a true one. The fall of Jerusalem has taken place, captives have been taken to Babylon, the remanent is set up to dwell in the land and work it, and a governor has been placed over them. Jeremiah has been brought with the other prisoners to Ramah where the commander of the guard removes his chains and gives him the option to go to Babylon where he will be looked after well, or to stay in the land with the remnant. Jeremiah chooses to stay in Judah and live in Mitzpah under the rule of the governor, Gedaliah.
The narrative then changes its focus from Jeremiah to Gedaliah, and according to historian Josephus, he was a righteous and upright man. When approached by multiple field commanders, he told them to not be afraid to serve Babylon, but to live in the land and all would go well for them. Gedaliah was staying in Mitzpah, where Jeremiah chose to dwell, and he was the one who would be responsible to the Babylonians. The people however were to plant and harvest; reap and store and live in the cities of the land. When the Judeans who were living among the Moabites, Amorites, and in Edom heard there was a remnant left in Judah, they came back to the land and did as Gedaliah had said, working the land and reaping its harvest in great abundance.
In this narrative we are introduced to two of the field commanders who came to Gedaliah. Ishmael and Johanan. Johanan went to Gedaliah and told him, “Are you aware that Baalis the king of Ammon’s children has sent Ishmael son of Nethaniah to take your life?” (Jeremiah 40:14) Gedaliah however did not believe this report. Johanan then appealed to Gedaliah privately requesting that he be able to go and kill Ishamel before he could carry out his assassination plot and the remnant of Judah be scattered and perish. His request was denied as Gedaliah told him that what he was saying about Ishmael was a lie. It was a decision that would be his undoing. In Jeremiah 42 we find Ishmael and ten of his men come to Mitzpah, and while dining with Gedaliah, they attacked and killed him, as well as all of the Judeans and Babylonian soldiers who were there. Josephus relates that Gedaliah had fallen asleep due to the amount of wine he had consumed and had become drunk. It was while in this helpless condition he was killed. (Josephus, Antiquities 10.9.4)
The following day, before this attack had become known, eighty men from Shechem, Shiloh, and Samaria came to Mitzpha. Their beards were shaved off, their clothes were torn, and they had gashes on their bodies. They brought grain offerings and frankincense to present in the house of Adonai. The state in which they came was one of repentance and brokenness. Ishmael went out to meet them before they came into the city and deceptively told them he would take them to Gedaliah. Once inside the city, Ishmael and his men began killing them, throwing their bodies into a cistern. Ten of them begged for their lives, telling Ishmael they had stores of wheat, barley, olive oil, and honey hidden in the field, so Ishmael spared their lives. In Jeremiah 41:9, the word gives a specific detail about this cistern, saying, “The cistern in which Yishma’el (Ishmael) threw the corpses of the men he had murdered with G’dalyahu (Gedaliah) was the one Asa the king had made in fear of Ba’asha king of Isra’el; it was this cistern that Yishma’el the son of N’tanyahu filled with the slaughtered men.” Perry Stone’s commentary on this verse states, “This pit was perhaps the large cistern carved into the rock to guard against a water shortage when Baasha was about to besiege the city during the days of Asa. (see 1 Kings 15:22)” (From the Perry Stone Hebraic Prophetic Study Bible) Ishmael then carried off captive everyone left in Mitzpah, including king Zedekiah’s daughters, and headed towards the people of Ammon. When Johanan and the military commanders with him discovered the crimes committed by Ishmael, they took all the men they had with them to attack him. When they found him, the captives were overjoyed, and they joined themselves to Johanan. Ishmael however escaped with eight men, fleeing to the people of Ammon. Johanan and the rest of the people then went to Chimhan’s lodge near Bethlehem with plans to go to Egypt to escape the Babylonians as they were afraid of them since Ishmael had not only murdered Gedaliah, whom Nebuchadnezzar had appointed as governor, but they Babylonians he killed as well.
It was then the people came to Jeremiah, begging him to pray to Adonai on their behalf for the remnant about what they should do. A request Jeremiah agreed to telling them that he would withhold nothing from them that Adonai said. Their next statement is the one that stood out to me the most throughout this entire narrative. “May Adonai be a true and faithful witness against us if we fail to do any part of what Adonai your God gives you to tell us. Whether it be good or bad, we will listen to what Adonai our God says. We are dispatching you to him so that things will go well with us, as we heed what Adonai our God says.” (Jeremiah 42:5-6) I know from personal experience when I have told the Lord, “Whatever you want me to do Lord, I will.” And when I know He is telling me to do something, the breaks have come on and my flesh has said, “Oh, that’s not from God”, even though in my spirit I knew that it was. We want an answer to our prayers, our problems, our frustrations, yet sometimes when the answer comes and it is one that we don’t like, suddenly, our “I will heed what Adonai my God says” becomes “That’s not from God”. This is exactly what happened when Jeremiah returned with the Word from the Lord. Through the prophet, Adonai warns the people to stay in the land, to not go to Egypt or the sword and famine which they fear will find them in Egypt and they will die, that disaster would befall them. They were not to fear the king of Babylon and to know that they were being given fair warning as they had been behaving deceitfully against their own interests. After telling the people everything Adonai had said, they turned on Jeremiah saying, “You are lying! Adonai our God did not send you to say, ‘Don’t go to Egypt and live there’! Rather, Barukh the son of Neriyah is inciting you against us, so that we can be handed over to the Kasdim to be put to death or carried off as captives to Bavel.” (Jeremiah 43:2-3) Not only did they say, “Oh that’s not from God”, they went even further and accused Jeremiah’s scribe of influencing his words to keep them from what they really wanted to do, which was to go to Egypt. Rather than staying true to their vow that they would heed what Adonai said, Johanan and the military commanders took the remnant, including Jeremiah and Barukh, to Egypt. When they arrived in Tachpanches, Jeremiah received a word from the Lord saying that He was going to summon Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, to attack the land of Egypt and those destined for death – to death! Those destined for captivity – to captivity! Those destined for the sword – to the sword. The temples of the gods of Egypt would be burned, and the standing sones of the temple of the sun would be burned to the ground.
Jeremiah is now in Egypt and finds himself in the same position he was in while in Jerusalem. Imploring his people to turn back to Adonai, to not be stiff-necked and hard-hearted towards Him, but to serve the One true God. Yet, just as in Jerusalem, the people stand against Him and the Word he is given from the Lord. As he beings to tell them the destruction and devastation that will overtake them, they become even more defiant saying, “As for the word you have just spoken to us in the name of Adonai, we will not listen to you. Instead, we will certainly continue to fulfill every word our mouths have spoken; we will offer incense to the queen of heaven and pour out drink offerings to her, as we have done, we and our ancestors, our kings, and our leaders, in the cities of Y’hudah and the streets of Yerushalayim. For then we had plenty of food; everything was fine, we didn’t experience anything unpleasant. But since we stopped offering to the queen of heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have lacked everything, and we have been destroyed by sword and famine.” (Jeremiah 44:16-18)
A modern way of looking at this would be this. When you are not following God and being obedient to His Word the enemy isn’t going to mess with you or attack you because you are not a threat to his kingdom. Things may not seem like they’re falling apart that much. However, when you are a true child of God and you are trying to live a life of holiness and obedience to the Word as well as trying to reach people with the message of salvation, the enemy is going to come after you and you are going to see attacks in your life. You will see things fall apart and get rough, however that is when you must stand and see the salvation of your God, or you will find yourself saying, “Before I started following God, I didn’t have all these problems, everything was fine, but after I started going to church and reading my Bible, I just keep having all these problems.” When you find yourself being targeted by the enemy, it is then that you remind yourself that he is worried about what you are doing for the kingdom and is doing what he can to stop you. Rejoice and let the Spirit of the Living God rise within you, because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world!
After this exchange with the people, Jeremiah then prophecies that their destruction will surely come, that they will see harm and not good. Egypt would be destroyed by sword and famine and that those who would return to the land would be few and that Egypt would fall to Babylon just as Judah fallen.
This narrative paints such a stark picture for us with a lesson we shouldn’t overlook. When we say that we will do what God says, let us not be double minded, but let our yes be yes. When we face hard times through attack or testing, let us stay in the promise of God and not return to Egypt and her false gods. He knows the plans He has for us, and though His ways are not our ways and His thoughts not our thoughts, His way is perfect, even when it is uncomfortable for us. Be still and know He is God.
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