Questions for thought:
1. How does the behavior of the people in chapter 34 who released their servants and then forced them back into service relate to those today who turn to the Lord and obey Him and then turn right back to sin? What will be their reward?
2. How did Gid use the behavior of the Rechabites against the people of Israel?
3. How is Jehoiakim’s behavior concerning the word of the Lord like what we see today in the religious world?
Jeremiah 34 contains a message to King Zedekiah and a message to the people. This chapter is probably dated around 589 B.C. in the beginning of the final siege of Jerusalem. The Lord told Jeremiah to go and tell Zedekiah that God was going to give the city to the king of Babylon who would burn it with fire. Zedekiah would not escape but would be delivered into the king’s hands but he would die in peace and have a proper king’s burial. Of course, this promise, like most of God’s promises had an “if” to it. The “if” is found in Jeremiah 38:17. Zedekiah was supposed to give himself over to the Babylonian king. We will see later he chose not to obey God and thus, this promise was not fulfilled.
In verses 8-22 of chapter 34 Jeremiah relayed God’s message to the people. As noted in verse 13, God had previously told Israel if they had purchased any Hebrew as a servant, the servant was to be set free after serving six years. They had not obeyed this command. We see in verses 8-10, Zedekiah had told the people they needed to obey this command. They had agreed to do so and let the servants go. But in verse 11 we see they changed their minds and forced the released servants and handmaids back into bondage. With this as the background, we can now look beginning in verse 12 at the word from the Lord concerning these disobedient people.
God told them they had turned and done right in His sight (verse 15), but now they had turned and profaned His name (verse 16), so He would now turn them over to the sword and pestilence and famine (verse 17). We are not told why Zedekiah told the people to release the servants. We know the city was being attacked and some have speculated it was because the masters did not want to be responsible for feeding them. Others think by making them freemen they would be required to fight for the city. It is likely when they freed the servants was at the same time when Nebuchadnezzar’s army paused their attack (verses 21-22) and it looked as if God had spared the city. So then, when the people went back on the agreement to free the servants, is when God proclaimed this message through Jeremiah. Within a year’s time, the death sentence was fulfilled upon the people.
Chapter 35 is another of those many sections of Jeremiah that are not in chronological order. Often, we can tell about when the message was given because of the time period written in the message, but many times we cannot. Some think this message was as many as 17 years before the message of chapter 34. The Rechabites were offspring from Jonadab the son of Rechab who is mentioned in 2 Samuel 4:2.
God used the Rechabites as a witness against Israel because they had kept the commands of their earthly father while Israel had failed to keep the commands of their heavenly Father. According to verses 6-10, Jonadab had given them orders to not drink wine, build houses, sow seed, nor plant vineyards. They were to live in tents. They had obeyed him fully. God told Jeremiah to take them into the house of the Lord and give them wine to drink. Jeremiah did so (verse 4) and they refused the wine. God told Jeremiah to go and tell the inhabits of Jerusalem how the Rechabites had obeyed their father but God’s children had not obeyed Him. Because of their sins, again in this chapter, they were condemned but the house of Rechabites was blessed for their obedience.
In chapter 36 of Jeremiah, we are told the time of these events. It was during the 4th year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah. The Lord told Jeremiah to write down all the words God had given him from the days of Josiah up to that point. Jeremiah gave the task to Baruch who wrote from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the Lord. Baruch then went to the house of the Lord and read them to the people with the hopes they would still return from their evil ways. Michaiah heard Baruch read the words and he went and told the king’s men (verse13). They sent to Baruch telling him to bring the scroll and come to them. They listened to the words and were afraid. They told the king and he had Jehudi read the words to him. As Jehudi read the words, the king cut the prophecies out of the scroll with a penknife and burned them until the roll was consumed (verses 22-23). He showed no fear at all even though a few of his servants begged him not to burn the scroll. Often today when the Lord’s word is read and the reader is not pleased with what is read, the same type thing happens in the mind. The words read while not cut out of the book and burned, are cut out of the mind and forgotten. But whether we remember the command of the Lord to do them or not, they still exist.
The Lord told Jeremiah to prepare another roll with the same words and to tell Jehoiakim the Lord said because of his burning the roll, he would not have a son to sit on the throne of David and his dead body would be cast out in the day to the heat and in the night to frost. He would be punished and so would the people of Jerusalem and Judah (verses 29-31). Baruch wrote the new scroll and added even more to the second roll. Chapters 37-45 are mostly concerned with the final siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. We will take these up chapters in the next post.
Christian Women's Responsibility in Sharing God's Word 