February 11, Jeremiah 10
Thus shall you say to them: "The gods who did not make the heavens and the earth shall perish from the earth and from under the heavens." - Jeremiah 10:11
Travel guide books help people prepare for their visit to a foreign place. These guides offer helpful information about the destination. They describe local customs and cuisine, and offer advice about what to pack for the journey. The guides also include pronunciation guides for useful phrases travelers may need among locals who do not speak the same language. It's polite to know how to say “please” and “thank you” in the local tongue. It's also important to know how to ask, "How much does it cost?" Or "Where's the bathroom?"
Some critics believe that Jeremiah was not written by Jeremiah, but by an anonymous post-exile imposter. They cite the text verse for this essay, which is written in the language of the Chaldeans as evidence. But it seems to me that it fits perfectly into what Jeremiah told these people before they went away to Babylon. He gave them a sentence to repeat to their captors in the Babylonians' own language to answer those who pressured them to worship the Babylonian idols. The saying would also remind the Israelites that their own true and living God did make the heavens and the earth. Their history showed that they needed frequent reminders of that fact to stay out of idolatry.
Jeremiah taught the people how foolish it was to worship the idols that they already had worshiped in their lives. When they forsook God to worship the Canaanite fertility gods or any other idols, they were following superstitions like astrology or manipulative explanations of phenomena such as eclipses or meteors. Superstition flourished in the dark absence of knowing the real God. They exchanged their trustworthy, faithful covenant God for sensual indulgence of their flesh as they
worshiped gods that were not real.
Jeremiah exposed the folly of idolatry by reminding them of how those so-called gods came to exist. In a passage very much like one Isaiah wrote more than a century before, Jeremiah described how people went to the forest and cut down a tree, and then decorated the wood to make their idol. Jeremiah said those creations were no more than well-dressed scarecrows in a cucumber field, unable to move, speak or walk. He flatly denounced worshiping a piece of wood as both stupid and foolish.
Jeremiah also told the people that they forfeited their rich inheritance from God. They lost their "portion," the covenant blessings God gave to his people. They would lose their land. Instead of living in their own land, he told them to pack their bag and get ready to walk to Babylon. Since they would be walking and carrying their own possessions, he advised them to travel light. They would not have enough left to fill a trunk, so a little pack would do. The Israelites were walking into a furnace of affliction from which they could not escape on their own. And they were losing all they had enjoyed as God's chosen covenant people to follow lies and superstition.
Jeremiah confessed that he and the nation could not direct their own steps. They were dependent on God's guidance. They ruined themselves when they followed their own direction. He and the remnant would go to Babylon with the rest of the doomed nation. The great prophet did not pray that God would exempt them from justice. But he did pray for mercy, so that God's wrath would not destroy them completely.
Don't we need to learn these lessons ourselves, and be reminded of them often? When we choose our own way instead of obeying God, we forfeit the blessings of divine guidance and approval. When something or someone besides God gets our love and devotion, we have made a foolish and shortsighted choice. Let's pray and ask God to open our eyes to the foolishness of forsaking God.
Copyright © 2024 by Michael B. McElroy. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Today in God's Word—February 2024
East Tallassee Church of Christ
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