There have been some major traumas in the history of Israel and its People. The fall of Jerusalem to Babylon in the 6th century BCE is among the greatest scars. Who was there to hold the hurt and the soul of the nation, nurture the grieving people? Jeremiah, the bitter prophet who warned of the fall was there when it happened. On some level he was helpful in the healing. But in other ways he too was crushed by the weight of loss. Today, in Jerusalem and Gaza, south and north alike, terror rises. Can these ancient stories help us make sense of the senseless and find some context for this bloody chapter and how to better handle what is happening and yet to come?
“There is no doubt that the greatest prophet who arose in the days of the kings before the destruction of Jerusalem, as well as the most despised, downtrodden, and daring, was Jeremiah. He was not afraid of imprisonment, of torture, even of death itself – and always chose to speak the bitter truth, until the bitter end…. Jeremiah loved his people and had faith in its posterity – and his faith has proven true until this very day.”
David Ben Gurion
Ben Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, was not the first Jewish leader to be impressed with Jeremiah’s persistence. and to lament his fate. But along the fans there have always been those who considered Jeremiah a whining traitor. Both perspectives play out in today’s chapter, as Jerusalem collapses in its final days.
In the jigsaw puzzle that is The Book of Jeremiah, chapters go back and forth between different moments in the life of the prophet and the nation. In the previous chapter the year is 605 BCE and King Jehoiakim burns Jeremiah’s scroll, denying the projections that Babylon will attack.
In this chapter it’s 587 BCE, 13 years later, Zedekiah is on the throne and the Babylonian siege on Jerusalem is in full force.
Jeremiah’s decades of political protest are now proving to be true but the panicked people in power don’t want to hear him anymore. When he attempts to go hiding in his ancestral lands outside Jerusalem he is caught by guards, and accused of collaboration with Babylon. His denials are to no avail:
“The officials were furious with Jeremiah; they beat him and put him into prison, in the house of the scribe Jonathan—for it had been made into a jail. Thus Jeremiah came to the pit and the cells, and Jeremiah remained there a long time.”
How long is a long time? We won’t know, but the House of Jonathan will come up several times as a terrible place to be imprisoned in, and Jeremiah will make numerous pleas to the king to get him out:
“Now, please hear me, O lord king, and grant my plea: Don’t send me back to the house of the scribe Jonathan to die there.”
The king will eventually move Jeremiah to the prison closer to the palace - there will be more trouble before that happens. Which makes us wonder - why do the people hate this prophet so much - is it just his bitter truth telling? Is it that his warnings were accurate?
Some of it was personal. Hidden in this story is a possible personal vendetta. The name of the officer who arrests Jeremiah is recorded as Irijah son of Shelemiah son of Hananiah. For close readers of Jeremiah, the name Hananiah might seem familiar: Back in Chapter 28, Hananiah son of Azzur encounters Jeremiah - who claims he is a false prophet, denying the threat that is Babylon, and promoting the pro-Egyptian policies. The two prophets argue, Jeremiah calls Hanania out and predicts -- or curses -- that he will die within the year, which is indeed what happens.
The man to now jail Jeremiah is possibly Hananiah’s grandson, and he may have very good reasons not to like the man blamed for his grandfather’s death.
Despite the grudges and other reasons for Jeremiah’s unpopularity, the king still has need of this elder prophet, even and especially, as the siege lingers and the hunger suffocates Jerualem. Jeremiah is transferred from the dungeons of Jonathan to the palace prison, in a chilling closing verse to this chapter that chronicles the decreasing resources and lack of food:
“King Zedekiah gave instructions to deposit Jeremiah in the prison compound and to supply him daily with a loaf of bread from the Bakers’ Street—until all the bread in the city was gone. Jeremiah remained in the prison compound.”
But not for long. Even as the siege intensified around Jerusalem, Jeremiah’s haters continued to demand his death. Coming next - the mysterious righteous man who saves the prophet - an Ethiopian eunuch with a brave heart of gold.
May some and more measures of kindness and care prevail over fear and rage. Healing and safety for all.
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You ask whether the ancient tragedy in which Jeremiah appears as a tormented and tortured protagonist can give us any bearing on the present upheavals in Israel. I think this has been a consistent question for you, and here it goes unanswered. It may be true that those who fail to understand the past are doomed to repeat it, but that seems to me a psychological truth---the return of the repressed; it does not appear to be history's truth. As far as I can see, there is no past upon which we all ever agree. What I learn from the book of Jeremiah is something about how difficult it is to align the word and the will of God with the juggernaut of history, the massive, impersonal greed and shortsightedness of political power. Human protest, wisdom, and goodness are all but ground under, and yet thanks to memory and imagination there are the Jeremiah's whose stories and anguish are miraculously preserved. Such figures inspire in me a counterforce of personal witness and exertion. As, my dear man, do you.
You ask whether the ancient tragedy in which Jeremiah appears as a tormented and tortured protagonist can give us any bearing on the present upheavals in Israel. I think this has been a consistent question for you, and here it goes unanswered. It may be true that those who fail to understand the past are doomed to repeat it, but that seems to me a psychological truth---the return of the repressed; it does not appear to be history's truth. As far as I can see, there is no past upon which we all ever agree. What I learn from the book of Jeremiah is something about how difficult it is to align the word and the will of God with the juggernaut of history, the massive, impersonal greed and shortsightedness of political power. Human protest, wisdom, and goodness are all but ground under, and yet thanks to memory and imagination there are the Jeremiah's whose stories and anguish are miraculously preserved. Such figures inspire in me a counterforce of personal witness and exertion. As, my dear man, do you.