Old Testament Reading: Jeremiah 31:7-14
#Jeremiah's message of #hope for Israel.
#Jeremiah
Monday Miscellany!
This week:
- Letter of #Jeremiah
- Preparing the way of the #Lord
- #Bible readings
- #Canaanite statue
- Book review: beauty and resistance
Please read, share, and subscribe!
The Letter of #Jeremiah can be found in the Septuagint, and as Baruch 6 in the Latin Vulgate and many English translations of the Apocrypha.
What is it about? What should we make of it?
The Letter of Jeremiah
https://www.deverbovitae.com/articles/letterjeremiah/
Old Testament Reading: #Jeremiah 23:1-6
Jeremiah condemned the leaders of #Judah and offered hope for the future.
No Place with What Was
“‘Dear Lord God, I wish to preach in your honor. I wish to speak about you, glorify you, praise your name. Although I can’t do this well of myself, I pray that you may make it good.’”[1]
Introduction
We get accustomed to the way things are. At times it feels like we’re in a groove; at others, it feels like we’re in a rut; in both there’s comfort. This comfort is built on knowing what’s coming, being able to predict what each day will look like. Our calendars and task-lists look the same from week to week, even when there’s a surprise event added or something expected subtracted. There’s a real comfort in the familiarity of the day to day.
One of the problems of this familiarity and comfort is that it can blind us to the new. A bigger problem is when this familiarity and comfort causes us to reject the new. When you have a system down, a routine established, it can be hard to see and receive something new, something disruptive, something that slices through that (either beloved or dreaded) monotony. To maintain our comfort, to keep moving in that groove, embedding down another layer of that rut, we will shut down and run from anything new that is trying to intervene because we see it as a threat. The something new will send our nervous systems into a frazzled state, propelling us to lurch and lunge backward to what was. Rather than finding ourselves curious (yet cautious) and intrigued (though skeptical), we raise our defenses against that which is breaking in and, In the meantime, try our best to swim back to comfortable and familiar shores.
However, God isn’t back there. God is ahead in the something new.
Jeremiah 31:27-34
Jeremiah exhorts the Judeans in exile to look forward. What was is going to be overthrown, pulled down, uprooted, destroyed; it has no place with what is to come in God coming to God’s people.[2] And just as I have watched over them to pluck up and break down, to overthrow, destroy, and bring evil, so I will watch over them to build and to plant, says the Lord (v28). Jeremiah promises God’s people that God will be close to them, so close that their tendencies to toward evil will become tendencies to good. All that was will be destroyed; God beckons Judah and Israel to look to the rising of the sun of a new day and onto new terrain, to build and plant anew.
Jeremiah then promises that retribution will fall on the one who sins. In those days they shall no longer say: “‘The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge,’” (v29). No longer, says God, will one person’s sins be the downfall of the group; accountability will be placed on each person’s shoulders. But all shall die for their own sins; the teeth of everyone who eats sour grapes shall be set on edge. The Judeans and Israelites are to look forward to the day that will come where only the guilty one will be punished rather than the group at the expense of the guilty one.[3] The accountability here becomes personal and individual; future exile is being excluded. Why? Because God will be closer than ever before.
Jeremiah then proclaims the coming of a new covenant and indicates there will be a break with the old one. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they…(v32). Something new is coming that will render each person responsible and dependent in their relationship with God. God does not say that the law of Moses (the one given in Exodus after the liberation from Egypt) will go away, but that God will put that law in each of their hearts.[4] But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people (v33). Keeping in mind that the law of Moses is a self-revelation of God, Jeremiah promises a time when God will be revealed in the heart of each of God’s people.[5] Thus God’s people will not be able to run or hide from God; they will—individually and corporately—know God intimately, being yoked to him by faith and love.
Jeremiah then says, No longer shall they teach one another or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more (v34). Jeremiah brings it back full circle to the comment above where every individual is held accountable for their own sins. Not only will each person be held responsible, but each person will be dependent on God’s mercy and forgiveness. Here, God is declaring that there is nothing that will divorce God from God’s people. Absolutely nothing. God is also indicating that there will be a time where sacrifices will no longer need to be made save the sacrifice of ourselves by faith working out in love. This is the basis of the new covenant that God promises to make with God’s people. And it is an everlasting covenant; one that no one can take away or break because it is being written on the heart of each person of Israel and Judah.[6] As God has been ever faithful in the promise to and covenant with Israel and Judah,[7] now Judah and Israel, by the indwelling spirit of God,[8] will be the ones who also keep the covenant and cling to the promise of God: I will be your God and you will be my people and we will be one.
Conclusion
God desires to do new things. We desire to go backwards, to cling to what was, to grasp at the sand of shores we are most familiar with. But God’s love propels God toward us even as we are desperate to go back to what was. Even as we are actively swimming away from the current of God’s momentum forward, God yolks God’s self to us, so desperately in love with us as God is. God promises Judah and Israel that they will have God’s spirit with them, forever, in their hearts, that God’s self-revelation will be written on their hearts forever sealing their union; and nothing can pluck one of God’s people from God’s hand of promise.
For us, as Christians, this being sealed as God’s own is done through the life and work, death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ and through the power of the Holy Spirit. For us, this passage from Jeremiah points to the new covenant that comes in Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit. This new covenant is defined by faith, faith that clings to the promises of God, accounting to God that which is God’s: truthfulness and trustworthiness. In and by faith, the law of God—to love God with our whole being and to love our neighbors in the same—is written on our hearts. Our hearts become circumcised; formerly calcified, our hearts by faith, beat with a vim and vigor, signs of robust new creation and new life empowered by the Holy Spirit, signs of our representative incarnational presence, those who carry God with them in their heart and spirit.
We, ourselves, are new creations, born anew every morning by faith and God’s mercy. Therefore, we have no place with what was, the way back is barred, the comforting and familiar shores are forbidden to us. Daily, by faith and God’s mercy, we enter a divine journey into the new, faith whisking us into the dark clinging only to the light of the promise fulfilled in Christ. The new is nothing to run from, turn a blind eye toward, or reject; it is in the new and unfamiliar that the familiar and known voice of our God in Christ Jesus calls us. We are called to move forward into new life in union God, dependent on God’s mercy and forgiveness, leaning on our beloved, Christ, and comforted by the Comforter, even in the wake of chaos and unfamiliar. We are God’s people, and God is our God, forever.
[1] LW 54:157-158; Table Talk 1590.
[2] Marvin A. Sweeney, “Jeremiah,” The Jewish Study Bible Jewish Publication Society Tanakh Translation, eds. Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler (Oxford: OUP, 2004), 990. “The prophet’s depiction of the future employs the verbs uproot, pull down, overthrow, destroy, build, and plant from his call narrative in 1.10 to portray both the punishments and the restoration of the people.”
[3] Sweeney, “Jeremiah,” 990. Proverb quoted, “…to illustrate his view that only the guilty should be punished for their own sins…” it is future oriented for Jeremiah.
[4] Sweeney, “Jeremiah,” 991. Promise of New Covenant, “…here it refers to the restoration of Israel after the Babylonian exile and the reconstruction of the Temple. According to this passage, it is not the content of the new covenant which will be different, but how it is learned.”
[5] Sweeney, “Jeremiah,” 991. “God places the Teaching, i.e., the Torah, in the inmost being or heart of the people so that the covenant cannot be broken again. This idea is developed in later Lurianic kabbalah, which maintains that all persons have a divine spark within. Since it is so inscribed, there will be no need for the Torah to be taught.”
[6] Rabbi Dr. H. Freedman, Jeremiah: with Hebrew text and English Translation, ed. Rev. Dr. A Cohen. Soncino Books of the Bible. 6th Impression (London: Soncino Press, 1970), 211. “God will make a new covenant with Israel which, unlike the old, will be permanent, because it will be inscribed on their hearts. There is nothing here to suggest that the new covenant would differ in nature form the old. No new revelation is intended, nor was it needed. The prophet only makes the assertion that unlike the past, Israel will henceforth remain faithful to God, while He in turn will never reject him.”
[7] Freedman, Jeremiah, 212. “The implication is that God will be what He has always been in His relationship to Isreal; they, on the other hand, will now likewise permanently acknowledge Him and be His people. Permanence is the essence of the new covenant.”
[8] Freedman, Jeremiah, 211. “I will no longer be something external to them, but so deeply ingrained in their consciousness as to be part of them. This, indeed, is the aim of all religious teaching.”
#DeathToLife #HFreedman #Jeremiah #Jesus #Liberation #Life #Love #MarvinASweeney #NewCovenant #NewCreation
Old Testament Reading: Jeremiah 31:27-34
#Jeremiah had expressed hope for the #redemption of Israel; God does not entirely abandon His #covenant people.
✝️ Blind Faith with a Gnostic Deist — new reflection now live.
Jeremiah, Jonah, and Proverbs walk with us through judgment, surrender, and renewal.
Empires fall, storms calm, and faith endures the contraction.
✍️ New post drops 5 PM ET → https://open.substack.com/pub/wittgensteinsmonster/p/blind-faith-with-a-gnostic-deist-767?r=5zs6u&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
#BlindFaith #Faith #Philosophy #GnosticDeist #Tao #Jeremiah #Jonah #Proverbs
It Is (in fact) Our Problem
“‘Dear Lord God, I wish to preach in your honor. I wish to speak about you, glorify you, praise your name. Although I can’t do this well of myself, I pray that you may make it good.’”[1]
Introduction
NMP. “Not my problem.” Have you heard this phrase before? I’ve use it when I need to draw a line between me and the three human beings born from my own body. Sometimes it’s important for them to (safely) experience their own problems; I already passed 8th grade…it’s your turn. It’s also something I’ve had to learn to whisper in my various occupations, drawing necessary lines in the sand so I don’t lose myself to my job in one way or another. From what I’ve heard through therapy and therapy related news, being able to draw that line in the sand between what is yours to bear and what isn’t is healthy and actualized. So, there’s nothing sinister or contentious about NMP, until there is.
As fleshy, meat creatures working with a gray-matter unfit for our place in post-postmodernity with its technological advancement and emphasis on autonomous existence and identity, we tend to confuse what is and isn’t “my problem.” In other words, we often say NMP where MP would work better and MP where a good solid NMP would. What I’m getting at here is biblical, like Genesis 3 levels of biblical: when we ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, we took on the burden of determining—apart from God—what is good and what is evil and history—both spiritual and temporal—have demonstrated that we’re kind of very bad at determining what is good and what is evil. Looking around, I’m not sure we even know if there is a difference between good and evil. And if this is so, I think we’ve also confused what is and what isn’t our problem.
We need to be reoriented in a serious way. We need to be brought back to the source of the knowledge of good and evil: God. And from there we need to walk carefully while navigating the world around us. Why? What does it have to do with you? Everything…absolutely, positively, everything. The earth is sick, people are being threatened and killed because of their religion or the color of their skin or their sexual orientation and identity in the world, and community (in any form) is circling the drain. Once these things go, we’re dead…in the water. We’ve been commanded and exhorted by God through Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit to love the land and our neighbors and care for them because they are among us and we’re among them. Yet, we refuse in the name of NMP. However, according to Jeremiah, this is very much a “you and me” problem.
Jeremiah 29:4-7
Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.
Jeremiah is speaking to the deported Judeans who are in Babylon.[2] Rather than tell them to refuse to make the best of it, to ignore the things around them because they ain’t your problem, God, through Jeremiah, commands the Judeans to act as if they are home. Home. Exiled yet home.[3] They are to embrace both the fact that they are in this foreign land and are prevented from returning to Jerusalem (home), and embrace the land and the people around them, even the government and the state. Israel would have expected Jeremiah’s exhortation to seek the welfare of the city as an exhortation referring to Jerusalem (home). But it’s not. It’s referring to Babylon, the place that is definitely-not-home but now must-be-home.[4] The Judeans stuck in Babylon for another two generations are to take the issues and problems of Babylon onto themselves because those issues and problems are now their issues and problems. Anachronistically, Jeremiah is asking them to take up their cross and bear it, and that Cross carries the problems of the neighbor and the state. In taking up this “cross” the Judeans will make the issues and problems burdening Babylon and the Babylonians their own; like God, they will identify with the problem, plight, and pain burdening the people.
Why is Jeremiah exhorting the Judeans to bear this “cross”? Because the Judeans are falling prey to false prophets.[5] By exhorting the Judeans to get comfortable, build homes and families, and care for the welfare of the state, Jeremiah was dutifully giving the Judeans hope and encouragement,[6] which was an antidote to the poison the false prophets were offering. While the false prophets were promising easy solutions, quick ends, and creating antagonism between the Judeans and their surroundings, Jeremiah spoke God’s word of comfort and hope into this swirling chaos and tumult: God will come, Judah, so wait peacefully for God.[7] In the meantime… *waves hands around*
You see, for God, thus for Jeremiah, to identify with the burdens and problems of Babylon and its people worked to fortify Judah’s loyalty to God.[8] How So? Because Israel’s mission was to right the wrongs of the world through their faith inspired praxis in the world. How better to do that than to do so when one is in exile. Faith isn’t always focusing one’s eyes on God and refusing to see the problems and issues around you; faith isn’t about letting something burn because it doesn’t involve you because it’s not your land, or your people, or your problem. Faith builds beautiful things wherever it is and you are. And that’s because faith is in you, eager to work itself out in loving deeds everywhere, not just at your preferred home among your preferred people. So, Jeremiah exhorts the Judeans, your call is still valid…even here in Babylon.[9]
Conclusion
Jeremiah graciously reminds us that we’re fellow creatures with other creatures of the earth, especially with our fellow humans; and we are reminded that this link and connection is the very product of God’s love for us and our love for God. So, we must begin to see that the problems of the land, of creation, of those who suffer hunger, thirst, loneliness, isolation, deportation, exile, harm, threat, danger, and death are our problems…even if we don’t feel like we’re home or that we should care because, well, they made their choices so, w/e. So, in honor of Indigenous People’s Day, I want to close with the following Lakota creation myth; I believe it speaks to this exhortation to be and bring the divine love you have received into the world:[10]
There was another world before this one. But the people of that world did not behave themselves. Displeased, the Creating Power set out to make a new world. He sang several songs to bring rain, which poured stronger with each song. As he sang the fourth song, the earth split apart and water gushed up through the many cracks, causing a flood. By the time the rain stopped, all of the people and nearly all of the animals had drowned. Only Kangi the crow survived.
Kangi pleaded with the Creating Power to make him a new place to rest. So the Creating Power decided the time had come to make his new world. From his huge pipe bag, which contained all types of animals and birds, the Creating Power selected four animals known for their ability to remain under water for a long time.
He sent each in turn to retrieve a lump of mud from beneath the floodwaters. First the loon dove deep into the dark waters, but it was unable to reach the bottom. The otter, even with its strong webbed feet, also failed. Next, the beaver used its large flat tail to propel itself deep under the water, but it too brought nothing back. Finally, the Creating Power took the turtle from his pipe bag and urged it to bring back some mud.
Turtle stayed under the water for so long that everyone was sure it had drowned. Then, with a splash, the turtle broke the water’s surface! Mud filled its feet and claws and the cracks between its upper and lower shells. Singing, the Creating Power shaped the mud in his hands and spread it on the water, where it was just big enough for himself and the crow. He then shook two long eagle wing feathers over the mud until earth spread wide and varied, overcoming the waters. Feeling sadness for the dry land, the Creating Power cried tears that became oceans, streams, and lakes. He named the new land Turtle Continent in honor of the turtle who provided the mud from which it was formed.
The Creating Power then took many animals and birds from his great pipe bag and spread them across the Earth. From red, white, black, and yellow earth, he made men and women. The Creating Power gave the people his sacred pipe and told them to live by it. He warned them about the fate of the people who came before them. He promised all would be well if all living things learned to live in harmony. But the world would be destroyed again if they made it bad and ugly.
[1] LW 54:157-158; Table Talk 1590.
[2] Marvin A. Sweeney, The Jewish Study Bible Jewish Publication Society Tanakh Translation, eds. Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler (Oxford: OUP, 2004), 983.
[3] Sweeney, “Jeremiah”, 983. “Jeremiah’s letter begins with God’s instructions to accept life in Babylonia and to build lives and families there. The activities enumerated in vv. 5-6 are those of establishing a new home, indicating that for at least two generations Babylonia should be treated as home.”
[4] Sweeney, “Jeremiah”, 983. “The rhetoric of this verse is intended to shock—most people would have expected the words ‘And seek the welfare of the city’ to refer to Jerusalem, not to Babylon.”
[5] Sweeney, “Jeremiah”, 984. “The letter raises the issue of false prophets, a major theme of the preceding chs.”
[6] Rabbi Dr. H. Freedman, Jeremiah: with Hebrew text and English Translation, ed. Rev. Dr. A Cohen. Soncino Books of the Bible. 6th Impression (London: Soncino Press, 1970), 188. Jeremiah’s duty is to preach hope and encouragement to the people
[7] Freedman, Jeremiah, 188. “…[Jeremiah] was at the same time realistic, and deemed it his duty to warn the people not to delude themselves into thinking that the exile would come to a speedy end, as some false prophets were assuring them.”
[8] Freedman, Jeremiah, 189. Identifying with the interests of the country and loyal citizenship, “The fact that Jeremiah could urge this doctrine upon the exiles, while at the same time assuring them of their restoration after seventy years, indicates that in his mind no mutually exclusive dual loyalty was involved, but that on the contrary each fortified the other.”
[9] John Bright, Jeremiah: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, The Anchor Bible, eds. William Foxwell Albright and David Noel Freedman (Garden City: Doubleday, 1965), 211. In this portion “…Jeremiah charges the exiles to disregard the wild promises of their prophets and to settle down for a long stay, pursuing a normal life as peaceable subjects of Babylon, and even praying to Yahweh for that country’s welfare…”
[10] Lakota Star Knowledge: http://www.crystalinks.com/nativeamcreation.html
#Babylon #DivineLove #Exile #HFreedman #Home #Israelites #Jeremiah #JohnBright #Judeans #Lakota #LakotaCreationMyth #Land #LoveOfLand #LovingYourNeighbor #MarvinASweeney #NMP
Video ~ VeryDarkMan, Prophet Jeremiah Begin Court Hearing In September Over ‘NAFDAC Approved Soap That Cures Suffering’ ~ OsazuwaAkonedo
VeryDarkMan, Prophet Jeremiah Begin Court Hearing In September Over 'NAFDAC Approved Soap That Cures Suffering' ~ OsazuwaAkonedo #Abuja #CMDM #Fufeyin #Jeremiah #Martins #NAFDAC #Omoto #Otse #VeryDarkMan #Vincent #Issues Published: August 20th, 2024 Reshared: August 20, 2024 2:09 am High Court sitting in Abuja has adjourned till…
Video ~ NAFDAC Begins Investigation On Alleged Criminal Act Against Prophet Jeremiah Over ‘Approved Soap That Cures Suffering’ ~ OsazuwaAkonedo
NAFDAC Begins Investigation On Alleged Criminal Act Against Prophet Jeremiah Over 'Approved Soap That Cures Suffering' ~ OsazuwaAkonedo #Abuja #CMDM #Fufeyin #Globod #Jeremiah #Martins #NAFDAC #Omoto #Otse #VeryDarkMan #Vincent #Issues Published: September 8th, 2024 Reshared: September 8, 2024 5:49 pm National Agency For Food…
Video ~ I Was Given Less Than 12hrs To Appear Before NAFDAC – Prophet Jeremiah Reacts To Criminal Probe Over ‘Approved Soap That Cures Suffering’ ~ OsazuwaAkonedo
I Was Given Less Than 12hrs To Appear Before NAFDAC - Prophet Jeremiah Reacts To Criminal Probe Over 'Approved Soap That Cures Suffering' ~ OsazuwaAkonedo #Abuja #CMDM #Fufeyin #Globod #Jeremiah #Martins #NAFDAC #Omoto #Otse #VeryDarkMan #Vincent #Issues Published: September 8th, 2024 Reshared: September 8,…
Old Testament Reading: #Jeremiah 29:1-7
Jeremiah’s letter to the #Israelites #exiled to #Babylon in 597.
How could Jeremiah expect them to seek the welfare of Babylon, the same Babylon which was oppressing the people of God?
Old Testament Reading: #Jeremiah 29:1-7
Jeremiah’s letter to the #Israelites #exiled to #Babylon in 597.
Many think #Jeremiah wrote #Lamentations; it is possible, but the work has no author attested. He is intimately acquainted with the destruction of Jerusalem.
The first chapter of Lamentations is an acrostic, with each verse beginning with a successive letter in the Hebrew alphabet.
OsazuwaAkonedo BriefRecall ~ Brief Recall 20-08-2024 1:00pm
VeryDarkMan, Prophet Jeremiah Begin Court Hearing In September Over 'NAFDAC Approved Soap That Cures Suffering' ~ OsazuwaAkonedo #Abuja #CMDM #Fufeyin #Jeremiah #Martins #NAFDAC #Omoto #Otse #VeryDarkMan #Vincent #Issues Published: August 20th, 2024 Reshared: August 20, 2024 2:09 am High Court sitting in Abuja has adjourned till September next month for Martins Vincent Police, LASG Probe ARM-Pension ED Over…
https://osazuwaakonedo.news/osazuwaakonedo-briefrecall-brief-recall-20-08-2024-100pm/20/08/2024/
📯 New Substack:
“I Am Not God, but I Am”
📖 https://wittgensteinsmonster.substack.com/p/i-am-not-god-but-i-am
I walked this morning, flipped through Jeremiah, and found myself between Hazor and Babylon — and maybe between certainty and mystery.
“God gave us Scripture because some people need a path.
But God Himself is the mystery beyond the map.”
This is about my mom, my faith, my mirror, and the God who won’t stop calling me deeper.
#Faith #Mysticism #Jeremiah #ChristianTao #Substack #BookOfMother #IAmNotGod #SpiritualReflections
VeryDarkMan, Prophet Jeremiah Begin Court Hearing In September Over ‘NAFDAC Approved Soap That Cures Suffering’ ~ OsazuwaAkonedo
VeryDarkMan, Prophet Jeremiah Begin Court Hearing In September Over 'NAFDAC Approved Soap That Cures Suffering' ~ OsazuwaAkonedo #Abuja #CMDM #Fufeyin #Jeremiah #Martins #NAFDAC #Omoto #Otse #VeryDarkMan #Vincent...
NAFDAC Begins Investigation On Alleged Criminal Act Against Prophet Jeremiah Over ‘Approved Soap That Cures Suffering’ ~ OsazuwaAkonedo
NAFDAC Begins Investigation On Alleged Criminal Act Against Prophet Jeremiah Over 'Approved Soap That Cures Suffering' ~ OsazuwaAkonedo #Abuja #CMDM #Fufeyin #Globod #Jeremiah #Martins #NAFDAC #Omoto #Otse #VeryDarkMan #Vincent...
Jeremiah’s Testimony: The Lord Our Righteousness Revealed
Jeremiah unveils the promised King: a human descendant of David and the very righteousness of God. Rejecting Christ's true identity means forfeiting restoration. The Messiah, Yeshua, is both fully man and fully divine. #Jeremiah #Messiah #Yeshua #Bible #Prophecy from Christic Academy
Old Testament Reading: Jeremiah 32:1-15
During what would quickly become the final, cataclysmic siege of #Jerusalem, #Jeremiah has been kept under guard on account of what he had prophesied. A near relative came to him to sell him the deed to a field. God told Jeremiah to buy the deed from him as a testimony that one day Judahites would return and buy and sell land again.
How could buying or selling land provide a message of hope?
Client Info
Server: https://mastodon.social
Version: 2025.07
Repository: https://github.com/cyevgeniy/lmst