God’s message

Restoration from a state of shame

Jeremiah’s numerous warnings about the destruction of Jerusalem were repeatedly ignored by the Jews and led to the prophet of God being tortured and imprisoned on multiple occasions. Jeremiah identified the problem as the Jews refusing to repent. Jeremiah asked, “O LORD, do your eyes look for truth? You have struck them down, but they felt no anguish; you have consumed them, but they refused to take correction. They have made their faces harder than rock; they have refused to repent” (Jeremiah 5:3).

Jeremiah grieved for his people and expressed his concern about the spiritual condition of their hearts. Jeremiah admitted, “’The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.’ For the wound of the daughter of my people is my heart wounded; I mourn and dismay has taken hold” (Jeremiah 8:20-21). The Hebrew word that is translated dismay, shammah (sham-mawˊ) was being used by Jeremiah to describe the extreme dismay he felt at seeing the destruction of Jerusalem, a horror that filled him with deep sorrow.

God’s intention was to consume the Jews completely using the military power of the Chaldean army (Jeremiah 9:16). God said, “I will scatter them among the nations whom neither they nor their fathers have known, and I will send the sword after them, until I have consumed them” (Jeremiah 9:16). The Hebrew verb that is translated consumed, kalah (kaw-lawˊ) describes the transitory reality of fallen human nature. God knew what it would take to awaken the Jews to their need for salvation and was committed to bringing them to that point.

The Jews preferred to worship the idols of the nations around them. They had forsaken the one true God, the living God “who made the earth by his power, who established the world by his wisdom, and by his understanding stretched out the heavens” (Jeremiah 10:12). Jeremiah acknowledged his dependence on God and asked him to make things right. Jeremiah prayed, “I know, O LORD, that the way of man is not in himself, that it is not in man who walks to direct his steps. Correct me, O LORD, but in justice; not in your anger, lest you bring me to nothing. Pour out your wrath on the nations that know you not, and on the peoples that call not on your name, for they have devoured Jacob; they have devoured him and consumed him, and have laid waste his habitation” (Jeremiah 10:23-25).

God’s response to Jeremiah’s request was harsh, but it reflected God’s commitment to bring his chosen people to the point where their relationship with him could be restored. Jeremiah recorded, “The LORD said to me: ‘Do not pray for the welfare of this people. Though they fast, I will not hear their cry, and though they offer burnt offering and grain offering, I will not accept them. But I will consume them by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence” (Jeremiah 14:11-12). The LORD was concerned because false prophets were prophesying lies to the people, making them think that they would not be overtaken by war and famine (Jeremiah 14:14). God told Jeremiah, “Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my heart would not turn toward this people. Send them out of my sight and let them go!” (Jeremiah 15:1).

God prepared Jeremiah for what was coming and warned him not to try to live a normal life because the devastation of war was going to permeate every aspect of the Jews’ lives. God specifically told Jeremiah “not to marry because of the horrors that families with children would endure during the siege of Jerusalem” (note on Jeremiah 16:2-5). Jeremiah recorded, “The word of the LORD came to me. ‘You shall not take a wife, nor shall you have sons or daughters in this place. For thus says the LORD concerning the sons and daughters who are born in this place, and concerning the mothers who bore them and the fathers who fathered them in this land: They shall die of deadly diseases. They shall not be lamented, nor shall they be buried. They shall be as dung on the surface of the ground. They shall perish by the sword and by famine, and their dead bodies shall be food for the birds of the air and for the beasts of the earth’” (Jeremiah 16:1-4).

Because he was a fallen human and had a sin nature like everyone else, “Jeremiah was subject to the wide range of emotions that are common to all men. He complained that God had deceived him (Jeremiah 20:7), sang praises to God (Jeremiah 20:13), then wished he had never been born (Jeremiah 20:14). Through it all, however, Jeremiah continued to preach God’s message (Jeremiah 20:8) because he was compelled by God’s call (Jeremiah 20:9; cf. 1 Corinthians 9:16)” (note on Jeremiah 20:7-18). At a point when he seemed to have lost all hope for the future, Jeremiah asked God, “Why did I come out from the womb to see toil and sorrow, and spend my days in shame?” (Jeremiah 20:18).

Near the end of his ministry, Jeremiah was threatened with death. The LORD told Jeremiah, “You shall say to them, ‘Thus says the LORD: If you will not listen to me, to walk in my law that I have set before you, and to listen to the words of my servants the prophets whom I send to you urgently, though you have not listened, then I will make this house like Shiloh, and I will make this city a curse for all the nations of the earth. The priests and the prophets and all the people heard Jeremiah speaking these words in the house of the LORD. And when Jeremiah had finished speaking all that the LORD had commanded him to speak to all the people, then the priests and the prophets and all the people laid hold of him, saying, ‘You shall die!’…Then the priests and the prophets said to the officials and to all the people, ‘This man deserves the sentence of death, because he has prophesied against this city, as you have heard with your own ears’” (Jeremiah 26:4-11).

Jeremiah was also accused of lying to the Jews. After he warned the people against going to Egypt (Jeremiah 42:1-22, it says in Jeremiah 43:1-3, “When Jeremiah finished speaking to all the people all the words of the LORD their God, with which the LORD their God had sent him to them, Azariah the son of Hoshaiah and Johanan the son of Kareah and all the insolent men said to Jeremiah, ‘You are telling a lie. The LORD our God did not send you to say, ‘Do not go to Egypt to live there,’ but Baruch the son of Neriah has set you against us, to deliver us into the hand of the Chaldeans, that they may kill us or take us into exile in Babylon.”

The LORD made it clear that the Jews were being punished because of their idolatry (Jeremiah 44:3). “The group of Jews who had fled to Egypt were still involved in idolatry. These people somehow thought their well-being depended upon their worship of the ‘queen of heaven’ (Jeremiah 44:17, 18). It took seventy years in exile to finally cure Israel of idolatry. The Jews had problems with legalism and Pharisaism after the exile, but never again did idolatry become prevalent” (note on Jeremiah 44:8). Jeremiah told the Jews who were dwelling in the land of Egypt, “Behold, I have sworn by my great name, says the LORD, that my name shall no more be invoked by the mouth of any man of Judah in the land of Egypt, saying, ‘As the Lord GOD lives.’ Behold I am watching over them for disaster and not for good. All the men of Judah who are in the land of Egypt shall be consumed by the sword and by famine, until there is an end of them” (Jeremiah 44:26-27).

Jeremiah wrote about the devastation that he witnessed in his book of Lamentations. Jeremiah said, “Those who once feasted on delicacies perish in the streets; those who were brought up in purple embrace the ash heaps” (Lamentations 4:5). Jeremiah went on to lament, “For the chastisement of the daughter of my people has been greater than the punishment of Sodom, which was overthrown in a moment, and no hands were wrung for her” (Lamentations 4:6).

Jeremiah also stated, “Happier were the victims of the sword than the victims of hunger, who wasted away, pierced by lack of the fruits of the field. The hands of compassionate women have boiled their own children; they became their food during the destruction of the daughter of my people” (Lamentations 4:9-10). “The famine in the land was so severe that the people resorted to eating their own children. A similar occurrence took place during the siege of Samaria by the Assyrians (2 Kings 6:25-29).

Jeremiah’s final plea to the LORD included an acknowledgment by him that God’s people were living in a state of shame. Jeremiah prayed, “Remember, O LORD, what has befallen us; look, and see our disgrace!” The Hebrew word that is translated disgrace, cherpah (kher-pawˊ) is “a feminine noun meaning reproach, scorn, taunt” (H2781). Despite the desperation of their situation, Jeremiah’s prayer reflected “the hope that the people of Jerusalem would return to a proper relationship with God” (note on Lamentation 5:21). Jeremiah said, “The joy of our hearts has ceased; our dancing has been turned to mourning. The crown has fallen from our head; woe to us, for we have sinned!” (Lamentation 5:15-16). Jeremiah then pleaded, “Restore us to yourself, O LORD, that we may be restored!” (Lamentations 5:21).

“The process called conversion or turning to God is in reality a re-turning or a turning back again to Him from whom sin has separated us, but whose we are by virtue of creation, preservation and redemption” (H7725). Jeremiah was referring to this process when he prayed, “Restore us to yourself, O LORD” (Lamentations 5:21) because regeneration is an act of God. Romans 3:23-25 tells us that “there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift. through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.”

God spoke of Jesus when he told Jeremiah, “Behold the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land” (Jeremiah 23:5). The LORD promised to turn the Jews mourning to joy and said, “With weeping they shall come, and with pleas for mercy I will lead them back…For the LORD has ransomed Jacob and has redeemed him from hands too strong for him” (Jeremiah 31:9, 11). God promised to “restore the fortunes of Judah and the fortunes of Israel, and rebuild them as they were at first” (Jeremiah 33:7). God compared the security of his promises with the constancy of day and night when he said, “If I have not established my covenant with day and night and the fixed order of heaven and earth, then I will reject the offspring of Jacob and David my servant and will not choose one of his offspring to rule over the offspring of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. For I will restore their fortunes and will have mercy on them” (Jeremiah 33:25-26).

Evil in the sight of the LORD

Many of the kings of Israel and those who ruled in Judah near the time when the people were taken into captivity were described as doing what was evil in the sight of the LORD. One king in particular, Manasseh, king of Judah was called out for his evil practices. It says in 2 Chronicles 33:2 that Manasseh “did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, according to the abominations of the nations whom the LORD drove out before the people of Israel.” An abomination defines “something or someone as essentially unique in the sense of being dangerous, sinister, and repulsive to another individual (Genesis 43:32; 46:34; Proverbs 29:27). When used with reference to God, this word describes people, things, acts, relationships, and characteristics that are detestable to Him because they are contrary to His nature, such as things related to death and idolatry (Deuteronomy 14:3); people with loathsome habits are themselves detestable to Him (Deuteronomy 22:5)” (H8441). Manasseh “rebuilt the high places that his father Hezekiah had broken down, and erected altars to the Baals, and made Asheroth, and worshipped all the host of heaven and served them…And he burned his sons as an offering in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, and used fortune telling and omens and sorcery, and dealt with mediums and with necromancers…Manasseh led Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem astray, to do more evil than the nations whom the LORD destroyed before the people of Israel” (2 Chronicles 33:3-9). The Hebrew word that is translated astray in 2 Chronicles 33:9, taʿah (taw-awˊ) was used by the prophet Isaiah in reference to mankind’s universal need for salvation. Isaiah said about Jesus Christ, Israel’s Messiah, “All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6).

According to the prophet Jeremiah, Manasseh was responsible for the kingdom of Judah being destroyed by God. God told Jeremiah, “I will appoint over them four kinds of destroyers, declares the LORD: the sword to kill, the dogs to tear, and the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth to devour and destroy. And I will make them a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth because of what Manasseh the son of Hezekiah, king of Judah, did in Jerusalem” (Jeremiah 15:3-4). God’s denouncement of Manasseh’s idolatry included a judgment against Judah for doing what was evil in the sight of the LORD. God said:

Behold, I am bringing upon Jerusalem and Judah such disaster that the ears of everyone who hears of it will tingle. And I will stretch over Jerusalem the measuring line of Samaria, and the plumb line of the house of Ahab, and I will wipe Jerusalem as one wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down. And I will forsake the remnant of my heritage and give them into the hand of their enemies, and they shall become a prey and a spoil to all their enemies, because they have done what is evil in my sight and have provoked me to anger, since the day their fathers came out of Egypt, even to this day.” (2 Kings 21:12-15)

God indicated that his chosen people had been provoking him to anger, “since the day their fathers came out of Egypt” (2 Kings 21:15). While Moses was on Mount Sinai receiving the Ten Commandments from God, it says in Exodus 32:1, “The people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, ‘Up make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.”

It says in 2 Chronicles 33:10-11, “The LORD spoke to Manasseh and to the people, but they paid no attention. Therefore, the LORD brought upon them the commanders of the army of the king of Assyria, who captured Manasseh with hooks and bound him with chains of bronze and brought him to Babylon.” God warned Manasseh that he was going in the wrong direction, but he ignored God’s message. The Hebrew word that is translated paid no attention, qashab (kaw-shabˊ) “denoted obedience that was expected after the hearing” (H7181). John the Baptist preached to crowds of people prior to Jesus’ ministry. John’s message was simple, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 3:2). It says in Matthew 4:17, after Jesus’ ministry began, “From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’” The Greek word that is translated repent, metanoeo (met-an-o-ehˊ-o) means “to think differently or afterwards, i.e. reconsider” (G3340). Repentance has to do with changing one’s mind. Manasseh did not repent of his sin, therefore, the LORD brought upon him the commanders of the army of the king of Assyria, “who captured Manasseh with hooks and bound him with chains of bronze and brought him to Babylon” (2 Chronicles 33:11).

Second Chronicles 33:12-13 tells us about Manasseh:

And when he was in distress, he entreated the favor of the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. He prayed to him, and God was moved by his entreaty and heard his plea and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord was God.

Manasseh learned from his experience of being taken into captivity that the LORD was God. Afterward, he changed his mind, and decided to humble himself greatly before the God of his fathers (2 Chronicles 33:12).

Manasseh’s repentance resulted in him being restored to his position as king of Judah. Afterward, Manasseh “took away the foreign gods and the idol from the house of the LORD, and all the altars that he had built on the mountain of the house of the LORD in Jerusalem, and he threw them outside of the city. He also restored the altar of the LORD and offered on it sacrifices of peace offerings and of thanksgiving, and he commanded Judah to serve the LORD, the God of Israel” (2 Chronicles 33:15-16). The actions that Manasseh took demonstrated that his repentance was genuine and that he was willing to do what God expected of him. Manasseh started doing the opposite of what he had been doing before, making it clear to everyone that he had changed his mind during his captivity in Babylon.