An Atheist Explores the Bible Part 149: Prophecy is bad for the bowels, apparently (Jeremiah 1-5)

Jeremiah 1-5
Prophecy is bad for the bowels, apparently.

Welcome to another instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Bible version).

In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the King James Bible, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology.

For more detail, see the introductory post http://bit.ly/2F8f9JT

For the online KJV I use, see here http://bit.ly/2m0zVUP

And now:

Jeremiah 1

“The words of Jeremiah the son of Hilkiah, of the priests that were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin”

I know nothing of the book of Jeremiah. Potentially this could be interesting, provided it isn’t just a repeat of the “woe, woe and thrice woe” of the prophecies of Isaiah. This chapter is introductory, setting Jeremiah in context from the reigns of Josiah all the way up to the reign of Zedekiah, at which point the Babylonians and Assyrians carry the Israelites off into exile. So, presumably, Jeremiah is going to be composing this as a slave, looking back on events. A quick check of Wikipedia puts us in a time context – about 30-40 years between the start and end of Jeremiah’s prophesying, according to this chapter. Also, this is about 50 years or so after Isaiah, who was under the reign of Hezekiah. In that sense, it’ll be interesting to see if there are any differences between the two prophets and what they consider to be important.

Jeremiah is called to the role of a prophet by the “word of God”, who appointed the role while Jeremiah was still in the womb – a kind of spiritual version of biological determinism. Jeremiah is afraid, claiming that no one will listen because he is just a child, but the word of God assures him that they will, under God’s protection. I wonder, here, if Jeremiah is just a child, or if he means it in a metaphorical sense, a mere child next to the power of God. And so there are a couple of confirmatory visions concerning a great power coming from the north to spell doom to Jerusalem because they have worshipped false idols.

The idea, here, is interesting to me of the prophet who feels an absolute compulsion to speak God’s word. Nowadays we would probably treat this as some kind of schizophrenia; that an outside voice is compelling a person to act. At the very least they would probably get treated like some kind of crank. Possibly in upcoming chapters Jeremiah will be mocked by unbelievers, but ultimately his words have become treated as sacred (the same with other biblical prophets and visionaries). Is the supernatural merely a lack of understanding of brain biochemistry?

Jeremiah 2

“Yet I had planted thee a noble vine, wholly a right seed: how then art thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto me?”

Through Jeremiah, God rebukes the Israelites for backsliding in their worship. He points out that they were content to follow His commandments when they were wandering the wilderness and He was guiding them, but once in the promised land they have turned to idol worship, the Baalim, and pay only lip service to Yahweh. There’s even a suggestion that human sacrifice may be involved – “Also in thy skirts is found the blood of the souls of the poor innocents: I have not found it by secret search, but upon all these”. Are the “poor innocents” children that have been sacrificed to Moloch? Or just the metaphorical blood of people that have suffered under poor rulership?

Also there is a neat line in snark from God, who points out that even the foreign powers that worship strange gods are better, because although their gods may be false, at least they are constant in their worship of them – “Hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods? but my people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit”. This chapter makes it quite plain that the fault for God abandoning the Israelites to their fate at the hands of foreign powers is entirely their own, as a result of their apostacy.

Jeremiah 3

“They say, If a man put away his wife, and she go from him, and become another man's, shall he return unto her again? shall not that land be greatly polluted? but thou hast played the harlot with many lovers; yet return again to me, saith the LORD.”

The nations of Israel and Judah are cast as loose women in this chapter, dallying with other gods instead of Yahweh, playing the “harlot”. But, says God, if they admit their sins and turn back to God, He promises to forgive them. So, as with Isaiah, we see an element of forgiveness and mercy to God that has been lacking in earlier books. There is more of a sense of sadness than anger to the writing here, despite the somewhat sexist slant to it, with all the talk of whoredom and harlotry.

Jeremiah 4

“The whole city shall flee for the noise of the horsemen and bowmen; they shall go into thickets, and climb up upon the rocks: every city shall be forsaken, and not a man dwell therein.”

There’s certainly no shortage of dramatic apocalyptic visions in the bible, I’ll grant it that. God grants Jeremiah a vision of utter destruction, one so terrible that it causes the prophet physical pain – “My bowels, my bowels! I am pained at my very heart; my heart maketh a noise in me”; you can imagine Jeremiah writhing on the ground in awe and terror at what he sees. Warriors out of the north come to destroy Jerusalem because the people have turned from God; the vision is even more dramatic, imagining not just the downfall of a city but the end of mountains, and day and night. It can come across as a bit overwrought to the ears of a modern cynic such as myself, I think, but the sense of impending doom is certainly inescapable.

The chapter ends on some more metaphors based on women – the city of Jerusalem puts on a red outfit, gold ornaments and paints its face to try to make itself fair, to no avail (the outfit sounds like it could possibly be meant to imply a prostitute). The sounds of anguish are like those of a woman in childbirth (by implication presumably a child will be born that is a metaphor for the rebirth of the nation, but that isn’t explored here).

Jeremiah 5

“The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so: and what will ye do in the end thereof?”

More fire and brimstone preaching, in much the same vein as the last chapter, and much of the middle of Isaiah. And some of the psalms. Because the people have acted shamefully – mainly worshipping other gods but also touched on are visits to brothels and venal priests – they will be punished by God who will, as He’s been promising a while now, bring down a foreign nation from the north to destroy the city of Jerusalem (and by extension, Judah and Israel).

Now, it struck me as I read this, that you could take pretty much any city, in any place or time, and some people would be acting with less than perfect probity and continence. But others would be leading blameless lives – why should the entirety be blamed for the misdeeds of a few. This chapter comes perilously close to religious fanaticism, seeing all who do not believe as the speaker does to be wicked and worthy only of destruction. When the prophecies become as rabid as this chapter does, it makes for uncomfortable reading in a world blighted by people willing to commit mass murder in the name of their warped ideals.