An Atheist Explores the Bible Part 152: Jeremiah’s Pottery Class (Jeremiah 16-20)

Jeremiah 16-20
Jeremiah’s Pottery Class.

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 16

 “For thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will cause to cease out of this place in your eyes, and in your days, the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride.”

God tells Jeremiah not to marry, nor to have children (interesting that the two can be mutually exclusive), because of His plans to bring death to the Israelites for their apostacy (which we get once again, dead bodies lying unburied, that kind of thing). I’ve covered this many times already, with the concept of a period of punishment for everyone, followed by a restoration. What is interesting here is the little glimpse that we get into funerary customs – men shaving their heads, rending of garments (we’ve had that one before), something known as the “cup of consolation” and sitting in the “feasting house” in what must be a kind of wake. The concept of a cup as metaphor has been used before, so there might not be an actual “cup of consolation”, but then again the idea for the metaphor must have come from somewhere.

Jeremiah 17

“The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond: it is graven upon the table of their heart, and upon the horns of your altars;”

And so it goes. This chapter is more concerned with the failure of the Israelites to keep the Sabbath, although it does touch upon worshipping “sacred groves” once again. It’s also one of those chapters that is as much concerned with Jeremiah’s point of view as that of God, although here the prophet seems more resigned to his ministry as he takes his place preaching at the gates of Jerusalem. There is one thing that doesn’t gibe with me; God says that the man who trusts in Him will be blessed, and not touched by the fires, and yet there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of the plan of sparing the innocent in the plan for destruction. As I’ve mentioned before, though, this is the problem that you get when you try to explain natural disasters and geo-political strife as being the work of a deity that is also benevolent. People like me come along and point out the logical problems with it. The only solutions to that are to hand-wave that God doesn’t need to explain Himself to mortals, or you try and kill off people like me.

Jeremiah 18

“Arise, and go down to the potter's house, and there I will cause thee to hear my words.”

God sends Jeremiah to watch a potter work; as the potter decides to destroy and remake a pot that has gone wrong, thus God plans to do the same to the Israelites. As visual aids go, it’s a better one than the dirty pants, I think. Here there is a bit of expansion on the nature of God’s retribution, in that Jeremiah makes an attempt to tell the Israelites to change their ways, but they ignore him or mock him, at which point Jeremiah decides actually, you know what? I’d like you to destroy these people please God. So the offer is made, it’s not just a unanimous decision by God to destroy the people, but they choose to ignore it. And that really doesn’t surprise me at all.

Jeremiah 19

“And I will make this city desolate, and an hissing; every one that passeth thereby shall be astonished and hiss because of all the plagues thereof.”

Bet you didn’t know that plagues hissed? God helps Jeremiah with another visual aid; this time the prophet takes a clay bottle and breaks it in front of the city elders to demonstrate what will happen to them if they ignore his warnings. I’d like to think that it’s the pottery that was made in the last chapter. The transgressions and the warnings are pretty much those that we’ve seen before in this book. Mention is made of those who “burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings unto Baal”, which I think is a pretty good reason to want to chastise someone. However, if as punishment “I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters”, it seems that it’s not so much the killing of children aspect that is making God angry, but because “I commanded not, nor spake it, neither came it into my mind”, which is a bit creepy. And if you look at it one way, this is a God who ordered Abraham to kill Isaac, and who offers His own son as a sacrifice (later on).

Jeremiah 20

“Then Pashur smote Jeremiah the prophet, and put him in the stocks that were in the high gate of Benjamin, which was by the house of the LORD.”

The subject changes from the prophesying to a bit of biography of Jeremiah. For his preaching he is put in the stocks and beaten, and mocked and ridiculed on a daily basis. Jeremiah reveals that he curses the day that he was born, to see such misery. There’s also an interesting verse about his urge to speak God’s words. Because he is preaching misery and destruction he actually wants to keep quiet, but his religious zeal won’t let him “Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name. But his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay”. That’s a good demonstration of the power of belief, but also its quite sad that his faith gives no comfort or respite to Jeremiah. Being picked as God’s mouthpiece has only given him derision, and makes him somewhat bitter – he asks God that he gets to watch the destruction “let me see thy vengeance on them” as some kind of recompense.