An Atheist Explores the Bible Part 155: I wrote this one on Holocaust Memorial Day. I may mention that again… (Jeremiah 31-35)

Jeremiah 31-35
I wrote this one on Holocaust Memorial Day. I may mention that again…

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 31

 “For there shall be a day, that the watchmen upon the mount Ephraim shall cry, Arise ye, and let us go up to Zion unto the LORD our God.”

After all the apocalyptic visions that the preceding chapters have been laced with, here we get some rebuilding, and much more pleasant and optimistic it is too, thankfully. There’s not a lot to comment on the various images of promised peace and plenty, except that coming as they do before a time of tragedy yet to come they do remind me of Del Boy’s refrain of “This time next year, we’ll be millionaires” from Only Fools and Horses. The quoted line seems familiar, as if it part of it has been used as a title, but also the verse “Thus saith the LORD; A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping; Rahel weeping for her children refused to be comforted for her children, because they were not” seemed familiar. Rahel, or rather Rachel, weeping for her children, as I looked up, seems to have been used as general term for not only the Jews mourning losses – biblically from Herod’s massacre of the innocents to historically for the Holocaust, but also as a powerful passage to mark the death of children in conflict the world over. As I write this on Holocaust Memorial Day it seems eerily apposite to come across this particular verse. It’s also interesting in that it is Rachel who is personified as the Israelite nation – usually, and obviously, it is her husband Jacob, he who gets the name Israel, who is used as a personification, the father, not the mother. Although as I recall Rachel is in fact only the mother of Benjamin and Joseph, the other tribes descend from Leah and the two concubines.

Given, as I say, the rest of the chapter is one of hope, it’s sad that this should be the verse that stands out. The other passage, from a theological point of view this time, is the mention of a “new covenant”, one that is more personal than the written laws of the previous covenant “I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts”, an early indication of the concept of the new testament.

Jeremiah 32

“And I bought the field of Hanameel my uncle's son, that was in Anathoth, and weighed him the money, even seventeen shekels of silver.”

The bulk of this chapter, the latter part, is taken up with a lot of what we’ve already seen – that God is going to deliver Israel into the hands of the Babylonians because the Israelites have been worshipping Baal (and our favourite acceptor of child sacrifice, Molech, gets a mention again. Given that the first three stories on yesterday’s news all centred on abuse, neglect or murder of children, perhaps times haven’t changed all that much, sadly). After a period of punishment, restoration, new covenant, etc.

What’s more interesting, even though it is far more mundane, is Jeremiah buying some land. This chapter is set in the reign of Zedekiah, with Nabuchadnezzar’s troops pretty much at the gates of Jerusalem and Jeremiah in prison for telling Zedekiah that not only is he going to lose the fight, but that God thinks he deserves it. And whilst he’s there, God tells him to buy some land from his cousin. The process is spelled out in great detail; weighing out the coins, drawing up a contract, witnesses to the contract and finally the contract being stored in a clay jar. I’m guessing land is cheap at the moment, and Jeremiah is being canny (taking after the four great patriarchs from Abraham to Joseph) in preparing for his future. The little insight into everyday life is fascinating, though. Not to mention that, although a prisoner, Jeremiah can still conduct business and have seventeen shekels to spend on land.

Jeremiah 33

“And I will cleanse them from all their iniquity, whereby they have sinned against me; and I will pardon all their iniquities, whereby they have sinned, and whereby they have transgressed against me.”

A follow-on from the previous chapter, with God visiting Jeremiah in prison a second time. This time the subject is more to do with rebuilding after the return from exile, with the line of David re-established on the throne, and plenty of Levites to give offerings. I’m still not enamoured of this concept of punishment followed by reward, but writing this on Holocaust Memorial Day I can see how having hope that God will make everything right in the end, even if the present is terrible, can be a comforting idea to hold on to, particularly for those who are powerless to do anything about their current situation. That to hold this belief also means that you have to believe that the bad stuff happening to you right now is also part of God’s plan is a cognitive dissonance I find it hard to accept, however.

Jeremiah 34

“Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel; Go and speak to Zedekiah king of Judah, and tell him, Thus saith the LORD; Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire:”

The Babylonians close in, and once again Jeremiah is given the unenviable task of telling the king that he’s going to lose and be taken captive – not to “die by the sword”, but to “go in peace”. The rest of the chapter expands upon God’s anger with the people; not only have they sacrificed to strange gods, but they’ve also failed to keep the section of the covenant that prohibits anyone being a servant for more than seven years. This hasn’t come up for a long time, but apparently it’s still a thing – that you must let your servants go free (so … “servant” or “slave”?) in their seventh year of service. And once again God proves Himself not above a bit of snarky comment – “Ye have not hearkened unto me, in proclaiming liberty, every one to his brother, and every man to his neighbour: behold, I proclaim a liberty for you, saith the LORD, to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine”. Ha! You are free … to die!

Jeremiah 35

“Go unto the house of the Rechabites, and speak unto them, and bring them into the house of the LORD, into one of the chambers, and give them wine to drink.”

This is a new one. God commands Jeremiah to invite the Rechabites around for wine, as a test. Because, you see, the Rechabites have sworn not to drink, nor to live in a house (tents only), nor plant and sow. And the Rechabites stick to their vows and refuse the wine. For this, God promises to, well, perhaps not save them completely from the Babylonians, but that they “shall not want a man to stand before me for ever”, so the line will survive at least. For this little interlude the narrative jumps back in time to the reign of King Jehoiakim again, so the threat of the Babylonians is less imminent than at the later time of Zedekiah. And that’s about it for this chapter, but at least it was mercifully bereft of promises of apocalypse and salvation for a change.