Tag Archive | 2025 Journaling the Bible

Journaling through the Bible Chronologically in 2025, Day 228

Aug16

Day 228 – Reading – Jeremiah 32 – 34

Read today’s Scriptures … ANYWHERE you find yourself this summer. Stay in the WORD!

 

Jeremiah 32.

The first three verses give the setting of this chapter. (Remember, the pieces of the book of Jeremiah jump around a bit – probably the way Jeremiah’s scribe, Baruch, put them together.)  It was …. 

  • During the 10th year of Zedekiah’s 11-year reign
  • During the 18th year of Nebuchadnezzar’s rule
  • During Nebuchadnezzar’s 30-month siege of Jerusalem, about a year before his final takeover
  • While Jeremiah was shut up in prison for “preaching treason” (prophecy of the final siege & exile). 

In the prison cell, Jeremiah received a word from the LORD, saying his cousin Hanamel was going to ask him to buy his field at Anathoth (Jeremiah’s town, about 3 miles north of Jerusalem in the territory of Benjamin; a Levite city). Jeremiah was the closest relative to Hanamel and had the right to buy the field until Jubilee, when he would return it. It was a way to help out a family member in financial trouble.

And just like that, the man arrived with the offer, so Jeremiah knew it was from God and bought the field. (Yes, from prison, and yes, Jeremiah had the money to do so.)  Seeing it was only one year before Jerusalem would be destroyed and the people taken to Babylon, wouldn’t this seem like an unwise purchase?  Yes. But think of what Jeremiah knew.  The LORD would be returning the people to this land in 70 years.  This dispersion was not to be forever.

Baruch took the deed to the property in the presence of all who were around in the court who witnessed the purchase, and put them in an earthenware jug for safekeeping.  Jeremiah said aloud, “Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Houses and fields and vineyards shall AGAIN be bought in this land.”

Jeremiah then openly prayed to God.  First, he praised the “great and mighty God, whose name is the LORD of Hosts, and listed the wonderful things He had done for His unworthy people. Then he got to the point.

“Behold, the siege mounds have come up to the city to take it, and because of sword and famine and pestilence the city is given into the hands of the Chaldeans. What You spoke has come to pass, and You see it. YET, You, O Lord GOD, have said to me, “Buy the field for money and get witnesses,” though the city is given into the hands of the Chaldeans!

And God confirmed it. “Yes, I am giving this city into the hands of the Chaldeans and into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar, and he shall capture it. They shall come and set this city on fire and burn it.  This city has aroused my anger and wrath, from the day it was built to this day, so that I will remove it from my sight … because of all the evil the children of Israel and Judah have done. 

“But I will gather them from all the countries to which I drove them in my anger … and bring them back to this place. They shall be my people and I will be their God.   

Behold, just as I have brought all this great disaster … so I will bring upon them all the good that I promise them.  FIELDS SHALL BE BOUGHT FOR MONEY AND DEEDS SHALL BE SIGNED AND SEALED AND WITNESSED in the land of Benjamin, in the places about Jerusalem, in the cities of Judah, in the cities of the hill country, in the cities of the Negev.  I will restore their fortunes,” declares the LORD.

.

Jeremiah 33.

The LORD continues to declare His promises of good to the people (after the capture and exile).  Jeremiah is still in prison, the enemy is still at the gates, all the houses of the people of Jerusalem have been taken apart and stacked as defense against the enemy … and yet God’s word of hope comes to his prophet.

  • “Call to me and i will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known. I have hidden my face from this city because of all their evil,  BU…
  • I will bring health and healing,
  • I will heal them and reveal an abundance of prosperity and security.
  • I will restore their fortunes,
  • I will rebuild them as they were,
  • I will cleans them from all the guilt of their sin against me,
  • I  will forgive all the guilt of their sin and rebellion against me,
  • This city shall be to me a NAME OF JOY, A PRAISE, AND A GLORY before all the nations,
  • There again shall be heard the voice of mirth and gladness…
  • the voices of those who sing as they bring thank offerings to the house of the LORD.
  • I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah,
  • A righteous branch shall spring up for David and he shall execute justice and righteousness,
  • Judah will be saved; Jerusalem will dwell securely, being called “The LORD is Our Righteousness.”

And God swears to Jeremiah in two more visions, that He WILL DO what He has promised.

.

Jeremiah 34.

In this chapter, Jeremiah goes directly to King Zedekiah with a direct word of God, outlining his future. 

  1. God is giving the city to the king of Babylon,
  2. He will burn it with fire.
  3. You, Zedekiah, shall not escape but be captured.
  4. You will see the king of Babylon eye to eye and face to face and speak to him.
  5. You will surely go to Babylon and die there.

Perhaps because of this (that he would die in peace), Zedekiah, all of a sudden, proclaimed that all the people of Jerusalem should let their Jewish slaves GO FREE. This was part of God’s law that had been neglected. They could only enslave a fellow Jew for six years, and on the 7th year, they must let them go.

Everyone obeyed. All the slaves were set free.  But before they could hardly get their belongings packed, the King reversed his decision.  All the slaves were subjected again to their masters.  HUH??

(This may have been when the Egyptian army approached and the forces of Babylon withdrew from Jerusalem temporarily, and the people of Jerusalem believed that the danger had passed. But this angered the LORD, and He brought the Babylonian army back to the city.  This time to stay till they conquered it.)

.

(God is so good to His wayward children. Yes, He must discipline them (and us), but there is always His love present, and when the time is past, he will joyfully welcome them (us) back into the protection and joy of His arms.  Thank You, LORD, for your grace and mercy and the promises you give to us in Your Word!)

 

 

Journaling through the Bible Chronologically in 2025, Day 227

Aug15

Day 227 – Reading – Jeremiah 30 – 31

Read today’s Scriptures … ANYWHERE you find yourself this summer. Stay in the WORD!

 

Jeremiah 30.

This chapter begins with a wonderful promise to the exiled Jews, and Jeremiah is to write it in a book so it will not be lost or forgotten.

  • “Behold, days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will restore the fortunes of my people – Israel and Judah,” says the LORD, “and I will bring them back to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall take possession of it.”

This verse is a brief summary of chapters 30-33. It is a double explanation of both Israel’s return from exile and their final restoration to the land for the Messiah’s Kingdom Rule for 1,000 years. It is meant to encourage.

  • They shall serve the LORD their God and David their king, whom I will raise up for them.
  • Their prince shall be one of themselves; their ruler shall come out from their midst; I will make hm draw near…
  • In the latter days, you will understand this.

.

Jeremiah 31.

Still speaking of Messiah’s Kingdom, 

  • At that time, declares the LORD, I will be the God of ALL THE CLANS of Israel and they shall be MY PEOPLE.
  • I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore, I have continued my faithfulness to you.
  • Again, I will build you, and you shall be built, O virgin Israel:
  • Again, you shall adorn yourself with tambourines and shall go forth in the dance of the merry makers.
  • Again, you shall plant vineyards on the mountains of Samaria; the planters shall plant and shall enjoy the fruit.
  • Sing aloud with gladness for Jacob, and raise shouts for the chief of the nations, proclaim, give praise…
  • He who scattered Israel will gather him, and will keep him as a shepherd keeps his flock. 
  • For the LORD has ransomed Jacob and has redeemed him from hands too strong for him.
  • They shall come and sing aloud on the height of Zion, and they shall be radiant over the GOODNESS OF THE LORD.
  • I will turn their mourning into joy; I will comfort them, and give them gladness for sorrow … and my people shall be satisfied WITH MY GOODNESS.
  • For I will satisfy the weary soul, and every languishing soul I will replenish.
  • Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a NEW COVENANT with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, NOT like the covenant that I made with their fathers. 
  • But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days. I will put my law within them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.  And they shall ALL know me, from the least to the greatest.
  • I will forget their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.  

What a glorious message Jeremiah was writing in his book for the people of God. It would encourage them and give them hope.  We too have a book from God that tells of His GOODNESS,  His love, His comfort, and His promise that He has forgotten our iniquity and does remember our sin NO MORE.  It’s because of Jesus.  PRAISE HIM!

 

 

 

Journaling through the Bible Chronologically in 2025, Day 226

Aug14

Day 226 – Reading – Jeremiah 26 – 29

Read today’s Scriptures … ANYWHERE you find yourself this summer. Stay in the WORD!

Jeremiah 26.

Okay, here’s where the chronological timeline gets a bit confused. (The notes and prophesies of Jeremiah were assembled by Baruch, Jeremiah’s assistant, whom we’ll learn about later. They are sometimes out of order.)

The happenings and words of THIS chapter would have been earlier than chapter 25  and way before chapter 24 (Babylon’s first and second deportations of Judeans).   This is when Jeremiah said that God would send for Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, against Judah and Jerusalem.

Here, Jeremiah is speaking to them urgently, that Jerusalem WILL become ruins and a curse.   But the religious leaders “poo-pooed” his words and said that Jeremiah should be killed as a false prophet. 

At that time, the LORD still held out a hope, saying that IF the people would repent and obey His Voice … He would relent of the disaster coming.  

The priests and prophets didn’t like what they heard and decided to kill Jeremiah.  BUT … the leading officials of the city came to his rescue, stating that a former prophet had told of Jerusalem’s destruction in the past, and King Hezekiah had not killed him.  Ahikam, a civil leader under Josiah, used his position to free Jeremiah..

.

Jeremiah 27.

This chapter is after Nebuchadnezzar’s second deportation of Judeans.  Zedekiah, the final son and king of Judah, is on the throne.  His nephew, Jehoiachin, who had reigned before him, had surrendered to Nebuchadnezzar and been taken into captivity in the second deportation. (He will be the only one of King Josiah’s sons (David’s line) to survive, and later prosper there.)

(NOTE: Daniel was taken in the first deportation to Babylon; Ezekiel went in the second deportation along with Jehoiachin.)

God again tells Jeremiah to give the people an OBJECT LESSON.   He is to take a yoke (used by oxen to pull plows and carts) with the straps, and put them on HIMSELF.  He is to send word to Zedekiah, as well as the kings of the surrounding nations under Nebuchadnezzar’s rule, to come to Jerusalem for his message from God.

The message? 

  • “I, by My great power and outstretched arm, have made the earth, with the men and animals on it, and I give it to whomever it seems right to me.  NOW, I have given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, “my servant.”  All of (you) nations shall serve HIM, HIS SON, and HIS GRANDSON, until the time of his end.
  • “But if any nation will NOT serve this Nebuchadnezzar, and put its neck under the yoke of this king … I will punish that nation with sword, famine, and pestilence.. So don’t listen to the “false voices” that say not to serve him.  IT IS A LIE!
  • And to King Zedekiah of Judah, specifically, ‘Bring your neck under the yoke of this king of Babylon and serve him and his people … AND LIVE.

Then Jeremiah spoke to the priests and people.  “Do not listen to the words of your false prophets who say the vessels of the LORD’s house will shortly be returned.  It’s a lie! Do not listen to THEM.  Serve the king of Babylon … and LIVE.  As for the taken vessels … the rest will be taken by Babylon, there to remain until I (the LORD) bring them back and restore them to this place.”

*

(WOW. Those are amazing words. Serve your evil captors.  Why?  Because, for a specific time, they are “servants of God,” designated for your discipline. Submit to the will of the LORD for a time, and LIVE. 

So… why don’t I also obey and submit to the hard times that God uses to discipline ME, and learn from them, and live?  In His time, God will make all things good.)

*

Jeremiah 28.

In that same year that Jeremiah did the “yoke” object lesson, there arose a FALSE PROPHET, named Hananiah.  THIS prophet (speaking falsely for God) said, “The yoke” of Babylon would be broken in two years (instead of 70), and the vessels taken would be brought back to the Temple. AND … King Jeconiah (Jehoiachin) and all the exiles who went to Babylon would also be brought back.”

Jeremiah answered facetiously. “Amen! May the LORD do so. May the LORD make the words you prophesied come true!”  HA! 

Then Jeremiah called him a false prophet along with all prophets who said PEACE, when there was NO PEACE.

But Hananiah took the yoke from around Jeremiah’s neck and broke it.  “Thus will the LORD break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar from the neck of all the nations … IN TWO YEARS!”  Then he left.

WHOA!  A battle of the prophets!

God told Jeremiah to go to Hananiah and tell him he MAY have broken the wooden yoke, but God is putting an IRON YOKE on the nations, and he will not break that.  And because Hananiah made the people trust in his false words and made the people rebel against the LORD … “This year you shall die.”

In that same year … Hananiah died. 

WHOA. So there, you false prophet!

.

Jeremiah 29.

Then Jeremiah sent a letter to all the surviving elders of the exiles and the priests, prophets, and all the people whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken from Jerusalem to Babylon (in the second deportation).  It said…

  • “Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile:  Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your 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. 
  • “Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let your prophets and your diviners who are among you deceive you, and do not listen to the dreams that they dream, for it is a lie that they are prophesying to you in my name; I did not send them, declares the LORD.
  • “For thus says the LORD: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you My promise and bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you.  You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.  I will be found by you, declares the LORD, and I will restore your fortunes, and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you… and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you in exile.

 

 

 

 

     

Journaling through the Bible Chronologically in 2025, Day 225

Aug13

Day 225 – Reading – Jeremiah 23 – 25

Read today’s Scriptures … ANYWHERE you find yourself this summer. Stay in the WORD!

Jeremiah 23.

“The LORD is my shepherd. I shall not want (have any needs).  (Think of the following words in David’s Psalm 23, describing the Lord Jesus Christ.) He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still (peaceful) waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.  Even though I (will) walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.  You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.  Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me ALL the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever.”

And now, in Jeremiah 23, see what God says about the “shepherds” who were supposed to look after and care for the “sheep” of Israel, but didn’t.

  • “Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of My pasture!
  • You have scattered my flock and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them.  Behold, I will attend to YOU for your evil deeds,” declares the LORD.

The “bad” shepherds were the false leaders in Israel who failed in their duty to take care/protect/teach the flock of God.  They included the kings, prophets and priests.  

  • “Then I will gather the remnant of My flock out of all the countries where I have driven them.  
  • I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply.
  • I will set shepherds over them who will care for them, and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall ANY be missing,” declares the LORD.

After the exile, God will bring Judah back from Babylon to their homeland.  Men like Zerubbabel, Ezra, and Nehemiah will be like good shepherds caring for them.

In a fuller sense, in the end times, the Great Shepherd, Jesus, will restore all His people to their land. This has yet to happen.

  • “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.  In His days, JUDAH WILL BE SAVED, and ISRAEL WILL DWELL SECURELY.

Meanwhile, God’s heart is broken in him … for the land is full of adulterers, and the (formerly green) pastures of the wilderness are dried up.  Both prophet and priest are UNGODLY.  “EVEN IN MY HOUSE I HAVE FOUND EVIL!”  “And from the prophets of Jerusalem UNGODLINESS has gone out into all the land.”

  • “BEHOLD, the storm of the LORD! Wrath had gone forth, a whirling tempest; it will burst upon the head of the wicked.”
  • Am I a God at hand, declares the LORD, and not a God far away? Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him?  Do I not fill heaven and earth? 
  • “You false prophets and seers (evil shepherds) … “I will surely lift you up and cast you away from My presence, you and the city that I have given to you and your fathers.  I will bring upon you everlasting reproach and perpetual shame, which shall not be forgotten.”

.

Jeremiah 24.

Jeremiah received a vision, then a word from the LORD explaining the vision. This happened AFTER King Nebuchadnezzar’s second attack, and his carrying King Jeconiah (Jehoiachin, Coniah – this king had several names!), back to Babylon (alive) along with his mother, officials, craftsmen, and metal workers.  

Jeremiah’s vision showed TWO BASKETS OF FIGS in front of the Temple.  One basket had VERY GOOD FIGS; the other had VERY BAD (rotten) FIGS.

The LORD:  “What do you see, Jeremiah?”

Jeremiah: Figs; very good figs and very bad figs.

The LORD: “I will regard as “the good figs” the exiles from Judah, whom I have sent away from this place. I will set my eyes on them for good, and build them up, and plant them, and give them a heart to know that I am the Lord. They shall be my people and I will be their God. For they will return to me with their whole heart.”

The LORD continues.  “But I will treat Zedekiah, king of Judah, his officials, the remnant of Jerusalem, who remain, and those who fled to Egypt … “as the very bad, rotten figs.”   I will make them a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth, a reproach, a byword, a taunt, and a curse in all the places I shall drive them.  I will send sword, famine, and pestilence on them until they are utterly destroyed.”

WOW.  This reminds me of Jesus separating the sheep and goats on the Last Day, one to eternal life, and the other one to eternal punishment. Matthew 25:31-46

.

Jeremiah 25.

This chapter takes a few steps backward, to the fourth year of the reign of Jehoiakim in Judah, and the first year of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign in Babylon.  For 23 years, Jeremiah had been predicting this, but the people had not listened, nor turned from their evil ways.

And so … as prophesied … the Lord was going to send for Nebuchadnezzar “His servant” against all this land.  “I will devote it to destruction, and make it a horror, a hissing, a desolation.   This whole land will become a ruin and a waste, and you will serve the King of Babylon SEVENTY YEARS.”

There it is! 

But … “After seventy years are completed, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation for their iniquity.“

Then figuratively, God gave to Jeremiah His “cup of wrath.”  He was to go to all the nations to which God would send him and MAKE THEY DRINK FROM THE CUP. 

So, Jeremiah took the cup and went …

  • to Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, 
  • to Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and all the mixed tribes there, 
  • to all the land of Uz and the Philistines, 
  • to Edom, Moab, and Ammon,
  • to Tyre, Sidon, Dedan, Tema and Buz, 
  • to the kings of Arabia and the mixed tribes who dwell in the desert, Zimri, Elam, Media, 
  • and to ALL THE KINGDOMS OF THE WORLD on the face of the earth. 
  • And finally,  to the King of Babylon who SHALL drink. 

And the LORD said, “I begin to work disaster at the city THAT IS CALLED BY MY NAME, and shall you, Babylon, go unpunished? No, for I am summoning a sword against ALL the inhabitants of the earth … ALL FLESH.”

And a special disaster for the false shepherds and lords of the flocks. No refuge. No escape.

WOW.  The LORD is really raging.  Just think how it will be AT THE END OF THE AGE, when Jesus comes, and the world goes into the Great Tribulation before the final Day of the Lord, the destruction of evil!  PRAISE GOD!

*

(LORD, Thank you for the promise of Eternal Life through Jesus, the great Shepherd and the eternal King. Keep my heart turned wholly towards YOU. Help me to be obedient to your Word and to those who speak Your Words.)

 

 

 

 

Journaling through the Bible Chronologically in 2025, Day 224

Aug12

Day 224 – Reading – Jeremiah 18 – 22

Read today’s Scriptures … ANYWHERE you find yourself this summer. Stay in the WORD!

Jeremiah 18.

God gives Jeremiah another picture prophecy. (Don’t you love those?) 

He is to go to a potter’s shop and watch the man work.  The potter sees a dry chunk, a flaw, in the clay and has to begin again.  He squashes the clay vase, picks out the hard chunk, kneads the “purified” clay, forms it into an oblong, puts it back on the wheel, and begins shaping again.  His clay.  His choice. 

Jeremiah watches. He gets it.  God is the potter, Israel/Judah the clay. There are flaws in the clay – sin.  God can decide to follow through on the judgment he’s planned because the flaw is just too great (crush the clay and form another), or … if the clay is pliable enough, He can work the bad spots out as it spins and finish that flawless vase.  His people.  His choice.

The people were not happy when Jeremiah finished the story and he said, “Behold, God is devising a plan against you. Return, every one from his evil way, and amend your ways and deeds.“

They stubbornly replied, “We will follow our OWN plans.  We will, every one of us, act according to the stubbornness of his own evil heart.”  (So there! says the clay to the potter. What are you going to do about it?)

Here’s what: “Like the east wind, I will scatter them before the enemy. I will show them my back and not my face, on the day of their calamity.” (God turning his back on me would be a scary thought!)

Scolded people never like the messenger. They say, “Come, let us plot against Jeremiah. Let us strike him with the tongue. Let us not pay attention to any of his words.” That seems pretty mild, but Verse 23 reveals that they were plotting to KILL him, as well.)

Jeremiah runs to God and complains.  “Listen to them!   Hear how they plot evil for me. Remember when I spoke up for You??  Therefore, God, give them over to famine, sword, and pestilence… just as you said.”  WHOA, Jeremiah has done an about-face.  He’d prayed that God would NOT bring those things on Israel before. 

(Boy, I’ve done that, haven’t you?  Touch a bit of me or mine, and I turn nasty!) 

Let’s see what God does.

. 

Jeremiah 19.

Back to the potter’s shop.  Only this time, Jeremiah was to buy a finished clay flask.  Then he was to take it to the Valley of Hinnom, called Topeth (where babies were burned alive to Molech), and say God’s words of disaster to the kings of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. 

“Because they have forsaken God and profaned the city and Temple, making offerings in it to other gods, and because they have filled the place “with the blood of innocent babies, to burn them as an offering to a god….. “which I did not command or decree, nor did it come into my mind!!    Therefore, I will make void all the plans of Judah. I will cause the people to fall by the sword. I will give THEIR dead bodies for food to the birds and beasts.  I will make them EAT the flesh of their own sons and daughters … and their neighbors…”   Yikes!

Then Jeremiah was to break the clay flask against the wall and say, “Thus will I break this people and this city … as the potter’s vessel, so that it can never be mended.”   (Great object lesson!)

.

Jeremiah 20.

When Pashhur (meaning “ease”), the priest and chief officer of the temple police, heard Jeremiah, he grabbed him and BEAT him (the 40 lashes of Deuteronomy 25:3).  Then he put the prophet into stocks – hands, feet and neck – and left him bleeding and bruised over night. 

The next morning, Jeremiah gave Pashhur the “what for!!” 

Your name will no longer be “Ease” but “Terror On Every Side.”  You will watch all those horrific things happen to Jerusalem, the Temple, and the people. And YOU will be carried into captivity in Babylon, where you will die and be buried … you and all your friends.

Understandably, Jeremiah was in excruciating pain – back raw, blood crusted on the stripes, bruised, and maybe still bleeding. And joints aching from the stocks.   He says to God,

  • I have become a laughingstock all day; everyone mocks me. Whenever I speak, cry out, and shout “‘Violence and destruction!’  Well, the word of the LORD has become a reproach and derision for me….   
  • I say, ‘I will not mention Him, or speak His name anymore.”  But there comes in my heart a burning fire, shut up in my bones.  I am weary of holding it in.  I CANNOT hold it in!
  • I hear many whispering to denounce me. “Let us denounce him,” say my friends. “We can overcome him and take our revenge on him.”
  • “But the LORD is with me as a dread warrior.  “O LORD of hosts … to you have I committed my cause.  “Sing to the LORD; praise the LORD. For He has delivered the life of the needy from the hand of the evildoers.”

(This is such an example for me.  When I feel down, and people make fun of me, I should never consider stopping my testimony.  I should look to God, preach his love and care to myself, sing praises to him, and say in my heart, and aloud, HE HAS DELIVERED ME!)

.

Jeremiah 21.

Okay…  the time is nigh. Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, is approaching to make war on them. (No surprise!)

King Zedekiah (the very last king of Judah) tries to do what his ancestor King Hezekiah did when Sennacherib, king of Assyria, surrounded Jerusalem. He had sent for Isaiah to pray and seek the LORD.

Zedekiah sent a priest (another Pashhur, not the one who beat Jeremiah) to the prophet to “Inquire of the LORD,” for him, thinking that maybe God would do one of His “wonderful deeds” for them and make the Babylonians withdraw.   But this was a different king, a different situation.  Zedekiah was not the righteous Hezekiah. 

Jeremiah spoke.  It was NOT what King Zedekiah wanted to hear.  God was NOT going to kill 185,000 of the enemy in a night.

No, the Babylonians were going to attack and prevail against Zedekiah’s weak weapons.  God Himself was also going to fight against Zedekiah and Jerusalem with a strong arm, in anger and in fury and in great wrath.   He was going to give King Zedekiah and the people over to Nebuchadnezzar, who would strike them with the sword … without pity or compassion.  And then he would loot and burn Jerusalem.

Yikes!

.

Jeremiah 22.

Wow!! Surprise, surprise! See what God – O, the merciful and forgiving, LORD God of Israel – does!

He tells Jeremiah to go to the King of Judah and tell him this:

  • “Hear the word of the LORD< O king of Judah, who sits on the throne of David, you, and your servants, and your people who enter these gates.  THUS says the LORD, 
  • “Do justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who has been robbed.  And do no wrong or violence to the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place!
  • For… IF you will indeed obey this word, THEN there shall enter the gates of this house kings who sit on the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, they and their servants and their people. (Posterity and Success offered.)
  • But IF NOT …. the house of the kings of Judah shall become a desolation. (No continuing posterity.)

And then, the LORD gives a word – the end of each of the following kings, sons of Josiah.

SHALLUM (or Jehoahaz) – carried captive to Babylon, where he will die.  “Your father (Josiah) did justice and righteousness, and it went well with him. But YOU have eyes and heart only for dishonest gain, shedding innocent blood, and practicing oppression and violence.”

JEHOIAKIM – They shall not lament for him.  “With the burial of a donkey, he shall be buried, dragged, and dumped beyond the gates of Jerusalem.” 

CONIAH (or Jehoiachin) – I will give you into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and into the hands of the Chaldeans (of whom you are afraid). I will hurl you and the mother who bore you into another country where you were not born, and there you shall die. “You are a despised, broken pot, a vessel no one cares for.”

(These were the last kings of Judah, all despised.  Israel/Judah would have NO MORE KINGS until that last Glorious One.)

.

Wow.  Not the epitaphs I’d want! 

(But take heart. The next chapter (tomorrow) reveals the “Greater Son of David, the King of Kings, holy and righteous, who will sit on his throne forever!”)

.

 

 

  

Journaling through the Bible Chronologically in 2025, Day 221

Aug9

Day 221 – Reading – Jeremiah 7 – 9

Read today’s Scriptures … ANYWHERE you find yourself this summer. Stay in the WORD!

Jeremiah 7.

The prophet was instructed to stand in the gate of the Temple to proclaim the following Word from God.  To all you men of Judah who enter these gates, the LORD says…

  • “Amend your ways and deeds …. and I will let you dwell in this place. 
  • “If you TRULY amend your ways and deeds,
  • …execute justice one with another,
  • …not oppose the sojourner, the fatherless, or the widow…
  • …not shed innocent blood in this place,
  • …and do not go after other gods,
  • THEN I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your fathers forever.”

But, no.

  • “Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known … and THEN come and stand before Me in this house, which is called by My Name, and say, “We are delivered!” only to go on doing all these abominations?
  • “Has this house, which is called by My Name, become A DEN OF ROBBERS in your eyes?

God tells the people to go over to Shiloh, the place where they used to sacrifice and worship Him before the Temple was built.  God had destroyed it, and now He asks, if he will not do the same to the Temple in Jerusalem .. BECAUSE of their wicked deeds. 

Then God turns to Jeremiah. “As for you, do not pray for this people, or lift up a cry or prayer for them, and do not intercede with me … for I will not hear you. 

“Don’t you see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem? The children gather wood. The fathers kindle fire. The women knead dough and make cakes …FOR THE QUEEN OF HEAVEN (the Assyrian goddess of fertility, Ishtar). 

God reminds the people that He gave them this one, most important command … “Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people. Walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.”

“But they did not obey. They did not incline their ear. They walked in their own counsels.  They walked in the stubbornness of their evil hearts. They went backward and not forward. They stiffened their necks. They did worse than their fathers.

They have set their detestable things in the “Temple” to defile it. They have built Topheth, in the valley of Hinnom, to burn their sons and daughters in the fire (which I did not command … nor did it come into my mind!”

And so… the land shall become a waste.  Their bones are to be left unburied, as dung on the surface of the ground…

.

Jeremiah 8.

You shall say to them, Jeremiah, “Why then has this people turned away in perpetual backsliding?  They hold fast to deceit; they refuse to return. I have paid attention and listened … but they have not spoken rightly; no man says of his evil, “What have I done?”

“From the least to the greatest, everyone is greedy for unjust gain; from prophet to priest, everyone deals falsely.  They have healed the wound of my people “lightly,” saying, “Peace, peace,” WHEN THERE IS NO PEACE.”

Were they ashamed when they committed abomination? NO, they were not at all ashamed; they did not know how to blush.  Therefore, they shall fall among the fallen when I punish them.

Jeremiah grieves for his people.  

  • “My joy is gone, grief is upon me, my heart is sick within me.   The wound of the daughter of my people is MY heart wounded; I mourn, and dismay has taken hold on me.  “Is there no balm in Gilead?  Is there no physician there? 
  • “Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people.”

(No wonder Jeremiah is called “the weeping prophet.”

.

Jeremiah 9.

Jeremiah wishes to escape to the desert to escape the pollution of the people. Then he lists all their sins:

  • Adultery, treachery, liars, deceivers, slanderers, committing iniquity of all kinds, heaping up oppression and deceit, refusing to know the LORD. Their tongues are as deadly arrows, they have mouths that speak peace but plan ambush. 

And so the LORD plans payment:

  • “I will refine them and test them. Shall I not punish them and avenge myself on a nation such as this?  I will make Jerusalem a heap of ruins… I will make the cities of Judah a desolation…” “I will scatter them among the nations… and send the sword after them until I have consumed them.

WHY? asks Jeremiah.

“Because they have forsaken My law that I set before them, and have not obeyed My voice or walked in accord within it, but stubbornly followed their own hearts.”

Thus says the LORD, “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom … let not the mighty man boast in his might … let not the rich man boast in his riches … BUT, let him who boasts, boast in this …THAT HE UNDERSTANDS AND KNOWS ME, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth.  For in these things I delight.”

.

(I’m seeing so clearly in Jeremiah, the people of the world today: gross denial of God and Jesus, minds that desire supremely, self-glory/fame, wealth, and physical pleasure.  I’m also learning what God wanted from His people, because they are the same today.  Righteousness, and a heart in love with Him and His law (Word).  As another prophet says,  “to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly before the LORD.”  Oh, that THAT may be MY heart’s desire.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Journaling through the Bible Chronologically in 2025, Day 218

Aug6

Day 218 – Reading – Zephaniah 1 – 3.

Read today’s Scriptures … ANYWHERE you find yourself this summer. Stay in the WORD!

 

Zephaniah 1-3.

Zephaniah prophesied “in the days of Josiah.” These were probably in the early years of the boy king’s reign, before the Book of the Law was found and Josiah began those massive reforms. Perhaps Zephaniah had an influence on those reforms.  He was a contemporary of Jeremiah.

Zephaniah was unique among the prophets in that he was a descendant of King Hezekiah (his great-grandfather). This may have given him more access to the royal court and more respect for his prophesies. 

Remember how the LORD told King Josiah that he would have PEACE in his day, but in no way was the wrath of God on Judah and Jerusalem to be abated.  It was still going to happen.  (After Josiah died, it came on rapidly.)

.

Zephaniah 1..

NOTE: The prophesies of Zephaniah spoke of two judgments: first, the victory of Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, and second, the “great” Day of the LORD yet in the future. Zephaniah quotes God’s words.

  • “I will utterly sweep away everything from the face of the earth … I will sweep away man and beast … the birds of the heavens and the fish of the sea … the rubble and the wicked … I will cut off mankind from the face of the earth.”  

Wow, that sounds like the flood, but we know it isn’t.  The message continues and is more specific.

  • “I will stretch out my hand against Judah, and against all the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and I will cut off from this place the remnant of Baal … the idolatrous priests … those who bow down to the hosts of heaven … who swear by Milcom … and have turned back from following the LORD.

Then He lists those whom He will punish.

  • “At that time I will search Jerusalem with lamps. I will punish the men who are complacent and say, ‘The LORD will not do good or evil.'”

But the warning is –

  • The great day of the LORD is near; near and hastening fast!  A day of wrath is that day, a day of distress and anguish, ruin and devastation, darkness and gloom, clouds and thick darkness, a day if trumpet blast and battle cry!”

.

Zephaniah 2.

  • Then hope…
  • “Seek the LORD, all you humble of the land, who do His just commands; seek righteousness; seek humility; perhaps you may be hidden on the day of the anger of the LORD>”

Zephaniah then list WOES on surrounding cities and countries:  the cities of Philistia, the inhabitants of the seacoasts, Moab, Ammon, Cush, Assyria (He will make Nineveh a desolation), 

.

Zephaniah 3.

And then the LORD turns to His own people.

  • Woe to her who is rebellious and defiled, the oppressing city!”  (Jerusalem)  She does not trust in the LORD; she does not draw near to her God.  Her officials, judges, prophets, and priests “know no shame.”

But judgment is coming to them as it was with all the surrounding nations

Then Zephaniah’s prophesies turn to the blessings of RESTORATION for God’s people and the nations, after “that great and terrible “DAY OF THE LORD.”

  • ” … all the peoples will call upon the Name of the LORD and serve Him with one accord.
  • ” … for then I will remove from your midst your proud, haughty ones, and will leave a people humble and lowly … who see refuge in the name of the LORD.

.

The King of Israel, the LORD, is in your midst; you shall never again fear evil.

“Sing aloud, O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel!  Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem! The LORD has taken away the judgments against you;

The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty One who will save;  He will rejoice over you with gladness; He will quiet you by His love; He will exult over you with loud singing!

“I will make you renowned and praised among all the peoples of the earth, when I restore your fortunes before your eyes,”  says the LORD.

###

(The sin of the world today will also bring judgment, woe, and sorrow. The LORD will sweep it all away.  And He will make a new Heaven and Earth with holiness, joy, and peace.  And He will be the righteous King. And the people who love and serve Him here and now will join Him there and forever. Thank YOU, LORD!)

 

 

 

 

 

Journaling through the Bible Chronologically in 2025, Day 217

Aug5

Day 217 – Reading – 2 Kings 22-23, 2 Chronicles 34-35.

Read today’s Scriptures … ANYWHERE you find yourself this summer. Stay in the WORD!

 

2 Kings 22 and 2 Chronicles 34.

Josiah.  Judah’s last good king.  And he was very good.

Josiah DID what was right in the eyes of the LORD.  He WALKED in the ways of David, his father.  He DID NOT turn aside to the right or the left.  In the eighth year of his reign (at 16), he began to SEEK the God of David, his father. In the twelfth year of his reign (age 20), he began to PURGE and CLEANSE Judah and Jerusalem of all the idols. In the eighteenth year of his reign (age 26) he began to REPAIR the House of God.

Like I said, Josiah was a very good king. 

During the cleaning, the priest, Hilkiah, found the Book of the Law. (How long had it been buried under the trash and filth?)  It was brought and read to King Josiah by Shaphan, the secretary. (Most likely this was the book of Deuteronomy.)

When King Josiah heard the words of the Law … he TORE his clothes (in distress and grief). He COMMANDED the priest to go and INQUIRE of the LORD for him and all Judah, concerning the words of the Law he’d heard.

“For great is the wrath of the LORD that is kindled (poured out) on us, because our fathers have not kept (obeyed) the words of the LORD (this book), to do according to all that is written in it concerning us.”

They went to Huldah the prophetess, who lived in Jerusalem, and she gave them a word from God.

  • “Tell the man who sent you to me, Thus says the LORD. ‘I WILL bring disaster upon this place and upon its inhabitants, all the curses that are written in the book that was read before the king.  Because they have forsaken me and have made offerings to other gods, that they might provoke me to anger with all the works of their hands … my wrath will be poured out on this place and will not be quenched!'”
  • “BUT to the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of the LORD, the God of Israel, say, ‘Because you hear was tender and you humbled yourself before God when you heard His words against this place and its inhabitants that they should become a desolation and a curse, and you have humbled yourself before me and have torn your clothes and wept before me … I also have heard you.  Behold, I will gather you to your fathers, and you shall be gathered to your grave IN PEACE, and your eyes shall not see all the disaster that I will bring upon this place and its inhabitants.”

Then King Josiah gathered all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem, and all the men of Judah and the inhabitants, plus the priests and Levites.  And he read in their hearing all the words of the Book of the Covenant that had been found.

And Josiah STOOD and MADE A COVENANT before the LORD, to WALK after the LORD, and KEEP His commandments and testimonies and statutes with all his heart and soul, to PERFORM the words of the covenant that were written in the book. 

He made all who were present join in, and they did.  He took away all the abominations that belonged to the people of Israel and made all serve the LORD their God.  

All his days they did not turn away from following the LORD, the God of their Fathers.  WOW. Amen!

.

2 Kings 23 and 2 Chronicles 35.

 With renewed energy and purpose, King Josiah began to “clean house” in earnest.

  1. He found all the vessels made for Baal, Asherah, and the Hosts of Heaven that were in the temple, including in the Most Holy place … and burned them and threw the ashes in the Kidron fields.
  2. Then he deposed all the evil priests whom the kings before him had appointed. 
  3. He broke down the houses of prostitution used to worship the false gods. 
  4. He defiled Topeth, which is in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, SO NO ONE MIGHT BURN HIS SON OR DAUGHTER AS AN OFFERING TO MOLECH. —- (Topeth means “drum.”  Drums were beaten to drown out the screams and cries of the children being sacrificed!) 
  5. He removed and burned the golden statues of the horses and chariots of the sun, which the kings of Judah had dedicated and used to worship the sun. 
  6. He pulled down all the altars the former kings had made, broke them into pieces, and threw them in that valley of the dead.
  7. He defiled all the altars of Ashtoreth, Chemosh, and Milcom that Solomon built for his foreign wives.  He pulled them down and broke them into pieces, and then threw dead men’s bones on them.
  8. He tore down the altar at Bethel that Jeroboam had built (the golden calf), broke it apart, and burned it. 
  9. He went to Samaria (the capital of the old Northern Kingdom) and tore down all the shrines there, and sacrificed all the priests.

Then he returned to Jerusalem.  WHEW!

He called the Levites and told them to bring the Ark of the Covenant of the LORD back into the Temple. 

(King Josiah’s father, Manasseh, had taken the Ark of the Covenant out to put in that carved image he’d made. After his repentance, he took out the idol and threw it in the valley. But the Ark had never been replaced. See 2 Chron. 33:7 & 15.)

Then King Josiah restored all the holy priests and Levites to their positions (listed in the documents written by David and Solomon), and told them to get ready to slaughter the Passover Lamb.  Then the king and all the people “kept the Passover to the Lord their God (and the feast of unleavened Bread), as was written in the Book of the Covenant.  No such Passover had been kept since the days of the judges or during the days of the kings of Israel or the kings of Judah. 

Oh, and Josiah put away (killed) the mediums and necromancers, and ALL the abominations that were seen in the land of Judah and Jerusalem … that he might establish the Words of the Law that were written in the Book that was found in the house of the LORD.

BEFORE him, there was no king who turned to the LORD with all his heart, all his soul, and all his might … nor did any like him arise after him.

Judah got a reprieve. But the LORD’s great burning wrath did not turn away from Judah, because of all the provocations that Manasseh had done (before repentance).  The LORD said, “I will remove Judah also out of my sight, as I have removed Israel, and I will cast off this city that I have chosen, Jerusalem, and the House for which I said, ‘My name shall be there.'”

.

And then…. after all that Josiah did, and at the end of his reign … Neco, the Pharaoh-King of Egypt, set out to fight against the King of Assyria.

REMEMBER – Egypt was SOUTH of Judah, and Assyria was NORTH.  That meant that Neco and his army had to “pass through some of the land of Israel to get to the new Assyrian capital of Carchemish.  It seems Neco had no beef with Josiah and told the Jewish king to just let his army pass through.  

BUT… Josiah FEARED that Egypt and Assyria would somehow form an alliance, like two sides of a hamburger bun, with Judah in the middle as the meat – ready to be chomped from either side.   So … without consulting God as his great-grandfather Hezekiah had done, Josiah decided to intercept the Egyptian forces and fight for Judah.  

BAD DECISION. 

Josiah (and army) met Neco on the plain of Megiddo (Jezreel).  Almost immediately, Josiah was wounded by an arrow, shot by Neco himself. (The Egyptian wanted to get to Carchemish without losing any of his men or armaments. Josiah was a “bee buzzing around his head,” and he swatted him.

“I am badly wounded,” cried Josiah. His servants put him in the king’s second chariot (perhaps the “ambulance” rig?), and took him back to Jerusalem, where this godly king died.

All Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah. 

Jeremiah, the prophet, also uttered a lament for him.

Then the people of Judah took Josiah’s son, Jehoahaz, and made him king in his father’s place.

He reigned THREE MONTHS. He did what was evil in the sight of the LORD. 

Pharaoh Neco, seeing an opportunity, captured Jehoahaz and put him in prison at his base north of Lebanon. Ultimately, he was taken to Egypt, where he died. Meanwhile, Neco laid a tribute on Judah of 100 talents of silver and a talent of gold.  Neco made Eliakim, another of Josiah’s sons, king instead, and changed his name to Jehoiakim. 

King Jehoiakim paid the silver and gold to Neco. (He got the money from taxing his people, not from his own kingly storehouse.)

He reigned eleven years, and….. did what was evil in the sight of the LORD.  Another king came and took him away ….. Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon.

The time had com…..   

(Thank you LORD, for Your patience and mercy.  We don’t deserve it. Thank you for delaying as long as you can for this world to bring wrath on us – because you “desire all to be saved.’  But eventually, the unrighteousness is full, and you WILL act. )

 

Journaling through the Bible Chronologically in 2025, Days 215 & 216

Aug4

NOTE: Sunday and Monday studies are posted together on Monday.

Day 215 – Reading – I2 Chronicles 32 – 33, 

Day 216 – Reading – Nahum 1 – 3

Read today’s Scriptures … ANYWHERE you find yourself this summer. Stay in the WORD!

Day 215 – 2 Chronicles 32.

This chapter repeats some of what we learned about this time from 2 Kings and Isaiah. 

After chapter 31 listed all the good things Hezekiah did in removing idolatry and his faithfulness to God, Sennacherib and his hordes invaded Judah.  (Was this a test from the LORD?  If so, Hezekiah passed with flying colors.)

At the (verbal and written) threats from the king of Assyria and his commander, itemizing how “weak” and “impotent” Israel’s God was compared to their great army, God showed them up. Hezekiah went to the LORD and prayed, and Isaiah encouraged him.  Then God acted. The whole Assyrian army was killed in one night, and the King went home (with “shame on his face”), only to be assassinated by his own sons.

Then chapter 32 reviews the grave illness of Hezekiah, his prayer, and God’s answer of 15 more years of life.  After this answer to prayer, it seems that Hezekiah’s heart became proud. (Of his wealth?  Of his amazing answers to prayer? Of his extreme wealth? )  Regardless, self-pride over something that GOD DID brought God’s wrath on him, in the foretelling of Jerusalem’s eventual destruction. However, Hezekiah humbled himself, and God’s wrath did not come during his lifetime.

This chapter also reviews his foolishness in revealing all his riches and military strength to an “envoy from Babylon.” 

The other accounts say they came because they heard of Hezekiah’s illness, but this account adds that they were sent to “inquire about the sign that had been done in the land.”  You know it, that reversing of the sundial ten degrees.   If the sun went back in Israel, so it did everywhere, including Babylon.  That “far away land” was known for its astronomers (just like at Jesus’ birth, when that special star appeared), and they came to investigate.

Isaiah scolded Hezekiah for showing off all he had, and told him what he had revealed would be taken away by that very country (about 100 years later), Jerusalem would be destroyed, and his son’s taken captive.  Hezekiah, like us, shrugged and said, “Well, at least not in MY time…”

At Hezekiah’s death, those 15 years later, “all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem did him honor.”  Then his son Manasseh, who was conceived and born in those very 15 years, became king, and a very wicked one at that.

.

2 Chronicles 33.

This whole chapter is about Manasseh, who reigned in Jerusalem 55 years, and the horrible evil he did for most of them.  He reversed all the good that his father, Hezekiah, had done (So he KNEW what was right! What got into him???), and restored all the idolatrous places for pagan worship, EVEN IN THE TEMPLE of the LORD GOD, and caused the people to stray into more evil than had King Ahab in the north.  

He went farther into devilish evil that had existed before Hezekiah. He sacrificed his sons on the burning altar of Molech, as had his grandfather, Ahaz.  And in direct violation of God’s law, Manasseh used fortunetellers, omens, sorcery, mediums, and necromancers to divine truth and direction.  (Not like Hezekiah, who went before God in the Temple for help and to pray for direction.) 

God warned Manasseh through his prophets about the coming fierce judgment for Judah and Jerusalem and the people, but he and the people “paid no attention.”  Tradition says Manasseh killed Isaiah, the prophet of God, by torture (maybe because he didn’t want to hear those awful coming events.).

As a foretaste, the LORD brought upon them commanders of another king of Assyria (Ashurbanipal), who captured Manasseh “with hooks!” and put him on trial in their vassal city of Babylon.  There, a miracle happened!!

In distress, Manasseh “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.”

CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT???

OH, THE MERCY AND FORGIVENESS OF GOD!!

GOD HEARS AND ANSWERS THOSE OF A BROKEN AND CONTRITE HEART – even the most wicked!

.

NOTE: (This reminds me of the story of the “Amazing Grace” songwriter, John Newton. He learned about the things of God from his mom at an early age, but then strayed into all kinds of cruelty and debauchery for most of his life. But at an older age, with death by shipwreck facing him, he turned and cried to God.  And God saved him.  Later he wrote, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me!”)

.

Manasseh went home and “took away the foreign gods and the idol from the temple, and all the altars he had built in Jerusalem. He restored the altar of God and offered sacrifices of peace and thanksgiving. He commanded Judah to serve the LORD, the God of Israel.”

(NOTE: It’s mentioned in this chapter that Manasseh’s prayer was recorded in “the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah” and “the Chronicles of the Seers (or Prophets).” Hmmm, I’d love to read those, but God determined it wasn’t necessary to preserve them for us.)

Eventually, this converted sinner king died, and his son, Amon, reigned.  This man was not affected by his father’s conversion.  He learned early the horrible practices of Idolatry and again sacrificed to idols and images.   He “incurred more and more guilt.”  And eventually, his servants killed him in his house.

Then the people of the land (Jerusalem’s leaders) killed Amon’s assassins and installed the very young Josiah (8 years old) as king in his place.

(Sneak preview:  Josiah did what was RIGHT in the eyes of the Lord…)

.

###

.

DAY 216 – Nahum 1-3 

Not much is known about the prophet Nahum (meaning “comfort”). He was from Elkosh, but that is an unknown place. (It could have been Al Qosh in northern Iraq, meaning he was a descendant of one of the early Jewish captives of Assyria. He could have been from Capernaum (“Town of Nahum”) in the northern kingdom, or even from southern Judah. (see Nahum 1:15).  We don’t know, and it really doesn’t matter.)

He prophesied a message against Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, probably before the death of King Ashurbanipal. (Remember him? He was the king who captured Manasseh “with hooks” and took him to Babylon for trial?)  Assyria had recovered from the defeat (and embarrassment) of Sennacherib.  Now, the great Assyrian Empire spread from Babylon to Egypt.

This was probably 100 years after Jonah preached to Nineveh, and they repented. Now they have returned to idolatry and violence, at the height of their power. 

Think of Nahum as a “sequel to Jonah.”

Nahum predicted the FULFILLMENT of the judgment that Jonah SO wanted.

.

Nahum 1.

Verses 1-2, and 6 describe the LORD towards his enemies, the guilty.

  • “The LORD is a JEALOUS and AVENGING God, the LORD is AVENGING and WRATHFUL; the LORD takes VENGEANCE on His adversaries and keeps WRATH for his  enemies.
  • “The LORD is low to anger and great in power, and the LORD will by no means clear the guilty.”
  • “Who can stand before His INDIGNATION? who can endure the heat of his ANGER?

Specific prophecies against Nineveh.

  • “With an overflowing flood, He will make a complete end of the adversaries. (Nineveh’s walls reached 100 feet high.  The moat surrounding the city was 150 feet wide and 60 feet deep.  The “overflowing flood” that God brought was when the Tigris River flooded, joined the moat waters to destroy enough of the walls of Nineveh to let the Babylonians through.)
  • “Though they are at full strength and many, they will be cut down and pass away. (As the LORD cut down the 185,000 soldiers encircling Jerusalem in one night, so shall he do to Nineveh.)

But to those who put their hope in the LORD … “He is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; He knows those who take refuge in Him.”

.

Nahum 2.

This is a vivid picture of the destruction of Nineveh. (Jonah would have LOVED this!)

  • “The SCATTERER has come up against you.”  Assyria made a practice of scattering it’s captives throughout its empire. Now it would happen to them.
  • “The shield of his mighty men is red; his soldiers are clothed in scarlet…” Shields were covered with hide, dyed red to absorb flaming arrows and mask the sight of blood.
  • “Chariots come with flashing metal, they race madly, rush to and from through the streets; they gleam like torches…  Polished metal on the chariots would catch the sun and flash like lightning.
  • And the conquerors raise a siege tower, while the waters of the flooding Tigris river and moat “melt the palace away.”  “Nineveh is like a pool whose waters run away.”
  • “Desolate! Desolation and ruin! Hearts melt and knees tremble.”
  • “Plunder the silver, plunder the gold! There is no end of the treasure or of the wealth of precious things.”  Assyria plundered other nations, including Israel. Now it was there turn.

.

Nahum 3.

Nahum continues on with the gruesome details of the end of Nineveh, the capital of Assyria.

  • “Woe to the bloody city.”  
  • “The crack of the whip… the rumble of the wheel… galloping horse and bounding chariot.  Horsemen charging, flashing sword, glittering spear… 
  • Try to picture or imagine the carnage of the city of Nineveh.  “A HOST of slain, HEAPS of corpses, dead bodies WITHOUT END… They stumble over the bodies!  Your shepherds are ASLEEP, O king of Assyria; your nobles SLUMBER. Your people are SCATTERED on the mountains with none to gather them (THEIR BODIES). 

 

And “all who hear the news about you clap their hands over you.”

Yes, Jonah is clapping his hands, no doubt.

Journaling through the Bible Chronologically in 2025, Day 214

Aug2

Day 214 – Reading – 2 Kings 20 – 21.

Read today’s Scriptures … ANYWHERE you find yourself this summer. Stay in the WORD!

2 Kings 20.

This chapter is a repeat from Isaiah 38. It retells Hezekiah’s illness and his prayer for recovery. God allows him another 15 years of life, but he “blows it” in several ways.

  1. When visitors from Babylon come with letters and a present for Hezekiah’s good health, the king lavishly welcomes them and shows them all the riches of his kingdom and all the arms of his military.  Isaiah admonishes him and tells the king that the Babylonians will one day come, take all those treasures, destroy Jerusalem, and take his descendants captive.  “Ah, well,’ said Hezekiah. “At least it won’t happen in MY time.”
  2. The other way that Hezekiah “blew it” in those extra 15 years was to have a son, Manasseh.  This son became the king after him (as we’ll see in 2 Kings 21) and was VERY EVIL, worse than Ahab.   Just think….  if Hezekiah had died when the LORD first said … would a more godly son have inherited the throne?  But ALL is according to God’s sovereign will.

Does this mean we shouldn’t pray for healing for ourselves or others?  No.  James 5:13-15 says —

  • “Is anyone among you suffering?  Let him pray.  Is anyone among you sick?  Let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.  And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick.”

.

.2 Kings 21.

Hezekiah’s 12-YEAR-OLD SON, MANASSEH, became king after Hezekiah died. (Did he not have other children??)  Manasseh was born in those last EXTRA 15 years of the king’s life.  Hmmm.

Manasseh reigned a LONG time – 55 years.  

  • “He did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, according to the despicable practices of the nations whom the LORD drove out before the people of Israel (Canaanites).
  • ‘He rebuilt the high places that his father had destroyed.
  • “He erected altars for Baal and made an Asherah, as Ahab, king of Israel, had done.
  • “He worshiped all the host of heaven (moon, sun, stars) and served them.
  • “He built altars in the house of the LORD (the Temple) where the LORD had put His name.
  • “He built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the LORD.
  • He burned his son as an offering.
  • He used fortune-telling and omens, and dealt with mediums and with necromancers.
  • “He did much evil in the sight of the LORD, provoking Him to anger.
  • “The carved image of Asherah that he had made, he set IN the house of the LORD, where God had chosen to put His Name. 
  • “Manasseh led Israel astray to do MORE EVIL than the nations had done whom the LORD destroyed before the people of Israel.”

Whoa!  What a horrible leader!  And the 55 years must have dragged on and on….

How did the LORD respond?  He sent a message through His prophets….

“BECAUSE Manasseh, king of Judah, has committed these abominations and has done things more evil than all that the Amorites did who were before him, and has made Judah also to sin with his idols …..

  • “I am bringing upon Jerusalem and Judah such disaster that the ears of everyone who hears of it will tingle.
  • “I will stretch over Jerusalem the measuring line of Samaria, and the plub like of the house of Ahab, and I will wipe Jerusalem as one wipes a  dish, wiping it and turning it upside down.
  • “I will forsake the remnant of my heritage and give them into the hand of their enemies.
  • “They will become a prey and a spoil to all their enemies…. BECAUSE they have done what is evil in my sight and provoked me to anger … since I brought them out of Egypt.

MORE than all the evil idolatry that Manasseh instigated, he “shed so much innocent blood that Jerusalem was filled from one end to another.”  (The blood of child sacrifice, persecution of the weak, and martyrdom of  God’s prophets.) 

+++++++++++++++ NOTE:  Both Jewish and Christian tradition reports that Manasseh had Isaiah (the great prophet of God, whom we just read) sawn in two inside a hollow log.  WHOA!!!  (See Hebrews 11:37.) ++++++++++++++++++++++++

We’ll be reading more about Manasseh tomorrow in 2 Chronicles – an astonishing fact about him will be revealed – so stay tuned.    Meanwhile, this wicked king died, and his son (ONE THAT ESCAPED SACRIFICE) reigned as king.  

That son, Amon, reigned TWO YEARS.  He did EVIL  (no surprise) in the sight of the LORD, as Manasseh had done.  He walked in all the way his father walked and served the idols his father had served and worshipped. HE ABANDONED THE LORD, THE GOD OF HIS FATHERS.

But his servants conspired against him and killed him in his own house.

Then, the people of the land killed all those conspirators and made his son, Josiah, king in his place.  (YAY!)

.

So, until next time, SERVE THE LORD WITH ALL YOUR HEART!