Tag Archive | bible-study

Journaling through the Bible Chronologically in 2025, Days 236 & 237

Aug25

NOTE: Sunday and Monday studies are posted on Mondays.

Day 236 – Reading – Jeremiah 51 – 52

Day 237 – Reading – Lamentations 1 – 2

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

Day 236 – Jeremiah 51.

Yes, I’ve learned, this is one of the longest chapters in the Bible!  It ends with, “Thus shall Babylon sink, to rise no more, because of the disaster that I AM bringing upon her, and they shall become exhausted.  Thus far are the words of Jeremiah.”

Even though we read of the fall and destruction of Babylon in chapter 50, this one goes over it again. And even as the destruction of Babylon, Judah’s fierce captors, nears their end, God encourages His people. “For Israel and Judah have not been forsaken by their God, the LORD of hosts…”

“Suddenly Babylon has fallen and been broken; wail for her.  (This speaks of the Babylon that captured Judah, but it also has echoes of the Babylon in Revelation 18, the Great, wicked Babylon that will also fall to the joy of heaven.

Jeremiah even names the nations that will conquer Babylon in verse 11. “The LORD has stirred up the spirit of the kings of the Medes, because His purpose concerning Babylon is to destroy it — for that is the vengeance of the LORD, the VENGEANCE FOR HIS TEMPLE.”

“I will repay Babylon and all the inhabitants of Chaldea before your very eyes for ALL THE EVIL THEY HAVE DONE IN ZION, declares the LORD.”

There are many hints at how the Medes/Persians will attack the “unapproachable” Babylon and conquer it.  The inhabitants will be drunk (Belshazzar’s party), the river Euphrates diverted, and the moat dried up, so attacking soldiers could go under the wall.  Then, like Babylon did to Jerusalem, the tall and mighty walls will come down, and the gates will be burned.  (This happened in Daniel’s time.)

The last couple of paragraphs tell how Jeremiah gave this “book of all the disaster that should come on Babylon,” to Seraiah when he was taken captive to Babylon with the blinded King Zedekiah. 

Jeremiah’s instructions were to “Read all these words, and say, ‘O LORD, You have said concerning this place that you will cut it off, so that nothing shall dwell in it, neither man nor beast, and it shall be desolate forever.'”  

Then, when he was finished reading it, he was to tie a stone onto the scroll and throw it into the Euphrates River and say, “Thus shall Babylon sink, to rise no more, because of the disaster that I AM bring upon her, and they shall become exhausted.”

Thus far are the words of Jeremiah.

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Jeremiah 52.

This last chapter is a recap of the fall of Jerusalem.  It was so vital that the account is told FOUR TIMES in the Old Testament.  Here, Jeremiah 39:1-14, 2 Kings 25, and 2 Chronicles 36:11-21.

The conquerors plundered the magnificent Temple of God that Solomon built, and took the articles to Babylon.  Belshazzar would use some of these at his immoral banquet, gloating over victory that he attributed to his gods. (Daniel 5).  He would die holding one of the golden bowls full of wine … while looking at “the handwriting on the wall” telling his doom.

A count of the people of Judah taken into captivity totaled 4,600. (3,023 in the first round, with Daniel and his friends, 832 in the second round with Ezekiel and King Jehoiachin, and 745 in the third and final round, with King Zedekiah.)   

(TO ME, that seems like a small number. I imagined tens of thousands.  That only means that MANY Jews were killed by “sword, famine, and pestilence” as God had said.

Then…. that last paragraph (verses 31-34) tells of an amazing thing.  Thirty-seven years into the exile, King Jehoiachin was taken out of prison by Evil-merodach. The Babylonian king graciously freed him, spoke kindly to him, and gave him a seat above the seats of the kings that were with him in Babylon.  WOW!!!

“So Jehoiachin put off his prison garments. And every day of his life, he dined regularly at the king’s table.  His allowance was given to him by the king regularly according to his daily needs … until the day he died.

WHAT??  Why such grace shown to this captive king?  In Judah, he was one of the “evil” kings who did evil in the sight of the LORD.  BUT.  He obeyed in one point.  When God told His people through Jeremiah that they would be kept alive and treated well in Babylon …IF THEY SURRENDERED TO THE INVADING KING AND WENT PEACEABLY, only King Jehoiachin (18 years old) listened and obeyed. (See 2 Kings 24:11-12) It was 37 years, but God honored that promise. 

He always does. 

And it was through King Jehoiachin, a descendant of King David, that Jesus’ step-father, Joseph, descended, giving Jesus the “legal” right to the throne of David. (Matthew 1:12-16)

Hey, obedience matters with God, no matter the sinful life you may have lived before.

(Lord, thank you for this good lesson in my own life. Thank you for showing me the importance of obedience to your Word is. Help me to always choose to obey.)

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Day 237 – Lamentations 1.

  • The verses in these chapters are written in acrostic style, meaning the first letter of each verse begins with the next letter of the alphabet. (a-b-c-d etc.)  There are 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet. Chapter three, has three verses for each letter (aaa-bbb-ccc-ddd. etc.)  Of course you can’t see this in an English Bible.)

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Lamentation = loud cries of dismay.   

The entire book of Lamentations is a distressful dirge, marking the funeral of the once beautiful city of Jerusalem.  (Lam. 2:15) “Jerusalem; is this the city that was called the perfection of beauty, the joy of the earth?”

This book keeps alive the memory of the fall of Jerusalem and teaches believers how to handle suffering. Although not stated, Jeremiah is the author.  He was an eyewitness to Jerusalem’s fall. Jeremiah wrote it soon after the city and then the Temple fell, before his forced departure to Egypt. 

This book is read in Jewish synagogues to this day, on the 9th of AB (July/August) to remember the date of Nebuchadnezzar’s destruction of the Temple. (Interestingly, it is also the exact date of the destruction of Herod’s temple by the Romans in A.D. 70. So lamentations of both are read aloud.)

  • 1:1 – “How lonely sits the city that was full of people,”
  • 1:4 – “The roads to Zion mourn, for none come to the festival; all her gates are desolate;
  • 1:5b – “the LORD has afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions;
  • 1:7 – “Jerusalem remembers in the days of her affliction and wandering all the precious things that were hers from days of old.
  • 1:8 – “Jerusalem sinned grievously; therefore she has become filthy;
  • 1:9b – “O LORD, behold my affliction, for the enemy has triumphed!
  • 1:10 – “she has see the nations enter her sanctuary, those whom You forbade to enter…
  • 1:18 – The LORD is in the right, for I have rebelled against His word;
  • 1:20b – I have been very rebellious…

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Lamentations 2.

  • 2:1 – “How the LORD in His anger has set the daughter of Zion under a cloud! He has cast down from heaven to earth, the splendor of Israel; He has not remembered Hos footstool in the day of His anger.
  • 2:3 – “He has cast down in fierce anger all the might of Israel; He has withdrawn from them His right hand in the face of the enemy;
  • 2:7 – “The LORD has scorned His alter, disowned His sanctuary; He has delivered into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces;
  • 2:9 – “Her gates have sunk into the ground; He has ruined and broken her bars; her king and princes are among the nations; the law is no more; and her prophets find no vision from the LORD.
  • 2:14 – “O daughter of Jerusalem… O virgin daughter of Zion...” “Your prophets have seen for you false and deceptive visions; they have not exposed your iniquity…  but have seen for you oracles that are false and misleading.
  • 2:19-21 – “Pour out your heart like water before the presence of the Lord! Lift your hands to Him for the lives of your children, who faint for hunger at the head of every street.  LOOK, O LORD, and see!  Should women eat the fruit of their womb, the children of their tender care? Should priest and prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?  In the dust of the streets lie the young and old; my young women and my young me have fallen by the sword; You have killed them in the day of Your anger, slaughtering with out pity.

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 (We may hate to read this, hate to see the anger of the LORD in such gruesome details, but such is the hatred and wrath of the LORD for those who forsake HIM, the Living God, and worship man-made  idols. Over and over and over, He pleaded with them to turn from their wicked ways and come back to him. He would forgive, He promised. He would restore, He promised.  But they would not.  And so….)

 

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Journaling through the Bible Chronologically in 2025, Day 233

Aug21

Day 233 – Reading – Jeremiah 41 – 45

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

Jeremiah 41.

We are back in Jeremiah to finish the book in the next few days.  

Remember yesterday, that King Nebuchadnezzar had appointed Gedaliah as governor over the remaining Judeans after the majority of religious and political leaders were deported. 

(Gedaliah’s grandfather was secretary for the good King Josiah, and G’s father was in the group that brought the book of the law to King Josiah when it was found.  G. was a supporter of Jeremiah.)

A group of Judeans related to the Royal family, and led by Ishmael, came to the representative for the Chaldeans and killed him. They also killed all the Judeans who were with him, and all the Chaldean soldiers who happened to be there.

Ah-Oh.  Sounds like an act of war to me.

And just then, a group of 80 men from the old northern kingdom of Israel (Samaria, Shechem, and Shiloh) came bringing offerings to present at the Temple of God. (They obviously hadn’t heard that it had been destroyed!)  Ishmael pretended gladness to see them and welcomed them inside.  But then, he murdered 70 of them and threw their bodies in the cistern.  But TEN of them said, Wait!  We have supplies hidden in the field. Don’t kill us!  So Ishmael didn’t.

Then Ishmael took captive all the people left from the deportation and headed across the Jordan to the Ammonites.

But one of the men with Ishmael, Johanan, saw what he’d done and where he was going and fought against him. Ishmael fled, and Johanan led the people to Bethlehem.  He intended, then, to go to Egypt out of fear of the Babylonians, because they had killed Gedaliah, the governor. They were afraid of retaliation.

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Jeremiah 42.

But there was some reluctance.  All the people and the forces, as well as Johanan, came to Jeremiah. “Pray to the LORD your God for us, for all of this remnant that are left are but a few. Pray that the LORD your God may show us the way we should go, and the thing that we should do.” They promised that whatever the LORD said, they WOULD DO.

(That was a good start!!)

Jeremiah prayed, and after 10 days, the LORD answered.  Jeremiah brought the answer to Johanan and the people.

  • Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, to whom you sent to plea for mercy,  “IF you will remain in this land, then I will build you up and not pull you down; I will plant you, and not pluck you up; for I relent of the disaster that I did to you. 
  • Do not fear the king of Babylon, of whom you are afraid. Do not fear him, declares the LORD, for I am with you to save you and to deliver you from his hand. 
  • I will grant you mercy that he may have mercy on you and let you remain in your own land.
  • BUT, if you say, ‘We will not remain in the land,’ disobeying the voice of the LORD your God, and saying ‘No we will go to the land of Egypt, where we will not see war, or be hungry, and will dwell there…
  • THEN the sword you fear shall overtake you there in Egypt. 
  • And famine will follow you.
  • You will die. You will have no remnant or survivor.” 
  • As My anger and wrath were poured out on the inhabitants of Jerusalem… so it will be poured out on you in Egypt.   
  • O remnant of Judah…  DO NOT GO TO EGYPT! I have warned you this day.”

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Jeremiah 43.

The leaders and the people listened, then they said, “Jeremiah, you are telling a lie. God did not say that to you. If we stay here, the Chaldeans will kill us.”

So, Johanan and the other guards took all the people, AND Jeremiah the prophet, and went to the land of Egypt.  They did not obey the voice of the LORD, for which they had asked.

So the LORD said to them,

  • Behold, I will send for Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon – my servant – and I will set his throne here. 
  • He will come and strike the land of Egypt. He will burn the temples and break the obelisks.
  • And he shall carry away captive those who are doomed to captivity. 
  • He will totally destroy Egypt.

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Jeremiah 44.

  • “Why do you commit this great evil against yourselves?  Why do you provoke me to anger in the land of Egypt? 
  • Therefore, says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will set my face against you for HARM, to cut off all Judah. 
  • As I have punished Jerusalem with the sword, with famine, and with pestilence…. so I will do to Egypt. 
  • And I will give Pharaoh Hophra into the hands of his enemies, as I gave Zedekiah into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar.  Period. The End.

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Jeremiah 45.

FLASHBACK to the time when King Jehoiakim was still reigning:  A message to Baruch, the secretary of Jeremiah, back when he wrote all the prophet’s words into a book. Baruch had been complaining, “Woe is me.” God had said to him, “Do not seek great things for yourself.  Seek them not.  I am bringing disaster upon all flesh. But I will give you (Baruch) your life as a prize of war in all the places to which you go.” 

(This was a similar message of hope that God also gave to Abed-Melech, the Ethiopian who had helped keep Jeremiah alive. Jer. 39:16-18)   

(God rewards those who even “offer a cup of cold water to a believer in His Name!” Matt, 10:42)

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(So much turmoil and death in this lesson. The remaining people were confused and scared.  But they DISOBEYED the direct word of the LORD. And will suffer the consequences.  But a few will obey, serve the LORD, and be rewarded.  Only a very few.  LORD, oh, my I obey you always!  Please!)

 

Journaling through the Bible Chronologically in 2025, Day 232

Aug20

Day 232 – Reading – Habakkuk 1 – 3

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

Habakkuk 1.

This guy prophesied just before the coming of Nebuchadnezzar and the Chaldean army.  Good King Josiah had just died, and the prophet was seeing evil seep back into Judah through kings Jehoahaz and Jehoiakim and the wealthy. And now… the rumors of the approaching Babylonian army!

Habakkuk doesn’t speak “TO” the growing-more-wicked people & leaders of Judah, but his statements and complaints are laments TO GOD.  WHY hasn’t He punished these kings and the people???  Why will He let these cruel pagans devour His own people?

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Have you ever ranted against God for His seeming to ignore the injustice around you? Especially if it’s against YOU or a LOVED ONE?  Habakkuk does.

  • O LORD, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear? Or cry to You, “violence!” and you will not save?
  • Why do you make me see iniquity, and why do you idly look at wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise.
  • So the law is paralyzed, and justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous: so justice goes forth perverted.”

God answers Habakkuk’s rant. He was sending … NOT REVIVAL … but the dreaded and fearsome judgment.

  • “Behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, who march through the breadth of the earth, to seize dwellings not their own.
  • They are dreaded and fearsome….  They all come for violence….. They gather captives like sand.
  • They laugh at every fortress, for they pile up earth and take it. Then they sweep by like the wind and go on…. their own might is their god!

Habakkuk is aghast!  NO!, he cries.

  • “Are you not from everlasting, O LORD my God, my HOLY One? 
  • You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong, WHY do you idly look at traitors and remain silent when the wicked swallows up the man more righteous than he??

Pretty brave, is our prophet, Habakkuk!

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Habakkuk 2.

Habakkuk really wants to know the answer to his “why?”.  He says he will – like Ezekiel (3:33) will go up on the wall of Jerusalem, and be as a watchman.  Habakkuk will wait and “see what He will say to me … and what I will answer.”

Habakkuk was to write down on a tablet the VISION God was going to give to him. But He cautions Habakkuk, “If it seems slow in coming, wait for it; it will surely come and not delay.” Then he speaks of the Chaldeans, and their fall to the Medes & Persians.

  • “HIS SOUL is puffed up, it is not upright within him, (but the righteous shall live by his faith.) 
  • Wine is a traitor, an arrogant man who is never at rest. 
  • His greed is as wide as Sheol; like death, he has never enough. He gathers FOR HIMSELF all nations and collects AS HIS OWN all peoples.
  • Woe to him who heaps up what is not his own…. 
  • Will not YOUR debtors suddenly arise, and those awake who will make you tremble?  Then YOU will be spoil for THEM… 
  • Woe to him who gets evil gain for his house …
  • Woe to him who builds a town with blood…
  • Woe to him who makes his neighbors drink and get drunk — in order to gaze at their nakedness…
  • Woe to him who says to a wooded think, Awake! and to a silent stone, Arise!…

And then God’s slight reprimand…  “But the LORD is in His holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him!

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Habakkuk 3.

Our prophet seems rebuked.  His tone has changed. Now he switches from judgment on his fellow Judahites, to … mercy for them.

  • O LORD, I have heard the report of You, and Your work, O LORD, do I fear.  In wrath … remember MERCY.

He recalls all the mighty works God has done, and then, it seems the TRUTH hits him.  Whatever comes at HIS HAND, will for His people’s good, and His glory. They must experience judgment at the hands of evil men, but God will “take care” of them one day.

  • “Yet I will quietly wait for the day of trouble to come upon people who invade us.

And this glorious statement of TRUST, no matter what the circumstances.

  • “Though the fig tree should not blossom, 
  • nor fruit be on the vines,
  • the produce of the olive fall
  • and the fields yield no food,
  • the flock be cut off from the fold
  • and there be no heard in the stalls.
  • YET…
  • I will rejoice in the LORD,
  • I will take joy in the God of my salvation. 
  • God, the LORD, is my strength;
  • He makes my feet like the deer’s,
  • He makes me tread on my high places.”

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WOW. This is a reminder to me.  Though the politics of my time, and the wonton actions of the people of this country make me want to plead for judgment …  I am thankful for God’s mercy and patience.  And I pray that as I wait for His Coming, I will be able to pray, or sing, this last refrain of Habakkuk’s. “Though the worst may happen, I will rejoice in the LORD.  He is my strength.

 

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.

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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.

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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.)

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(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 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..

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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.”

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(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.)

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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!

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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.”

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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

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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.

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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!)

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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!)

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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!

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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.)

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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!”)

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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…

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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.”

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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.”

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(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 220

Aug8

Day 220 – Reading – Jeremiah 4 – 6

Read today’s Scriptures … ANYWHERE you find yourself this summer.

Stay in the WORD!

Jeremiah 4.

This chapter opens with a call to RETURN to the LORD in truth.  Are they able to remove the “detestable things” from His presence, and “circumcise” or cleanse their hearts?   If not … God’s wrath will go out like fire and burn with a flame no one can quench, and consume them. 

Jeremiah then predicts that destruction and disaster will come from the north (Babylon).  A lion … a destroyer of nations has set out … to make your land a waste and your cities into ruins.  (Babylon is often symbolized by a winged lion.)  Judah’s kings, officials, priests, and prophets will be appalled and terrified.

“Woe to us, for we are ruined,” will be the cry as the speeding horses and chariots appear.   And Jeremiah cries again for the LORD, “O Jerusalem, wash your heart from evil, that you may be saved!”

“I looked on the earth, and behold, it was without form and void; and to the heavens, and they had no light.  I looked at the mountains, and behold, THEY WERE QUAKING AND THE HILLS MOVED TO AND FRO.  I looked … and all its cities were laid in ruins before the LORD’s fierce anger.

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Jeremiah 5.

God wants his servant to run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, to look (if he can) for a man who does justice and seeks truth, so the LORD may pardon the city.

But the result is: They have made their faces harder than rock; they have refused to repent.

Then Jeremiah said, “These are only the POOR; they have no sense; for they do not know the way of the LORD, the justice of the LORD.  I will go to the GREAT and speak to them. They KNOW the way of the LORD. 

But, they ALL alike had broken the yoke and burst the bonds. And all say to the LORD, “He will do nothing; no disaster will come upon us, nor shall we see sword or famine.  The prophets will become wind; the word is not in them.”

The LORD’s answer?  “Behold, I am bringing against you a nation from afar, O House of Israel.”  “As you have forsaken me and served foreign gods in your land, so you shall serve foreigners in a land that is not yours.

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Jeremiah 6.

And again, impending disaster for Jerusalem!

“Flee for safety, O people of Benjamin in the midst of Jerusalem!”

“Blow the trumpet … raise a signal for disaster looms out of the north and great destruction.”

“This is a city that must be punished; there is nothing but oppression within her.”

“Be warned, O Jerusalem, lest I turn from you in disgust…”

“Therefore I am full of wrath; I am weary of holding it in. Pour it out upon the CHILDREN in the street, upon the YOUNG MEN, both HUSBAND AND WIFE, the ELDERLY and the VERY AGED!””

“Hear O earth; behold, I am bringing disaster upon this people, the fruit of their devices, because they have not paid attention to MY words; and as for MY law, they have rejected it. 

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WOW. What horrible disaster.  Sometimes I think that this very same disaster is coming upon the United States. Because we have not repented of the despicable ways we follow. Because we have neglected and rejected God, and played around with science and occult and technology as our “gods.”

O LORD, we are helpless! Please cleansed our hearts and minds. Turn us to You, our Savior and Redeemer!

 

 

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!

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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.'”

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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. )