Tag Archive | Nebuchadnezzer

2024GOAL – Reading Through The Bible Chronologically, day 230

Aug17

Day 230—We are in the eighth month of Bible reading, with more of Israel’s history and prophecy from Jeremiah and Psalms.

    Day 230 – Jeremiah 38 – 40, Psalm 74, 79 (Jeremiah pleads God’s words, is put into a cistern then, rescued, Jerusalem falls, Jeremiah delivered.  Psalms of woe & hope.)

Jeremiah 38. At the LORD’s word, Jeremiah keeps telling the people of Jerusalem to surrender to the Babylonians. They will save their lives, and the city will not be burned. The leaders don’t like this, say it is terrible for morale, and throw the prophet into an empty cistern. (Usually full of water, it’s been emptied during the long siege and has only a few feet of mud in the bottom…which Jeremiah sinks into.) 

Done and dead, they think. But an Ethiopian eunuch serving in the king’s house hears and goes to Zedekiah. He pleads for Jeremiah’s life and is given men and permission to rescue him.  Later, the king secretly sends for Jeremiah. But Jeremiah’s message is the same.  “Surrender to the king of Babylon, and your life will be spared. Stay here, and the city will be burned, and you and yours will die.”  Zedekiah doesn’t want to hear this.

.

Jeremiah 39. So, 18 months after the siege begins, the walls of Jerusalem are breached, and the city falls. Zedekiah tries to escape out the back door, but they catch him.  They kill all his sons and officials in his sight and then gouge out his eyes. He is removed to Babylon in chains. A few impoverished, homeless people are left in the land to tend the vineyards and fields.

However, Nebuchadnezzar commands that Jeremiah be freed and allowed to go anywhere he chooses — to Babylon, where he will be cared for, or to stay in the land with the appointed Governor, Gedaliah. Jeremiah decides to live with Gedaliah among the people. 

Before he was released, the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah about that Ethiopian eunuch who had seen that he was rescued from the cistern. 

“I will deliver you on that day, and you shall not be given into the hand of the men of whom you are afraid. For I will surely save you, and you shall not fall by the sword, but you shall have your life as a prize of war because you have put your trust in the LORD.      (WOW!)

.

Jeremiah 40 gives more details about how Nebuzaradan, the captain of the Babylonian guard, let Jeremiah go free, listing all his choices: Babylon and be well taken care of; Judah and stay with the appointed Governor Gedaliah; or anywhere Jeremiah thought it right to go.  In any choice, he would be free. The Captain then gave him an allowance of food and a present and let him go.  Jeremiah went to Gedaliah and lived with him among the people left in the land.

Many other people who had fled Jerusalem at the siege now trickled back to Gedaliah. But soon, he received a message that the Ammonite king was sending a man named Ishmael to kill him. But the governor ignored the message.

.

Psalm 74  begins, “O God, why do you cast us off forever? Why does your anger smoke against the sheep of your pasture?”   

“Your foes have roared in the midst of your meeting place;”   

“They have set your sanctuary on fire; they profaned the dwelling place of your name, bringing it down to the ground.”

“How long, O God, is the foe to scoff? Is the enemy to revile your name forever?  Why do you hold back your hand, your right hand? Take it from the fold of your garment and destroy them!”

 

Psalm 79 says, “O God, the nations have come into your inheritance; they have defiled your holy temple; they have laid Jerusalem in ruins.”   

“How long, O LORD? Will you be angry forever? Will your jealousy burn like fire?  Pour out your anger on the nations that do not know you, and on the kingdoms that do not call upon your Name!  For they have devoured Jacob and laid waste his habitation.”

“Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of your name; deliver us, and atone for our sins, for your Name’s sake!”

“Let the groans of the prisoners come before You; according to your great power, preserve those doomed to die.”

2024GOAL – Reading Through The Bible Chronologically, days 224 and 225

Aug12

    Day 224 & 225—We are in the eighth month of Bible reading, with more of the book of Jeremiah

NOTE: Sundays and Mondays are posted together.

    Day 224 – Jeremiah 18 – 22 (potter & clay, broken flask, Jeremiah persecuted, Nebuchadnezzar, Sons of David & Josiah, )

Jeremiah 18 continues with the inevitable destruction of Judah/Jerusalem, this time with the illustration of the potter and the clam (Isaiah used this three times.). Shaping, re-shaping, and destroying pots is what the potter and what God does… as it seems good to them. 

When the people plot against Jeremiah for his counsel, the prophet prays to God.

.

Jeremiah 19. Jeremiah again goes to the potter to buy a flask. He’s to take the elders of the people and the priests and go to the Valley of Hinnom. He is to proclaim God’s disaster on Jerusalem and its people because of “the blood of the innocents”, the sons burned as offerings to Baal. He is to tell them of the bodies of their own sons and daughters in that “Valley of Slaughter” and then break the flask in the sight of the men.  “So I will break this people and this city, so that it can never be mended.”

(NOTE: The place, Topheth (drums) mentioned here, is another name for the valley of Hinnom or the Valley of Slaughter, where, when the children were burned as sacrifices to Baal, drums were beaten loudly to drown out their screams.)

.

Jeremiah 20. After hearing these things, Pashhur, the priest and chief officer in the house of the LORD, persecuted Jeremiah by putting him in stocks. When he was released, Jeremiah proclaimed a curse on Pashhur and his house. They would be taken to Babylon and die there.

Jeremiah laments his calling, saying he is persecuted whenever he speaks the Word of the LORD.  But if he tries to keep in the words, “there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary of holding it in, and I cannot.”

“O LORD of hosts, who tests the righteous, who sees the heart and the mind, let me see your vengeance upon them, for to you have I committed my cause.”

.

Jeremiah 21.  Judah’s last king, Zedekiah, sends Pashhur and Zephaniah to Jeremiah to inquire about Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon. “Will God do his wonderful deeds and make this king withdraw from us?”

But the LORD tells Jeremiah a different message. On the contrary, God will not help them fight the Chaldeans but will take their own weapons and fight against Judah Himself, “with outstretched hand and strong arm, in anger and in fury and in great wrath. And I will strike down the inhabitants of this city, both man and beast. They shall die of great pestilence. Afterward, I will give Zedekiah, king of Judah, and all his servants and the people in this city who survive… into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar.”

But the merciful God warns the people, “I set before you the way of life and the way of death. He who stays in this city shall die by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence. But he who goes out and surrenders to the Chaldeans… shall live. For I have set my face against this city for harm and not for good.  It shall be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire.”

.

In Jeremiah 22, God warns both the king of Judah, and the sons of Josiah (the last four evil kings), “Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness.”   And to “Coniah” (Jehoiachin), “I give you into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar. I will hurl you and the mother who bore you into another country where you were not born, and there you shall die.  Write this man down as childless, a man who shall not succeed in his days for NONE of his offspring shall succeed in sitting on the throne of David and ruling again in Judah.”

(NOTE: Jehoiachin wasn’t actually childless. This points to the fact that none of his descendants… down to Joseph, the husband of Mary, would ever sit on the throne in Israel.  So then, how can Jesus then be the Messiah?  It was because Joseph was NOT involved in the bloodline of Jesus (as His step-father).  Jesus’s blood right to the throne of David came through Mary from David’s son Nathan (not Solomon), bypassing the curse. See Luke 3:313-32 and Jeremiah 36:30.)

..

    Day 225 – Jeremiah 23 – 25 (Promise of the righteous Branch, evil/false leaders of His people, good & bad figs illustration, 70 years of captivity)

Jeremiah 23. God curses the evil leaders (shepherds) who have led his people astray and tells of a time when a Good Shepherd, a Righteous Branch of David’s line will reign as king and deal wisely, 

Jeremiah is heart-sick for all the false prophets and ungodly priests in the land, who, like Sodom and Gomorrah turn the people to evil.  God says to pay no attention to them when they prophesy peace and prosperity, for God WILL bring disaster on them and all who listen to them.  God is EVERYWHERE. He fills the heaven and earth. The false prophets cannot hide from Him.

.

Jeremiah 24. After Nebuchadnezzar had taken from Jerusalem, King “Coniah” (Jehoiachin, grandson of Josiah), his officials, craftsmen, and metal workers, to Babylon, the LORD showed Jeremiah a vision of two baskets of figs. One basket held delicious, good figs, while the other one had very bad, disgusting figs.

God pointed to the good figs as “the exiles from Judah, whom I have sent away from this place to the land of the Chaldeans. I will set my eyes on them for good, and I will bring them back to this land. I will build them up and not tear them down; I will plant them, and not uproot them. I will give them a heart to know that I am the LORD, and they shall be my people and I will be their God, for they shall RETURN TO ME WITH THEIR WHOLE HEART.”

As for the stinky, bad figs, God said, “…and so I will treat Zedekiah, (the last) king of Judah, his officials, the remnant of Jerusalem who remain in this land (those last 11 years), and those who dwell in the land of Egypt. I will make them a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth, to be a reproach, a byword, a taunt, and a curse in all the places where I shall drive them.  And I will send sword, famine, and pestilence upon them until they shall be utterly destroyed from the land that I gave to them and their fathers.”

(NOTE: These verses quote Deuteronomy 28:25, 37, and are also fulfilled in the history of the long dispersion until Messiah returns.)

.

Jeremiah 25 again speaks harsh words by God to the people who “persistently did not listen to Him, or obey his words, but provoked Him to anger.  

God will “devote the cities of Judah and their inhabitants to destruction.” (Think Jericho.)  “This whole land shall become a ruin and a waste, and these peoples shall serve the king of Babylon SEVENTY YEARS. After the seventy years are completed, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation for their iniquity. 

Then the LORD sends (literally?) the prophet Jeremiah with “the cup of God’s wrath to all the nations.  First to Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, Egypt, Uz, all the cities of Philistia, Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre, Sidon, the coastland across the sea; Dedan, Tema, Buz (and all who cut the corners of their hair), Arabia, the mixed tribes of the desert, Zimri, Elam, Media, the north far and near, all the kingdoms of the world that are on the face of the earth. And after them, Babylon shall drink it.” 

“Behold, I begin to work disaster at the city that is called by my name… I am summoning a sword against all the inhabitants of the earth.”  Prophesy against them, Jeremiah, “The LORD will roar from on high…. against His fold and against all the inhabitants of the earth.”  ” for the LORD has an indictment against the nations,”   “He is entering into judgment with all flesh, and the wicked will be put to the sword.”

(NOTE: Although against the nations at Jeremiah’s time, this has “end-time” implications and must ultimately be fulfilled in the time of tribulation. (Revelation 6 – 19)