Week 30 Jeremiah 27
Jeremiah made three predictions about what would happen when Babylon attacked & conquered Jerusalem:
– the temple bronze would be carted off
– the gold artifacts would be taken
– eventually those treasures would be returned to Jerusalem.
When a prophecy is first given it’s a wait-and-see proposition. But since I’m reading the prophecy after the fact I don’t have to wait. I can just ask:
– was the bronze carted off?
– were the gold items taken?
– were the treasures returned?
If the answers are ‘yes-yes-yes’ then Jeremiah’s prophecy came true. And since I’ve already read Kings & Ezra I know the answers are ‘yes-yes-yes’:
– the bronze was carted off (2 Kings 25)
– the gold was taken to Babylon (2 Kings 25)
– the gold utensils were eventually returned (Ezra 1).
The three events took place.
Accurately forecasting the future was easy enough for Jeremiah because he just repeated what the Lord told him. And it was easy enough for the Lord since time works differently for him – and in fact maybe time doesn’t apply to him at all.
But the accuracy is pretty impressive.
Note: the three predictions are in Jeremiah 27:19 21 22. Added note: some bible readers figure Jeremiah couldn’t possibly know the future. Which means his apparently accurate predictions weren’t predictions at all. They were post-dictions – “forecasts” written after they’d happened. My concern is that then the bible becomes a kind of semi-stupid anthology written by lying scammers for careless dupes. Which makes it a Book for Gulls.