Week 31 Jeremiah 36
The Lord told Jeremiah to record everything that he had publicly prophesied going all the way back to his king Josiah prophecies. Then the Lord gave Jeremiah a kind of summarizing comment that described the whole record in one general phrase: perhaps the people of Judah will repent if they see in writing all the terrible things I have planned for them.
So one way to think of the book of Jeremiah is that it’s a Big Book of Terrible Things.
Having the Lord describe Jeremiah’s prophecies this way is a big relief from a bible-reader’s point-of-view. It means that when I read Jeremiah’s prophecy and come away from it thinking “this was a heavy load of terrible & gruesome content” then that shouldn’t really be a big surprise. When I finish reading and feel emotionally squashed about the content and wonder if I should be seeing something heart-warming then – not-to-worry – Jeremiah’s content seems terrible because it is. He wasn’t writing comedy or romance.
When Jeremiah’s Big Book of Terrible Things was read publicly nothing is said about the reaction of the crowd (although a small sample of people – a group of officials – were badly frightened). On the other side of the coin king Jehoiakim thought the book was humdrum enough that he just burned the scroll.
But anyway…today I get my General Reader’s Alert for Jeremiah: Be Prepared for alarming dreadful & shocking content ahead.
Note: quotes from 36:3 13 (NLT)