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Week 30  Jeremiah 12

The OT is mostly about Israel. And about the land of Israel. Abraham was promised land. Israel spent time in Egypt but came back to the their land. They spent time in exiled. But returned to their land.
The OT is mostly an Us & Them book that’s very heavy on the Us (Israel) and light on Them (all the others) (I’d say that the ratio of content between Israel & Everyone Else is at least 90:10. Maybe higher.)
But something the LORD says catches my attention: I will uproot from their land all the evil nations reaching out for the possession I gave my people Israel. And I will uproot Judah from among them. But afterward I will return and have compassion on all of them. I will bring them home to their own lands again, each nation to its own possession.
The phrase each nation to its own possession sounds like foreign states had geographic regions assigned (I guess) by the Lord. They were uprooted from their lands but eventually they came back: each nation to its own possession.
So I’m wondering:
Am I reading this right? Did Assyria & Moab & Ammon actually have assigned territories?
Was that a common practice in the OT?
What about after the OT? For example did Rome have assigned territory?
What about today? The USA. Malaysia. Brazil. Russia. China. France. Do modern countries have assigned geographies?
This was a question day for me.

Note: quote from Jeremiah 12:14-15 (NLT)

 

Week 29  Jeremiah 12

Jeremiah asked two questions (actually it was the same question asked in two different ways):
Why are the wicked so prosperous?
Why are evil people so happy?
I think Jeremiah asked the two questions because he thought that bad people should be unsuccessful and that good people should be successful.
Jeremiah’s mental Rule Book seemed to frame things this way:
Rule #1: Bad People Shouldn’t Succeed
Rule #2: Good People Should Succeed.
Jeremiah likely knew very well that bad people succeeded for the same reasons any successful person succeeded: if you’re smart & hard-working & focused & diligent & lucky & aggressive & self-centered (and maybe ruthless & dishonest) then chances are you’ll succeed.
Jeremiah also likely knew it’s generally true that:
Some evil people are successful
But some evil people aren’t successful
And some good people are successful
But other good people aren’t.
I can understand Jeremiah’s question and I think it makes pretty good sense. It doesn’t seem fair if a good guy suffers and a bad guy doesn’t. But unfair happens and Jeremiah (technically-speaking a Big Picture Guy) should have realized that success / failure are short-term & non-permanent conditions. In the long-run they don’t even count.
Jeremiah knew that the real question was: is a guy Good or is he Evil? Cash & influential friends & power are part of the menu for success. But they only make a short-term difference. They aren’t fixtures. They’re here-today-gone-tomorrow. And that won’t help me much over the long haul.

Note: quote from Jeremiah 12:1 (NLT)

Week 29  Jeremiah 10 & Proverbs

Yesterday I was thinking about one of Jeremiah’s comments: our lives are not our own. We are not able to plan our own course. This is a counter-intuitive idea since I generally have a pretty strong feeling that I’m planning my own course. I feel like I’m doing that all the time.
Anyway my bible has a cross-reference in the margin at Jeremiah’s your-life-is-not-your-own verse. So I turned to it and saw this:
We can make our own plans, but the Lord gives the right answer.
Right beside that verse I had penciled-in several more references that I had found and recorded (it must be several years ago now and I must have  been thinking then about this question):
We may throw the dice, but the Lord determines how they fall
You can make many plans, but the Lord’s purpose will prevail
The Lord directs our steps, so why try to understand everything along the way?
People may be right in their own eyes, but the Lord examines their heart
The horse is prepared for the day of battle, but the victory belongs to the Lord.
The verses I found in Proverbs aren’t all saying I can’t plan my own course. But – like Jeremiah – they’re all aware of the Lord’s input. His involvement & direction & purpose & plans.
It’s easiest to think of myself calling-the-shots. Meaning that if the Lord is calling them too then things get more complicated.

Note: quotes from Jeremiah 10:23 & Proverbs 16:1 33 19:21 20:24 21:2 31 (NLT)

 

 

Week 29  Jeremiah 10

There’s a short prayer at the end of the chapter. I guess it’s best to read the whole prayer but I stop after the first two sentences: our lives are not our own. We are not able to plan our own course.
There’s two main ideas: a) my life is not entirely my own and b) I don’t have exclusive capability to plan my own way. Neither idea conforms to how people normally think. For instance I tend to think that in the regular day-to-day course of events I think & plan & decided & do.
Sometimes I decide to do something and then I do it.
Sometimes I decide to do something but then decide differently and don’t do it (in a case like that I still figure I’m making a decision – a kind of negative decision).
Sometimes I decide not to do something and so I don’t do it.
Sometimes I decide not to do something but in the end I might actually do it.
Anyway the point is that one-way-or-the-other I feel like I’m pretty much in the driver’s-seat when it comes to deciding and doing.
That’s why the verse slows me down. According to Jeremiah my way – what I decide & do – is not exclusively in me to freely decide & do. For instance when I decide to go somewhere it’s not me who’s deciding the trip.
It’s not like I’m deciding & doing nothing. But my decisions & actions are not totally mine either.

Note: quotes from Jeremiah 10:23 (NLT)

Week 28  Isaiah 58

One of the standard ways to differentiate between the OT and the NT is something like this:
A) the OT is out-of-date & irrelevant & legalistic & – basically – of no value
B) the NT has some useful & beneficial things to say.
So anyway I was looking at some of the things Isaiah listed in this chapter.
• Don’t oppress your employees
• Treat your employees fairly & equitably
• Don’t tyrannize helpless people
• Quit your interpersonal bashing
• Don’t fake your religious practices
• No legal malpractice
• No two-tiered justice system (same justice for everyone)
• Help poor people
• Help people who are in trouble
• Look out for the welfare of your family
• Don’t lie
• Don’t treat the Lord’s day like just-another-day
• Don’t do just the things you want to do
• Watch your language…watch the way you talk
And there’s a cumulative wrap-up: honor the Lord in everything you do.
I look back over Isaiah’s list. Since they’re all in the OT I wonder if it would be possible to discard all of them. But I don’t think it’s as simple as that. Q#1: what can I get rid of? Q#2: can I toss any of them?
I can understand that a case can be made for the OT being different from the NT. But with a reading like today’s it’ll be hard to argue that “different” is equivalent to having-no-value.

Note: Isaiah’s list is in 58:3-13. It’s his ideas but my words (and it’s slightly reordered). Quote from 58:13 (NLT)

Week 28  Isaiah 55

The Lord says something here that’s a concern for a bible-reader:
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
The Lord is functioning on a different level from me when it comes to how he thinks & what he thinks. And what he does & how he does it
The way Isaiah frames it I’m completely out-of-my-league. So – fortunately for me – he adds a couple of hopeful things to show the situation isn’t quite hopeless. For instance:
Listen, and I will tell you where to get food that is good for your soul
Come to me with your ears wide open
Seek the Lord while you can find him
So even though I’m clearly operating at a big deficit it’s not a totally & impossibly big one. That’s a relief.
Anyway today this seemed like useful bible-reader information.
I read the bible so I can know and understand.
Sometimes it works out that I’m rewarded with knowing (although what I know might only be partial & incremental).
Other times I just draw-a-blank when it comes to understanding. But even so at those times Isaiah’s explanation is a help: you’re not getting that because you’re not built to get it. Knowing that isn’t part of your constitution’s capacity. You don’t get it because you can’t get it.

Note: quotes from Isaiah 55:8-9 (NIV) & 55:2 3 6 (NLT)

Week 28  Isaiah 36-39

I compared the forecast Isaiah gave to king Hezekiah here in Isaiah 37:22-29 with the same prediction that I read in 2 Kings 19:21-28 a couple of months ago. I figure there’s at least 95% overlap.
It’s a pretty sober comment to a powerful empire-building state that had conquered half the world.
From Assyria’s point-of-view they were the Big Dog in the pack – Big Dog of the Whole World. And when they got around to asking How Did I Get to Be Big Dog? Well…they congratulated themselves. Isaiah quotes the Assyrians giving themselves credit:
I have conquered
I have cut down
I have reached & explored
I have dug wells
I have stopped up rivers.
It’s understandable. The Assyrians were big. Strong. Ruthless. Intimidating. Cunning. For-all-the-world it looked like they were the architects of their own global exploits.
So Isaiah’s comment might have caught them flat-footed: have you not heard? It was the Lord who decided this long ago.
How the mechanism for this process works is hard to say. Sounds like some kind of interactive-deciding. Maybe not exactly symbiotic. But there seems to be overlapping decision-making in play. The Assyrians clearly made decisions they wanted to make. But (almost freakishly) their decisions corresponded exactly with the Lord’s decisions. And looking down the road the good outcomes they planned on looked less-and-less happy for them.

Note: quotes from Isaiah 37:24-25 26 (NLT). Hezekiah’s story is also in 2 Kings 18:13 – 20:20. The big difference? Hezekiah’s ‘psalm’ in Isaiah 38:10-20 is missing from the 2 Kings story.

Week 27  Isaiah 34-35

I’d like to ask a thousand people to read Isaiah 34 & Isaiah 35 back-to-back (it’s not a big assignment – 27-verses in total). The follow-up question would be: Which Chapter Do You Like?
I’m not saying that 100% of readers would choose Isaiah 35. But a lot would. One bible I read gives 35 the title: Hope for Restoration (another version calls it: Joy of the Redeemed). Hope & Joy? Restoration & Redemption? These sound alright. They definitely sound a lot better than the grisly menu in 34. One bible calls it: Judgment Against the Nations (the other – not so negatively: Message for the Nations).
Some readers might choose 34. But I’d predict that ~98% would go for the happier content of 35. I’d be in the 98% (the assignment was which chapter I liked…not which was more important).
My favorite passage in 35 is this one:
And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness; it will be for those who walk on that Way. The unclean will not journey on it; wicked fools will not go about on it.
No lion will be there, nor any ravenous beast; they will not be found there.
But only the redeemed will walk there.
It reminded me a lot of Proverbs. Solomon talks quite a bit about getting on The Way. He doesn’t have anything positive to say about getting off it and onto another track. And Isaiah agrees: the best way to go is to follow The Way.

Note: quote from Isaiah 35:8-9 (NIV)

Week 27  Isaiah 28

Isaiah says that the Lord will do what he calls his unusual task and his extraordinary work (another version says a strange, unusual thing).
The Lord engages in (at least) two kinds of work-activities. First there’s the Usual and Non-Strange Work of the Lord (Isaiah doesn’t actually say that but he implies it). Then there’s another kind of work. When it comes to actually passing-judgment on people the Lord transitions to the Strange & Unusual Work he has to do.
The strange-&-unusual work of the Lord is – unfortunately – to destroy his own people. I think it’s safe to say that the Non-Strange work of the Lord doesn’t include destroying people. But his Strange work does.
Anyway Isaiah moves on in the next paragraph to add an agricultural illustration. It’s about an experienced farmer who knows his job. Knows what work there is to do and when’s the right time to do it. He also knows what work not to do and when not to do it.
If the parable of the farmer relates to the Lord’s action – which I think it does – the connection is that the Lord – like the farmer – does circumstance-specific work that needs doing when it’s time to do it. And he does different things that don’t need doing until they do need doing.
The parable explains about doing things that need doing.
But needed or not the Strange & Unusual Work of the Lord is still pretty sobering.

Note: quotes from Isaiah 28:1 (NASB & NLT) 21 (NLT) & 28:23-29

Week 27  Isaiah 24-27

Isaiah puts together this grouping of four chapters where some of the material sounds like he’s talking about the end-of-the-world:
The Lord is going to lay waste the earth and devastate it; the earth will be completely laid waste and totally plundered
The earth is broken up, the earth is split asunder, the earth reels like a drunkard…so heavy it falls — never to rise again. In that day the Lord will punish the powers in the heavens above and the kings on the earth below. The moon will be dismayed, the sun ashamed
On this mountain the Lord Almighty…will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove his people’s disgrace from all the earth
The Lord is coming out of his dwelling to punish the people of the earth for their sins. In that day, the Lord will punish…Leviathan the gliding serpent, Leviathan the coiling serpent.
Some of the material is about Moab & Egypt & Assyria. But some of it sounds like Revelation. Some of it sounds like near-term forecasts and some like long-term.
A person listening to Isaiah speaking 2500 years ago would likely think that these chapters were all about near-term outcomes.
Me reading it today? Some things sound like they could have already happened. But some sound like they’re yet to come.
One more-or-less continuous-sounding prophecy but with two terminal points. And the border between them is pretty fuzzy.

Note: quotes from Isaiah 24:1-3 18-23 25:6-10 26:20-27:1 (NLT)