Jeremiah 18
Summary for Jer 18:1-11: 18:1-11 a The Lord had Jeremiah take part in an object lesson. What Jeremiah observed at the potter’s shop became a picture of what the Lord was about to do with Judah.Summary for Jer 18:1-4: 18:1-4 b Jeremiah watched as the potter formed an earthen jar, then crushed it and started over.
Summary for Jer 18:5-6: 18:5-6 c The Lord likened himself to this potter. He could set standards of perfection and choose to destroy or reshape his work.
Summary for Jer 18:7-10: 18:7-10 d If a nation or kingdom rejected the one true God, then God could decree that it be uprooted, torn down, and destroyed (cp. 1:10 e). If the nation changed its evil ways, the Lord’s anger would relent and he would not destroy it.
18:11 f The Lord planned to deal with Judah and Jerusalem as the potter dealt with the clay (18:4 g). However, they could still escape disaster if they would reject their evil ways and do what is right.
18:12 h Instead of heeding the Lord’s message, the people of Judah ridiculed it, refused to change, and made a brazen commitment to pursue their own evil desires.
Summary for Jer 18:13-17: 18:13-17 i The Lord answered that he would scatter his people who had deserted him. 18:13 j Has anyone ever heard of such a thing? In other nations, people did not turn their backs on their national deities (2:11-13 k), but Israel blatantly mocked the one true God.
Summary for Jer 18:14-15: 18:14-15 l The answer to these two rhetorical questions was “No.” The snow and the streams of the mountaintops of Lebanon were perennially reliable. By contrast, the Lord’s people were not so reliable.
• The ancient highways represented a life of faithfulness to the covenant (6:16 m), while the muddy paths symbolized a life of self-serving paganism.
Summary for Jer 18:16-17: 18:16-17 n The Lord pronounced sentence on Judah and Jerusalem.
• their land will become desolate ... I will scatter my people: In 605–586 BC, Judah and Jerusalem were progressively emptied of residents.
• as the east wind scatters dust: During the summer, a strong hot wind from the east can blow sand and dust from the desert into Judah.
• I will turn my back on them: The people would no longer experience a covenant relationship with the Lord.
Summary for Jer 18:18-23: 18:18-23 o Jeremiah made an impassioned plea for vengeance on those who were trying to subvert his ministry. 18:18 p The people hated Jeremiah because his authoritative messages challenged the messages of their leaders, so they plotted to stop him.
Summary for Jer 18:19-20: 18:19-20 q Jeremiah reminded the Lord of the injustice of his enemies’ opposition.
Summary for Jer 18:21-23: 18:21-23 r In his prayer for vengeance, Jeremiah asked God to fulfill his promised curses against those who violated his covenant (cp. Deut 27:11-26 s; 28:15-68 t; see also thematic note for Prayers for Vengeance at end of chapter).
Thematic note: Prayers for Vengeance
The psalmists sometimes asked the Lord to execute vengeance against their adversaries. It was not unusual for a psalmist to pray for the violent destruction of their enemies as a manifestation of God’s justice. How can this kind of prayer be okay?
These prayers for the destruction of the wicked arose out of concern for justice and righteousness and out of confidence in God. Divine justice is defined in Psalm 1:6 u: The Lord loves the righteous and destroys the wicked. The wicked are subversive, corrupt, and thoroughly committed to evil; they live in opposition to God and to everything that God does. The wicked shake the foundations of ethics, of society, and of God’s kingdom. The psalmists argued that evil is inconsistent with God’s nature and that the removal of evil is the only way for his kingdom to thrive. However, the poets of Israel did not simply invoke God’s judgment on anyone with whom they could not get along. Instead, the psalmists were guided by God’s standards of justice and righteousness, to which God holds all humans accountable.
The psalmists were intimately acquainted with grief. They had suffered and been oppressed and marginalized by bullies, leaders, and kings from inside and outside of Israel. Their prayers were full of faith and hope, asking how long the Lord would tolerate their suffering and confessing that the Lord alone could rescue them from evil. They expressed deep longing for his redemption. By the principle of retribution, they asked the Lord to inflict upon the wicked the suffering that they had endured (Ps 5:10 v; 6:10 w; 7:9 x; 9:19-20 y; 28:4 z; 56:7 aa; 104:35 ab; 137:7-9 ac; 139:19 ad). Through these prayers for justice and vindication, the godly may rest in peace as they await God’s rescue.
Do we truly see evil as evil, or do we perceive it merely as an inconvenience? Prayers for the end of evil are appropriate as long as we recognize God as arbiter, judge, and executor. The prayer for the coming of God’s Kingdom implies the removal of evil. But now the cruelty inflicted on the wicked has been transformed through the cruel crucifixion of Jesus Christ. This act of God informs how we pray for those who oppose us. Jesus will indeed judge and bring an ultimate end to evil (see Rev 19:11-21 ae), but while Christians await that final judgment, they are to love as Christ loved (John 13:34 af), pray for their enemies, and forgive them (Matt 5:38-48 ag; Col 3:13 ah).
Passages for Further Study
2 Chr 24:22 ai; Neh 4:5 aj; Pss 3:7 ak; 9:19-20 al; 10:15 am; 12:3 an; 41:10 ao; 55:15 ap; 69:22-28 aq; 79:6 ar; 109:6-20 as; 110:5-6 at; 137:1-9 au; Isa 61:2 av; Jer 11:20-23 aw; 18:19-23 ax; 51:35 ay; Lam 1:22 az; 3:64-66 ba; Acts 1:20 bb; Rom 11:9-10 bc; Rev 6:10 bd
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