Resolution - to read the Bible

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Continuing in Isaiah - forgiveness for a multitude of sins; it's time to return to Jerusalem from exile. "Arise your light has come ..."
"The spirit of the Lord is upon me. The Spirit of the Lord has annointed me to preach the good news to the poor ... " Aw, this is the chapter that Jesus read in the Synagogue. Hebrew history of the covenant with God and God's care for the people is reviewed from the time of Abraham.
 
Again the last few chapters of Isaiah contain some beautiful imagery - a ppicture of perfection of earth where they 'shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit'; so peaceful that the wolf and the lamb shall feed together and 'they shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain.' Chapter 66 ends with the promise of a new heaven and a new earth. Will this be accomplished by the exiles return to Jerusalem? or does it refer to the kingdom at among us when Jesus walked among us? or to the visions of John in Revelation?
 
Back to 2 Kings (20-21) and 2 Chronicles (32-33) telling of the death of good King Hezekiah of Judah, and the reigns of evil kings Manasseh and Amon.
 
After the beautiful images and words of Isaiah, it is hard to read Nahum. Fortunately it is a short book, only three chapters (Isaiah had 66).
It tells of Nahum's vision and prophecy concerning Nineveh. Apparently the people of Nineveh are wicked, not like the people of Judah whom the Lord has chosen. And while the Lord will bless the chosen people, he is angry and judgemental against Nineveh. Tension between different ways of thinking about God's relationship with the people - Isaiah urges the Jewish people to be 'a light to the gentiles'. Nahum predicts thaat God will destroy the people of Nineveh.
 
Hey, this is new to me. These are the Ninevites spoken of by Jonah in another book altogether. Cool tying these things together.
 
BetteTheRed said:
Hey, this is new to me. These are the Ninevites spoken of by Jonah in another book altogether. Cool tying these things together.
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It struck me the same way Bette. I didn't know that Nineveh was mentioned anywhere else than in Jonah. In the book of Jonah the people of Nineveh repented and reformed their evil ways. God forgave them - showing love for them even though they were not part of the 'chosen people'. In Nahum they are judged unworthy of redemption and will be destroyed. Which came first - did the people reformed by Jonah's warning slip back to their evil ways, so Nahum prophesed against them? or did Nahum prophecy first and then God give them a second chance by calling Jonah to prophecy to them andd changee their ways. Remember too that Jonah was disappointed that because of his message the Ninevehites reformed; he wanted to see them destroyed.
 
Sadly, the ruins of Nineveh (yes, it is a very real place, part of the ancient Assyrian Empire) are near Mosul, which fell under the control of ISIL for a couple years. As is their wont, ISIL demolished a number of the ruins before being forced out by the Iraqi army.
 
2 Kings (22-23) and 2 Chronicles (34-35)) tell the story of the reign of King Josiah of Judah, grandson of King Manasseh and son of King Amon. Both his grandfather and his father were evil in the sight of the Lord, but King Josiah is considered a good king like his ancestor King David.
During his reign he destroyed all the idols and places of worship Manasseh and Amon had established throughout the countryside and in the temple in Jerusalem, and began restoring the temple and worship of the one God. During this time a book was found containing the Law of Moses. King Josiah had the priests to restore the book and have it read to the people. (This may have been the time of the writing, revision or compilation of the book of Deuteronomy.) The king and the people realize how far they have fallen from the covenant relationship and fear God's anger. They reform. The passover is celebrated. God decides to hold off punishing Judah during the lifetime of Josiah.
Judah gets caught up in a war between Egypt and Assyria - and Josiah is killed. He is succeeded by his son Jehoahaz who only ruled a few months, and then by his son Jehoiakim - both of whom are described as evil.

The prophet Zephaniah wrote his short (3 chapters) prophesy at this time.
 
2 Kings (22-23) and 2 Chronicles (34-35)) tell the story of the reign of King Josiah of Judah, grandson of King Manasseh and son of King Amon. Both his grandfather and his father were evil in the sight of the Lord, but King Josiah is considered a good king like his ancestor King David.
During his reign he destroyed all the idols andd places of worship that his grandfather and father had establishedd on the high places and even in the temple in Jerusalem. He restored the temple and worship of one God. During this time of repair to the temple a book of the Law of Moses was discovered. Josiah ordered the priest to have it restored and read to the people (this may have been the writing, revising or compiling of the book of Deuteronomy). They realized how far they had fallen away from keeping their part of the covenant , repented and reformed. Therefore God did not destroy the country during Josiah's lifetime.
Judah got caught up in a war between Egypt and Assyria and King Josiah was killed. He was succeeded by his son Jehoahaz who ruled for two months, and then by another son, Jehoiakim. Both these are described as evil.

The prophet Zephaniah wrote his short book (3 chapters) at this time.
 
Sorry for repeating the above two paragraphs - somehow I thought I had lost much of the first and immediately wrote the second.

Now we move on to Jeremiah (1 - 6). I'm afraid this will be a long read - 52 chapters in Jeremiah and then a separate book of Lamentations.
Jeremiah lived a long life through difficult times. He began his prophesing during the reign of King Josiah, and continued during the reigns of Jehoahaz, Jedoiakim and Zedekiah until after Judah fell to the Babylonians in 587 bc. (Israel had fallen to the Assyrians in 721 bc)

Jeremiah was called by God when he was very young. He does not consider himself ready because he is 'only a boy'. (Some translations say 'youth'.) I've heard many discussions about how old he might have been - a child of seven or eight (or younger - like Samuel), or a teenager. I'm guessing, for no good reason except perhaps a compromise that he was about twelve or thirteen. The book is written in first person, supposedly by Jeremiah himself, in poetry interspersed with prose.

The first six chapters consist of a judgement and a warning against those people in Israel who have not been exiled yet and, surprisingly, against Judah, including the city of Jerusalem. Surprisingly, because if they were written when he was first called, it wouldd have been during the reign of Josiah and Josiah has been described elsewhere as a good king who followed God and was bringing about reforms against the evils and idolery that Josiah fumes about.

I remember reading or hearing somewhere that the book of Jeremiah does not make sense chronologically - that at times it seems like somebody dropped a pile of unnumbered loose pages and in gathering them up got them in a hodge-podge order. We shall see. We will continue reading through the first 40 chapters of Jeremiah before getting back to 2 Kings and Chronicles.
 
Is hodgepodge a norm when considering a book supposedly supporting pure passion and yet hiding wisdom?

Thus subtlety ... OZ stretch theory? Tis a powerful GO ...

AS bound to the physical side ... many folk won't GO that fa' ... to lyrical ... piles of word!

Ancients used to put them on thresholds ... columns and beams ... if well scene or saw 'd ... thus Levite Sawyers? But one should not make it clear-cut ... causes floods ...

Although might amuse those beyond ... what appears first hand ... that's Beta when second ... leavings or what's left of the passion ... dispassionate downers? A niche in time like "v" ... Einstein's dimple ... someone else's wrinkle? Might be a water monster ... Nephilim ... that's Jaerd by the sight of demonyms? Straight from a pool of abstracts ...
 
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Jeremiah - the prophet of gloom and doom. I've had a few interuptions in my reading - preparing to lead worship last Sunday, reading the chosen novel for book club last evening. I only got as far as chapter 13 in Jeremiah. A few familiar passages - perhaps I'm remembering them from passages in the lectionary - I'm not checking to see which passages are or are not included in the lectionary. A few phrases I've run into in literature.

Now reading ch. 14 - it describes a time of drought and famine in the land.

In ch 15 Jeremiah speaks of the Lord's punishment because of the sins of Manesseh. Manesseh was Josiah's grandfather, king two generations before Josiah. Jeremiah was called as a prophet in the middle of Josiah's reign. - This is the typpe of problem I'm running up against trying to understand what I'm reading in a logical way.

Nevertheless the general picture I am getting is of Jeremiah living in Judah (Jerusalm?) before the captivity - calling the people to reformation, and realizing that they are not responding but are headed for disaster as a nation.
 
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As Jeremiah continues to preach gloom and doom and disaster, the priests and prophets of the court and temple turn against him. Hee curses the day he was born. In ch 21, we have King Zedekiah (Josiah's grandson - jumping ahead several generations) asking Jeremiah what lies ahead. Jeremiah predicts total destruction for Jerusalem at the hands of the Babylonians. People will die of hunger, plague, the sword. Only those who surrender to the Babylonians will survive to be taken into captivity.
 
Judgement against the evil kings of Judah who followed Josiah, comparing them to bad shepherds.
But the promise that a remnant will be saved, a good shepherd, a descendent of David will come.
More judgement against false prophets who promise the Lord's blessing on the evil kings.
Reminds me of a certain president and his supporters. Let's hope that we don't have to be utterly destroyed or taken captive before we (North Americans) wake up and smell the coffee. Who will be the Babylon who challenges the US (and by extension pulls us into the fray)?
 
The Babylonian captivity is starting. As Jeremiah prophsied Israel and Judah are falling. Kings and leaders are taken into captivity. Jeremiah not only speaks out his warnings but uses symbolism to try to get his message across. He wears a yoke on his neck to show how the people will be oppressed; he buys a field and describes the process at a time when the countryside is a battlefield to indicate his faith that the Lord will eventually restore them. But it will take time. Among those left behind for the time being in Jerusalem, Jeremiah writes to the captives in Babylon advising them to buy houses and live in them - settle down for the long haul. But continue to hope for salvation and a return from exile.
 
Ch 36 tells of events during the reign of Jehoiakim. Apparently until that time Jeremiah only spoke his message - but now he reports that the Lord told him it should be written in a scroll. Jeremiah dictated it to someone named Baruch. Then he had it read in public places, where the people listened to his warnings; but when the King asked for it to be reead to him, he got angry, cutt up the scroll and burned it.
The Lord told Jeremiah to rewrite the scroll. Presumably this is how Jeremiah's words were preserved and became part of the Hebrew scriptures.

Ch 27 jumps ahead again to the time of Zedekiah. The Babylonians withdrew for a time when Egypt threatened them, but Jeremiah predicted that the Babylonians would attack again as soon as the Egyptians withdrew. This made Zedekiah angry with Jeremiah. Jeremiah was thrown into prison, but later served his time as a prisoner in the court yard of the guard.

The life of a prophet wasn't easy.
 
Seeler said:
Ch 36 tells of events during the reign of Jehoiakim. Apparently until that time Jeremiah only spoke his message - but now he reports that the Lord told him it should be written in a scroll. Jeremiah dictated it to someone named Baruch. Then he had it read in public places, where the people listened to his warnings; but when the King asked for it to be reead to him, he got angry, cutt up the scroll and burned it.
The Lord told Jeremiah to rewrite the scroll. Presumably this is how Jeremiah's words were preserved and became part of the Hebrew scriptures.

Ch 27 jumps ahead again to the time of Zedekiah. The Babylonians withdrew for a time when Egypt threatened them, but Jeremiah predicted that the Babylonians would attack again as soon as the Egyptians withdrew. This made Zedekiah angry with Jeremiah. Jeremiah was thrown into prison, but later served his time as a prisoner in the court yard of the guard.

The life of a prophet wasn't easy.
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Prophets that are quick will pull their head in and take on great adepts ... profound states? One has to stop to bes thunk that far ... creating craters ... demon crates? Later weak democracies hated by the republicans and thus this population paradigm must be ... put down?

Horses race at Downs and Moors don't they? Catch 22 ... foreign hand ...
 
The Jews in Jerusalem did not like Jeremiah because of his predictions. So they put him down a cistern and left him to die there. Some people contacted King Zedekiah, and he gave permission for Jeremiah to be saved from the cistern but continue to be held prisoner in the courtyard of the guard.
For some time the Babylonians have been attacking and withdrawing. Now they make an all out assault on Jerusalem. Jeremiah urges the Jews to surrender. They refuse and many are killed, including the king's sons. The king, Zedekiah has his eyes put out and is taken into captivity. Jerusalem with the palace and temple is completely destroyed.
But not everyone is exiled. The poorest of the poor are allowed to remain on the land and farm it.
Jeremiah, hated by his own people, is respected by the Babylonians. He is permitted to choose - be deported with the captives, or remain in the land. He chooses the latter. (Ch. 38-40)
Psalms 74 and 79 are laments for Jerusalem.
We will now leave Jeremiah for a bit.
 
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