September 25, 2020: Day 34 – Jeremiah 34

At least Jeremiah’s message is consistent.  He once again tells the king that the land will be taken over, the Babylonians will see the king eye to eye and they will take him off in exile along with the rest of the population.  This is what he has consistently told  the king.  The king will see the invaders, he will meet the invaders, and the invaders will take him off away from the land.  But today he adds another element to this prophecy.

He tells the king that not only will he meet his captors, but that he will not die as a result of the exile, but that he will live a long normal life and at the end of his life he will not die a scandalous death, but rather one of honor.  Even spices will be burned in memory of him.  So, now  that we have that out of the way, we have a problem.  Vs.8 begins a very different story from what we have heard so far.

So, the year of jubilee is a year when all the debts were supposed to be forgiven and all the slaves set free.   This was supposed to happen every 7 years.  Well, they set the slaves free, they were actually Hebrew slaves and the Scripture calls them neighbors and brothers and sisters, but then they backtracked and made them slaves once again.  God was furious with this.  You can’t just do what I want when you think I am looking and then go back and redo everything again.  It just added to the sins of the people.  While in the past you could look at your ancestors and see how they had been unfaithful, you are exactly like them.  You are equally, if not even more, unfaithful to me as they were.