Jeremiah 15.a. Enough is Enough.

15: 1-2.  Then the LORD said to me: “Even if Moses and Samuel were to stand before me, my heart would not go out to this people. Send them away from my presence! Let them go! And if they ask you, ‘Where shall we go?’ tell them, ‘This is what the LORD says:

Those destined for death,

to death;

those for the sword,

to the sword;

those for starvation,

to starvation;

those for captivity,

to captivity’.

 Jeremiah’s sermons and the prophecies given to him directly from the Lord God Almighty, increasingly, though reluctantly, grow darker. There seem to be two kinds of time, one in heaven and one on earth. In heaven, God is marking one act of disobedience after another, one snub after another, and one rejection after another. How many of these sins will God overlook before God says, “Enough is enough; you have crossed the red line and the punishment that comes for that is now unavoidable”?

 Did you ever think that God would say that? Is this the God that you think you know? This passage is pretty hard-core. There are no greater prayer-warriors, no greater intercessors in the Old Testament than Moses and Samuel. What did they do? Here is what Moses did after the ‘Golden Calf Incident’. 

”On the next day Moses said to the people, 'You have sinned a great sin. But now I will go up to the LORD; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin'. So Moses returned to the Lord and said, 'Alas, this people has sinned a great sin; they have made for themselves gods of gold. But now, if you will only forgive their sin—but if not, please blot me out of the book that you have written'. But the LORD said to Moses, 'Whoever has sinned against me I will blot out of my book.  But now go, lead the people to the place about which I have spoken to you; see, my angel shall go in front of you'” (Exodus 32: 30-34).  

 Moses, foreshadowing the gracious act of Jesus, is offering his life for the life of the children of Israel. Prayer, commitment, and sacrifice. 

 What did Samuel do? When the Philistines were about to attack, the people called on Samuel to pray for them. 

”When the Philistines heard that the Israelites had gathered at Mizpah, the lords of the Philistines went up against Israel. And when the Israelites heard of it, they were afraid of the Philistines. The Israelites said to Samuel, “Do not cease to cry out to the LORD our God for us, and pray that he may save us from the hand of the Philistines.” So Samuel took a sucking lamb and offered it as a whole burnt offering to the LORD; Samuel cried out to the LORD for Israel, and the LORD answered him. As Samuel was offering up the burnt offering, the Philistines drew near to attack Israel, but the LORD thundered with a mighty voice that day against the Philistines and threw them into confusion, and they were routed before Israel. And the men of Israel went out of Mizpah and pursued the Philistines and struck them down as far as beyond Beth-car. Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Jeshanah and named it Ebenezer, for he said, “Thus far the LORD has helped us.” (I Samuel 7: 7-12; see also I Samuel 12).

 Surely, if God was listening to Moses and Samuel long ago, he would listen to them again, wouldn’t he? Look closely. God says that he will not. In fact, he tells Jeremiah to send the petitioners away as if he were divorcing his wife. His answer to their parting question of where they should go is very sharp. Some will go here, some will go there. Some will fall on the path leading to death, others will be wounded, others will die of slow starvation, and others will take that long depressing walk to captivity in another land. That’s it. Oh wait! There’s more.  

15: 3-4.  “I will send four kinds (categories) of destroyers against them,” declares the LORD, “the sword to kill and the dogs to drag away and the birds and the wild animals to devour and destroy. I will make them abhorrent to all the kingdoms of the earth because of what Manasseh son of Hezekiah king of Judah did in Jerusalem.”

 If the four paths were not bad enough, what will happen to those who fall by the wayside? If just wounded, the sword will kill. If dead meat, then the dogs will fight over the body, tear and drag it away. Then the vultures will alight for their feast, until chased away by the hyenas who finish off the corpse with bone-cracking jaws. Is this metaphoric? No, it eventually happened just like that. Hear what the historical account in II Kings says.

”Still the LORD did not turn from the fierceness of his great wrath by which his anger was kindled against Judah because of all the provocations with which Manasseh had provoked him. The LORD said, “I will remove Judah also out of my sight, as I have removed Israel, and I will reject this city that I have chosen, Jerusalem, and the house of which I said, ‘My name shall be there’” (II Kings 23: 16-27; see II Kings 24 where Babylon defeats Judah).

 This verse from II Kings has the advantage of identifying the king who epitomizes the trouble with the government of Judah, as God also does in the Jeremiah passage. It is Manasseh, King of Judah from 696-642. Manasseh was the longest reigning king of Judah and, by biblical standards, he was the worst king (although this is debated). He was the son of one of the best kings of Judah, Hezekiah, who was listened to the counsel of the prophet Isaiah.

Extra-biblical Jewish literature even claims that Manasseh had Isaiah killed.

Hezekiah and Isaiah had carried out religious reforms that removed Asherah poles and Ba’al worship from Judah and championed the worship of Israel’s God YHWH. It looks like Manasseh initially rebelled against his father’s path because he rebuilt the high places (for sacrifice to Asherah out in the countryside), erected altars to Ba’al even in the temple, and is reported to have engaged in the worship of Moloch which included child sacrifices in the valley outside Jerusalem (II Kings 21:1-18).

Manasseh reversed the work of Hezekiah and Isaiah, and his son Amon continued his evil ways. Then Amon’s son Josiah succeeded to the throne, and there is where Jeremiah entered the picture. By his own account, "The words of Jeremiah … to whom the word of the LORD came in the days of King Josiah son of Amon of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign” (Jeremiah 1: 1-2).

 Josiah, unlike his father and grandfather, was a good king, a reformer who tried to turn the hearts of Judah back to YHWH. But when Josiah died, Judah backslid again (Every generation needs a fresh word of God and a revival). YHWH called Jeremiah to prophesy in support of Josiah, then later to warn the people what the end times will look like for them. Jeremiah had to change his sermon topics, to add more warnings, and to predict more dire conclusions if the people do not change their ways. Notice that it is ‘their ways’ not just ‘their thinking’ or ‘their words’. God has had enough of words, now he wants action. 

15: 5-9.  Who will have pity on you, Jerusalem?   

Who will mourn for you? 

Who will stop to ask how you are?  

You have rejected me, declares the LORD.   

You keep on backsliding.

So I will reach out and destroy you;   

I am tired of holding back.

I will winnow them with a winnowing fork   

at the city gates of the land.

I will bring bereavement and destruction on my people,   

for they have not changed their ways.

Notice the charge: “they have not changed their ways.” So much for confession and repentance; it is not enough. As James said later, words without deeds, worship songs without obedience, are worthless. 

”What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but does not have works? Surely that faith cannot save, can it? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill’, and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead” (James 2: 14-17). 

 Who will have pity on Judah now. Certainly not the neighboring nations. But the real shocker is ‘Not God’, not any longer.