Scripture Daily

Context No. 1648 of 4322 · Jeremiah

Context · Reflection

Jeremiah 42:1-6: in context

1Then all the captains of the forces, and Johanan the son of Kareah, and Jezaniah the son of Hoshaiah, and all the people from the least even to the greatest, came near, 2and said to Jeremiah the prophet, “Please let our supplication be presented before you, and pray for us to the LORD your God, even for all this remnant, for we are left but a few of many, as your eyes see us, 3that the LORD your God may show us the way in which we should walk, and the things that we should do.” 4Then Jeremiah the prophet said to them, “I have heard you. Behold, I will pray to the LORD your God according to your words; and it will happen that whatever thing the LORD answers you, I will declare it to you. I will keep nothing back from you.” 5Then they said to Jeremiah, “May the LORD be a true and faithful witness among us, if we don’t do according to all the word with which the LORD your God sends you to tell us. 6Whether it is good, or whether it is bad, we will obey the voice of the LORD our God, to whom we send you; that it may be well with us, when we obey the voice of the LORD our God.”

The remnant of Judah, after the fall of Jerusalem, comes to Jeremiah in fear, uncertain whether to stay in the land or flee. They ask him earnestly to pray for them, that God would show them the way to go; and they make a solemn promise: whatever the LORD your God answers, we will obey, whether it is good or bad. May the LORD be a true witness against us if we do not do all that he tells us. Jeremiah agrees to pray and to hold nothing back of God's answer.

The people make a striking promise: whatever the LORD says, good or bad, we will obey. It sounds like the height of submission, a blank-check commitment to do whatever God commands, before they even know what it will be. And yet, as the story goes on, when God's answer comes, and it is not what they hoped, stay in the land, do not flee to Egypt, they disobey and flee anyway. The promise of total obedience, so sincere-seeming before the answer was known, did not survive the answer being hard. There is a searching truth in that gap for us. It is easy to promise God our obedience in the abstract, to vow that we will do whatever he says, before we know what it will cost; the real test comes when his answer is not what we wanted, when obedience means something hard or contrary to our desires. The remnant vowed to obey whether the word was good or bad, and then, when the word was not to their liking, they broke the vow. Our obedience is proved not in the promise but in the doing, and specifically in the doing of what we did not want to hear. It is worth being honest with ourselves about this. We may pledge, sincerely, to follow God's will whatever it is; but the true measure of that pledge is whether we still obey when his answer crosses our own wishes. The remnant's failure was not in the promising, which sounded well, but in the obeying, when the answer was hard. Real submission is proved when God's word is not what we hoped, and we obey it anyway.

Is my obedience to God real only in the abstract promise, easy to make before I know the cost, or does it hold when his answer is hard, not what I wanted, contrary to my wishes, since obedience is proved not in the pledge but in the doing of what I did not want to hear?

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