Scripture Daily

Context No. 1819 of 4322 · Jeremiah

Context · Reflection

Jeremiah 29:15-19: in context

15Because you have said, “The LORD has raised us up prophets in Babylon,” 16the LORD says concerning the king who sits on David’s throne, and concerning all the people who dwell in this city, your brothers who haven’t gone with you into captivity, 17the LORD of Armies says: “Behold, I will send on them the sword, the famine, and the pestilence, and will make them like rotten figs that can’t be eaten, they are so bad. 18I will pursue after them with the sword, with the famine, and with the pestilence, and will deliver them to be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth, to be an object of horror, an astonishment, a hissing, and a reproach among all the nations where I have driven them, 19because they have not listened to my words,” says the LORD, “with which I sent to them my servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them; but you would not hear,” says the LORD.

God speaks judgment against those who remained in Jerusalem, refusing the exile and clinging to false hopes and false prophets. He will send sword, famine, and plague upon them, and make them like rotten figs too spoiled to eat. And he gives the reason plainly: because they have not listened to my words, which I sent to them by my servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them; but you would not hear.

The reason God gives for the judgment is worth sitting with, and especially one vivid phrase in it: I sent my prophets, rising up early and sending them, but you would not hear. The picture is of a God who did not warn once and give up, but who reached out again and again, persistently, urgently, rising up early to send his messengers, pressing his word upon a people who kept refusing to listen. The judgment did not fall on people God had left in the dark; it fell on people God had warned repeatedly, patiently, over years, and who would not hear. There is something moving and sobering in this image of God rising up early to send his prophets. It reveals a God who is not quick to give up on people, who reaches out persistently, who sends warning after warning, appeal after appeal, longing for them to turn and be spared. His judgment, when it finally comes, comes only after a long patience, a persistent reaching out that was met with persistent refusal. And this holds a warning for us. God is patient, and reaches out to us again and again, through his word, through his messengers, through the promptings of conscience and the events of our lives, calling us to turn to him, to change, to listen. The danger is not that God will not reach out; he rises up early to do so. The danger is in our not hearing, in hardening ourselves against a call that keeps coming, in presuming on a patience that will not last forever. Today, if you hear his voice, Scripture says, do not harden your hearts. The tragedy of Jerusalem was not that God had failed to warn them, but that they would not hear a God who rose up early to send. And the question his persistence puts to us is whether we are hearing the God who keeps reaching out, or hardening ourselves against a call that will not come forever.

Is God reaching out to me again and again, through his word, his messengers, my conscience, calling me to turn or to change, and am I hearing him, or hardening myself against a call that keeps coming, presuming on a patience that will not last forever, as Jerusalem would not hear the God who rose up early to send his prophets?

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