JEREMIAH | Lesson 6 | Lesson Notes / Talking Points

Read Jeremiah 35.1-19 [along with chaper 34]

MAKING THE CONNECTIONS & SETTING THE CONTEXT

1/ As we discovered in our last lesson, the over-all ‘book of Jeremiah’ is a compilation of several other ‘booklets’ within the ‘book.’ Our last lesson was taken from the ‘Book of Consolation,’ chapters 30-33, because in that ‘booklet,’ Yahweh repeated and confirmed His promises to reconcile, restore, and renew His people to Himself through the New Covenant. “And they shall be My people, and I will be their God” [ch 32.38].

2/ This, of course, will be accomplished through Christ and His Gospel. Jesus Christ fulfilled all the necessary conditions and secured all the promises of the New Covenant when He poured out His Blood of the New Covenant and proclaimed in victory from His Cross: “It is finished!” [See our comments on this Gospel projection in Jeremiah’s ‘Book of Consolation’ in our last Lesson Notes / Talking Points.]

3/ But now, in this two-chapter ‘booklet,’ chapters 34-35, Yahweh returns once again to their then-present situation. Yahweh will once again make the case that His judgments coming on them in the Babylonian invasion, destruction, and captivity are His holy consequences because of their insistent and persistent disobedience and rebellion again Him.

4/ He will make His irrefutable case by citing two real-life stories that were transpiring contemporaneously in their very day. These two stories were going on as Jeremiah was delivering and recording them, and the people of Judah were witnessing of both of these stories.

5/ We could also call chapters 34-35: The stories of two families. The family in chapter 34 is Yahweh’s family, the people of God, Judah. The family in chapter 35 is the family of the Rechabites. We may not be so familiar with the Rechabites because so little is said of them in the historical Scriptures. In fact, we are told as much or more about the Rechabites here in Jeremiah 35 than in all the other little snippets we can glean from their previous history. But Yahweh brings them to the fore and makes a positive example of them and gives them a glowing recommendation.

6/ The stories of these two families will stand in stark contrast to each other. The family of Judah will witness against themselves as a testimony to their disobedience – not occasional ‘slip up’ disobedience, but their historical, persistent, and insistent disobedience … even to the point of chronic rebellion against Yahweh [see ch 35.12-17]. The family of the Rechabites, on the other hand, will bear a sterling and consistent historical witness to their obedience to their patriarchal father, Jonadab the son of Rechab.

7/ So, let’s re-tell these two stories and juxtapose them as Yahweh gave them to Jeremiah. As we read and learn, I hope that each of us will search our own hearts to see whose family we belong to. And, at the end of the lesson, we’ll summarize and draw together the stark contrasts Yahweh highlights to make His case against Judah.

8/ Also, as we make our way through these two contrasting stories, we can see Yahweh’s delight in simple, faithful, whole-hearted obedience as He expressed it in these words Samuel delivered to the faithless rebel King Saul [1 Samuel 15.22-23]:

And Samuel said, “Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams. ²³ For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, He has also rejected you from being king.”  

I / ch 34 / The story of faithless, disobedient Judah – the story of Zedekiah      

1/ v 1 /As we begin telling the story of Zedekiah’s rebellion against Yahweh, we need to remember that even though chapter 34 comes BEFORE chapter 35, the events described here happened AFTER the story in chapter 35. [Zedekiah lived and reigned AFTER Jehoiakim.]

2/ Zedekiah was the very last king to reign in Judah before the final Babylonian invasion, destruction, and deportation. In fact, he was the reigning king when the final destruction of Jerusalem took place. You can find Zedekiah’s full story in 2 Kings 24.18 – 25.7. These events would be dated around 589 BC.

3/ Zedekiah reigned for 11 years, and it was during the 9^th year of his reign that Nebuchadnezzar began his 2-year siege against Jerusalem before their armies finally breached the city walls and entered Jerusalem to burn it down, massacre masses of the people, and deport multitudes more to captivity in Babylon. So it was during this 2-year siege that the events of Jeremiah 34 took place and Jeremiah delivered Yahweh’s message to Zedekiah.

4/ vv 2-7 / The message that Yahweh delivers to Zedekiah is that in spite of all his efforts to stave off and defend Jerusalem against the eventual conquest of the Babylonians, he will, in fact, be captured by Nebuchadnezzar and taken to Babylon, and the city will be destroyed and burned. See also vv 17-22. However, Zedekiah himself will not murdered or executed during the siege, even though he will suffer the excruciating experience of seeing his sons slaughtered before his eyes and then have his own eyes gouged out [see 2 Kings 25.6-7 & Jeremiah 39.1-7].

5/ vv 8-10 / Here is where Zedekiah’s faithlessness, treachery, and rebellion is clearly demonstrated. When the Babylonians were mounting their siege against Jerusalem, Zedekiah thought he would manipulate and extort Yahweh to deliver them by pretending to be obedient to Yahweh’s law and command. He entered into a covenant with all the people of Jerusalem to obey the stipulation of Yahweh’s covenant that He had delivered in Deuteronomy 15.12-18 / also here, vv 12-14  – that when their fellow Jewish brothers and sisters had been sold into indentured service to them to pay off their debts, they must be set free in the seventh year, regardless of how many previous years of service they had given during their six year pay-back term. Zedekiah and the Jerusalemites set free their indentured servants and vowed not to enslave them again. They obeyed and set them free.

6/ vv 11 / However, just soon after, they reneged on that covenant to ‘obey’ Yahweh when they saw it financially disadvantaged them. But afterward they turned around and took back the male and female slaves they had set free, and brought them into subjection as slaves.

• We should note also here, that they had this change of mind at a time when the Babylonians had temporarily suspended their siege against Jerusalem because they had to go off and fight against the Egyptians whom Zedekiah had hired to come and ally with them to defend Jerusalem. See vv 21-22 w/ ch 37.5-11 & 44.30.
• Their temporary manumission clearly an attempt to ‘manipulate’ and ‘extort’ Yahweh with this short-lived pretense of ‘obedience’…as if to say, “Look, Yahweh, we are ‘obeying’ your commandment, so you are obligated to save and deliver us.” However, when it became obvious that Yahweh was not going to be ‘bought off’ by their charade, they decided their ‘obedience’ was worth it, after all.
• And on top of all that, they had committed the additional mockery of their pretended ‘obedience by making their ‘covenant’ to ‘obey’ Yahweh by cutting a calf in half and walking between the two pieces of the covenant-making sacrifice [see vv 18-19]. This was not only their customary way of making solemn promises and covenants, but this is what Yahweh did when He made His initial covenant with Abraham [see Genesis 15.12-18]. This was so much more than just a merely arrogant, hypocritical gesture – it was a blatant and obscene mockery of Yahweh. When you would make a covenant in this manner, you were saying, ‘If this promise is solemn and binding enough to require the killing of a sacrificial animal, then it is solemn and binding enough for us to keep it!’ This is what we call a ‘fox-hole’ conversion, or like the promises we make to God when we are in dire straits, and we’re willing to say or do anything if only God will ‘bail us out’ of the trouble we’re in … only to renege on and break our promise when the danger is not so ‘clear and present’ [see Ecclesiastes 5.1-7].  

7/ vv 12-16 / Yahweh calls them on their rebellious turn-around of feigned ‘obedience’ and then re-disobeying and rebelling against Him again … citing once again the Deuteronomy 15 commandment they had been disobeying for centuries.

8/ vv 17-22 / Yahweh reiterates His judgments against them because of their persistent, insistent disobedience: He will deliver Jerusalem into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar. They will be destroyed and taken into captivity. This, in spite of the brief reprieve they had hoped in when Nebuchadnezzar had temporarily withdrawn from the siege to fight the Egyptians. He’ll be back to finish the job.

II / ch 35.1-11 /  The story of the faithful, obedient Rechabites

1/ Now we come to the centerpiece and comparative standard of these two contrasting stories – the story of the Rechabites.

2/ v 1 / To get the timeline in our minds, we need now to toggle back to a few years earlier during the reign of a previous king, Jehoiakim. He reigned for 11 years:  circa 609-597. During the 4^th year of his reign, 605 BC, Nebuchadnezzar made his first move against Jerusalem, attacked the city, made them a vassal state, and took some of them captive to Babylonian. This was the first of three deportations. You’ll find this story in 2 Kings 23.36 – 24.4. So what happened in ch 35 here transpired during Jehoiakim’s 4^th year of his reign [see ch 25.1; 36.1; 45.1].

3/ Also, since we don’t know that much about the Rechabites, in order to appreciate their story and their sterling example of obedience which Yahweh highlights, we need just a little background on them:

• Rechabites: they were not Israelites. They were a nomadic tribe who had attached themselves to Israel for centuries and lived among them as ‘resident aliens.’ They were a distinct family clan of people who had retained their ancestral heritage and traditions.
• Rechab / v 8: He was one of their more ancient forefathers. Rechab goes back to the larger tribe of people known as Kenites: These are the Kenites who came from Hammath, the father of the house of Rechab [1 Chronicles 2.55]. The Kenites, in turn, were descendants of the family of Moses’ father-in-law. And the descendants of the Kenite, Moses’ father-in-law, went up with the people from Judah … and they went and settled with the people [Judges 1.16]; and Now Heber the Kenite had separated from the Kenites, the descendants of Hobab the father-in-law of Moses… [Judges 4.11]. The only point I’m making here is that the Rechabites had lived among the Israelites as a separate and distinct tribe even from the days of  post-Exodus Moses.
• Jonadab / vv 6 et. al.: He was one of their more recent, immediate forefathers and head of their family/clan, and the one whose instructions they were so faithfully obeying.  

4/ vv 1-4 / Yahweh instructed Jeremiah to go and fetch this family of Rechabites and bring them into one of the rooms of the Temple. This is what we call a ‘sign-act narrative,’ because the lesson will be delivered and taught in the activity that is performed.

5/ vv 5-10 / The ‘sign-act’ that Jeremiah conducted was to bring in the family of the Rechabites, sit them down in the Temple chamber, set pitchers of wine and cups before them, and command them to drink the wine. They refused. And the reason they refused is because their tribal/clan forefather, Jonadab, had commanded them generations before that they must not drink wine even though it was customary for everyone else to do so. They must abstain, be ‘teetotalers’ for the rest of their days, throughout all their successive generations. Not only that, but they must not build houses or plant and harvest gardens or vineyards. They must commit themselves to this ascetic, nomadic lifestyle and maintain their distinctive, separate family culture and traditions in perpetuity. We have obeyed the voice of Jonadab the son of Rechab, our father, in all that he commanded us, to drink no wine all our days, ourselves, our wives, our sons, or our daughters, ⁹ and not to build houses to dwell in. We have no vineyard or field or seed, ¹⁰ but we have lived in tents and have obeyed and done all that Jonadab our father commanded us. They would not disavow and disobey their forefather, Jonadab, and they would not break the covenant promises they had made to obey him! That is the example and lesson Yahweh wanted to deliver to His unfaithful family of Israelites!

6/ v 11 / Just a side-note here: If they had committed themselves to live a nomadic lifestyle, what were they doing in Jerusalem to begin with? They explain their presence in Jerusalem by citing the recent incursions of the Babylonians into the country sides surrounding Jerusalem. An invading army wouldn’t march directly to their target city and attack it. They would invade the country side as they progressed, conquering the outlying cities as they came, and then arrive at their primary target city – in this case, Jerusalem. Jerusalem had become the last refuge and hold-out, but it was soon to be attacked also.   

III / ch 35.12-19 / The principle and message of these two contrasting stories

1/ vv 12-16 /  So now we come to the lesson Yahweh wants Jeremiah to deliver to the people of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem … we will summarize the message by drawing the contrasts Yahweh does…

• The faithful Rechabites obeyed an arbitrary command their father had given them; but Judah had defied and rebelled against the most meaningful and essential command their ‘Father,’ Yahweh had given to them. The family laws the Rechabites had covenanted to obey were not stipulated in Yahweh’s law. Yahweh had not commanded not to drink wine or not to build houses or not to plant and harvest gardens and vineyards – this was an arbitrary command Jonadab had issued to the Rechabites. But they had honored their father and kept his command. On the other hand, Yahweh had commanded Israel to love Him with all their hearts and they had stubbornly, rebelliously, insistently disobeyed and refused to do that one ‘greatest commandment’ thing.
• The Rechabites received a one-time command that they had dutifully, faithfully, and consistently followed, kept, and obeyed; but the Israelites had received from Yahweh often-repeated commands, even for centuries, that they had chronically, persistently, and insistently rebelled against. Numerous times over centuries, Yahweh had sent His prophets to Israel and Judah, patiently and passionately calling them to repentance, to change their ways, to return to Him and avert the coming judgments He had warned and declared against them [see v 15 – this same pleading warning is made over and over in their history]. Generation after generation refused to obey. ‘But you did not incline your ear or listen to Me.’
• The Rechabites dutifully honored and obeyed a mere human patriarch; but the Israelites refused to obey their Supreme Father, ‘Yahweh, the God of hosts, the God of Israel’ [see vv 13 & 17 especially]. All throughout this ‘sign-act’ message, Yahweh delivers His lesson by contrasting ‘from the lesser to the greater.’ If the lesser had been done [as per the example of the Rechabites], then the greater should have been done also by His covenant people, Israel. Yahweh was their distinctive, exclusive God. He was the Giver of all their covenant promises and blessings they had enjoyed. He was their LORD. He had bound them and they had sworn to obey Him – but they had not.

2/ vv 17-19 / Yahweh re-confirms the consequences for each of their acts of disobedience/obedience:

• The promised judgments will come upon Judah and all inhabitants of Jerusalem for their persistent, insistent disobedience and rebellion against Him…
• The Rechabites will continue to enjoy His covenant blessings toward them by His acceptance of them and engagement in His service because of their exemplary obedience to their fathers.

3/ We will just return here to the 1 Samuel 15.22-23 word from Yahweh I wrote in the Introduction:

And Samuel said, “Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams. ²³ For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, He has also rejected you from being king.”

So it was with Saul, and so it was with Zedekiah. They wait for Messiah to come who will fulfill the promised blessings of the New Covenant!  

4/ Let’s each of us search our own hearts and lives in the light of this lesson:

Are you a faithless, pretending hypocrite – or a faithful, obedient child and servant of Christ?