Jeremiah 19-22
Jeremiah's prophecies against the house of Judah, warning them against their being carried away into Babylon. Ch. 19 concludes the "potter's vessel" object lesson by shattering the potter's vessel as the pronouncement of judgment is made. This occasions Jeremiah's imprisonment by a false prophet. While in prison, Jeremiah utters the famous words about God's word in his heart being a burning fire shut up in his bones...but what is conveniently forgotten by those who use that passage, is that he then goes on, like Job, to bemoan the day of his birth.
Unaccountably, Zedikiah will call for Jeremiah to ask him how the battle with Babylon will go, expecting God to deliver them (maybe as He delivered them from Assyria during Hezekiah's reign)
Instead, God pronounces judgment and captivity. The path of life, He says, (21:8), is to abandon the city and surrender to Babylon. Death by the sword, famine and pestilence awaits those who don't. To Zedekiah specifically, Jeremiah warns that he should be a just king, judged by his equity with the powerless (the stranger, the fatherless, the widow, the innocent). If so he will continue to rule. If not, he will be made desolate. He was the final king of Judah, so we know the choice he made. God pronounces a curse on the lineage of Jeconiah, his father--no man of his lineage shall sit on the throne of David ruling any more in Judah. Jesus is not of the biological lineage of Jeconiah, though Joseph, his adopted father was.
Unaccountably, Zedikiah will call for Jeremiah to ask him how the battle with Babylon will go, expecting God to deliver them (maybe as He delivered them from Assyria during Hezekiah's reign)
Instead, God pronounces judgment and captivity. The path of life, He says, (21:8), is to abandon the city and surrender to Babylon. Death by the sword, famine and pestilence awaits those who don't. To Zedekiah specifically, Jeremiah warns that he should be a just king, judged by his equity with the powerless (the stranger, the fatherless, the widow, the innocent). If so he will continue to rule. If not, he will be made desolate. He was the final king of Judah, so we know the choice he made. God pronounces a curse on the lineage of Jeconiah, his father--no man of his lineage shall sit on the throne of David ruling any more in Judah. Jesus is not of the biological lineage of Jeconiah, though Joseph, his adopted father was.
