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Thursday 4 August 2011

Day 217: Further signs

Jeremiah deploys his skill as a preacher, choosing powerful illustrations to ram home his point.
Jeremiah’s prayer
Jeremiah 17:14-18
The sabbath
Jeremiah 17:19-27
The sign of the potter’s vessel
Jeremiah 18:1-10
The people’s rejection
Jeremiah 18:11-17
A plot against Jeremiah
Jeremiah 18:18-23
The broken jar
Jeremiah 19:1-13
Jeremiah’s conflict with Pashhur
Jeremiah 19:14-15, 20:1-6
His complaint
Jeremiah 20:7-15
Jehoiakim’s rebellion
2 Kings 24:1
Messages against Philistia
Jeremiah 47:1-7


Jeremiah’s sign of the potter’s vessel is quite hopeful, I think. When something goes wrong with a pot, the potter simply squeezes it up into a ball and starts again. It’s not the end of the world. So God can restart with Judah, the siege, the threat of exile, are not the end.
But when the clay goes hard, and is smashed, there is no way back. There is no repair for people who have become hard and brittle to God.
There is a very hard hearted priest, Pashhur, who puts Jeremiah in the stocks, and gets prophesied against by the aching prophet in the morning. “And you, Pashhur, and all who live in your house will go into exile to Babylon. There you will die and be buried, you and all your friends to whom you have prophesied lies.” (20:6)
Jeremiah bursts out with a complaint against God, which is strangely intermingled with words of praise. Despite the shame of having been shut in the stocks, despite the demoralising apathy with which his words have been greeted, he cannot stop, he cannot hold in the words that God has given him. He cannot help but give glory to God.
I wish that was true of me.

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