Jeremiah, like Ezekiel, saw that no good could be expected from the people who had been left in Judah under Zedekiah or who had fled into Egypt. Good was to be hoped for only from those who would pass through the purifying experience of the exile to form the new Israel. Jeremiah perceives that Yahweh’s eyes are upon the exiles for good; that by virtue of this realistic crisis he will give them a heart to know who their Lord is. He will be able to plant them, and to build them up; through their suffering, they will return to him with their whole heart. Have we not found our most profound religious growth when we have been driven into exile? Jeremiah uses seventy years of exile as a round number to indicate that the present generation must die out. He becomes a prophet to the nations as well as to his own people. He uses the same metaphor of drunkenness against all the nations to foretell universal war as universal judgment. Disaster will move from one nation to another like a storm sweeping across the weather-map. Jeremiah is arrested and put on trial. The prophet stands powerful within the power of God. When the princes and the people defended him, certain of the elders cited the incident of Micah to establish precedent for Jeremiah’s release. The inclusion of the case of Uriah at the close of this incident shows how narrowly Jeremiah escaped a like fate.
Jeremiah, like Ezekiel, saw that no good could be expected from the people who had been left in Judah under Zedekiah or who had fled into Egypt. Good was to be hoped for only from those who would pass through the purifying experience of the exile to form the new Israel. Jeremiah perceives that Yahweh’s eyes are upon the exiles for good; that by virtue of this realistic crisis he will give them a heart to know who their Lord is. He will be able to plant them, and to build them up; through their suffering, they will return to him with their whole heart. Have we not found our most profound religious growth when we have been driven into exile? Jeremiah uses seventy years of exile as a round number to indicate that the present generation must die out. He becomes a prophet to the nations as well as to his own people. He uses the same metaphor of drunkenness against all the nations to foretell universal war as universal judgment. Disaster will move from one nation to another like a storm sweeping across the weather-map. Jeremiah is arrested and put on trial. The prophet stands powerful within the power of God. When the princes and the people defended him, certain of the elders cited the incident of Micah to establish precedent for Jeremiah’s release. The inclusion of the case of Uriah at the close of this incident shows how narrowly Jeremiah escaped a like fate.
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