Jeremiah 1
Jeremiah 2
Jeremiah 3
Jeremiah 4
Jeremiah 5
Jeremiah 6
Jeremiah 7
Jeremiah 8
Jeremiah 9
Jeremiah 10
Jeremiah 11
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1. Jeremiah 12 reminds us of other places in the Old Testament where a prophet or other individual brings a question or complaint to God about the doings of the wicked. In particular, the prophet Habakkuk was prophesying at about the same time as Jeremiah. "How long will I cry for help and you not listen?" Habakkuk says to Yahweh (Hab. 1:2). Psalm 13 asks the same thing on a more personal level (13:1, 2).
Jeremiah prefaces his question with an acknowledgment that God is in the right. He is expressing frustration without truly indicting God. It's a reminder that we can bring our feelings to God while recognizing that God is in charge and is never in the wrong.
"Why do the guilty prosper?" he asks Yahweh. It is a question that those with God's heart often ask. You see the unrighteous take power. You see the slimy prevail, while the good-hearted are run over.
What's worse, it can happen in the church. It can happen in religious communities. "You are in their mouths but far from their hearts" (Jer. 12:2). God allows it. God "plants them," which is shorthand for God's permissive will. God does not truly promote evil, although he allows it.
2. Jeremiah asks for God to remove them (12:3). They think God isn't noticing. "He is blind to our ways," they say (12:4).
This seems to continue Jeremiah's themes of the religious and political leadership of Israel thinking that they will be ok because they are running Yahweh's temple. When Pharaoh Necho II installed Eliakim on the throne, he renamed him "Jehoiakim," which means "Yahweh rises."
We don't know the details. Was Necho mocking Josiah? With Egypt asserting its control over Israel, was that supposed to be the true rise of Yahweh, as opposed to the ways in which Josiah was trying to make Yahweh rise by reform?
Of course, Jehoiakim's reign was nothing of the sort. So also it can be that those who think that God has now finally arrived are really boasting in his departure. "No longer need we say that the church does not have silver and gold," Pope Innocent IV allegedly says. "But can the church still say, 'Rise up and walk'?" is said to respond Thomas Aquinas.
Necho says that Yahweh is rising because his puppet king will now do his bidding. None of this doing away with other gods, which Necho probably saw as perverse -- an insult to those other gods. None of this worrying about the oppressed. The powerful are in place because God has favored them and put them there. The poor are cursed because God doesn't like them. The order of things is God's order, and to resist it is to resist God. Jehoiakim is God rising, finally.
3. Except it isn't. The real Yahweh says, "I have abandoned my house" (12:7). The hawks are hungry for God's people. Let them come, Yahweh says (12:9). The "shepherds" of Israel have trampled God's vineyard (12:10). The land has become desolate, and its leaders haven't even noticed (12:11).
But God will have his day. The leaders say in one breath, "As Yahweh lives" and in the next say, "As Ba'al lives" (12:16). Fine. They are about to be plucked from the land. God is about to pluck Judah up. God will bring them back after this judgment (12:15). But dire times await in the meantime.
4. Jeremiah is already exhausted. Better get ready. It's going to get much worse. He's just been racing against humans. You'll be racing against horses next (12:5). Get ready.
Meanwhile, beware of your family. They may be saying nice words to your face, but they are after you behind your back (12:6). They are preparing treachery.
Such are the joys of being a prophet of judgment. Don't expect people to like you. Don't expect people to honor you. Expect opposition. Expect plotting. Perhaps expect the church itself to turn its back on you.
Of course, not everyone who thinks he or she is a prophet truly is. From the standpoint of someone looking on, it might have been difficult to see that Jeremiah was the true prophet. Some people just like to shoot their mouths off. Some people are well-intentioned but just wrong. Hindsight is 20/20.
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