Notes

Jeremiah 7:11: Familiar Words & Gospel insight

Jeremiah 7:9 “‘Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal and follow other gods you have not known, 10 and then come and stand before me in this house, which bears my Name, and say, “We are safe”—safe to do all these detestable things? 11 Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of robbers to you? But I have been watching! declares the Lord.

These words are given to Jeremiah by God in the middle of an indictment of his people for worshiping outwardly (at the temple) while practicing evil and selfishness in their daily lives. God is telling them that their worship (and the protection of the temple) is worthless if they are treating people wickedly. God even goes so far as to tell people not to pray for them (v.16) until they change their ways.

These words appear again in scripture because Matthew, Mark, and Luke record that they were on Jesus’ tongue when he cleared the temple:

12 Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. 13 “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’” (see also Mark 11:17 and Luke 19:46 - John records very similar words in chapter 2, but not this reference precisely)

Don’t imagine that Jesus was using “den of robbers” just to turn a phrase. He was connecting the sin of Jeremiah 7 with what was happening there in the temple courts. Often times when we read this story in the gospels were tempted to take away something like “well, I guess we’re not allowed to sell stuff in the Church lobby.” However, this reference to Jeremiah 7 gives an insight into what Jesus is really angry about. We’re directed by this quotation to consider the wickedness and cruelty of what was being done in the temple courts (i.e. taking advantage of the poor), instead of the simple fact that things were being sold. The connection to Jeremiah 7 pushes our application of this passage toward “how we treat the poor and underprivileged (especially in Church)” and away from whether or not things can be sold in the Church lobby

JEREMIAH 7:31 THE VALLEY OF SLAUGHTER

30 “‘The people of Judah have done evil in my eyes, declares the Lord. They have set up their detestable idols in the house that bears my Name and have defiled it. 31 They have built the high places of Topheth in the Valley of Ben Hinnom to burn their sons and daughters in the fire—something I did not command, nor did it enter my mind.

"Topheth" was the cultic site in Judah where children were offered to the god Molech. The name of the place derives its name from the hearth where the child was placed and could be translated fireplace or furnace. This valley was just southwest of the area of Jerusalem called the City of David. Molech was a netherworld deity whose rituals had Canaanite origins and focused on dead ancestors. Here, through Jeremiah, God promises to make the place of this detestable practice the location of their punishment and shame when His judgement arrives.

This shame would be achieved by filling this site with human bones.

Bones in tombs were considered sacred. The bridge between life and death in the ancient Near East was different from ours. Individuals were understood to have a consciousness after death as long as their bodies (i.e. bones) still existed and had been burred properly. Often the desecration of graves was not merely to retrieve treasure but to disturb the bones of the dead. Ashurbanipal, king of Assyria attacked the Elamite capital of Susa and carried off the bones of the dead with the purpose of "imposing restlessness upon their spirits and depriving them of food offerings and libations." Cults of the dead abounded throughout the Near East. In Israel the bodies of the dead were also treated carefully; disturbing tombs was looked on with horror. One is reminded that both Jacob and Joseph desired that their bones be taken to the Promised Land when the Israelites returned there. (IVP Bible Backgrounds Commentary)

JEREMIAH 8:22: A BALM IN GILEAD

Do these words spark a melody in your head? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMs3M1jdIRM)

There is a balm in Gilead
to make the wounded whole,
there is a balm in Gilead
to heal the sin-sick soul.

That song springs from this passage in Jeremiah. he asks the question "Is there no balm in Gilead?" Surprisingly, to Jeremiah's audience, the answer was no:

There is no evidence for a balm-producing tree or shrub ever having grown in Gilead, although the boundaries of Gilead were never well defined. Gilead likely gained this association with balm because the main trade-route in the region passed through there and balm was a primary commodity of trade. The balm used most commonly in this region, was probably the resin of the storax tree, obtained by n incision on the bark of the tree. it was believed to have had medicinal qualities. (IVP Bible Background Commentary)

Gilead is the region east of the Jordan river that was given to Ruben, Gad, and Manasseh as their inheritance in the promised land. when Jesus approached Judea and Jerusalem for the final time, he traveled through Gilead, then the Roman province of Perea, crossing the Jordan near Jericho before making his final ascent to Zion. Jesus is the balm and physician of Gilead that provided healing for the wound of God's people.

John 19: carrying His Cross

Normally prisoners were marched through crowds of onlookers, using a public execution to warn against rebellion. Condemned criminals normally carried their own cross (the horizontal beam, the patibulum, not the upright stake) to the site of the execution, where it would be affixed to the upright stake (palus). The victim was usually stripped naked for the procession and execution as well, although this full nakedness must have offended some Jewish sensibilities in Palestine. Thus Jesus would probably be led from Herod’s old palace, in the Upper City, through the garden gate (against the more traditional route envisioned by tourists).The probable site of Golgotha was outside the city wall and not far from Herod’s palace—perhaps a thousand feet north/northeast of it. Roman custom placed crucifixions, and Jewish custom located stonings, outside towns rather than at their center (in the *Old Testament, cf. Lev 24:14, 23; Num 15:35-36; Deut 17:5; 21:19-21; 22:24; in the *New Testament, cf. Lk 4:29; Acts 7:58).

Keener, Craig S.. The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (p. 305). InterVarsity Press.

John 19: Jesus’ Burial

The traditional Catholic and Orthodox site of Jesus’ tomb is probably fairly accurate. Everyone knew that burials must be outside city walls, yet this site is within Jerusalem’s walls. Archaeology reveals, however, that Herod Agrippa I expanded the walls of Jerusalem while he was king of Judea (A.D. 41–44) and that this site was outside the walls at the historic time of Jesus’ burial. The memory of the site thus goes back to within roughly a decade of the event, hence is a fresh and likely accurate memory.
Crucifixion victims were usually thrown into a common grave for criminals and were not to be mourned publicly after their death; had the Romans had their way, the corpses would not have been buried at all, but such behavior would have needlessly provoked otherwise peaceful local residents. Local Jewish leaders probably normally. deposited the bodies in criminals’ graves for a year before handing them over to families. But exceptions seem to have been made at times if family or powerful *patrons interceded for the body, naturally inviting comment as in the Gospels. Burying the dead was a crucial and pious duty in Judaism, and an important act of love; being unburied was too horrible to be permitted even for criminals (Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 4.202, 264-65). Scripture and tradition mandated it before sundown (Deut 21:23; Josephus, Jewish War 4.317). To accomplish his task before sundown and the advent of the sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea has to hurry.
Roman authorities did sometimes hand over bodies to friends or relatives who desired to bury them. Nevertheless, Joseph’s request for Jesus’ body was an act of courage. Especially for someone outside the family to make the request, it could identify one with the person executed for treason. Far from Joseph’s wealth and influence protecting him, it could have also made him a target of special scrutiny and envy. Joseph acts more courageously here than do Jesus’ previously public *disciples.

Keener, Craig S.. The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (p. 308). InterVarsity Press.

Week 20 - Jeremiah 6-9, John 19 (May 14-20)