Week 27 - Jeremiah 32-34, 1st John 5 (July 2 - July 8)

Notes

Jeremiah 32: Jeremiah’s land purchase

Jeremiah makes a purchase of land in chapter 32. It may seem like a strange inclusion in this book of prophecy if you do not understand both the societal/cultural context as well as the historical and literary context of this account.

First - you need to know that each parcel of land in Judah was assigned to a tribe/family and it was not to leave the possession of that family. Even if it were eventually ‘sold’ to someone else, they would eventually have to give it back to the family to which it was assigned so it would essentially be a rental agreement. When the owner of a certain place of land wanted to “sell” their property, they had to offer it to their closest relatives in a settled line of succession so as to preserve the family ownership of the land. When a relative bought the land from them it was called “redemption.” here is a note on that process from the IVP Bible Backgrounds Commentary:

redemption. In Israelite tradition the ownership of land is tied to membership in the covenantal community (see Nabal's rejection of Ahab's attempt to purchase his vineyard in 1 Kings 21:3). When Jeremiah's relative is forced to sell the property, the prophet has the obligation of "redeeming" the field so that it will remain within the extended family of his clan (see Lev 25:25-31). There is no clear indication why Hanamel felt compelled to sell the land. It may be that he simply wished to escape the Babylonian invasion and take away something with which to start over. Or, this may be a reflection of his heavy debts in a time when it would have been difficult to bring crops to market.

However - there is something much more important than the sale of a field here. The Babylonian army has Judah under siege. Judah is staring its destruction and exile right in the face. Even if some of them have hope that Egypt will come to their rescue, Jeremiah, who has been prophesying their destruction, is certainly not among them. He is being asked to purchase a deed to land that will soon be in the hands of another kingdom - it is presumably a worthless title. But God tells him to buy the land and preserve his purchase record as a powerful sign of God’s promise to restore the people of Judah to this land after their destruction and exile. God is showing - through his prophet - that this people will continue in this land after their period of punishment through exile is finished.

JEREMIAH 34, freedom for the slaves

Something remarkable happens while Jerusalem is under siege by Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian army:

Jeremiah 34:8 The word came to Jeremiah from the Lord after King Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people in Jerusalem to proclaim freedom for the slaves. 9 Everyone was to free their Hebrew slaves, both male and female; no one was to hold a fellow Hebrew in bondage.

Jeremiah frees all the Hebrew slaves living in the land. This is actually something that was supposed to happen with great regularity among God’s people:

Exodus 21:2 “If you buy a Hebrew servant, he is to serve you for six years. But in the seventh year, he shall go free, without paying anything. 3 If he comes alone, he is to go free alone; but if he has a wife when he comes, she is to go with him. 4 If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the woman and her children shall belong to her master, and only the man shall go free.

One has to be cynical of Zedekiah’s intention here, however. It appears/seems like God’s people were shamefully negligent about obeying this commandment all through their time in the promised land. Now as a great army is encircling their walls, the slaves are freed? This is likely a move by Zedekiah to enroll more fighting men for their defense.

Zedekiah's extraordinary proclamation to release all Hebrew debt slaves comes in the period after the beginning of the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem (January 588) and before the Egyptian invasion of Palestine that temporarily ended the siege (summer 588). It is unclear whether the release was simply a way to add to the number of available defenders for the city or was associated in some way with the slave legislation found in Exodus 21:2-6, Leviticus 25:39-55 and Deuteronomy 15:2-3. In the ancient Near East the freeing of prisoners (from debtors' prison) as an act of justice often occurred in the first or second year of a new king's reign (and then periodically after that).

-IVP Bible Backgrounds Commentary

Jeremiah 34:21: A Babylonian Withdrawl?

While still prophesying doom, 34:21 seems to indicate that there has been some withdrawal or reprieve from the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem.

21 “I will deliver Zedekiah king of Judah and his officials into the hands of their enemies who want to kill them, to the army of the king of Babylon, which has withdrawn from you. 22 I am going to give the order, declares the Lord, and I will bring them back to this city. They will fight against it, take it and burn it down. And I will lay waste the towns of Judah so no one can live there.”

Indeed there was!

The red line is the ocasion for our text here. those two short spurs that run south of the dead sea are the Babylonian army meeting an Egyptian force.

The Egyptian pharaoh Psammeticus II had spent much of his reign attempting to regain the territory in Phoenicia and Palestine that Nebuchadnezzar had taken away from his predecessor Necho II. Judah relied heavily on Egyptian promises of aid in return for rebellion against the Babylonians (as noted in the Lachish Let-ters). Their hopes and the hopes of the Judean exiles were seemingly answered when Pharaoh Apries (who had succeeded to the throne in 589 finally invaded southern Palestine in early summer 588 (see Ezek 30:20-26). This, plus an Egyptian fleet that sailed to Tyre and quickly took control there (mentioned by the Greek historian Herodot-us), forced Nebuchadnezzar to withdraw from Jerusalem. The Egyptians, however, were quickly defeated (possibly near Gaza), and the siege resumed by late summer 588.

The Kingdom of Judah had been depending on Egypt to assist them in their rebellion against the Babylonian Empire - and to Egypt’s credit - they tried. Egypt Marched out against Nebuchadnezzar, but they were quickly defeated, the Siege of Jerusalem resumed and the destruction of Jerusalem would soon follow.

1ST JOHN 5:16-17: A Sin That Does Not Lead To Death

we run into some pretty confusing words in 1st John 5:

1st John 5:16 If you see any brother or sister commit a sin that does not lead to death, you should pray and God will give them life. I refer to those whose sin does not lead to death. There is a sin that leads to death. I am not saying that you should pray about that. 17 All wrongdoing is sin, and there is sin that does not lead to death.

The first clarification I would make is that “life” in 1st John is frequently shorthand for “eternal life” and “death” functions similarly in the opposite direction.

5:16-17. Given the use of “life” for *eternal life and “death” for its opposite in this epistle, a “sin unto death” (KJV) would seem to be a sin leading one away from eternal life (cf. Gen 2:17; 3:24). The two sins John would likely have most prominently in mind would be hating the brothers and sisters (the secessionists’ rejection of the Christian community) and failing to believe in Jesus rightly (their false doctrine about his identity as the divine Lord and *Christ in the flesh); see comment on 3:23. The *Old Testament and Judaism distinguished between willful rebellion against God, which could not be forgiven by normal means, and a lighter transgression. More relevant here, some ancient Jewish texts (e.g., *Dead Sea Scrolls CD 9.6, 17; *Jubilees 21:22; 26:34; 33:18; cf. the Hebrew of Deut 22:26) also spoke of a capital offense as “a matter of death,” which was normally enforced by excommunication from the community rather than literal execution. Those who were sinned against could secure forgiveness for their opponents by prayer (Gen 20:7, 17; Job 42:8), but a sin of willful apostasy from God’s truth nullified the efficacy of secondhand prayers for forgiveness (1 Sam 2:25; Jer 7:16; 11:14; 14:11). John is presumably saying: God will forgive erring believers at your request, but those

Keener, Craig S.. The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (pp. 714-715). InterVarsity Press.

Not all sin is the same. Maybe you have heard someone say before “All sin is the same.” However, this verse and several others in the New Testament indicate that some sins are especially serious and imperiling. It would* be correct to say that all sin has the same effect - falling short of God’s righteousness gives us a burden of guilt that would purchase damnation if we are not rescued and redeemed by Jesus who can reconcile us to God as members of his righteous covenant people. But scripture gives us a number of indications that some sins anger God to a greater degree than others - who are we to take issue with that?