06/11/2022 – Day 104 – Jeremiah 12 – 16: Jeremiah’s complaint / The Marred Girdle / Jeremiah’s intercession, What is called “Jeremiah’s Grotto”/ Jeremiah forbidden to marry.
Chapter 12. Jeremiah’s complaint
Right up front in the first verse Jeremiah airs a complaint to the Lord: “Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all the faithless live at ease?” I have called Jeremiah the “whining” prophet, but he remains faithful. Jesus asked an audience: Who is the more obediant? 1) The servant that says I will go, and then doesn’t? , or, 2) THe servant that refuses verballly but follows up in the end through obediance? The responders answered appropriately with the later servant.
Chapter 13. The Marred Girdle
Halley’s Bible Handbook notes: “Jeremiah made considerable use of symbols in his preaching (see on 19:1) The girdle was probably richly decorated , a conspicuous part of Jeremiah’s dress, as he walked about the streets of Jerusalem. Later, rotted, ragged and dirty, it served to attract attention. As curious crowds gathered around the prophet it gae his ocassion to explain that even so Judah, with whom Jehovah had clothed Himself to walk among men, once beautiful and glorious, would marred and cast off.”
Chapter 14, 15. Jeremiah’s Intercession
What a declaration from the Lord in verse 11 – 12: “Do not pray for the well-being of this people…. I will destroy them with the sword, famine and plague.” Halley informs us: “What is called ‘Jeremiah’s Grotto,’ one of the retreats to which he ws siad to have retired to weep, was at the foot of the knoll on which, 600 years later, the cross of Jesus stood. (see figure 61).”
Chapter 16. Jeremiah Forbidden to Marry
Jeremiah was commanded to remain single. Contrast that with Hosea the prophet who was commanded to marry a prostitute, symbolic of the unfaithful nation of Israel. Which is a more daunting task?
Halley adds: “What’s the use of raising a family just to be butchered in the frightful carnage about to be loosed upon the inhabitants of Judah? (Again the promises of Restoration (14-15)
So, the Lord in fact restored them to the land he gave their forefathers in 1946, some 2500 years later after the Babylonian captivity!
Soli Deo Gloria!