The Prophet’s appeal to common sense.

Say to them, ‘This is what the Lord says: “When men fall down, do they not get up? When a man turns away, does he not return? Why then have these people turned away? Why does Jerusalem always turn away? They cling to deceit; they refuse to return. I have listened attentively, but they do not say what is right.

No-one repents of his wickedness, saying, ‘What have I done?’ Each pursues his own course like a horse charging into battle. Even the stork in the sky knows her appointed seasons, and the dove, the swift and the thrush observe the time of their migration. But my people do not know the requirements of the Lord.”’ (Jeremiah 8:4-7)

In this passage Jeremiah makes an appeal to common sense. He says: when someone stumbles and falls over, if they are a normal, healthy human being, they don’t stay lying on the ground bemoaning their plight - they get up. In the same way, if someone finds he is going in the wrong direction, he doesn’t just increase his speed hoping that he will get to the right place in the end! He recognises that he has to turn around and go in the right direction – it’s plain common sense!

Jeremiah then makes an appeal to nature, saying that even the birds in the air know the times and seasons, observing their times of migration so that they are not caught in the wrong place in wintertime. When they see the signs of winter approaching, they fly away to warmer places. If they did not observe the signs of approaching danger, they would not live to survive the winter storms.

The citizens of Jerusalem and the general population of Judah were so stupid, they were not even exercising ordinary common sense and recognising the danger that was plainly to be seen, if only they would open their eyes. If the birds were able to see the signs of approaching winter, the people of Israel and Judah ought to have had no difficulty in perceiving the signs of danger on the international horizon. There was plenty of news from travelling merchants that the Babylonian army was actually on the move and heading towards the land of Judah.

Jeremiah appeals to the people of Jerusalem and Judah to exercise plain common sense and open their eyes to the obvious danger ahead.

God’s Conditional Promises

Of course, Jeremiah knew that the major responsibility for this national blindness lay firmly with the priests and prophets. They proclaimed publicly that the Temple was a holy place where the Lord God of Israel had his presence. God would divinely protect the building that Solomon had created and dedicated - he would never allow it to fall into enemy hands.

But Jeremiah knew that when Solomon had prayed at the opening of the Temple, he had recognised that God’s presence and blessings were conditional upon the obedience of the nation, that they should have no other God than Yahweh the God of Israel.

Idolatry was everywhere to be seen: not only at countryside shrines and high places up in the hills, but even in the streets of Jerusalem, where the people baked cakes to Astarte, the goddess of the Assyrian Empire who was also worshipped by the Babylonians. She had obviously blessed the Babylonians greatly, so the people of Judah thought that she might do the same for them.

Common Sense Ignored

Jeremiah was horrified at the extent of spiritual idolatry right across the nation and while he primarily blamed the priests and prophets, there was really no excuse for the people, because from infancy each one was taught the Shema:

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up… (Deut 6:4-7)

The first of the Ten Commandments was “You shall have no other gods before me.” Everyone in Judah should have known this, so there was really no excuse for spiritual ignorance. If the people simply exercised basic common sense, they should have known that God would not protect an unrighteous city and a land full of idolatry. They should have known the basic ‘requirements of the Lord’.

It was the responsibility of the priests to teach the people the terms of the covenant between God and the people of Israel that had been agreed by Moses when he called the assembly at Mount Sinai. But it was the responsibility of the prophets to look for signs of danger to the nation, including on the international scene. Both priests and prophets were failing in their duty, which is the reason why the people did not know the requirements of the Lord.

Jeremiah blamed the priests and prophets for the idolatry in the nation – but there was no excuse for the people either.

Disaster Ahead

Jeremiah was a lone voice on the streets of Jerusalem; banned from the Temple and even threatened by his own family. “Beware of your friends: do not trust your brothers,” he was warned. “Friend deceives friend, and no one speaks the truth. They have taught their tongues to lie” (Jer 9:4-5).

Jeremiah wept much for the people of Jerusalem because he could see what was going to happen to them: “Oh, that my head were a spring of water and my eyes a fountain of tears! I would weep day and night for the slain of my people” (Jer 9:1).

If there was no excuse for not knowing the requirements of the Lord in Jeremiah’s time, there is surely even less excuse for us today. We not only have the teaching given to Moses by God; we also have the Gospel in the New Testament and the revelation of truth in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus our Messiah. Our generation has rejected truth and does not even have the common sense to recognise that we are heading for disaster. Will we stop and turn around before we reach the edge of the precipice?

This article is part of a series on the life and ministry of the Prophet Jeremiah. Click here to read previous instalments.

Torah Portion: Deuteronomy 1:1-3:22

Devarim (‘The words’)

This week’s Torah portion, the start of the Book of Deuteronomy, is a recounting by Moses of the previous 40 years, including an 11-day journey that, due to Israel’s rebellion, took them 38 years (Deut 1:2).

Having constructed the tabernacle and set up a practical government system at Mount Sinai / Horeb, Israel was instructed by God to “Go, take possession of the Promised Land” (Deut 1:6-8). They travelled to Kadesh Barnea (Deut 1:19) on the southern edge of the Promised Land, the ‘jumping off’ place from which the Israelites were to go up to take possession of Canaan.

Kadesh Barnea

This place already had a history: Genesis 14:7 tells us that Kadesh Barnea was in the territory of the Amalekites and Amorites, as noted in the account of the battle of the kings when Abram victoriously saved Lot and was blessed by Melchizedek, the priest-king of Salem. It was close to where Abraham eventually settled (Gen 20:1).

But, instead of taking inspiration from their father Abram’s miraculous victory, marching in as Moses instructed, Israel’s leaders, using the excuse of caution, gained agreement for spies to reconnoitre first. The result (recorded in Numbers 13, also Deuteronomy 1) was disastrous, destroying the people’s tentative trust in God and leading to God’s judgment that He would not go up with them but wait until that entire generation of fighting men had died (excepting Joshua and Caleb).

Stuck in a Rut

I have in my work observed people use Health & Safety risk assessments as a tool to destroy, for whatever reason, an inspirational project. Such assessments are all very well in their place but we ought not to let them confuse good and right decisions, especially when God has said “Go”! To obey is to follow a command immediately, without questioning, risking an unknown outcome. Isn’t God able to make his own risk assessments?

So, instead of being the springboard it should have been, Kadesh Barnea became a rut: a place of disaster, disappointment and disobedience from which God would not lead Israel out for a long time (Deut 1:46). It was also the place where:

• Rebellious Israel tried on their own to go up into the Promised Land, but were crushed and forced back by the Amorites (Deut 1:44-46)
• Miriam died and was buried (Num 20:1)
• Israel quarrelled, with the result that Moses and Aaron were also excluded from the Promised Land (Num 20:2)
• Moses’ request of the King of Edom (descendant of Israel’s brother Esau) to pass through his land was rejected (Num 20:14)

Kadesh Barnea became the place that I think everyone would have wanted to leave, but no-one was able to. It might have been the place of which David the psalmist was thinking in Psalm 40 when he wrote about the miry pit and slimy clay, an ancient refugee camp.

Fear and Faith

I have been told that Smith Wigglesworth once said, “Fear looks, faith jumps!” So let us take careful heed of Psalm 95, expanded upon in Hebrews 3:15-4:1: “Today, if you hear God’s voice, don’t harden your hearts, as you did in the Bitter Quarrel”.

These were the people that God had redeemed from Egypt, but they were unable to enter the Promised Land because of lack of trust. Therefore, let us fear rightly, trembling at the possibility that even though we have been redeemed, through not trusting we could miss the gift of entering God’s rest, instead finding ourselves in Kadesh Barnea.

Author: John Quinlan

Torah Portion: Numbers 30:1-36:13

Matot / Masei ('Tribes' / 'Journeys')

We come to the end of our journey through Numbers this week, following Moses as he fulfils his final acts of service to the Lord and to Israel. Anticipation builds through these chapters as the Children of Israel are now just a stone’s throw away from the Promised Land, after 40 long years wandering in the wilderness.

We know that these years were not easy, with Israel facing a series of implacable external enemies as well as internal revolts. The enemy tried every which way to stop God’s covenant people from receiving their promised inheritance, throwing obstacles into their path ranging from threats of physical violence to occult curses, from sexual temptations to spiritual seductions (are not all these tactics still used against God’s people today?).

But with the Lord on their side, Israel was unstoppable. Canaanite and Amorite armies fell before them. The curses of professional seer Balaam, commissioned by the Moabites, were turned on their head. Attempts by Moab and Midian to use their women to seduce Israel sexually and spiritually were thwarted. Each of these obstacles was turned by the Lord for good: to judge His enemies, test and strengthen Israel’s faith, bless them and bring Himself glory. But they were not without cost on Israel’s part.

Moses’ Final Task

In chapter 31 of Numbers, the Lord gives Moses one final instruction before the Children of Israel were finally to cross over the Jordan: to order vengeance on the people of Midian for their part in seducing the men of Israel with women and pagan idols. From the moment of this betrayal (reported in Numbers 25) Moses had been instructed to “treat the Midianites as enemies and kill them, because they treated you as enemies” (Num 25:16-18).

This must have been a difficult pill for Moses to swallow – Moses, who had married a Midianite woman, lived for years in Midian in the tents of his Midianite father-in-law, who also acted as an advisor to him (Ex 18). Moses, who was evidently close to his Midianite brother-in-law (see Num 10:20-32), as well as probably many others from this tribe. Indeed, the Midianites were descendants of Abraham (see Genesis 25:1-2), so they were probably viewed by the Children of Israel as distant relations.

But something had happened to persuade Midian to turn on their own flesh and blood, joining the Moabites in plotting to thwart God’s purposes for Israel. How painful this must have been for Moses to witness – and how difficult he must have found it to order Israel to take up arms against them.

Zealous Defence

Even in his old age, on the verge of death, Moses had to learn to count the cost of following God wholeheartedly, as Jesus taught us to do:

If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters - yes, even his own life - he cannot be My disciple. And whoever does not carry his cross and follow Me cannot be My disciple. (Luke 14:26-27)

Today we may not be called to kill in order to defend our families and communities from evil, but we ought to have the same spiritual zeal in the battle against the “principalities and powers of this world’s darkness” (Eph 6:12) in which we are all embroiled. This visceral illustration from the journey of ancient Israel shows how seriously God takes the defence of His children's safety and purity. So ought we – whatever the cost.

Author: Frances Rabbitts