On a cold wintery day in 604 BCE, the original Jeremiah scroll was cut up, piece by piece, and thrown into a fire until it was consumed. Beginning this week, Ross K Nichols attempts to reconstruct this ancient, precious scroll by following the clues in our present Book of Jeremiah. How much of the charred remains of Jeremiah’s original scroll can be recovered from those ancient flames? Don’t miss, Reading Jeremiah’s Burnt Scroll.
The Video stream and recording were disrupted due to internet feed issues. The audio recording, however, is fine. Please listen to the audio of this class.
The year is 605 BCE. It’s Jehoiakim’s 4th year and Nebuchadnezzar’s 1st. After defeating the Assyrians at Charchemish, the Babylonians pushed Egypt out of Judea, subjugated the King of Judah, and took captives. Meanwhile, Jeremiah is told to record all the words the LORD has spoken to him for the previous twenty-three years. Check out The Boiling Caldron.
While missed by most, one righteous family is ever present in the Book of Jeremiah. Three generations of THIS family represent the best of the Judeans in the Kingdom’s final years.
They ARE … The Holy Family.
Who they were and what they did is the subject of class thirteen in my ongoing series – The World and Words of the Prophet Jeremiah.
Featuring the biblical teaching of Ross K. Nichols. This series covers The World and Words of the Prophet Jeremiah.
This teaching is class twelve of Ross’s ongoing series on The World and Words of the Prophet Jeremiah. We are studying the days of King Jehoiakim, and this class picks up at the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim and Jeremiah’s famous Temple Sermon related in chapters 7 and 26 of the Book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah offered opportunities for repentance to this son of Josiah, but rather than accept the Torah recently put before the people, he chose the sword and then used it to kill a prophet of the LORD! Jehoiakim became the prophet slayer!
In class eleven of our ongoing study of the World and Words of the Prophet Jeremiah, we begin to explore the days of the reign of King Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah. Jehoiakim’s reign is covered in the Books of Kings and Chronicles, by the prophet Jeremiah, and by one other biblical book (revealed in this class). Sometimes our sources agree, but there is one significant disagreement between the accounts in Kings and Chronicles. Can we resolve the apparent disagreement by carefully studying Jeremiah and the “other” biblical source text?
After Josiah Ben Ammon died, the Kingdom of Judah passed to his sons. Hulda had predicted that the good king would die a peaceful death. He didn’t. He died from wounds he sustained in a battle at Megiddo with Egypt’s Neco. The writers of Kings and Chronicles inform us that his son Jehoahaz takes the throne after Josiah dies and that he reigns for only three months. But, in our only record of the sons of Josiah (I Chronicles 3:15), we have no mention of Jehoahaz, and Jeremiah’s book tells us that the word of the LORD came to him during Josiah’s reign, the days of Jehoiakim, and Zedekiah. Where is Jehoahaz? Who is Jehoahaz? Does Jeremiah mention anything about this three-month window of time? In this class, we take a close look at the transition from Josiah to the reign of his sons.
During the days of Josiah, in the eighteenth year of his reign, the king dispatched Shaphan, the scribe, with instructions to work alongside the High Priest Hilkiah on a project to repair the house of the LORD. During the restorative work, the High Priest reportedly discovered the scroll of the Torah that Moses wrote. This class covers the remarkable events of this discovery and lays out the implications of arguably the great discovery of all time. What do our sources say about this sefer? At the time of its discovery, the word of the LORD had been coming to Jeremiah for more than five years, yet those in charge did not consult him. Does Jeremiah mention this greatest discovery? One would expect that Jeremiah would mention the discovery of the original Moses scroll since it reportedly happened in his day. As it turns out, he does.
In the eighteenth year of Josiah’s reign, the king begins a restoration of the Temple. The writer of Chronicles informs us that “the kings of Judah had let [it] go to ruin.” In this class, we go through the texts of the books of Kings and Chronicles, comparing and contrasting the accounts of each from the completion of the House in the days of Solomon to the time of Josiah. The biblical accounts reveal that this house was disregarded and disrespected during its history, resulting in its damaged state in the 7th century BCE.
**In this class, I mentioned the book, A Synoptic Harmony of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles: With Related Passages from Psalms, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezra (Oregon: Wipf & Stock, 1986), Ed. James D. Newsome Jr., I highly recommend this work. You can find it on the web and through many booksellers but click here to purchase it through Amazon.
To understand a text, we need to know the circumstances that form the setting. We need to know the context. The words of Jeremiah then MUST be understood within his world, the events of which are presented in 2 Kings, 2 Chronicles, the prophetic books of Jeremiah, Zephaniah, and some of Ezekiel. Context provides clarity. What can we learn about the words of Jeremiah from a careful study of the context provided by other biblical texts in other biblical books? In this teaching, we examine events recorded in Kings and Chronicles and look for traces of these events within the words of Jeremiah.
His “ministry” began 40 years before the destruction of the Temple and a great exile. He predicted that the beautiful Temple which he called a den of robbers (orcave of violent ones), would be destroyed. The priests considered him enemy number one and plotted against him, even seeking his life. He criticized his people for having ears to hear and eyes to see but not hearing and seeing. He also spoke of a future New Covenant for God’s people, including Israel’s lost and scattered sheep, and predicted their eventual return. Don’t miss Riddles in Prophecy – Class Six in my series, The World and Words of the Prophet Jeremiah!
We learn from the Book of Jeremiah that his prophetic career overlaps the days of King Josiah. Jeremiah first hears the word of the LORD in the 13th year of Josiah’s reign, and his prophecies extend until the captivity. The Books of Kings and Chronicles say that during Josiah’s days, a significant revival/reform took place, going so far as to report that the people followed the righteous King Josiah in his renewed commitment to the covenant (II Kings 22:3; II Chronicles 34:31-33). But Jeremiah never mentions this revival among the people. He seems to be unaware of this mass turning to the covenant. He reports that the people have refused to listen to the word of the LORD despite prophets rising early and proclaiming a divine message. When God commanded Jeremiah to write his scroll, he told him the scroll’s goal. It happens to be the same goal as the famous but rarely understood New Covenant. The same goal, it seems, can be traced back to a request that Moses made of God when the covenant was engraved upon two stone tablets. According to the biblical texts, what was the goal of the scroll and of the covenants – Old AND New?
What do we know about prophecy in the time of Josiah (640-609 BCE)? According to the biblical narrative sources, we know that Jeremiah (Jeremiah 1:1-3) and Zephaniah (Zephaniah 1:1) were hearing from God during the reign of Josiah. But readers of these texts are left with questions. Did Josiah even know these two prophets? The Bible never indicates that Jeremiah or Zephaniah had any interactions with the man called the most righteous king. How is it that Josiah was killed at 39 years of age on a battlefield at Megiddo in a war that he need not be involved in? Who was advising Josiah? And what do we know about prophecy in the days of Josiah?
