Tag: Babylon

The Bible in a Year – 4 June

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

4 June. Ezekiel chapters 16-17

When Ezekiel was not acting out the prophecies he received, he couched them in terms of allegories or parables, much as Jesus did with his teachings.  The first of these chapters pictures the nation of Israel/Judah as a prostitute, or adulterous wife, who left her husband (the true god) who had loved her as an abandoned child, married her as a young woman and brought her up into a royal household.  She left him and slept with all her neighbours and strangers, even paying them for love.  This could be seen as relating to Israel’s political alliances or the people’s worship of false gods – probably both.  The use of this imagery is found elsewhere in the Bible, but never in such an extended form.

 

Chapter 17 pictures those who had been taken into captivity in Babylon in a very different way, as a cutting from a cedar (a very large, useful and long-lived tree, often used in the Bible as another image of God’s love).  The cutting was planted in Babylon by God’s will but tried to transplant itself again to Egypt (with which Judah had tried to form an alliance), but the attempt was doomed to failure.  The only successful transplant would be that initiated by God, who would take a further cutting and re-establish it to become a mature tree back in Jerusalem.

 

Whether you prefer the gentle gardening imagery of a tree and its cutting, or the bloodier and more shocking image of the prostitute, the lesson is clear: unfaithfulness to God is every bit as bad, or worse, than unfaithfulness to your own husband or wife; and no attempt at saving yourself will succeed, as God is the only one who can save you.

 

The Bible in a Year – 28-29 May

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

28-29 May. Jeremiah chapters 50-52

After prophesying the conquest of several countries by the Babylonians, Jeremiah now receives a prophecy against Babylon itself, that he would “do to her as she has done to others” (50:15).  Covering the whole of chapters 50 and 51, it leaves no doubt that the Babylonians, although God had allowed them to punish Judah for its sins, would receive punishment themselves. And their punishment would be devastating. Whereas in Jerusalem it was the rulers and middle classes who bore the brunt of the Babylonians’ attack and were carried captive, in Babylon everyone would be destroyed – warriors, shepherds, farmers as well as governors and officials, old and young, male and female (51:21-23).

 

But what had Babylon done so terribly to deserve such punishment?  Most of this prophecy is about the detail of what would happen to them rather than the reasons for it.  Their sins are not described in detail, although we are told that they opposed the Lord (50:24), showed arrogance (50:31), listened to false prophets (50:36), and committed idolatry (51:17).  Clearly they were no saints, but nor do they seem to have been different from any of the other cultures around them. In a time when monotheism was the exception not the rule, and when the dominant world view (both inside and outside Israel) was a tribal one, with unelected leaders expected to accumulate wealth and achieve military victories, they were just like other nations.

 

The prophesy against Babylon finishes with “The words of Jeremiah end here”.  The final chapter, then, is a later editorial addition and explicitly so.  It is in fact almost word-for-word a repeat of the last chapter of 2 Kings, and describes in factual prose not the fall of Babylon but that of Jerusalem.  This is presumably to emphasise that the prophecies of the end of the exile were given by Jeremiah even before it had begun.   It is not difficult for anyone with an eye on world events to predict what might happen in a year or two, but only someone genuinely receiving a prophetic word from God can accurately predict what will happen seventy years on.

The Bible in a Year – 2 May

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

2 May. Isaiah chapters 13-17

These prophecies take poetic form, and like all poetry are to be taken symbolically more than literally.  I had to turn to a commentary to even begin to understand these (and other parts of Isaiah) – for the record, it’s Barry Webb’s book in the “Bible Speaks Today” series.

 

According to Webb, what is important is not the specific prophecies against specific political units of the 8th century BC (Babylon, Assyria, Edom, Philistia and Egypt). Indeed he thinks “Babylon” stands for any empire that opposes God.  Rather the overall thrust of the whole of chapters 12-27 is a reminder that however chaotic, destructive and frightening world events may seem to be (in the course of about 200 years, first the Assyrians and then the Babylonians would first conquer and then be conquered), the will of God is supreme. God can use and then cast aside any earthly power in the course of bringing his ultimate plan (redemption of the world) to fruition.  Along the way there will be casualties, innocent as well as guilty. Only in the world to come will all of earthly history make sense and God’s righteous judgment be given.

 

We need to bear this in mind at a time when the “powers that be” are being shaken up again.  The near east (and especially Syria) ravaged by conflicting powers, each apparently as bad as the others; the European  Union looking increasingly unstable; Russia back in the hands of an autocrat and even the USA with a president who plays loosely with democracy; and North Korea threatening nuclear war.  We can only pray with increasing urgency “God’s will be done”.