Day 232

Exile and Return

Read: Jeremiah 17-19

The time of punishment has come for Judah. Now the nature of that punishment is foretold; they will be taken away into exile (17:4). They often trusted in other nations to rescue them rather than in God; such behavior results in God’s curse (v. 5). On the other hand, “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord” (v. 7). Such a person is “like a tree planted by water” (v. 8), which is an obvious reference to Psalm 1.

A sin which especially troubled the Lord was that of working on the Sabbath. Under the new covenant, we are not to keep the Sabbath in a legalistic fashion, yet we must take time to rest and worship, to commune with God and to praise him with our fellow Christians. Those who do not take such time show their lack of interest in the Lord and in his plans.

Jeremiah is taught a lesson at the house of the potter where he sees this craftsman in the process of making a vessel of clay. Part way through a flaw is discovered in the clay, so the potter crumbles up the clay and reshapes it into another vessel. So it would be with Judah. God would crumble her in exile, but that would not be the end, he would begin anew to remake her. But while people are like clay in one way, in another they are not in that they must make choices. So the call to repentance goes out once again, “Return, every one from his evil way” (18:11).

PRAYER
Father, we pray that many may repent before it is forever too late. For Jesus’ sake. Amen.