This summer we mourned the death of our elder Rolf. Death is no fun. In some ways the human body is delicate and fragile – but when it comes to relinquishing life, we are amazingly resilient and stubborn.
But exile is worse than death. Think back to Abraham. When Sarah dies, Abraham wants to buy a burial plot for her. In Genesis 23, Abraham goes to the Hittites and asks for a burying place. They offer to let him bury his dead in their tombs. Abraham refuses.
Now, you need to understand ancient near eastern burial practices. They would have an underground vault or cave, with stone platforms where they would put the deceased. When the body had rotted away, they would push the bones off the platform, so that the bones of many generations would pile up in the tomb.
Abraham does not want the bones of his wife to mingle with the bones of those who are under God’s curse. Abraham lived in the land – but the Promised Land was not yet what it should be. He lived as a sojourner and a foreigner in the land of Promise.
But Abraham was not in exile! Abraham lived in the Land of Promise – awaiting the fulfillment of what God had said. Now, more than a thousand years later, his descendents would be exiled from the land – banished by God for their sins!
So far in Jeremiah we have heard a lot of sermonic material – but we haven’t been told much about when it was delivered.
Here in chapter 21 we have the first clear reference to a particular datable event – the invasion of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon.
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