I will make Jerusalem a heap of ruins, a haunt of jackals; and I will lay waste the towns of Judah so no one can live there. – Jeremiah 9:11

Today’s Scripture Reading (February 20, 2014): Jeremiah 9

Yann Martel’s novel, and later the movie by Ang Lee, ‘The Life of Pi,” presented the viewer with an interesting decision in the final scene. Which of the stories presented was the real story? Did Pi really end up on a lifeboat with the animals – including a man-eating Tiger, or was it the human variety of animal that caused the pain and death on the boat. Was Pi threatened by the tiger, or was he really the tiger in the boat? Was it the spotted hyena that caused the death of the other animals (other than the tiger) on the boat, or was it the cook in the human story.

But the truth is that the question is not really all that important (although movie goers tended to lean toward the human version while readers of the book accepted the animal version of the story.) The reality of the story is that if it was the hyena that was responsible for the death of the injured zebra and the orangutan on the boat before being dispatched himself by a tiger named Richard Parker, then the hyena was only doing as nature demanded. And Pi’s attempt to befriend Richard Parker later in the story was an attempt to accomplish what nature would seem to prohibit. But if the human version was true, and it was the cook that killed the sailor and Pi’s own mother before being killed by Pi, then the cook was acting more like an animal than a human, and the probability is that Pi was now left waging an inner war with his own guilt over killing of the cook. But Martel’s basic point would seem to be that both stories are essentially the same story.

Jeremiah looks forward to the future of Jerusalem with an amazing prophecy. The day was coming when only animals will inhabit Israel’s Holy City – and when all of the towns of Judah would be laid to waste. The prophecy is yet another predictive statement pointing toward the Babylonian Exile. And it would come true. The time would come when the towns would be deserted. It would seem that while some the people of Judah would be taken into exile in Babylon (among those finding their way to Babylon would have been prophets of Israel like Daniel and Ezekiel.) But a significant number of the remaining people seemed to have run away from Babylon and their Judean homeland into Egypt (and among this number was Jeremiah himself, along with his secretary Baruch.) The result is that there were very few people left in Judah. Jerusalem itself lay in ruins – and the few people left in the Judah were scattered over the country side.

But there might be another part of the prophecy. Jeremiah’s imagery might be more than just a picture of what happens when a city is left vacant. Like “The Life of Pi” stories, the reality is that Jerusalem in the days leading up to the exile was already being inhabited by animals. And Jeremiah’s message seemed to be that if the people of Judah were insist on acting like animals, then God was going to allow the city to be inhabited by real ones. In the end, there would be very little change – either way Jerusalem was being inhabited by animals – it is just a different kind of animal that inhabited Jerusalem before the exile than would inhabit the city after.

Tomorrow’s Scriptures Reading: Jeremiah 10