Today’s
Scripture Reading (May 6, 2017) Jeremiah 42
The grass is always greener on the
other side of the fence. It is the proverbial
belief that the circumstances somewhere else are always better than the ones
that are experiencing here. It is the anthem of the people in our lives that
seem to have a hard time simply staying put in the same job, or the same house
or even the same church. Somewhere else the
prospects are better, and life is easier. It doesn’t seem to take us
long to discover that we were wrong, but that does
not appear to stop us from chasing what is on “the other side of the
fence.”
Sometimes the hardest decision is to stand still where you are. In the wake of the exile
of most of the people to Babylon and the assassination of Gedaliah, there is
much fear in Judah. But God’s promise to the people is that if they are willing
to stand their ground, they will prosper. The time of God’s anger had passed.
If the people would stay, the rebuilding of Judah and Israel could begin right
now.
But the people are
too scared to stay. A prosperous and comfortable life awaits them in the
opposite direction of Babylon – they believe that prosperity awaits them in
Egypt. So the people come to God and hope that God will give them his blessing
to leave the land promised to their ancestors for the land of their slavery. It
should not come as much of a surprise that the hoped for blessing does not
come. Even an objective look at their situation leads us to the belief that
staying in Judah was the safe response. The battle was over, the capital city
and the temple had been destroyed. In Judah, at least for a while, there was no
reason for Babylon to come against the population. They had no army and no
power. Here they could have started the rebuilding process in peace with the
promise of God and the strength of Babylon to keep the peace.
Egypt, on the other hand,
was still actively rebelling against the rule of Babylon. Conflict would most
likely follow those who decided to run to Egypt. And the history of the people
of Judah in Egypt had never been a positive one. Moving to Egypt was to once
again leave the protection of God for the possibility of slavery in a foreign
country. It might have even been better to run after the retreating Babylonian
army and join the exiles in Babylon. But for the remnant in Judah, going to
Egypt felt like the right decision. It was a positive decision emotionally.
And so the people
would leave their homes, and the rebuilding of the nation would have to wait
for a couple more generations, and the time of Nehemiah, Ezra, and Zerubbabel –
men who were willing to do what was uncomfortable, and follow the will of God
in the rebuilding of a nation.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 43
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