Today's
Scripture Reading (March 29, 2020): Jeremiah 4
Growing up, the
bogeyman who we were taught to fear was the Soviet Union or U.S.S.R. Ronald
Reagan began his time as President of the United States by referring to them as
"the Evil Empire." I still remember well-meaning Bible teachers making
a connection between biblical prophecies of the end times and the Soviet Union.
There was no doubt that, in the minds of these experts, it was the U.S.S.R. that
was in the mind of God when he caused his prophets to prophesy about what was
coming in our future.
But by the end
of Reagan's two terms as President, the Soviet Union was gone. The evil empire disappeared,
and the fear of the Cultural West was reimagined into a dream of the possibility
of making new friends out of the various pieces of the once-powerful Soviet
Bloc. It wasn't that Russia was no longer dominant; they were a compelling
nation, and for the past three decades have flirted with either being a world
superpower or have existed just below that line. But, of course, the well-meaning
biblical teachers had to find another bogeyman that could be found in the
modern world but described in the pages of the Bible. Many saw the new bogeyman
in the only remaining superpower; The United States of America.
All of this
just reflects our dependence on the current social situations as we read the
pages of the Bible. Often, our inferences are wrong, and we have to adjust, but
it is not the Bible that is wrong, just the way that we have read it that has contained
the error.
And, for those
who like to think deeply about such things, it gives us a chance for us to
become historical detectives as we try to find the historical roots of these
prophecies. And that is very true with the writings of Jeremiah.
So, Jeremiah comments
that a lion has come out of his lair. This lion was a destroyer of nations. During
my childhood, that destroyer of nations coming from the north (verse 6) might
have been identified as the Soviet Union. But the question that intrigues me is
this; Did Jeremiah have anyone in particular in mind as he spoke these words?
There are two
easy answers to that question. Jeremiah might have been referring to the
Assyrians. They were north of Judah and a world power. The struggle I have with
the Assyrian answer is that, by the time these words were written, they were a
superpower in decline. It had been a hundred years since they had destroyed the
Kingdom of Israel, and eighty years since they had laid siege to Jerusalem. Jeremiah
seems to be referring to someone new who was just emerging out of their den, and
the Assyrian Empire does not seem to fit that description.
The better
answer might be the Babylonian Empire. The ultimate fulfillment of this
prophecy seems to have come from them. But while the attack of the Babylonians
came from the north, the heart of the Babylonian Empire existed in modern-day Iraq,
which is east of Judah, and not north.
Maybe a more
obscure solution to the question of what Jeremiah might have been thinking as
he spoke this prophecy was the emerging Scythian Empire, which was ruling the
steppe just north of the declining Assyrian Empire. They were a threat.
Biblically, the Scythians are often overlooked by scholars because it did not
seem that they ever played a significant role in the Middle East. But, for Jeremiah
and the people who first heard or read his words, they feared the Scythians as
much as the Soviet Union was feared in my childhood. Just because the fear was
never realized, doesn't mean that Jeremiah was not looking at that northern empire
as he spoke his words.
Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Jeremiah
5
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