Today's Scripture Reading (July 24, 2026): Jeremiah 49
Israel was always designed to operate as a theocracy, a nation where God
was supposed to rule as the physical king. What we sometimes forget is that,
while that is an unusual form of government, Israel would not have been the
only theocracy in ancient times. Many nations were built on the idea of the "rule
of the gods." And another possible candidate for a theocracy is
the Kingdom of Ammon and the Ammonites. In this case, the god in question would
be Molech or Molek. But for the Ammonites, Molek was not just the name of their
God; it was the name of their king. In fact, Molek seems to mean "the god
who is king." Another interesting parallel between Ammon and Israel is
that both nations were known as "The Children of." The people of
Israel were known as "The Children of Israel," and the people of
Ammon were known as "The Children of Ammon."
Gad was a Transjordanian tribe of Israel (a tribe that had settled,
along with Manasseh and Reuben, on the east side of the Jordan River, while the
rest of the tribes settled on the west side of the river). But the territory,
which had been part of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, not Judah, was no longer
a possession of the descendants of Jacob. By the time of Jeremiah, the Kingdom
of Israel had long been defeated by the Assyrian Empire, and Israel had been
carried into exile, now just a province of a foreign empire. Yet God still
seemed to expect Judah, who represented the surviving children of Israel, to be
in control of the cities of the Northern Kingdom, specifically the cities of
Gad, which had long been lost to the Kingdom of Ammon. God's question is: why
did Judah allow this situation to arise?
So, God's message to Judah asks the question, "Does Israel (or
Jacob) have no sons? Because the cities that I gave to the children of Israel
are now in the possession of the children of Molek" (either the god, the
king, or both). This lack would form part of the charge against Judah; they had
not had the faith to keep all that God had given to them.
It is a question that I admit that I wrestle with. Do I have the
strength and the faith to keep what God has given to me? And I am not sure that
I always know the answer. But I do believe that the church has become a safe
church, not that it is a safe place to be, but rather, a safe place that is
unwilling to risk for God. And because of that, we have lost the holy places
and the people God intended for us to impact. And I wonder if at some point in
the future, the question that Jeremiah asked of Judah will be asked of us. Why
have you lost the ones whom I entrusted to your care?
Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Ezekiel 1
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