Today's Scripture Reading (September 12, 2026): Ezekiel 25
After the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 586 B.C.E., Nebuchadnezzar appointed Gedaliah as governor in what was now the Babylonian province of Judah. The choice was probably a very good one. Gedaliah's heritage was solid; he came from a very well-respected Judean
family. So Nebuchadnezzar chose Gedaliah, and the new Judean governor got to
work immediately. His strategy was to gather the remnant in Judah, those who
had not been carried into exile, and set them at the task of planting the
fields so that once again the fields of Judah would begin to produce food. The strategy
had two purposes. Most obviously, people still lived in the defeated territory
and needed to be fed. So they needed to grow food. However, a secondary
advantage was that agrarian activity would keep people busy, stopping them from
plotting further resistance against Babylon. By putting the remnant to work
growing food, Judah could gain some security. If they were willing to plant the
fields, then Babylon would most likely leave them alone. And after three
collisions with the superpower in the past decade, Judah needed the space.
Gedaliah was successful in his plan. He
gathered a core group around him, and they began to change the nation's culture.
However, as Gedaliah put the people to work, the Ammonites planted seeds of
doubt among some Jews about Gedaliah's motives. The Ammonites accused Gedaliah
of being a puppet of the Babylonians, a Jew who had sold out his loyalty to
Judah and the God of Israel to serve the interests of the Babylonian overlords.
Such a man didn't deserve to live.
And so the Ammonites incited Ishmael and ten
other men, all of whom were Jews, to murder Gedaliah. However, the motives of
the Ammonites were not pure. They enlisted certain Jews to join them in their
battle against Babylon, but what they really wanted was the Jews massacred.
Because it was a group of Jews that had committed the murder of Gedaliah, the
Ammonites argued that the wrath of the Babylonians would be directed against
the Jews. The Ammonites hoped the Babylonians would finish the job and annihilate
the Judean nation, a nation with whom they had never gotten along. However, they
didn't want only Judah destroyed. With the destruction of both Israel by the
Assyrians and now Judah at the hands of the Babylonians, they hoped that they
would also kill the Jewish God once and for all.
So God speaks. The words of the prophecy were
quite likely delivered to the diplomats who had gathered in Babylon. God was
not amused, and he was not going anywhere. God would have the last word, not
the children of Ammon. Because they had refused to bless the children of
Abraham, they would pay the price of their arrogance. In the end, rather than
the remnant of Israel, it would be Ammon that would suffer marginalization.
Because Yahweh was not just the God of the Jews; He was the true God of the
world.
Tomorrow's
Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 52
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