Nebuchadnezzar's Second Dream (Daniel 4)

Daniel's friend King Nebuchadnezzar has a dream about a large magnificent tree.  An angel descends from heaven and orders the tree to be cut down.  The stump of the tree is to remain and live among the animals until seven times pass.

This upsets King Nebuchadnezzar who assembles his usual advisors to interpret it.  Eventually, it is Daniel's turn.  Daniel tells Nebuchadnezzar that the king will lose his sanity for seven years and he will live among the animals.  After this time, the king will acknowledge God and both his sanity and kingdom will be restored.

I am unaware of any other time in the Bible where God takes away people's free will like this.  We will encounter demoniacs in the New Testament who have lost their free will, but this is different. 

A practical question emerges - if the king loses his free will, how can he acknowledge God?  It would seem like it should be a free acknowledgement of God to count.  A few possibilities come to me:

1.  The animals already acknowledge God and this is a natural fruit of being an animal.  It was only at seven years where God allowed him to speak like a human and acknowledge God.

2.  At seven years, God will give a taste of free will back to him.  At that point, he will see the mess of what his body has become, remember what Daniel said, and then understand.

There is also an interesting nuance in the language in the chapter.  It appears to be structured like this:

Verses 1-3 - Nebuchadnezzar praises God in the first person.  He is speaking from personal belief and conviction that God is "Most High".

Verses 4-27 - Nebuchadnezzar speaks of the dream and interacting with Daniel in the first person.  He also quotes himself and refers to Daniel as being filled with the spirits of the gods.  Here, there is no indication that he believes God is "Most High".  However, he is quoting himself.

Verses 28-33 - Nebuchadnezzar becomes like an animal.  The language is in the third person.  

Verses 34-37 - Nebuchadnezzar's sanity is restored and he praises God as the "King of Heaven".  The language is now in the first person.

I think Nebuchadnezzar wrote all of chapter 4.  Most of it is in the first person from his perspective with the exception of the break where he becomes an animal.  There, he is no longer himself and takes no ownership of what happened.  He can only talk about it in the third person because it was so different than his normal life and in fact, it was not his conscious state.

Similarly, the language about God takes a similar journey.  It begins and ends with a reflection about the sovereignty of God.  What he states in the middle reflects the idea that God is one of many gods, but he is quoting himself in the past tense.  Rather, chapter 4 is his own spiritual journey.  It begins with where he is now and then explores how he got there.  

1 Chronicles 4-9

These chapters trade some of the genealogies until the exile.  The one thing that stands out to me is the descendants of Saul.  1 Chronicles only mentions the descendants through Meribaal, who was Jonathan's son.  I assume this means that all of the other descendants of Saul were killed off.  

Remember, there was that strange story about the descendants of Saul being executed to avenge the blood of the innocents.  David had his political reasons for agreeing to do it, but it violated the principle that (usually) God does hold people accountable for the sins of their parents.  Or, perhaps God does (sins of the wicked are visited on the children), but God does not wants US to punish children for the sins of their parents.

By the waters of Babylon (Psalm 139)

A lament for the destruction of Jerusalem worked its way into the psalms.  It takes the view of remembering Zion with longing.  

It is clearly written at a time before the Jews acclimated to Babylon.  It even seeks vengeance against the Babylonians and the very last verse wishes that someone repay the Babylonians by smashing their infants against rocks.

This is a harsh but understandable position given then they were just defeated by the Babylonians and carried off into exile.  The Babylonians may have even smashed the babies of the Jews against rocks and the psalmist longs for the same favor in return.

That said, it contrasts with Lamentations which recognizes that the Israelites brought the destruction of Jerusalem on themselves.  Here, in psalm 139, it reflects sorrow and perhaps bitterness and lacks recognition that they were in part to blame.

Ezekiel 32-39

These chapters contain numerous prophecies, descriptions, and laments concerning nations in the typical style that we see from Ezekiel.  

Ezekiel 32 contains a prophecy about Egypt then transitions to a description of how Egypt is in the "pit" or with the slave.  In the words, Ezekiel considers Egypt dead. This may or may not be before the predicted invasion of Egypt by the Babylonians predicted by Jeremiah when the Jewish settlers fled there.

The chapter then states that other nations are there along with Egypt, these include Elam, Edom, and Assyria.  I think this imagery is important because several chapters later in Ezekiel 37, we see the valley of bones coming to life.  In that chapter, tendons and flesh are attached to bones before they are reanimated. The bones are identified as the whole House of Israel and their reanimation is identified as the resettling of Israel by the Israelites.  So, reading chapters 32 and 37 together, we see that the God considers a number of nations to be dead, including the Israelites.  However, the Israelites will be reanimated and brought back from the dead, which is indicated to be the resettling of the land.

Also in Ezekiel 37, we see a prophecy about a united Israel under one king.  Christians might associate this with Christ, but there are interesting details for the contemporary Jewish mind.  For starters, verses 18-19 indicates the Israelites from both the northern and southern kingdoms that are scattered will be brought back from all the nations and united in the same kingdom.

On one hand, this seems to indicate that the Lost 10 Tribes were brought back to Israel along with the people in Babylon.  Another possibility is that Christ unified the houses of Israel and this is actually a reference to the Gospel going to the Gentiles, since the people of the northern kingdom were scattered among the nations and lost their Jewish identity.

The last part that stands out is that in Ezekiel 33, Ezekiel considers himself to be a watchman and it is his duty to warn Israel.  If he does not, then he is guilty. 

The same chapter also has an interesting discussion on when righteous people fall and when wicked people turn from wickedness.  For both situations, it is not the prior actions that angered or pleased God, but rather the change in course determines whether God is angered or pleased.  It is also flies in the face of the principles of karma or Islam in which the merit of one's life is determined on balance.  According to Ezekiel, it is not what one has done in the past that matters, good or bad, big or small, but rather what one is doing right now.

The remnant in Jerusalem (Jeremiah 40-44)

More violence faces the remnant in Jerusalem.  

The Babylonians set Gedaliah as the king of Judah.  He advises his people to settle down and obey the laws of Babylon.

Meanwhile, Jews that rode out the war in neighboring regions (Ammon, Edom, etc...) start returning back to Judah.  They even cultivate and harvest the land.  Things are looking up for the people of Judah.

However, a troublemaker named Ishmael lives among them.  A few Jewish soldiers remain after exile and they advise Gedaliah that the king of the Ammonites sent Ishmael to kill Gedaliah.  Sure enough, Ishmael kills Gedaliah and goes on a murderous rampage killing many other people.  He even kills many old men bringing grain offerings to the temple, or whatever is left of it by now.

The remnant decide that it is better to leave Judah and head for Egypt.  They ask Jeremiah for God's input.  God, through Jeremiah, tells them that if they go to Egypt, they will die by the sword, plague, and famine.  

This is not what they want to hear and they go to Egypt anyway.  Jeremiah actually accompanies them, perhaps he is a captive or he feels he should remain with the people.  I am not sure why Jeremiah goes to Egypt after telling them not to.

The people settle down in Egypt and begin serving the local gods.  They believe that they Queen of Heaven provided them peace, even in Jerusalem and they will not stop serving this god.

Uh oh.  We have been there before.  Jeremiah then tells them that Egypt will soon be invaded and nearly all the Jews living in Egypt will be killed.  A remnant will return to Judah, but most will die.

The book of Obadiah

After the fall of Jerusalem, the people of Edom rejoice and participate in the pillage of the city.  

Obadiah receives a vision about God's anger towards towards the Edomites for their actions.  Obadiah predicts that the Jews will return and live in the land that is occupied by the Edomites.

The Book of Lamentations

Lamentations contains five poems written after the destruction of Jerusalem.  The poems express mourning by the people for the city.

I suppose we do not know the authors.  The poems seem to take the perspective of someone looking at the mess of what has become Jerusalem.  So, I lean towards it was written by someone who was left behind during the exile, although other texts state that they were largely uneducated people.

The poems do contain a message of hope.  In particular, chapter three looks forward to a time of redemption.

The aftermath of the fall of Jerusalem (2 Chronicles 36:15-21; Jeremiah 39-40 and 25; 2 Kings 25)

The Babylonians pillage the city, including the temple and the king's treasuries.  A lot of the head officials of Judah are brought before Nebuchadnezzar who has them executed.

Jeremiah himself is bound in chains and is led out of the city with all the exiles.  However, King Nebuchadnezzar had given orders to free Jeremiah.  The captain of the Babylonian guard finds Jeremiah among the captives and interestingly, the Babylonian guard lectures Jeremiah that the reason that Jerusalem fell was because the people rejected God.  I find this peculiar because it was Jeremiah who lectured to Judah the same, but here a Babylonian was saying the same to Jeremiah.  Perhaps word had gotten out to the Babylonian army during the siege that the God of Israelites wanted Jerusalem to fall.  

Jerusalem falls (2 Kings 25:3-7; Jeremiah 52:6-11, 39:2-10)

Finally, Jerusalem is taken.  The fall of Jerusalem is a big deal and is recorded three times in the Bible, once in 2 Kings and twice in Jeremiah.

All three accounts state that the famine in the city is very severe and there was no food to eat.  The city wall is broken and the army flees.  There is no stated connection between the severity of the famine and the wall coming down, but perhaps the guards were too weak to fend off the Babylonian siege machines any longer.

The Babylonians catch King Hezekiah, kill his children in front of him, blind his eyes, then carry him off to Babylon.

King Hezekiah never took Jeremiah's advice of surrendering.  Perhaps this would have prevented them from killing his sons before blinding him.

The Babylonians then carry off much of the population of Jerusalem.  One account states that the Babylonians left the poor in the city, but gave them the vineyards that are now empty.

Ezekiel 26-28

These contain prophecies and laments for Tyre and a prophecy about Sidon.  Like the Assyrian empire, Ezekiel likens Tyre to the creation in the Garden of Eden in chapter 28.  Specifically, the nation is stated to be a guardian angel created in the Garden.  This angel was blameless and walked among fiery stones until wickedness was found in it.  

Again, we see a poetic use of the Garden of Eden, God's initial plan for a nation, and God taking ownership of a nation.

In the prophecies, the king of Tyre seems to believe that he is actually a god, but he will die violent death at the hands of his enemies.  The text sarcastically asks if he will say that he is a god when this occurs.

Jeremiah 32-33

The armies of Babylon lay siege to Jerusalem and King Hezekiah still has Jeremiah confined to the courtyard.  It might be a house arrest or to protect him from the people.

The king questions Jeremiah why he keeps prophesying that the king and the people should not resist the Babylonians.  Up to now, the king has sometimes believed Jeremiah, sometimes not.  He seems ambivalent as to what he should do.  But this question indicates he is unsure about whether God actually wants him to surrender (and hence the authority of Jeremiah) or perhaps the king is wrestling with an important decision.

Jeremiah's answer seems bizarre and unrelated to the question.  He tells the king that God wanted him to buy a field of land in Judah.  He then goes into detail about how he bought the land.  Finally, at the end of the chapter, Jeremiah then explains its relevance - God will bring the Israelites back from captivity.  Purchasing the land looks forward to the future.

Chapter 33 furthers this message of hope after the Babylonian captivity.  God will change the hearts of the Israelites and there will come a point where they do not violate the covenant anymore.  Looking in hindsight, it is easy to see how this chapter could be a prediction of the ministry of Christ.  However, like many Old Testament prophecies, it could be interpreted differently if one is not already thinking of Christ.  At the very least, it sounds like there will be a major change in the Jewish experience post-Babylonian captivity.

Prophecies about Egypt (Ezekiel 29-31)

God gives Ezekiel several prophecies about Egypt spanning several chapters.  In a nutshell, Egypt will soon be humiliated and never again be a source of security of Israel.  The Egyptians will be dispersed among the nations, but God will bring them back to Egypt after forty years.  Taken literally, this prediction mirrors the predictions given about the Babylonian captivity.  

Chapter 31 analogizes the Assyrian empire to a cedar of Lebanon and the Garden of Eden.  The chapter describes the cedar as better than all the other trees in the Garden of Eden and even suggests that this cedar was cultivated in the Garden as well.  Later, God withheld the water from the tree and it withered.  This entire analogy of a cedar tree and the Assyria is used to demonstrate to Pharaoh and the people of Egypt what will happen to them.

A few things stand out to me:

It is interesting to see such poetic license with the Garden of Eden used in the Bible.  At least here in this chapter, the trees in the Garden of Eden are a poetic metaphor for human civilizations.

Secondly, why does God take such a personal investment in the Assyrians?  The question is unanswered in this chapter, but it could relate to the evangelism by Jonah.  Jonah preached and the entire Assyrian capital repented.  The Bible seems to be silent as to what was the fruit of this event afterwards, but this chapter might allude to the event from God's perspective.

Jeremiah 21

King Hezekiah sends people to Jeremiah to ask God to deliver Jerusalem from the invading armies as God has done in the past.  

God, through Jeremiah, rejects this request and state that many of the inhabitants will be killed by either plague, famine, or sword. 

Jeremiah 34

The armies of Babylon are attacking the land when God, through Jeremiah, tells King Zedekiah that he will not be killed by the Babylonian army.

Later in the chapter, King Zedekiah tells the people of Jerusalem to release their Hebrew slaves.  They do this, but change their minds and then re-enslave them.  This angers God who reminds them that under the Mosiac law, the maximum time for slavery for a Hebrew was six years.  God also says that this practice has not been followed.

A quick thought on slavery - if the US South had been following this Old Testament model, then there would not have been lifelong slavery, at least for Black people who converted to Christianity.  

Ezekiel 25

This chapter contains numerous woes to other regional kingdoms for the way they treated the Israelites.  Specific woes are against Ammon, Moab, Edom, and Philistia.

Ezekiel 24

The armies of Babylon lay siege to Jerusalem when Ezekiel gets a prophecy from God.  God is ready to act against Jerusalem.

In the second half of the chapter, God takes away Ezekiel's wife and she dies.  This seems harsh to man who follows and obeys God.  However, God uses the occasion to let Ezekiel be a sign to the Israelites, who are about to incur many civilian casualties when Jerusalem is attacked.  Further, God instructs Ezekiel not to mourn for his wife.

Ezekiel 23

Israel is analogized to two adulterous sisters of the same mother, Oholah and Oholibah.  They began their prostitution in Egypt.

This is kind of a strange chapter with lots of sexual details, particularly caressing of breasts.  

Ezekiel 22

God lays out the case against Jerusalem itself.  Many sins are mentioned from sexual things including sex with women on their periods to forgetting the Sabbath, killing innocent, and oppressing the poor.

God describes that the will be dispersed among the nations.  On one hand, this could refer to the people of Judah becoming "lost" within other nations like the other lost 10 tribes.  It could also refer to the Jewish diaspora throughout the world.  This reminds me of all the Jewish communities throughout Europe, Russia, and even eastern Africa.  If so, then it was a decision of God to spread them out among the nations.  Jewish Ghettoes in Warsaw and Germany come to mind.  

Ezekiel 21

God tells Ezekiel to clap his hands together a few times then stop.  This symbolizes the oncoming destruction of Israel and then the ceasing of the destruction.  Afterwards, God informs Ezekiel that the Babylonian king has been selected as God's instrument.

Interestingly, God mentions that the Babylonian king will come to a fork and the road and cast lots of whether to strike Jerusalem or the Ammonites.  The lot will fall on Jerusalem and the Babylonian king's soothsayers and diviners will think it is a false omen, but it was from God.

I find it interesting because God is answering omens and lots typically given to false gods.  It also shows that the Babylonian diviners will not recognize a true decision from God.

Ezekiel 20

Several elders of Israel come to Ezekiel and ask him to inquire of God.

God speaks through Ezekiel and discusses much of the oncoming problems and the wickedness that spurned it.  In it, God discusses the laws and the Sabbaths (plural) which have been abandoned.  It also refers to the Sabbaths as being signs of the covenant between God and Israel.  As for the multiple Sabbaths, I think it also refers to the land Sabbaths as well.

God then has Ezekiel prophecy against the southern forest, which will be burned.  This comes off strange, but there is a lot of strange stuff in Ezekiel.  Meanwhile, the elders here this and at the end of the chapters, the elders question if this is all actually just a bunch of parables.

Ezekiel 19

This is a lament for Israel.  It is written poetically with Israel being symbolized as a lioness with lion cubs.  Twice the lion cubs grow into mighty warriors, before Egypt and after Egypt.  The lion cubs are then captured by the nations around them and taken to Babylon.

Ezekiel 18

In this chapter, God outlines severe principles of justice in the hopes that the people will repent.  The principles are:

Those that sin will die

Those that are righteous will live

The righteous sons of those that sin will live

God rejoices when a wicked person turns away from bad things and turns to God.

Those that fall away from righteousness will not be remembered for their prior righteousness (i.e., they will be considered like the wicked)

Ezekiel 17

In this chapter, we get a parable about two eagles and a vine.  One of the eagles carries off part of a cedar and plants it.  The parable of the eagles is interpreted within the chapter to be the kingdom of the Babylonians removing the kings of Judah.

The chapter concludes with another parable about a shoot of the cedar being planted by God in the mountains of Israel.  This will become large and birds of all kinds will nest in it.  This parable is not interpreted within the chapter, but from a Christian perspective, we can see parallels of this parable to Christ.  Further, Christ was renowned for speaking in parables.

Ezekiel 16

This is a fairly long chapter in which Jerusalem is analogized as a wife who becomes a prostitute.    God is angry with their chasing after idols, using the gifts from God as offerings to other gods, and sacrificing their own children to the other gods.

Interestingly, Samaria and Sodom are mentioned as sisters of the adulterous wife.  The main problem that is articulated against Sodom is that they did not help the needy.

Ezekiel 15

In this short chapter, God analogizes Judah to useless wood.  It was useless before being thrown into the fire and will be yet further useless after it is burned and charred.

Things are not looking up for them.

This chapter covers two distinct but interesting phenomenon.

In the first part of the chapter, God is discusses people setting up idols in their hearts and then going to prophets (of God?) to inquire of God.  God will then answer the person's request through the prophet and then smite both the prophet and the idolator.  This God will do as an example to keep people from further straying.

I don't think this should be read to mean that having an idol in the heart disqualifies a person from inquiring, or even praying to God.  This whole book of Ezekiel is about the utter spiritual break down of Judah prior to the final Babylonian invasion.  

Similarly, the "prophets" could very well mean the false prophets that were discussed in the prior chapters.  For all we know, only Jeremiah is the true prophet of God in Jerusalem at this time (Ezekiel and Daniel are already exiled), but there were many, many false prophets running around saying they heard from God but when in fact they had not.  Here, God might be suggesting that God will actually answer requests made to false prophets, but it will be bad.

In the second part of the chapter, we get a sense of the total spiritual collapse of Judah.  If Job, Noah, and Daniel (the marginalia of the NIV says it might not be the exiled Daniel) were in the land their righteousness would save themselves, but no one else, not even their own sons and daughters.

What is interesting is the selection of these three as examples.  Noah's righteousness probably did save his family , but could not save the world.  Job's righteousness did not save his family, but it did save himself.  As for Daniel, if the marginalia's suggestions is correct and it is a different Daniel, then he must have been similarly looked up as the others.  If it in fact refers to the exiled Daniel of Babylon, then then the implications are vast.  There must already be reports from Babylon that their exiled Israelite kin Daniel has maintained his righteousness and has done well in Babylon.

Jeremiah is imprisoned (and rescued) again (Jeremiah 38)

Jeremiah's prophesies turn to saying that those that surrender to the Babylonians will be spared while those who remain in Jerusalem will die.  He is arrested for inciting desertion and put into a cistern.  Before doing so, his arresters ask for permission from the king to do this, who says he is powerless to stop it.

Later, Jeremiah loyalists then plead with the king for Jeremiah's release.  This time, the king assigns 30 soldiers to help lift Jeremiah out of the cistern.  The king then has another private conversation with the king and Jeremiah advises surrendering Jerusalem otherwise everyone will be killed.

The king then advises Jeremiah to lie in case his enemies ask what he told the king.  Sure enough, Jeremiah's enemies inquire about his conversation with the king and Jeremiah tells the lie that the king instructed him to do.

I have frequently wondered about the morality of lying in times like that.  Is there a warfare or necessity exception to lying?  What about secret agents behind enemy lines, they must lie all the time.

The issue was similarly raised when Joshua's spies scoped out Jericho and Rahab lied to protect them.  Here, Jeremiah, a major prophet of God, lies to his enemies under specific orders from the king.

False Prophets are condemned (Ezekiel 13)

In this chapter, the false prophets prophesying peace for Judah are condemned by God.  

There actually is quite a lot of detail about what the false prophets are doing.  They are prophesying that Judah will encounter peace, not war.  These prophesies are coming from their own imaginations.  Nevertheless, these prophecies would land on fertile ground because God had saved Jerusalem so many times before.  Likewise, in times before,prophets of God said that they would be saved when it seemed like hope was lost.

Not so this time.  Rather, the chapter states that the record of these prophets would not be saved in the records of Israel.  Sure enough, whatever they said did not make it into the Old Testament canon.  

Ezekiel 12

God tells Ezekiel to pack his bags as if he is going to exile as a symbol for the others.  God even directs him to dig a hole under the wall as if he were trying to escape.  This I do not fully understand because I thought Ezekiel was already living among the Ezekiels.

The second half of the chapter makes a bit more sense.  The people reject Ezekiel's prophesies and say that the destructions predicted will happen in the far future.  We also find out that the people are receiving false and complementary visions of what they want to hear, but it is not from God.

Ezekiel goes to Jerusalem...or does he? (Ezekiel 11)

Ezekiel is transported to the temple by the Spirit where he professies against the leaders and one of them dies.  He then is taken back to the exiles and we find ou it appears to have been a vision.  So, did the guy in Jerusalem hear him before he died?  

During the vision, God promises Ezekiel to give Israel and heart of flesh to replace their hearts of stone.  This appears to be a prediction of the the New Testament's ministry of Christ and the Spirit after Pentacost.

The Temple Vision (Ezekiel 9-10)

These chapters cover a vision that Ezekiel has of the temple in Jerusalem.  In the vision, he feels he is carried there by God and he sees lots of idols in Jerusalem and one particular idol is highlighted in the temple.  He also sees people in the area worshipping idols or bowing to the sun.

An interesting statement is that the people believe that God does not see them worshiping idols because God has abandoned the land.  That sentiment seems to suggest that people turned to idols because they feel that God abandoned them, whereas it was their worship of idols, among other things, that caused their problems with God.  Perhaps they feel that they have choice and they might as well continue worshipping idols if God has abandoned them.

In chapter 10, we see the same 4-faced cherubim and wheel-within-wheel from chapter 1.  It is difficult to determine what exactly they are doing, but they appear to have a connection with the temple.

Ezekiel 7-8

This continues many of the prophecies against Jerusalem by Ezekiel.  It also lumps into them the people who will escape into the countryside.  They will receive much of the same fate.

Chapter 8 uses the phrase the "end is coming".  Given the context, this appears to refer to the oncoming destruction of Jerusalem and the Babylonian captivity and not the end of the world.

Ezekiel 5

The strangeness of Ezekiel continues and he has to throw a scroll in the river after making prophecies on the scroll.  He also has a lot of prophecies about Jerusalem, which in some ways is strange since he is living among the exiles.  Therefore, his prophecies are not a call to repentance or surrender in contrast to those of Jeremiah.  I seems that God is using him to preach to the exiles about what will happen or already is happening back home.

He also makes a prediction that the fate of the lives of the people of Jerusalem will be determined in 1/3 allocations.  One third will die by the sword, one third will die by famine, and one third will be sent to exile.  In a way, this parallels that of the horses of Revelations, which we will discuss and encounter much later.

The false prophet Hananiah (Jeremiah 28)

We get one such false prophet in Jeremiah 28.  Hananiah predicts that God will break the yoke of the Babylonians.  He even removes the literal yoke that Jeremiah is still wearing and breaks it.

Jeremiah then prophesies that Hananiah will die because he is spreading lies and that God has not send Hananiah.  Hananiah then dies 7 months later.

It is easy to see how Hananiah would have a lot of influence over the people of Judah simply by telling them what they want to hear.  Jeremiah tells them to surrender and their lives will be spared whereas this competing, but false, prophet tells them the exact opposite.  Jerusalem had been saved miraculously many times in the past so why should this be any different?  What should the people of Judah do?  Who should they believe?  

Well, Hananiah dies shortly thereafter, giving credibility to Jeremiah and his grim prophecies.

Jeremiah warns everyone to surrender to the Babylonians (Jeremiah 27)

Just like God made Ezekiel do some strange things, God makes Jeremiah wear a yoke on himself to symbolize the yoke of the Babylonians.  Jeremiah then is told to send word to the other regional kings to surrender to the Babylonians otherwise God will have the Babylonians destroy them.

Jeremiah also warns the people of Judah and the other regional kingdoms not to listen to false prophets who are telling them otherwise.

Ezekiel's calling as prophet (1-4)

Ezekiel lived among the exiles of Babylon near the Kebar River, which is in modern-day Syria.  

One day, the heavens open up and he has visions of 4-faced winged creatures with a wheeled apparatus.  He also sees the presence of God.

God commands him to do some pretty weird stuff.  God tells Ezekiel to lie on his left side for 390 days and his right side for 40 days, each symbolizing the years that Israel and Judah rebelled against God, respectively.  God tells him to prepare the requisite food and water for this and make a public spectacle of this.  God actually tells him to use human dung to cook his own food (publicly).  Ezekiel talks God out of this last directive as it would defile Ezekiel.  God then allows Ezekiel to cook with cow dung instead.  Phew.

So, we have two contemporary prophets, Jeremiah in Jerusalem and Ezekiel among the exiles.  We also have Daniel in Babylon, but I would not call him a prophet.  At this point, he was a dream interpreter.

Jeremiah is imprisoned (and rescued) again (Jeremiah 38)

Jeremiah's prophesies turn to saying that those that surrender to the Babylonians will be spared while those who remain in Jerusalem will die.  He is arrested for inciting desertion and put into a cistern.  Before doing so, his arresters ask for permission from the king to do this, who says he is powerless to stop it.

Later, Jeremiah loyalists then plead with the king for Jeremiah's release.  This time, the king assigns 30 soldiers to help lift Jeremiah out of the cistern.  The king then has another private conversation with the king and Jeremiah advises surrendering Jerusalem otherwise everyone will be killed.

The king then advises Jeremiah to lie in case his enemies ask what he told the king.  Sure enough, Jeremiah's enemies inquire about his conversation with the king and Jeremiah tells the lie that the king instructed him to do.

I have frequently wondered about the morality of lying in times like that.  Is there a warfare or necessity exception to lying?  What about secret agents behind enemy lines, they must lie all the time.

The issue was similarly raised when Joshua's spies scoped out Jericho and Rahab lied to protect them.  Here, Jeremiah, a major prophet of God, lies to his enemies under specific orders from the king.

Jeremiah is imprisoned (Jeremiah 37)

In between the Babylonian invasions, the Egyptian army came north, forcing the Babylonians to withdraw from Jerusalem.  Meanwhile, good ole Jeremiah predicted that the Babylonians would return, which they did.

King Zedekiah was a bad king, but did ask for Jeremiah to pray for the city during the siege.  

Later on, Jeremiah leaves Jerusalem to collect his property from the area of the Benjamites.  He is accused of defecting to the Babylonians, beaten up, and imprisoned.  Eventually, King Zedekiah summons for Jeremiah to get a private prophecy about the Babylonian invasion.  Jeremiah's prophecy is not good for the king, as he predicts the king will be taken off to Babylon.  Jeremiah then asks to be released from prison and Zedekiah puts him in the courtyard of the guard and given a ration of bread.  It is not clear if this was a form of house arrest or for Jeremiah's protection.

Likewise, it is interesting that King Zedekiah does not act more promptly to release Jeremiah from prison.  It may have been the case that King Zedekiah privately believed in Jeremiah, but the people still had their doubts.  Given that his own political situation was precarious, he may have felt it was too risky to publicly support Jeremiah.

Regardless, it's just another chapter in the weird hot/cold relationship between prophets of God and kings of Israel and Judah.

The destruction of Jerusalem (Jeremiah 52)

Jehoiachin's uncle Zedekiah became king.  He rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar who came with his mighty army and laid seize to Jerusalem.  A famine broke out and the army eventually tried to flee, but was overtaken and beaten.  Zedekiah was blinded but after seeing his sons killed.  Many of his officials were also executed and many people of Jerusalem were taken into exile.

The Babylonian army pillaged Jerusalem, set fire to the temple, and destroyed the walls.

Years later, back in Babylon, the king eventually released from prison king Jehoiachin and allowed him to live in peace in Babylon until his death.

Jehoiachin (2 Chronicles 36)

The crown passed to Jehoiachin, who reigned for 3 months before Nebuchadnezzar bound him and dragged him to Babylon.  Thus now, two kings have been taken to Babylon and one to Egypt.

Jeremiah 49:1-33

Jeremiah gets some woes about other local people, including the Edomites and Damascus.  It's bad news for them.

The Rekabites (Jeremiah 35)

God told Jeremiah to invite the descendants of Rekab, the Rekabites, to drink wine.  The Rekabites socially entertain Jeremiah but refuse to drink wine because their forefather Rekab made a decree that all his descendants must never drink alcohol, but they also must live as nomads in tents.  

Thus, they refuse the wine, but in contrast they explain why they are in violation of the other decree of Rekab.  They no longer live in tents because they moved to Jerusalem for protection after the Babylonians started invading.

God uses the Rekabites as an example for Jeremiah because they still hold on to the "no-wine" decree of their ancestor Rekab whereas Judah no longer follows what God decreed.  

So, a few things:

1.  God, through Jeremiah, ordered/ invited people to drink alcohol.  This does not happen very often in the Bible.  

2.  I sure hope I'm not a descendant of Rekab.  Otherwise, I have not honored my forefather's decree.

3.  We get a time stamp of the events going on.  The Babylonian invasion and exile seems to have to been a process and not a single event.

Jeremiah 15-18

More of the same general stuff we see from Jeremiah.  This time around, he advises people not to marry and have kids because the children will be destroyed by disease.  This is a temporary caution against marrying and having children.  Later, when they get to Babylon, he tells them the opposite.

There are not a lot of times in the Bible where we see an instruction not to marry and have children.  This is the first.

Jeremiah 11-14

More prophecies against Judah.

The end of chapter 11 seems to refer to a plot against Jeremiah by a local city.  Jeremiah's prophecy against them indicates that this is a very bad idea.

One of the calamities that will happen Judah is a period of intense drought.  This will produce produce famine.  It seems that the effect of their sin influences nature as well.

Jeremiah 10

This chapter deals with idols.  

The first few verses discusses a "worthless" practice of cutting a tree from the forest and adorning it with gold.  On one hand, I have heard these verses are what God thinks of Christmas trees.  However, it is not entirely applicable as the text is clearly referring to idols that are made by human hands and then worshipped.

Jeremiah 7-9

The chronological Bible has more Jeremiah prophecies after Daniel is introduced to Babylon.

In these chapters, it is more of the same with Jeremiah.  God is angry with Judah worshipping other gods and the lack of justice in the land.  It borders with total frustration and giving up as the text says not to pray for Jerusalem as God will no longer hear it.  That alone is a powerful statement.

The fiery furnace (Daniel 3)

King Nebuchadnezzar makes a large golden image and decrees everyone should worship it when they hear the official music.  It could very well have been that he got this idea from the dream in which Daniel - and Daniel's God! - said that the head of gold of the statue was Babylon. 

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refuse to worship this statue.  Their enemies tell the king who questions them.  They tell the king that they refuse to worship this statue and will rely on their God for deliverance.  

This angers the king who throws them into a fiery furnace.  The fire is so hot that it kills the soldiers that took the three Jews to the fiery pit.  The king then notices that four individuals are walking around the fire and that one of them looks like the "son of the gods". 

He releases them from the fiery furnace and there is no indication at all they were in the promising of fire, not even smoke on their clothes.  The king then praises their God, and what seems to be a growing pattern for him, the king decrees that anyone who blasphemes their God be cut into pieces.  He also promotes them as administrators within the empire.

The king was probably hoping that this fourth man come out and talk with the king.  That would have been an interesting conversation.  In the text, he later says that this figure was an angel sent to protect them and no longer describes him as a "son of the gods".

Daniel 3 presents another lesson for those in Babylonian captivity - do not worship the local gods.

Nebuchadnezzar's dream (Daniel 2)

King Nebuchadnezzar has a disturbing dream that leaves him quite shaken.  In fact, his actions afterwards are rash and impulsive.  We see very little of him as a man, but his response seems to be a far contrast to the wisdom he exercised in Daniel 1 in which he educated select people of the royal family of Judah.

The king wants the dream interpreted and summons his magicians and enchanters.  He does not tell them the dream because he wants the interpreter to tell him the dream.  This shows some bit of skepticism and even some wisdom.  He wants proof that the interpretation is correct and the proof is that the interpreter must tell him what the dream actually was.

The magicians cannot tell him what the dream was.  

The king overreacts and decrees that all of the wise men of the realm must die.  We are not just talking about the magicians, but also all the wise men.  This is basically a Stalinist purge of the all the advisors of Babylon.  The king does not trust anyone.  The over-inclusive group includes Daniel and his three comrades.

The soldiers come to put Daniel to death and he immediately asks for a delay to see the king himself.  That night, he gets a vision from God in which he sees the dream that the king had and the next day, goes before the king and interprets it.

The dream was of a statue made of different materials.  A golden head, arms and chest of silver, thighs of bronze, and legs of iron and clay.  A massive stone smacks and breaks the statue.  Daniel interprets the statue to be represent a succession of empires beginning with the golden head of Babylon.  There will be three other empires before the kingdom of God comes, an empire more powerful than others.

The king is impressed.  He falls prostrate and gives Daniel a promotion - an entire province to administer.

There are a few similarities with that of Joseph and Pharaoh's dreams in Genesis 41.  In particular, the man of God interpreted the dream and the king was so impressed that he immediately gives the man of God a significant power and authority.  One interesting difference between them is that the Pharaoh told Joseph what the dreams were.  But that does not matter too much because as Daniel's story shows, God would just reveal the dream to another if necessary.

So, as for the statue, I think the common interpretation from the Christian perspective is the following:

1.  Golden head = Babylon (this is stated in the text)

2.  Chest/arms of silver = Persian empire (text states it is an inferior empire)

3.  Bronze thighs = Greek empire (text states it will take over the entire world; although the Alexander the Great did not literally conquer all 7 continents of the world, he conquered the entire known world and famously cried because there was nothing else to conquer.  Bronze was the choice metal of the Greek infantry)

4.  Iron legs = Roman empire (The Romans used a lot of iron in their infantry and the text states that it would be an empire divided.  Divisions of empires happen in just about every empire, the Greek itself was partitioned into 5 after Alexander's death.  But the Roman empire was famously divided between the Roman and the Byzantine, but this did not happen until it had reached its height)

From a Christian perspective, the rock hitting the iron legs represents the kingdom of God emerging during the Roman empire.  This would be Christ.

So, a few interesting questions:

what effect this would have on the Jewish captives in Babylon?  

How do contemporary Jews today interpret this?  (similarly, how they deal with the crucified Messiah of Isaiah?)

Was God's primary purpose of giving this dream to King Nebuchadnezzar simply to promote Daniel?  God could have given this dream directly to Daniel.  So, I think it perhaps it was.

Daniel at Babylon (Daniel 1)

Daniel was born in Judah.

King Nebuchadnezzar sieged Jerusalem and his army carried away people and goodies back to Babylon.

While in Babylon, the king decides to use people of the royal families of Israel (and perhaps others nation's he conquered) into his service.  He gives them a period of a few years of educate to learn the Babylonian language as well as their literature.

The story focuses on four people, of which Daniel is the principal.  Presumably, there were others as well.

They are given the king's choice food and wine.  Daniel rejects it.  The text refers to the king's food as defiling food.  Daniel asks for him and his three friends to be given a vegetarian diet for ten days and after this time, they are healthier than those eating the king's food.

Here we have the first stage of the Babylonian captivity.  The central question is how to remain a Jewish identity while in Babylon.  The first big issue is food.  We know about all the rules from Leviticus.  Well, there were no prohibitions about eating vegetables in contrast to all the meat rules.  So, the answer proposed in Daniel 1 about how to remain Jewish - go vegetarian.

Other parts of acclimating are acceptable.  For instance, each of the three other men are given local Babylonian names and they are forever more commonly known by their Babylonian names -  Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

Likewise, the whole introduction focuses on their future role within the Babylonian empire.  They learn the language, get a local education, and will be administrators within this country.  These are acceptable ways to acclimating to the local area.  

After several years, Daniel and his three friends surpass the other pupils.

Jeremiah gets depressed (Jeremiah 19-20)

Jeremiah makes a long prophecy of destruction about Judah and Jerusalem (chapter 19).  Specific things that are mentioned is that it would be so bad that the inhabitants resort to human cannibalism.

In chapter 20, Pashur, the high priest, has Jeremiah beaten and spend a night in stocks.  The rest of the chapter is an emotional breakdown by Jeremiah.  The effect of these negative prophecies against his countrymen and friends causes humiliation and isolation.   He is tired, exhausted, and frustrated with God.

He even curses the day he was born.  This is similar to how Elijah felt on the mountain when Jezebel pursued him.  It also is an interesting contrast to the famous beginning of Jeremiah, in which God selected him to be prophet while he was in the womb.

Jeremiah and Baruch (Jeremiah 36, 45-46)

Jeremiah instructs his secretary, Baruch, to write down in a scroll everything that God has told Jeremiah concerning the destruction of Judah.  Jeremiah then sends Baruch to read it to the people in the temple because Jeremiah cannot go himself.  It is not explained why Jeremiah cannot go to the temple again, but we an guess it has something to do with him nearly getting lynched the last time he went.

This raises a question, was Jeremiah illiterate?  Having secretaries was a common practice in those days.  The text in this account has the king himself using a secretary.  However, the literacy rates were far lower than today.  

If the only example we have about Jeremiah is that he used a secretary on at least one occasion and without anything more, I think he was probably illiterate.  Otherwise he would probably have written the scroll himself.

That said, we don't know either way.

Back to the story, Baruch reads Jeremiah's scroll to the people and eventually the scroll finds its way to the king.  The king has it read and then burns each portion as it is read.  He then hunts for Jeremiah and Baruch to kill them, but they are in hiding.  God is not happy with this and has Jeremiah and Baruch re-write the scroll.

In chapter 45, Jeremiah has a specific prophecy for Baruch.  Baruch feels sorrow and pain, the details of which are not stated.  However, God will allow Baruch to escape with his life during the oncoming destruction.

Jeremiah 46

This chapter recounts a prophecy that Jeremiah has about the defeat of Egypt by the Babylonians.  

It uses various familiar ideas like God's "punishment" is the reason for the defeat.  However, I think there actually is something profound going on.  Jeremiah is learning, through this prophecy, about a contemporary political changes in the world. It's like a news report from abroad that we take for granted today in the age of Internet and phones.

Jeremiah 25

Meanwile, Jeremiah predicts that King Nebuchadnezzar, who is identified as God's servant, will lead the Israelites away and keep them in captivity for 70 year.  Then, God will punish the Babylonians and their king for their guilt and will release the Israelites.

It is interesting that the King of Babylon is referred to as God's servant.  This contrasts their situation later in which the Babylonians are wicked will require punishment.  Meanwhile, all this is predicted at once.  It is a strange mix of prophecies.

The Babylonian invasion (2 Kings 24:1-4)

The Babylonians did invade come during the reign of King Jehoikim.  They did not immediately lead the people in chains, but rather made the country a vassal state.  After three years, King Jehoiakim revolted against the Babylonians.  God then sent the Babylonians along with others to destroy Judah.  The stated rationale was because of the shedding of innocent blood by King Manasseh, years earlier (he led the country in child sacrifice).

Jeremiah 26

Jeremiah then goes before the temple courtyard and says similar things to the people directly.  They respond with hostility and want to kill him.  Their rationale is not completely explained in the text, but it seems to be that they think he is a false prophet because he is prophesying against Jerusalem.  Jerusalem was God's city and the temple was where God resided, therefore how could God allow its destruction?  That seems to be what they want.

That said, they would be within the law by killing a false prophet.  But if Jeremiah is a prophet of God, then it would be innocent blood and they would only be demonstrating why Jerusalem should be "plowed over".  What a conundrum.

The king himself hears of this and wants Jeremiah killed.  We do not completely know the chronological connection with chapter above.  This may have been the first time the king heard of this or perhaps he had already heard the previous prophecy, let Jeremiah live, and is now mad that Jeremiah is causing trouble in the city.  

Jeremiah's life is eventually spared, but we hear about another prophet of God, Uriah.  Uriah made similar prophecies, the people got mad, and Uriah fled to Egypt.  There, he was tracked down and brought back to Jerusalem and was killed.  Two things come to mind about him:

1.  I think he is the second prophet who was actually killed.  The first was High Priest Zechariah who adopted the boy king Joash years before.  Later, Christ refers to a tradition of the Israelites killing prophets who brought bad news.

2.  The Bible mentions other prophets of God in passing whose prophecies were not canonized within the Bible. Other notable ones included the seers/ prophets of David, Gad and Nathan.  However, their stories may have been incorporated as the book of 2 Samuel.  But we do not know.  

I mention this because one school of thought in contemporary Christianity is that prophecy does not exist today because if it did, the revelation should be canonized as scripture.  The logic goes that since the canon is closed, therefore prophecy does not exist today.  Here, we have a demonstration within the Bible itself that not all prophecies or revelations from God were incorporated and canonized within the Bible.  If it were the case, we would know a lot more about Uriah, Gad, and Nathan.

Jeremiah 22

God sends Jeremiah specifically to the palace of the king to prophecy about what will happen to Jehoiakim.  The Babylonians will come and drag him away in exile.  This is an interesting corollary to what happened to his brother who was led away to exile by the Egyptians, who then gave the throne to Jehoiakim.   

God gives Jehoiakim a final chance to change though.  God tells him that if he only does a handful of things, including justice to the poor and stopping the shedding of innocent blood, then it kings of David will ride through the gates.  God does not mention any other portions of the law at this time, for instance idols are not even mentioned.  Rather, it just seems that God is simplifying things in the hopes that the king will change or perhaps these were the most egregious acts the king was allowing.  Regardless, it does show what was on God's mind.

Jehoahaz (2 Kings 23:31-37; 2 Chronicles 36:1-5)

Jehoahaz, son of Josiah, becomes king.  He does evil in God's sight.  Within three months of becoming king, he is deposed by Pharoah and carried off in chains.  Pharoah then establishes his brother Eliakim as king and renames him Jehoiakim.  Egypt also levied a huge tax on Judah.

There was another Jehoahaz who was in the lineage of Jehu in the Northern Kingdom.

Here, we see a significant involvement of a regional power in the political system of Judah.  It appears that Judah has become a vassal/puppet state of Egypt.  That said, Egypt is recognizing the Davidic dynasty to remain as kings of Judah.  In other words, Egypt did not set their own Egyptian rulers over Judah.  But the fact that Egypt carried off a king they did not like shows where real power resides.

It also shows that Egypt used the occasion of killing King Josiah to exert control over Judah.

All of this is a predecessor to ultimate Babylonian captivity.  Likewise, the main prophets of the day are speaking about the oncoming deluge of Babylon, even though Egypt is currently the main threat.

Jeremiah 47-48

Jeremiah 47

This chapter contains a judgment against the Philistines.  The Philistines will be destroyed.  

According to the text, this prophecy was given to Jeremiah before the invasion by Pharaoh.

Jeremiah 48

This chapter contains a judgment against the Moabites.  It is not dated, but the chronological Bible puts it with the judgment against the Philistines in the previous chapter.

The Book of Habakkuk

This is another short book.  Habakkuk asks two questions of God and gets an answer each time.

Question 1

The first question is why is God being silent.  Habakkuk has been calling on God and receives silence.  This complaint would presume that God had not been silent to previous inquiries of Habakkuk.  This would make sense if Habakkuk were an established prophet, but we do not get any details about him as a man in this book.

Another possibility is that prophecy is in the process of shutting off on Israel.  However, we still have a few more major prophets to go.

God answers Habakkuk but does not address the issue of silence.  Instead, God speaks of all the calamity that the Babylonians are about to do to Israel in detail.

Question 2

Habakkuk's second question is a timeless one - why is God silent when bad people do bad things happen to good people?  

God answers that there will be an end that is prophesied, but that the understanding of the prophecy will only come at the end as well.

This is interesting.  It could potentially mean that a lot of the future-directed prophecies of things like Isaiah or Revelation concerning such events like he Day of the Lord can only be interpreted as the events unfold.  Taking this interpretation to its conclusion, this would suggest that books that attempt to unravel the prophecies of the "End Times" (I.e., Late Great Planet Earth, the Left Behind novels, etc...) will always miss crucial details and be wrong until it is time for the actual events to unfold.

We will see at least one example for the phenomenon that understanding of the prophecy is contemporary to the predicted event during the life of Christ.  Notably, John the Baptist relays a message to Christ while John is in prison.  John is probably disillusioned about Christ after the supernatural experience when he first met Jesus.  John asks if Christ is the Messiah.  Jesus responds that the blind see and lame can walk.  This is in alignment with Old Testament predictions about the Messiah, but is not in alignment with their understanding of the interpretations thereof as they expected Christ to be a political Messiah, not a spiritual one.