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.