Daily Bible Reading: Jeremiah 48 and Romans 10

Jeremiah 48 – Oracle against Moab – Bitter enemies of the Israelites (conquered by the Babylonians in 582 BC, two years after Jerusalem. “Because you trusted in your works and your treasures, you also shall be captured” (48:7). The Lord says through Jeremiah, “Moab has always lived secure and has never been taken into exile. Moab is like wine left to settle undisturbed and never poured from jar to jar. . . So now, the time is coming when I will send people to pour Moab out like wine. They will empty its wine jars and break them in pieces. Then the Moabites will be disillusioned with their god Chemosh, just as the Israelites were disillusioned with Bethel, a god in whom they trusted”(48:11-13). Bethel was the site of Jacob’s dream, a sanctuary town and official shrine for the northern kingdom. Still, even if they were bitter enemies, it seems that Jeremiah sees tragedy in Moab’s defeat.  They were a proud and glorious nation from what he writes.  He even says “And so I wail over Moab, over all Moab I cry, over the men of Kir-heres I moan. More than for Jazer I weep over you, vineyard of Sibmah.  Your tendrils trailed down to the sea, as far as Jazer they stretched.  Upon your harvest, upon your vintage, the ravager has fallen” (48:31-32). Great poetry! At the end of the oracle, there is an implied promise of restoration, though, even though these are not officially His people: “But I will change the lot of Moab in the days to come, says the Lord.  Thus far the judgment on Moab” (48:47).

The prophecies of devastation, whether to the Israelites or to other groups known to the prophets and writers of these times are sometimes very hard for some people to read. I know among those who regularly read scripture with my husband and me, some just can’t associate harsh words with the God they know. But I think if one looks at them as the words of men, who were inspired by God to help people SEE the hand of God in all the joys and disappointments of life, there have to be the downs, the defeats, the moments of desolation and despair [amazing how many negative words begin with “d” in English – devil too!]. There is a tremendous amount of hard stuff in life – in our individual lives and in the lives of ALL who have lived in history. What do we do with all that? I think what the God-lovers have done is try to see through it all to the good that lies in it or beyond it.

Romans 10 – Paul does not abandon hope for the Jews, for they “are deeply devoted to God”; but their “devotion is not based on true knowledge” (10:2). I take this to be Paul’s way of talking about the “experiential” or existential level of devotion early Quakers focused on so intently.

“God’s way of putting people right” (10:3) is something deeper than what the Law can achieve. Paul maintains here that “everyone who believes [in Christ] is put right with God” (10:4). “They have not known the way in which God puts people right with himself, and instead, they have tried to set up their own way; and so they did not submit themselves to God’s way of putting people right” (10:3). This translation of “putting people right” is from the Today’s English Version. The Douay-Rheims version talks about “the justice of God” and most other translations us “God’s righteousness” meaning the “way” God saves. It’s tricky.

Like the words Moses said of the law in Deuteronomy 30, the same could be said about Christ: “’Who will go up into heaven?’ (that is to bring Christ down) or ‘Who will go down into the abyss?’ (that is to bring Christ up from the dead)” (10:6-7).  No one needs to do this.  Christ is near us, even in our hearts and in our mouths—“that is the word of faith that we preach” (10:8).

But people can only “call on” Christ if they believe in him, and they can only believe in him if they have heard of him; and they can only hear of him if we preach about him; and we only preach of him if we are sent.  Paul sees in some of Isaiah’s words a prophecy of the turn of events they are seeing unfold: “I was found [by] those who were not seeking me; I revealed myself to those who were not asking for me” [quoting Is. 65:1-2]. The people of Israel, on the other hand, continue to be “a disobedient and contentious people” (10:21).

Much is made of words like these that have been used by so many over the years to inflame “anti-Jewish” sentiment, but to think that Paul really entertained such animosity is ridiculous. He was himself deeply Jewish in genealogy and conviction; but he did believe that the Jews, who were clinging strictly to the Law were being unfaithful to their own identity. They were belaboring their people for not seeing that Christ was a fulfillment of God’s promises to them. Like Jeremiah, Isaiah and the others, they were merely trying to convey what they saw as a prophetic ministry.