{"id":69248,"date":"2020-01-27T23:39:31","date_gmt":"2020-01-27T21:39:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=69248"},"modified":"2023-08-27T13:49:49","modified_gmt":"2023-08-27T10:49:49","slug":"does-god-desire-destruction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/does-god-desire-destruction\/","title":{"rendered":"Does God Desire Destruction?\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[884,459,547,400],"acf":{"old_id":"69248","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":64460,"related_cahpter":"406","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"As the prophet said: \u201cto uproot and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow\u2026\u201d\r\n","content":"

In this chapter, Jeremiah reacts with characteristic anguish at the complacency of Judean society\u00a0 \u2014 \u201cThe word of the LORD,\u201d Jeremiah notes sadly, has \u201cbecome for them an object of scorn; they will have none of it.\u201d But this complacency cannot be understood as mere apathy. Rather, the people\u2019s imperviousness to Jeremiah\u2019s warnings is a direct result of a failure of leadership. The priests and prophets of his day \u201coffer healing offhand for the wounds of My people, saying \u201c\u2018All is well, all is well,\u2019 when nothing is well.\u201d When the religious and moral authorities tell people that their conduct is already sufficient, few, it seems, are in need of further convincing.<\/span><\/p>\n

This picture of a collusion between short-sighted politicians (for this seems to be the real role of the priests and prophets) and a populace not over-eager to hear criticism is a depressing one. The people are unable to hear Jeremiah\u2019s message, and so their coming doom is sealed. What is perhaps even more disturbing, however, is that this state of affairs seems to itself be a fulfillment of prophecy and a working-out of the divine will. When Jeremiah complains of the people that \u201ctheir ears are blocked and they cannot listen,\u201d it is difficult not to hear an echo of the charge given to the prophet Isaiah at his commission. There, rather than inducing the people to repent, Isaiah was given the strange and terrible task of <\/span>preventing<\/span><\/i> them from doing so \u2014 \u201cDull that people\u2019s mind, stop its ears, and seal its eyes \u2014 lest, seeing with its eyes and hearing with its ears, it also grasp with its mind, and repent and save itself.\u201d Jeremiah\u2019s anguish, then, is only the confirmation that Isaiah\u2019s mission was \u2018successful.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

Such a conception of God\u2019s action in history is undoubtedly disturbing. How could it be that God could actually <\/span>desire <\/span><\/i>the people\u2019s destruction and work to <\/span>forestall <\/span><\/i>acts of repentance that might prevent such a fate? This idea offends our moral sensibilities, and indeed contrasts sharply with other prophetic witnesses, such as those to be found in Ezekiel and Jonah, which stress that God does not desire the death of the sinner, but waits with bated breath for the chance to extend forgiveness.<\/span><\/p>\n

While this latter strain of prophetic thinking is undoubtedly more attractive to most of us, the line which runs from Isaiah\u2019s commission to Jeremiah\u2019s unheeded lamentation asks us to take seriously the possibility that sometimes, a community might be too deeply corrupted to survive in its current form. Perhaps there are times when nothing less than a terrible purgation is required to return us to a state in which rebuilding can occur. When God first spoke to Jeremiah, he was told the prophet\u2019s task was \u201cto uproot and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant\u201d (1:9).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps, Jeremiah prompts us to consider, it is sometimes the case that in order to build, the old structure must be torn down to the foundations.<\/span><\/p>\n

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