{"id":71355,"date":"2020-03-08T12:41:21","date_gmt":"2020-03-08T10:41:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=71355"},"modified":"2020-03-08T12:41:21","modified_gmt":"2020-03-08T10:41:21","slug":"a-surreal-hallucination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/a-surreal-hallucination\/","title":{"rendered":"A Surreal Hallucination"},"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":[],"acf":{"old_id":"71355","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":38552,"related_cahpter":"432","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"Could this really be God's word?\u00a0\r\n\r\n","content":"

In this chapter, Jeremiah shares one of his innermost secrets. He has been prophesying for forty long and lonely years, since he was a teenager (by simple calculation, he is now in his fifties). We have followed him through many challenges and obstacles, including trials that caused him to doubt his own visions and lose the will to prophesy. But until now, he has never questioned the institution of prophecy itself.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Even in his humiliating confrontation with Hananiah son of Azzur seven years earlier, Jeremiah merely prayed that Hananiah’s vision would come true. But here, something else happens. He receives a prophecy that his cousin from Anathoth will come to sell him a field, for he has the right of first refusal. When his cousin arrives, Jeremiah is taken by surprise and exclaims, “And I knew this was the word of God.” What can this mean? Did Jeremiah need to prove that his vision was from God? The commentators entirely negate this suggestion. For example, Abrabanel writes:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough he said, \u2018And I knew this was the word of God,\u2019 this does not mean…that Jeremiah initially doubted whether the prophecy that had come to him was the word of God, for the prophets had no doubt about their prophecy, and the prophecy itself was self-evidently a prophecy based on the intensity of feeling\u201d (Abrabanel on Jer. 32:8).<\/span><\/p>\n

Hoffman’s simple reading of the verse seems preferable. Hoffman demonstrates that for many years, Jeremiah has indeed been preoccupied with discerning the truth of his prophecy. The grim reality of his imprisonment just moments before the destruction, with his prophecies heralding national disaster, leads him to think that a message of God suddenly announcing that his cousin is coming to sell him a field is but a surreal hallucination. Much earlier in his career, the people of his hometown conspired against him when he openly questioned the authenticity of Josiah’s reformation. For decades he has had no contact with his relatives; he no doubt wonders about them from time to time. Now, as he sits in the prison yard, protected from his enemies yet aware of the destruction that would descend at any moment, he worries that it is not God speaking, but his own voice. Why would God command him to purchase a field just before the entire land is to be destroyed? Why torture him? In the past, he has tried to distinguish between true and false prophecies. Now he tests his own thoughts. Could this really be God’s word?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Lau, Binyamin. <\/span>Jeremiah: The Fate of a Prophet<\/span><\/em>. Maggid Books, 2013. \u201cPurchasing a Field in Anathoth\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":69252,"id":69252,"title":"jer-lau2","filename":"jer-lau2.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/jer-lau2.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/running-a-gauntlet-of-pain\/jer-lau2\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"jer-lau2","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":69251,"date":"2020-01-27 21:59:05","modified":"2020-01-27 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