The Tanakh Podcast

Jeremiah delivers his prophecy at the Temple and is almost issued a death sentence. He is saved by the officials and the common people who believe that he is delivering an authentic Godly message. We discuss one of these people in particular - Ahikam ben Shafan - and also the idea, expressed powerfully here, that society cannot execute the mouthpiece of unpopular ideas.

In the fourth year of Yehoyakim, Nebuchadnezzar comes to power. Now Jeremiah's predictions are indeed transpiring. We see a double prophecy: 1. The promise of the destruction of Jerusalem, and the ascendancy of Babylon for 70 years 2. The theme of the "poisoned chalice" which will be drunk by Jerusalem, but then will be fed to all the nations around as God "summons the sword against all the inhabitants of the earth."

Jeremiah sees two baskets of figs, one of supreme quality, the other totally inedible. What is the message that God is sending to the nation?

We see two sets of problematic leaders: The kings who misguided the nation - the "negligent shepherds" who lose their flock; and the false prophets who claim to have "dreamt a dream" from God, but are pretenders, phonies, merely uttering falsehoods.

Jeremiah travels to the palace of King Jehoiakim and rebukes him for the exploitation of the poor, and the broad injustice and political violence during his reign:   “Woe to him who builds his palace by injustice,      his upper rooms with corruption, making his own people work for nothing,      not paying them for their labor."   "Do what is just and right. Rescue from the hand of the oppressor the one who has been robbed. Do no wrong, Nor violence to the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow,  and do not shed innocent blood in this place."

Suddenly the book of Jeremiah lurches forward twenty years or so, to the final months of the kingdom. King Zidkiyahu asks Jeremiah to beseech God for a miracle. But Jeremiah has bad news. The only recourse is surrender. Resisting the enemy will bring death, hunger and epidemic. The die has been cast. There is not possibility of Teshuva any longer.

Jeremiah preaches his prophecies of invasion and national defeat in the Temple compound. He is arrested, beaten and jailed. He emerges from prison with his most devastating prophecy in which he names Babylon for the first time. In our podcast we discuss the clash between prophet and priest.

The prophet condemns the people of Jerusalem, including its royalty, for practicing the cult of child sacrifice.

Jeremiah takes a visit to the local pottery and compares Israel to clay in the potter's hands. We contrast the message of our chapter with the piyut recited on the night of Yom Kippur.

God is the Hope - or Mikve - of Israel. How did Rabbi Akiva take a line from this chapter and use it as a key concept of the closeness between God and Israel, in the dark aftermath of the Destruction of the Temple?