We take up the story after Jeremiah had been witnessing against child sacrifice just outside the gates of Jerusalem. He goes back into town and through the Benjamin gate to the Temple courtyard.
Then Jeremias came from Topheth, whither the Lord had sent him to prophecy, and he stood in the court of the house of the Lord, and said to all the people:
Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold I will bring in upon this city, and upon all the cities thereof all the evils that I have spoken against it: because they have hardened their necks, that they might not hear my words.
Now Phassur the son of Emmur, the priest, who was appointed chief in the house of the Lord, heard Jeremias prophesying these words. And Phassur struck Jeremias the prophet, and put him in the stocks, that were in the upper gate of Benjamin, in the house of the Lord.
And when it was light the next day, Phassur brought Jeremias out of the stocks. And Jeremias said to him: The Lord hath not called thy name Phassur, but fear on every side. For thus saith the Lord: Behold I will deliver thee up to fear, thee and all thy friends: and they shall fall by the sword of their enemies, and thy eyes shall see it, and I will give all Juda into the hand of the king of Babylon: and he shall strike them with the sword. And I will give all the substance of this city, and all its labour, and every precious thing thereof, and all the treasures of the kings of Juda will I give into the hands of their enemies: and they shall pillage them, and take them away, and carry them to Babylon. But thou, Phassur, and all that dwell in thy house, shall go into captivity, and thou shalt go to Babylon, and there thou shalt die, and there thou shalt be buried, thou and all thy friends, to whom thou hast prophesied a lie.
Jeremiah 19.14 – 20.6
Jeremiah was not a man for the quiet life – well, he might have been, but for the Lord’s call. He did try to evade it by saying he was too young, but to no avail; called and sent he was, so to Jerusalem he went and proclaimed the Word. And got beaten by the chief priest and left in the stocks overnight. Did he slink away with his tail between his legs? No, he spoke the Word again. The exile in Babylon was coming fast.
Jeremiah would later encourage the exiles not to put their lives on hold, but to build a new life for themselves in Babylon, as we see many of them do in the Book of Daniel and elsewhere. Am I simply marking time, awaiting the end of the exile from ‘normal life’ that covid19 has led us to?
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