Imagine!

Imagine Osama Ben Laden stealing our Declaration of Independence from the National Archives and then burning it before our very eyes on an internet pod-cast.

Imagine our President, taken by force, from the White House, in handcuffs, to Baghdad, and the whole thing broadcast on the BBC.

Imagine whole families, thousands of people, uprooted from their homes and transported to Iran as slaves and hostages to ensure no reprisals.

Got it?

That’s the picture of God’s people in the late 7th century B.C. The Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar sent an army to Jerusalem, took their most sacred national treasures, and carried the king and the best and brightest of the Jewish empire as hostages to Babylon.

The captives had to wonder: “Where is God? Has the God of Israel met His match in the Babylonian empire?

Among those captives were princes named Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. Their story – and especially that of Daniel, is recounted in the book, Daniel.

The historical section of Daniel covers the period from 605 B.C. to 536 B.C. and appeared as a literary document after Judah’s captivity, during the days when God’s people were beginning to return to Jerusalem. The book has but one point: Despite Israel’s national shame and weakness, God, their God, was still God. No matter how it seemed at times, He still ruled over the kingdoms of men and “gives them to anyone He wishes” (4:17).

Proof of God’s sovereignty is offered in the first chapter of the book as the author sets the stage for the main characters and places the reader in their world. These characters, though enslaved in a foreign country, rise inexplicably to positions of power - solely because God wills it (Daniel 1). In the second section, even the Kings of Babylon and Persia come to understand that Israel’s God is sovereign even over them (chapters 2 - 7). In the final section of the book (chapters 8-12), Daniel receives visions for the future that illustrate the same thing. Years after Daniel’s death and the circulation of this book, God’s people, in reading Daniel, would take comfort in knowing that no matter how difficult the road, God was still taking care of them and would deliver them. Their assurance of the future rested on the demonstrations of God in their past.

Daniel remains important. Even though God’s people are no longer defined at all by nationality or ethnicity, our God still rules over the nations and gives them to whomever He wishes, even the lowliest of men. Even though the nations of the world, as nations of the world, have neither promise nor hope from God, they ignore Him and His will at their own peril.

We, however, regardless of nationality, as followers of Jesus, are the People of God. No matter who holds public office, God sits on the throne. Our allegiance is solely to Him, and our hope rests in Him exclusively who rules sovereign over the kingdoms of men.

In reading Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel, two dates are important.

God had greatly reduced the size of His people by 605 B.C. Israel, the Northern Kingdom, was no more, having fallen to an Assyrian occupation a little over a hundred years before. God had hoped the rest of His people, Judah, would get the point: He was serious about them paying attention to the covenant He had made with them.

They did not.

In 605 B.C., Babylon went to war with Egypt and God’s people were caught in the middle. Judah had sided with Egypt, and for that transgression, the King of Babylon defeated Judah as well, taking some of her princes as hostage back to Babylon. It wasn’t just unfortunate happenstance. God had planned it. Among the hostages was Daniel, who wrote the book which bears his name. He wrote in Babylon, and his book is a reminder of how God rules over the nations of men and can bless His people no matter where they live.

In 597 B.C., Babylon once again went to war with Egypt, and once again, Judah sided with Egypt. This time, in defeating Egypt and Judah, the king of Babylon took hostage the King of Judah, replaced him with another, and took more hostages. Among them was Ezekiel.

Ezekiel, Daniel, and Jeremiah are all contemporaries.

Ezekiel was part of the imprisoned group of 597 B.C. “As the LORD had declared, Nebuchadnezzar removed all the treasures from the temple of the LORD and from the royal palace, and took away all the gold articles that Solomon king of Israel had made for the temple of the LORD. He carried into exile all Jerusalem: all the officers and fighting men, and all the craftsmen and artisans--a total of ten thousand. Only the poorest people of the land were left.”

Those in captivity did not believe they would stay long. They earnestly believed they would be delivered, and the source of deliverance would be their kinsmen back home in Jerusalem. They believed their sins had separated them from God and His people and the Promised Land. Those left behind in Jerusalem must be the truly righteous, they thought, because they were not in captivity! In time, they would come rescue their brethren.

Ezekiel offers his readers in Babylon insight into what was truly going on in Jerusalem. If they were expecting deliverance from that quarter, they will be disappointed. The sins of Jerusalem’s inhabitants are every bit as bad, and more so, than any they have committed. There will be no deliverance by them.

Ezekiel was a priest in the temple of God. Taken captive at age 30, he would have only just begun his priestly service. He speaks and writes to his countrymen who are exiled as he is. Exile is not being homeless. “Rather, it is knowing that you do have a home, but that your home has been taken over by enemies.” It is not being without roots. “On the contrary, it is having deep roots which have now been plucked up, and there you are, with roots dangling, writhing in pain, exposed to a cold and jeering world, longing to be restored to native and nurturing soil. Exile is knowing precisely where you belong, but knowing you can’t go there – not yet. In exile, life cannot be “business as usual” (quotes from Ian Duguid, The NIV Application Commentary: Ezekiel (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1999) p. 48).

The book is divided by dates into 13 sections. Watch for the date changes in your readings. They do not always signal a subject change, but they are good markers for your readings.

Ezekiel is important to us because Christians are also “in exile” (1 Peter 1:1,17; 2:11). This is not our home. We are looking for a better city, a city whose architect and builder is God. Ezekiel tells us how to live until we finally get to “go home.”

Jeremiah is one of the “major prophets” of the Old Testament. After God’s people divided into two nations, the northern one continued until 722 B.C. Isaiah is the “major prophet” of that time period. The southern kingdom continued until 586 B.C. Jeremiah was the “major prophet” of that period.

Jeremiah dates his work from the thirteenth year of king Josiah (627 B.C.).

In 609 B.C., during a foolish war with Egypt, Josiah was killed and Judah lost her independence. He was succeeded by his son Jehoahaz. Egypt, however, as the conquering nation, felt they had the right to appoint a king of their own choosing, so they forcibly removed Jehoahaz and replaced him with Eliakim, another of Josiah’s sons.

In 605 B.C., the Babylonians conquered the Egyptians and carried away a number of the princes of Judah as spoils of war. Among them was Daniel, whose story is told in the Old Testament book that bears his name. In 597 B.C., the Babylonians replaced Eliakim (whose other name is “Jehoiakim”) with Zedekiah. During all this time, Judah’s greatest threat was from the Babylonians. She was tempted to ally herself with Egypt, but Jeremiah knew her security lay in doing what she had never been able to do: submit to the will of God.

Jeremiah spoke out strongly against political corruption (5:4-5), oppression and immorality. He condemned the men of Judah for acting like “well-fed, lusty stallions, each neighing after another man’s wife” (5:8). He called Judah to submit to God’s judgment against them for their sins, but his call was viewed as treason. His own people slandered him (18:18), beat him (chapter 20), threatened his life (chapter 26), threw him into prison (37) and down a well (38).

Jeremiah was a reluctant prophet. When God called Jonah to go to Nineveh, Jonah didn’t object, he just didn’t go. Jeremiah, however, complained. And yet, he knew that the salvation of God’s people depended on the work God had given him. He wrote: “Whenever I speak, I cry out proclaiming violence and destruction. So the word of the LORD has brought me insult and reproach all day long. But if I say, "I will not mention him or speak any more in his name," his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot” (20:8-9).

Jeremiah can be outlined as follows:

I) Jeremiah’s call – chapter 1
II) Jeremiah calls Judah to repent – chapters 2-12
III) Punishment for sin predicted – chapters 13-29
IV) Promise of hope – chapters 30-35
V) Judah’s fall – chapters 36 - 45
VI) Judgment against other nations – chapters 46 - 51
V) The Fall of Jerusalem – chapter 52.

Jeremiah’s story and preaching was not just for Judah. God specifically says he was to be a prophet to the nations. The book serves as a reminder to all people, whether they are God’s people or not, of the sovereignty of God. It is also a warning of judgment against all who would disregard the rules of God for living on the earth.

Jeremiah was the Old Testament suffering servant of the Lord. Reading about his life, we get human insight into how God felt about what His people were going through because of their sins. Jeremiah wrote: “Oh, that my head were a spring of water and my eyes a fountain of tears! I would weep day and night for the slain of my people” (9:1).