Readings:
Jeremiah 45-47
Hebrews 10

Jeremiah 45-47

Baruch, Jeremiah’s scribe, is offered personal words of comfort. He’s told that even though the world is falling apart around him, he will be protected.

In chapter 46 we flash back to the reign of the previous king. Here Jeremiah prophecies about a defeat of Egypt by the Babylonians. In the waning years of the Assyrian empire, their allies to the southeast had enough of their rule and sacked Nineveh. With their regional ally on the ropes, Egypt came up to the Euphrates River and tried to stop Babylon from swallowing the remnants of the crumbling empire. This is where king Josiah was slain ( we read this back in Day 163) when he tried to block the Egyptian pharaoh from transiting through his territory to attack the Babylonians.

After the brief battle with the kingdom of Judah, the Egyptians give aid and support to the besieged remnants of the Assyrian army at an Egyptian controlled city in the Euphrates river. This city is then attacked and the Egyptian-Assyrian army is routed at the Battle of Carchemish in 605BC.

That’s the background for the prophecy that Jeremiah proclaims against Egypt here. They’re trying to stop Babylon from becoming the sole power in the near east, thus threatening their ability to play king maker and puppet master over the kingdoms along that lucrative trade route. But in pursuing this goal they’re directing opposing an instrument that God is setting up to bring judgment on the nations.

Hebrews 10

The author is here contrasting the ultimate perfect Sacrifice of Christ, that was performed once and the daily ongoing sacrifices of perfect animals, who although perfect (as in without defects) they were still on,y animals and their blood only having finite value.

The Levitical sacrificial economy was imperfect by its very nature. It wasn’t a mistake by God, he specifically set it up and said the atonement sacrifice was to be yearly, and then after some of their failures in the desert it was extended to having a daily sacrifice for sins. This works temporarily, or else God wouldn’t mandate it to be ongoing, it would’ve happened once and everyone would’ve went on their way. But it was ongoing because it could only do so much.

Christ’s sacrifice was of infinite value and he offered this sacrifice for us, in doing so he done what the old sacrifices never could do, he changed the hearts of those whom it was offered for. This included the writing the law on our hearts and washing us in his blood like John says in Revelation and Jeremiah prophesied in days of old.

The closing of this chapter is a call to persevere in the faith. It’s also a warning to not go back to following the ceremonial acts of the law in hopes of salvation because we’ve now been initiated into the new covenant and are fully aware of the deficiencies of the old, so that now the old covenant doesn’t have even the power to forgive sins that it once had.

Tomorrow’s Readings:
Jeremiah 48-49
Hebrews 11