Today, I am reading and commenting on  Jeremiah 33-35.

At the beginning of today’s passage Jeremiah speaks of God’s promise to restore Israel after its destruction because of the sins of the Israelites.  The thing I took note of today is that at the end of that portion of today’s passage, Jeremiah refers to people who despise the Israelites because God had brought about the destruction of the Northern Kingdom and was now destroying the Southern one.  I am unclear from the context who Jeremiah refers o when he talks about people who despise God’s people.  Whoever it was, Jeremiah was warning them that the descendants of Jacob were still His Chosen people.  There are people today who despise Jews, God was speaking to them through Jeremiah.  As Paul wrote, God has grafted those who accept salvation through Jesus Christ into His family, He has made them descendants of Jacob, but that does not mean that He will not keep His promises to those who are genetically descended from Jacob.  God still has plans for the good of the people of Israel.

Jeremiah’s interaction with the Rekabites provides a counter to the previous.  The Rekabites were not descendants of Jacob.  Yet God made a promise to them as well.  Through Jeremiah, God praised the Rekabites for remaining faithful to the instructions their ancestor had given them, instructions which went beyond anything God has laid down in the law He gave Moses.  The Rekabites worshiped God along with the Israelites, and had done so as part of the Kenites since before the Israelites settled in the Land of Canaan.  Jehonadab, who gave the Rekabites the commands they followed, had assisted Jehu in wiping out the House of Ahab and destroying Baal worship in Israel, the Northern Kingdom.  So, while the Israelites were God’s Chosen people, the Rekabites were used by God as well.  Here, they are held up as an example of those who were more faithful than the Israelites.  The Israelites were proud because they were God’s Chosen People, but Jeremiah holds the Rekabites up as a model whom the Israelites would do well to imitate.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.