Today, I am reading and commenting on  Jeremiah 42-44.

After the murder of the man the Babylonians appointed as governor over Judah, the Jews remaining in Judah came to Jeremiah seeking to know God’s will for them.  In particular, they wanted Jeremiah to ask God where they should go and what they should do.  They swore that they would act in full accordance with whatever Jeremiah told them was God’s will for them.  When Jeremiah brings God’s answer to them it is clear that both God and Jeremiah knew how they would respond…which was by refusing to abide by the answer they received.  Every time I read this I come away with the impression that those who came to Jeremiah had already made up their minds as to what they were going to do before they spoke with him.  Which leads me to wonder why they came to Jeremiah in the first place.

We don’t have any basis to determine why they came to Jeremiah when they had already decided on a course of action.  What we do know is what they did after rejecting what God told them through Jeremiah.  First they accused Jeremiah of lying when he said that God had told them to stay in Judah.  Then, once they were in Egypt, instead of listening to Jeremiah’s messages from God, they resumed making sacrifices and offerings to idols.  So, the people consulted Jeremiah to learn what God’s commands for them were.  But, when he did not tell them what they wanted to hear, they rejected not only Jeremiah, but God as well.  We must be careful when we ask for God’s guidance to listen and obey what He tells us.

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