I. Summary
Yahweh hopes to abandon Judah and promises to bring destruction, exile, and death to the people.
II. Photo
Yahweh expresses a wish of abandonment: “Oh, to be in the desert, at an encampment for wayfarers! Oh, to leave my people, to go away from them!” (v. 1)
III. Select Verses
1: Oh, to be in the desert, At an encampment for wayfarers! Oh, to leave my people, To go away from them — For they are all adulterers, A band of rogues.
10: I will turn Jerusalem into rubble, Into dens for jackals; And I will make the towns of Judah A desolation without inhabitants.
11-13: What man is so wise That he understands this? To whom has the LORD’s mouth spoken, So that he can explain it: Why is the land in ruins, Laid waste like a wilderness, With none passing through? The LORD replied: Because they forsook the Teaching I had set before them. They did not obey Me and they did not follow it, but followed their own willful heart and followed the Baalim, as their fathers had taught them.
15: I will scatter them among nations which they and their fathers never knew; and I will dispatch the sword after them until I have consumed them.
22-23: Thus said the LORD: Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom; Let not the strong man glory in his strength; Let not the rich man glory in his riches. But only in this should one glory: In his earnest devotion to Me. For I the LORD act with kindness, Justice, and equity in the world; For in these I delight — declares the LORD.
IV. Outline
1. Wish to abandon the people
2-5. The people deceit one another
6a. Future punishment
6b-8. Rationale: duplicity cannot go unpunished
9-10. Future destruction for Judah
11-13. Rationale: the people followed their own heart and the Baal gods
14-15. Future exile
16-20. Future calls to lament
21. Future death to the masses
22-23. Praise only comes from serving Yahweh
24-25. (Enigmatic statement:) Israel is uncircumcised of heart
V. Comment
No comment today. Stay tuned.
VI. Works Used
(see “Commentaries” page)
Photo copied from http://th08.deviantart.net/fs6/PRE/i/2005/098/a/b/Desert_camp_by_Mr_out_law.jpg
