"God Kills Some More - "Then the LORD said to me, "Even if Moses and Samuel stood before me pleading for these people, I wouldn't help them. Away with them! Get them out of my sight! And if they say to you, 'But where can we go?' tell them, 'This is what the LORD says: Those who are destined for death, to death; those who are destined for war, to war; those who are destined for famine, to famine; those who are destined for captivity, to captivity.' "I will send four kinds of destroyers against them," says the LORD. "I will send the sword to kill, the dogs to drag away, the vultures to devour, and the wild animals to finish up what is left. Because of the wicked things Manasseh son of Hezekiah, king of Judah, did in Jerusalem, I will make my people an object of horror to all the kingdoms of the earth." (Jeremiah 15:1-4 NLT)
This
passage is part of the larger prophecies of the book of Jeremiah. You can read the entire chapter here:
In the book of
Jeremiah, God sent his message of doom against the nation of Judah; those who
were not killed during the siege of Jerusalem by the Babylonians were going to
be taken into captivity, and Jerusalem (including the First Temple, the one
built by King Solomon) would be destroyed.
The prophecies were fulfilled shortly after Jeremiah's warnings, circa
586 BCE.
The reason for the Babylonian
captivity is because the people of Judah had completely turned away from God,
choosing to worship idols instead (Jeremiah 16:10-13), and had even defiled
God's Temple by placing idols inside of it and worshipping them there (Ezekiel
5-8). The reference to King Manasseh's
wicked deeds was because of his idolatry and child sacrifice (2 Chronicles
33:1-9). On top of that, the people were
constantly committing murder, foolishly thinking that God did not see or care
what they did (Ezekiel 5:5-7, 7:23, 8:17-18, 9:9-10). "Therefore this
is what the Sovereign Lord says: I myself am against you,
Jerusalem, and I will inflict punishment on you in the sight of the nations. Because of all your
detestable idols, I will do to you what I have never done before and will never
do again" (Ezekiel 5:8-9, NIV).
The charge of
idolatry is a very grievous sin, which God does not take lightly (see Exodus 20:3-6, 23; 23:13, 23-24; 34:17;
Leviticus 19:4; 26:1; Deuteronomy 4:15-28; 5:7; 6:14-15; 8:19; 12:31; 17:2-7;
27:15; 29:17-18). God warned the
Israelites on several occasions that if they committed idolatry, it was a crime
that warranted the death penalty. The
Israelites' covenant with God demanded that they worship and serve him
only. They were not supposed to worship
other gods or fashion idols for themselves. God had warned them that if they did these
things, it would lead to their destruction: "If you ever
forget the LORD your God and follow other gods and worship and bow down to
them, I testify against you today that you will surely be destroyed"
(Deuteronomy 8:19, NIV).
Why is idolatry considered such a
serious crime? The severity of the
judgment, capital punishment, is due to the severity of the sin. God is the only God, the Lord and creator of
all the universe. When anyone bows down
and worships or pays tribute to a false god or idol, they are taking credit
away from God and giving it to something undeserving of that credit. "I am the LORD; that is my name! I will not yield my glory to another or my
praise to idols" (Isaiah 42:8, NIV).
The crime of idolatry was so serious that it was often referred to as
adultery against God (Ezekiel 6:9).
The people of Israel and Judah had
been given multiple warnings by God through many prophets over the course of
nearly 300 years, and they still did not repent and turn to God for
forgiveness. If they had, they would
have been spared, and all of the death and destruction could have been
avoided. "If at
any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and
destroyed, and if that nation I warned repents of its
evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned"
(Jeremiah 18:7-8, NIV; see also Jonah chapter 3).
As
in previous passages, it should be noted that God does not want anyone to
perish (2 Peter 3:9), and he takes no pleasure in the death of anyone (Ezekiel
18:32). However, there comes a time when
his patience runs out and he abandons those who have rejected him to their
fate. The conquest of Judah by Babylon
was such a time.
