Statute of Limitation
“I have heard you,” replied Jeremiah the prophet. “I will certainly pray to the Lord your God as you have requested; I will tell you everything the Lord says and will keep nothing back from you.” Then they said to Jeremiah, “May the Lord be a true and faithful witness against us if we do not act in accordance with everything the Lord your God sends you to tell us. Whether it is favorable or unfavorable, we will obey the Lord our God, to whom we are sending you, so that it will go well with us, for we will obey the Lord our God.” Jeremiah 42:4-6 NIV
Keep nothing back – Jeremiah promises not to hold back anything. The Hebrew is lo ‘emna dabar. You will recognize both the negative (lo) and the noun debar. The verb is mana, “withhold, keep back, refrain, deny, hinder.” He promises to tell the people every word God gives him. We might wonder why the people need to press Jeremiah to do this. Aren’t prophets psychologically compelled to speak God’s words? Didn’t Jeremiah himself proclaim that withholding God’s message was impossible? Something has happened to Jeremiah so that he must be coerced to perform what he was destined to do.
“Let us note the difference between Jeremiah’s words and the people’s. In the original Hebrew, he speaks twenty words; they reply with twice as many. He speaks cautiously and hesitantly; they answer excitedly, with complete commitment. The difference between Jeremiah and the people is clear but dismal: He has lost all desire to prophecy, while they have only just begun to crave the word of God. He, who has devoted his life to speaking God’s word, now agrees to do them a favor by acquiescing to their demands. They, who have been estranged from God’s word all their lives, now fervently vow to ‘listen to the Lord, our God.’”[1]
Jeremiah has experienced a spiritual statute of limitation. He has reached the end of his hope that God’s word, and God Himself, will rescue the people. He has given up. There are plenty of reasons for his despair. For forty years he has tried to warn these people. In vain. For forty years he has been rejected, abused, imprisoned, scandalized. For forty years God has compelled him to act as the harbinger—and to take the punishment of a rejecting audience. For forty years Jeremiah has hoped in change—and things only got worse. Now, with the supposed Messiah Josiah dead, there seems to be no point in continuing. It’s over. The promises are finished. The end is near. Why try anymore?
We know the history. The people do not turn back to God. Babylon destroys Israel. Jeremiah dies disconsolate. But knowing the history does not mean we feel the history. Try putting yourself in Jeremiah’s place. Ah, but maybe you don’t have to work too hard to do this. Maybe you too have come to the end. Maybe you have tried and tried to get them to listen—and you’re discouraged to the point of giving up hope. Maybe what you feel is what happened to Jeremiah. And maybe, just maybe, God is still doing something despite your hopelessness. Maybe God’s statute of limitation isn’t ours.
Topical Index: keep nothing back, lo ‘emna dabar, discouragement, Jeremiah 42:4-6
[1] Benyamin Lau, Jeremiah: The Fate of a Prophet, p. 209.
God never ceases to amaze me. I had just finished telling God how discouraged I and others get as we stand believing HIS Word and aren’t able to see Him moving in the situation. I thought about all the people, Moses,Joseph, Daniel, the list could on who waited 40 years or more before they saw. I am guessing they also got discouraged and God never left them, He brought them through. Thank you for the encouragement.
I was giving up hope until this and your other recent contributions to the spirtual and intelectual atmosphere we now share. “They overcome him (the adversary ) By the blood of the lamb and the Word of their testimony ” “Blessed are the feet of them who bring good news”. This is my testimony you Skip Moen bring good news…
I myself have been going through a difficult stretch my body and spirit are being attacked, some say God is with you in the adversary is on the other side. Some say the adversary those his time is close and is pulling out all the stops. Yahweh’s word says I am with you even until the end. It is hard going against the grain. Sanding a piece of wood, going against the grain destroys the surface of the wood, I heard a message recently that mentioned why the feet washed. Feed our connection to this world all day long everyday. It sunk in. With a new truth, that we do battle everyday all day. This today’s word causes me to reevaluate my position. There used to be a term out there called christianese it rings a bell and warns me no comfort zone outside of Messiah the Prince of Peace no false peace only his peace his shalom his kingdom his righteousness his instructions all these things are here to guide me. God has no limits to his love he gave it all should I do no less do I know the season of The times? I should. Being in the family of two Holocaust Survivors I am reminded when they were leaving the Jews to the trains they feel the air with the smell of roses. Today I would say I need to smell the roses!
Yeshua told us He didn’t come to earth to bring peace but a sword.
He knew it wouldn’t be easy. We, as followers, are told to carry our cross, too.
I have become convinced it is about context, and our context landscape is so limited by what we can see in front of our faces. We pray for answers, but to answer what seems like a simple addition sum may take moving heaven and earth with a quadratic equation, most of which is simply off our page of reference.
YHVH moves, but He doesn’t move Himself (for He never left the place of love); He moves heaven and earth for us, and He moves us, too. So many times I have prayed for the salvation of someone only to find that my entire life has subsequently been thrown for a loop and my life entwined with that of the person I prayed for – their disaster has become mine, and their choices now affect me. The probability changes, but the choices He still leaves to us.
Seems to me the prophet gets tangled with everybody’s outcome. How must YHVH feel and Yeshua too, our Salvation Who became entwined with the outcome of each and every one of us, both saved and lost. There is no more helpless feeling than being tied to the choices of ones you love who are stuck in patterns of bad choices. When we do not choose life, those who love us the most are the ones who take the biggest hit. Not our enemies, but in the “house of our friends” are to be found the biggest casualties of our choices of death.
Truth that cuts at the core of our disfunction can in time release functionality. I see sin as disfunctional behavior . I do not wish to miss the depth of pain you expressed for the effects of our disfunction on those we love the most. Yet my experiance has been that Yeshua is in fact leading me into life and away from the truble that caused my learning opportunities. Surely it is also true as it has been said, “a new level, new devil” . We are on Jacobs ladder of growth, but it gets easier to climb the longer we have been at it.