Returning from the Abyss

Pivotal Moments in the Book of Jeremiah

Walter Brueggemann, Brent A. Strawn

• Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781646982462
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

The Pivotal Moments in the Old Testament series helps readers see Scripture with new eyes, highlighting short, key texts—pivotal moments—that shift our expectations and invite us to turn toward another reality transformed by God's purposes and action.

The book of Jeremiah tells the story of a prophetic mission that seems doomed to fail. God instructs Jeremiah to call to account a people who refuse to turn from their unfaithfulness until it is too late, and they encounter destruction at the hands of the Babylonians. Yet underlying the themes of warning and judgment is a steady refrain: God's desire to draw God's people back into covenant, even when things seem past the point of no return. What lessons can contemporary readers draw from the narrative of a stubborn people who cling to their exploitative ways and a God who, even so, relentlessly pursues them? In Returning from the Abyss, Walter Brueggemann explores the historical and literary context of the book of Jeremiah to illuminate the dual themes of Israel's long walk into, and out of, the trauma and devastation of exile.

Throughout, Brueggemann points out the role of the prophet in overturning a people's illusory sense of security in unjust structures that are not of God and leading those same people toward the hope of restoration and return. He also highlights the persistent themes of empire, self-sufficiency, and withholding from neighbor that inform the narratives of both Israel and "American exceptionalism" and examines how the holiness of God is at work in untamed historical processes that point us toward a costly hope for a just economic and political future.

Chapter 1

The Word of the Lord “Came” (and Still Does)
(Jeremiah 1:3)

It came also in the days of King Jehoiakim son of Josiah of Judah, and until the end of the eleventh year of King Zedekiah son of Josiah of Judah, until the captivity of Jerusalem in the fifth month.

Scripture Passages for Reference

Jeremiah 1:1–3

2 Samuel 8:13

1 Kings 1:13, 25

2 Kings 22–23

The book of Jeremiah opens with an editorial introduction (1:1–3). These verses are likely a notation added later by scribes; they give us important data that serve as clues about how to read the book that follows. The “it” of verse 3 is “the word of the LORD” that was uttered and enacted through the long historical period that concerns the book. We are not told how the word of the Lord “came.” Verse 2 tells us that it came to Jeremiah the prophet; thereafter the prophet uttered his own words that became the book. But we are also permitted to think that “the word of the LORD,” as the exercise of divine sovereignty, “came” in and through the historical processes that are reflected in the book of Jeremiah. Either way, or in both ways, what follows is testimony about the way in which the sovereign will of YHWH impinged upon the historical processes of Jerusalem. It is to this impingement, by utterance and by action, that the words of Jeremiah and the words of his book bear witness. What follows in the book is a consideration of the odd interface between that effective but elusive word of the Lord and the palpable realities of public history.

In order to articulate a timeline and a historical frame of reference for the book of Jeremiah, this editorial introduction mentions three kings in Jerusalem. The first is King Josiah (639–609 BCE), who is elsewhere scarcely present in the book, but his fingerprints are all over it. In 2 Kings 22–23 we are told that King Josiah instituted a great reform in Jerusalem that called Israel back to the realities of the Sinai covenant, realities that had long been disregarded by royal Jerusalem. The reform of Josiah was grounded in the conviction that adherence to the commandments of YHWH was the inescapable precondition of public well-being. It is likely that the “covenant” to which Jeremiah bears witness in Jeremiah 11:6–7 refers to the work of Josiah. The prophet, moreover, reports that “listeners” did not “listen” but promptly and completely rejected the requirements of covenant: “Yet they did not obey or incline their ear.” Josiah is referenced, moreover, in Jeremiah 22:15–16 as “your father” (father of Shallum), who did justice for the poor and needy.

The introduction also names Jehoiakim (also called Shallum [609–598]), who is reckoned by Jeremiah to be an evil king who violated covenant by refusing to pay his workers (22:13), thus bringing trouble upon his people. The third king mentioned is Zedekiah (598–587), brother of Jehoiakim, who is portrayed in the book as a vacillating coward who wanted to obey the covenant but who also wanted to appease Babylon (Jeremiah 37–38) and who finally ended as a brutalized failure (52:10). While absent from this introduction, there is a fourth king to be noted, Jehoiachin (598), son of Jehoiakim, also called Coniah. In 22:28–30 he is imagined as a broken potsherd to be cast off—that is, deported to Babylon (more on this later). It is anticipated in the poetry of 22:30 that Jehoiachin will be childless—that is, without an heir. The long-running dynasty of David will come to an end!

Thus the book of Jeremiah has as its context and historical material the sweep of the Davidic dynasty that reaches its apex of faithfulness in Josiah and soon after its nadir of humiliation in the two deported kings, Jehoiachin and Zedekiah. The book of Jeremiah intends to point to the effective operation of the word of the Lord in, with, and under historical vagaries of the Jerusalem sacral-political establishment.

Over against that establishment is set only the single person of Jeremiah. The opening verses want us to see that this adjudication of the rule and interpretation of history is a quite unequal contest. On the one side is the monarchy, with its deep dynastic promises from God. On the other side is only Jeremiah—except we know more of him. We are told in 1:1 that he derives from “the priests of Anathoth,” a village in the tribal area of Benjamin not far from Jerusalem. When we scroll back on “the priests of Anathoth” in the Bible, we come to the ancient priest Abiathar, who was one of the two priests of David (2 Samuel 8:18). He was clearly closely connected to royal power (2 Samuel 15:13; 17:3; 19:11).

In the struggle for the succession to the throne after David, however, Abiathar sided with David’s son Adonijah (1 Kings 1:19, 25) against the ambitious claim of his other son Solomon. In the end, of course, Solomon prevailed, and the adherents to Adonijah (the loser) were in the disfavor of the new king. Abiathar, the priest, was on the wrong side and was banished by King Solomon to his home village of Anathoth (1 Kings 2:26–27). It is from the rootage of this banished priest that Jeremiah comes. It is credible to think that Abiathar long ago opposed Solomon for king because he anticipated the self-aggrandizement that would mark Solomon’s reign. Thus it is credible to think that Jeremiah was heir to this old and deep resistance to Solomon and all that he came to represent in the royal Jerusalem power structure. Jeremiah may be seen as a carrier of long-term critical resentment against the lavish covenant-violating Jerusalem dynasty.

This innocent-looking introduction thus sets up for us the mighty struggle for the truth of history that is to be waged in the book of Jeremiah. This struggle is between the long-legitimated royal dynasty and an old deep critical resentment that is grounded in the covenantal tradition and the ancient theological conviction that had not been erased by the force of money and power. The reader of the book of Jeremiah is recruited to participate in that struggle for the truth of history. It is an ancient struggle in the purview of biblical faith. The reason we continue to read the book of Jeremiah, however, is that this ancient struggle for the truth of history is at the same time an astonishingly contemporary struggle. And we readers are summoned into that contemporary struggle.

The book of Jeremiah was composed over a long time—as long as all of these kings and beyond. From the outset, however, the makers of the book of Jeremiah and presumably the prophet himself understood the sure outcome of that struggle. They understood the outcome ahead of time because they never doubted that the rule of God, enacted by the word of God, would prevail over the policies of monarchy and temple. They saw, as Jeremiah did, that the monarchy and the royal city were quite temporary affairs in the long story of Israel:

Our little systems have their day;

They have their day and cease to be:

They are but broken lights of thee,

And thou, O Lord, art more than they.¹

When we reach the final phrase of our verse, we come to the theme of the book of Jeremiah: “until the captivity of Jerusalem.” From the outset, the book and its framers (and the prophet Jeremiah) knew that the entire collection of the book was headed toward and would pivot around the deportation and displacement of the leading members of the Jerusalem regime—the deep abyss of exile. They knew there would be a final king, the last on the royal timeline. They knew the coming end of the dynasty. They knew of the coming destruction of the temple. They knew that the power status of Jerusalem and its dominant narrative could not be sustained, because they contradicted the will and purpose of the Lord of history. In Jeremiah 52:28–30 we are given a sober report concerning the deportations—three times: 598, 587, and 581. Of these, the second is reckoned as the decisive displacement, the ultimate abyss, as it were. In our reading we are struck now by how few were the number of deportees: 4,600. But the impact and durable significance of the deportation, for the book of Jeremiah and for the ongoing faith of Judaism, are quite disproportionate to the actual historical data. The displacement is the defining fracture in the history of God and Israel as God’s people. It is a fracture that signifies God’s full estrangement from God’s people. The deportation is a manifestation of the truth that the will and purpose of YHWH are not tied to any historical reality. YHWH will govern in freedom according to YHWH’s own purpose.

It is the work of the book of Jeremiah to reflect on that decisively broken connection. The book is a witness to that reality, but it is also a pastoral enterprise to walk the faithful into the abyss and to dwell there. And then, before the book is finished (and long after the prophet), the work of the book is to walk the faithful back out of the abyss of exile into a new life of fidelity with God. The introduction speaks only “until the captivity.” The book itself, however, goes beyond that. It knows that even after the deep fracture there is more, because God is relentlessly passionate for this people and its city that have been so wayward. The book of Jeremiah, from its initial “until,” invites its readers into the deep, powerful trauma of loss to death, then new life through inexplicable gift. Into and back from the abyss!

Questions for Discussion

1. How has the Lord’s word come in the past? Where do you see it now?

2. Can you imagine a decisive break now like that of the exile for ancient Israel?

3. Do you agree that devastating experiences like the deportations of Judah can be “the will and purpose of God”? How do these experiences show that God’s work and will “are not tied to any historical purpose”?

4. What do you think it means or looks like for the Lord to “govern in freedom according to God’s own purpose”?

Chapter 2

To Pluck Up . . . and to Plant
(Jeremiah 1:10)

“See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms,

to pluck up and to pull down,

to destroy and to overthrow,

to build and to plant.”

Scripture Passages for Reference

Jeremiah 1:4–10

Jeremiah 11:20

Jeremiah 18:7–10

Jeremiah 20:10

Jeremiah 24:7

Jeremiah 31:18

Jeremiah 45:4

Jeremiah 51:64

John 2:19–22

Romans 4:17

1 Corinthians 1:28

Immediately after the editorial introduction of 1:1–3, the book of Jeremiah gets to work in 1:4–10 with a report concerning the divine authorization of Jeremiah as a prophet who will speak the word of the Lord to the people of the Lord. The tricky wording of the introduction makes it clear that the book that follows is not itself the word of the Lord; rather, the book consists of “the words of Jeremiah,” who received the word of the Lord. Verses 4–10 tell us why and how Jeremiah is authorized and credentialed as a recipient of the word of the Lord and why his own words are to be trusted and heeded.

Jeremiah 1:4–10 is highly stylized; these verses follow a recurring pattern of speech for the “call” of a prophet. Because of such a stylized way of expression, it is possible that the verbal exchange between Jeremiah and YHWH at the initiative of YHWH in these verses is not an actual report. The text may instead reflect a liturgical convention of how such an uncommon experience was codified and formally enacted in the community. Or it is even possible that the “call narrative” is a literary construction by the editors of the book of Jeremiah to present the figure of Jeremiah in the text as a credible voice for YHWH. Whatever the case, we can see how difficult and how important it was for the book of Jeremiah to find a way to connect the human speaker Jeremiah to the elusive, transcendent, and sovereign YHWH; a claim of authority for the book of Jeremiah depends on that connection. This particular text serves to make that connection.

When we take this text on its own terms, two things are clear. First, the person of Jeremiah was vigorously resistant to designation as speaker for YHWH. His resistance is expressed as he disclaims any capacity to function as such a speaker: He is too young. He is incompetent for such speech. We see in the later book of Jeremiah that he had good reason to refuse the prophetic task, because the words he ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Series Foreword: Pivots in Scripture by Brent A. Strawn
• Preface
• Suggested Sessions for Study Groups
• 1. The Word of the Lord “Came” (and Still Does) (Jeremiah 1:3)
• 2. To Pluck Up . . . and to Plant (Jeremiah 1:10)
• 3. No Water! (Jeremiah 2:13)
• 4. Return to Me (Jeremiah 3:12)
• 5. Not (Yet) a Full End (Jeremiah 4:27)
• 6. The All-Important “If” (Jeremiah 7:6–7)
• 7. No Peace (Jeremiah 8:11)
• 8. What to Praise? (Jeremiah 9:23–24)
• 9. Real Idols versus the True Lord (Jeremiah 10:16)
• 10. The Words of This Covenant (Jeremiah 11:8)
• 11. Enticed and Overpowered! (Jeremiah 20:7)
• 12. On Knowing God (Jeremiah 22:15–16)
• 13. Friends in High Places (Jeremiah 26:24)
• 14. Behind Treason . . . God? (Jeremiah 27:5)
• 15. Peace in Exile? Peace for Babylon? (Jeremiah 29:7)
• 16. Reversing Field for Zion’s Sake (Jeremiah 30:17)
• 17. The New Covenant (Jeremiah 31:31–32)
• 18. The Restoration of Lost Land (Jeremiah 32:15)
• 19. A Righteous Branch (Jeremiah 33:15)
• 20. Many Similar Words (Jeremiah 36:32)
• 21. There Is a Word from the Lord, Unfortunately (Jeremiah 37:17)
• 22. Mercy Shown (or Not) (Jeremiah 42:11–12)
• 23. The End(s) of Baruch (Jeremiah 45:5)
• 24. Fallen, Fallen Is Babylon (Jeremiah 50:2)
• 25. The Scroll of Disaster (Jeremiah 51:64)
• 26. Total Deported: 4,600 (Jeremiah 52:30)
• 27. Released from Prison (Jeremiah 52:31)
• Notes
• Excerpt from Delivered out of Empire, by Walter Brueggemann