35 The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah: 2 “Go to the house of the Rechabites and speak with them and bring them to the house of the Lord, into one of the chambers; then offer them wine to drink.” 3 So I took Jaazaniah the son of Jeremiah, son of Habazziniah and his brothers and all his sons and the whole house of the Rechabites. 4 I brought them to the house of the Lord into the chamber of the sons of Hanan the son of Igdaliah, the man of God, which was near the chamber of the officials, above the chamber of Maaseiah the son of Shallum, keeper of the threshold. 5 Then I set before the Rechabites pitchers full of wine, and cups, and I said to them, “Drink wine.” 6 But they answered, “We will drink no wine, for Jonadab the son of Rechab, our father, commanded us, ‘You shall not drink wine, neither you nor your sons forever. 7 You shall not build a house; you shall not sow seed; you shall not plant or have a vineyard; but you shall live in tents all your days, that you may live many days in the land where you sojourn.’ 8 We have obeyed the voice of Jonadab the son of Rechab, our father, in all that he commanded us, to drink no wine all our days, ourselves, our wives, our sons, or our daughters, 9 and not to build houses to dwell in. We have no vineyard or field or seed, 10 but we have lived in tents and have obeyed and done all that Jonadab our father commanded us. 11 But when Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up against the land, we said, ‘Come, and let us go to Jerusalem for fear of the army of the Chaldeans and the army of the Syrians.’ So we are living in Jerusalem.”
12 Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah: 13 “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Go and say to the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, Will you not receive instruction and listen to my words? declares the Lord. 14 The command that Jonadab the son of Rechab gave to his sons, to drink no wine, has been kept, and they drink none to this day, for they have obeyed their father’s command. I have spoken to you persistently, but you have not listened to me. 15 I have sent to you all my servants the prophets, sending them persistently, saying, ‘Turn now every one of you from his evil way, and amend your deeds, and do not go after other gods to serve them, and then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to you and your fathers.’ But you did not incline your ear or listen to me. 16 The sons of Jonadab the son of Rechab have kept the command that their father gave them, but this people has not obeyed me. 17 Therefore, thus says the Lord, the God of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I am bringing upon Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem all the disaster that I have pronounced against them, because I have spoken to them and they have not listened, I have called to them and they have not answered.”
18 But to the house of the Rechabites Jeremiah said, “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Because you have obeyed the command of Jonadab your father and kept all his precepts and done all that he commanded you, 19 therefore thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Jonadab the son of Rechab shall never lack a man to stand before me.”
Section Overview
Jeremiah 35 is a sign-act narrative comprising an obscure family’s obedience to its forefather (vv. 1–11) and Yahweh’s comparison with his own family of disobedient children (vv. 12–19). The descendants of Rechab have shown greater faithfulness to their ancestor’s arcane prohibitions on drinking wine, building homes, and planting crops than Judah has shown to Yahweh’s covenant stipulations. In a striking reversal of fortunes, each family will receive its due: the greater family of Judah will be demoted to the suffering of disaster in the form of Jerusalem’s sacking, while the lesser family of the Rechabites will be promoted to the status of a clan that serves Yahweh eternally, as in the promises to Phinehas (Num. 25:12–13) and David (2 Sam. 7:13). The faithful obedience of the Rechabites (Jeremiah 35) contrasts sharply the faithless flirtation of King Zedekiah with societal justice (ch. 34).
Section Outline
VIII.B. The Faithfulness of the Rechabites (35:1–19)
1. Yahweh’s Oracle to Jeremiah: Test the Rechabites’ Commitment to Their Ancestor (35:1–5)
2. The Rechabites’ Refusal to Disobey Their Ancestor (35:6–11)
3. Yahweh’s Lesser-to-Greater Comparison between the Rechabites and Judah (35:12–19)
a. Yahweh’s Second Oracle to Jeremiah (35:12)
b. Judah’s Disobedience to Yahweh vs. the Rechabites’ Obedience to Their Ancestor (35:13–14)
c. Yahweh’s Disobeyed Words vs. Jonadab Son of Rechab’s Obeyed Words (35:15–16)
d. Judah’s Punishment vs. the Rechabites’ Reward (35:17–19)
Response
Jeremiah 34–35 is a narrative unit juxtaposing faithlessness and faithfulness in Judah. These chapters explore the nature of the promises God’s people make with him, as well as his response when they keep or break them. Sometimes these promises are weighty (ch. 34), while others are frivolous by comparison (ch. 35). What links them together, though, is the principle that promises are binding and therefore must be kept. This essential trait of promises is all the truer when God is the one making promises to his people.
King Zedekiah is the first case study in promises. As Babylon’s siege of Jerusalem deepens, he suddenly gets a social conscience and decides to make a covenant that implements the Deuteronomy 15 stipulation to set Hebrew slaves free. But Zedekiah quickly backs out of this covenant and reenslaves his people when following through becomes inexpedient. Yahweh had been prepared to accept Zedekiah’s repentance, but this volte-face results in greater harm to Yahweh’s reputation as a result. Zedekiah is therefore a reminder that if promises to God involve a halfhearted attempt to manipulate God into action, then the pretense of faithfulness will incur a harsher judgment than if the promises had never been made (cf. Eccles. 5:4–5).
The second case study offers a different comparison of faithfulness and faithlessness to promises. The faithful Rechabites received an arbitrary command, the faithless Judeans a meaningful one; the former received a one-time command they continued to follow, the latter received persistent commands they rarely followed; most importantly, the Rechabites dutifully obeyed a human patriarch, whereas the Judeans refused to obey “the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel” (Jer. 35:13, 17). This lesser-to-greater argument does not rest on the Rechabites’ obedience as prescriptive for all times (as in the “Rechabite” societies and their heyday during the temperance movements of the nineteenth century). Instead, it is precisely the absurdity of their patriarch’s stipulations that condemns Judah for refusing to follow Yahweh’s commands, which are much more meaningful, persistent, and authoritative. The people of Jerusalem likely disdain the legalism of this odd clan, but their own kind of libertinism, which expects divine favor even after centuries of disobedience, is self-deceived in the worst way. For this reason Yahweh is a faithful God who follows through on his promises to judge his faithless people who both ignore his promises and fail to keep their own.Jeremiah 35
This chapter opens a larger section in Jeremiah 36–45 addressing the prophet’s travails in the last days of Judah as well as in the immediate aftermath of Babylon’s victory. Between two framing sections centered on Jeremiah’s prophetic word and the role of his friend Baruch in preserving it (chs. 36; 45), the intervening chapters are sometimes called Jeremiah’s via dolorosa (Lat. “sorrowful way,” a term also used for Christ’s road to the cross) because of their emphasis on his suffering at the hands of the very people he is trying to reach. King Zedekiah, the last ruler of Judah, emerges as a slippery, Pilate-like figure who either supports or undermines Jeremiah, depending on how likely Babylon’s siege is to succeed against Jerusalem (chs. 37–38). Even following the sacking of Jerusalem (ch. 39), the survivors in Judah continue their rebellion by assassinating the governor appointed by Babylon (chs. 40–41) and moving to Egypt in defiance of Yahweh’s word through Jeremiah (chs. 42–43). These people even have the gall to claim that their defeat at the hands of Babylon stems from listening to Jeremiah’s injunctions to stop worshiping idols and turn to the God of Israel. Since punishment has led to greater stubbornness instead of repentance, Yahweh decrees that the hand of Babylon must not stop merely at Jerusalem but must pursue Judah’s exiles all the way to Egypt (ch. 44).Jeremiah 36–45
Jeremiah 36