The audience of Jeremiah shows its true colors by resisting his message. Although the people promised to obey for their benefit or harm (cf. 42:3, 5–6), they refuse to accept that Yahweh’s desire is for them to experience restoration in the land under Babylonian rule. Thus they accuse Jeremiah of being a liar and a false prophet (43:1–3). Much like King Zedekiah and his officials before the fall of Jerusalem, the people hold such a strong anti-Babylon view that they believe the only possible explanation for Jeremiah’s pro-Babylon message is that he is a traitor to his own people (vv. 3–4; cf. 28:7–9; 32:3–5; 38:4).

For this reason, Johanan and his officials do exactly the opposite of what Yahweh says by taking Jeremiah and the rest of the exiles to Egypt (43:4–6). But, as they arrive in this supposed refuge (v. 7), Yahweh warns that Babylon will not be far behind them. He directs Jeremiah to perform a final sign-act of embedding large stones in the foundation of Pharaoh’s palace in Tahpanhes (vv. 8–9), the city just inside Egypt’s borders where they seek sanctuary. These stones mark the precise spot where Yahweh will erect the throne of Nebuchadnezzar (v. 10). The king of Babylon will again serve as Yahweh’s agent of judgment when he conquers the inhabitants and land of Egypt (v. 11) and destroys the entire religious infrastructure of Egypt—the images of deities and their temples (vv. 12–13). Strikingly in these verses, the subjects of these verbs of destruction shift fluidly between Nebuchadnezzar and Yahweh himself.

  IX.E.3.  The Remnant’s Flight to Egypt and Yahweh’s Sign-Act against Egypt (43:1–13)

a.  The People’s Accusation That Jeremiah Is False Prophet of Yahweh and Saboteur for Babylon (43:1–3)

b.  The People’s Disobedience to Yahweh and Departure to Egypt (43:4–7)

c.  A Sign-Act of Nebuchadnezzar’s Impending Arrival in Egypt as Conqueror (43:8–13)

(1)  The Sign-Act of Stones (43:8–10)

(2)  Nebuchadnezzar’s Destruction of the People and Land of Egypt (43:11)

(3)  Yahweh’s Judgment upon the Gods of Egypt (43:12–13)

The theme of Jeremiah 41–43 is the messy power dynamics of colonial regimes, particularly the internal tensions among those who have been conquered—the pragmatists who work with the occupier and the patriots who oppose them. These complex entanglements are the consequences of Israel’s choice to go the way of the nations and to fear the same things they fear (cf. 10:2). Yahweh had given his people a countercultural way of life in which they needed simply to trust him rather than striving by their own effort. Michael Walzer thus summarizes the oddity of how Yahweh’s people should have approached the Assyrian crisis of the eighth century BC:

Do nothing: this is the prophetic idea of a religious foreign policy, and this is the prophetic challenge to the kings of Israel and Judah, who were as likely as Assyrian kings to rely on the “strength” of their hands and the “wisdom” of their counselors. Stay out of international politics, which belongs to God alone and to his instruments—who are also, mysteriously, his enemies. Only he can oppose and overthrow them, in his own good time.126

By the time of chapters 40–43, the century is the sixth rather than the eighth century BC and the Mesopotamian empire has changed from Assyria to Babylon. What has not changed, unfortunately, is the tendency of the southern kingdom of Israel to walk in the footsteps of its northern relative, so that both of them suffer a similar demise. Though power politics have run their natural course for Israel and Judah, Yahweh still offers his displaced people from both kingdoms the best of all remaining worlds by giving them a chance to remain in the land. The Judean remnant refuses even this and goes to Egypt, leaving themselves to their own devices of escalating bloodshed, lies, and violence reminiscent of other episodes in Israel’s history (e.g., 2 Samuel 11–12; Hos. 4:2).

Although the prophet Jeremiah is a relatively minor character in chapters 41–43, we should not overlook this passage’s value in narrating the tawdry consequences of Yahweh’s people’s refusal of his gift of an exodus-infused life. The best stories show rather than tell, choosing to illustrate using characters and dialogue as a form of communication more effective than moralizing on the narrator’s part. The unsettling truth at hand is that assassination, bribery, the death of noncombatants, conspiracy, and counterconspiracy become the only recourse for smaller powers to survive in a Machiavellian world of greater powers—now that Israel has rejected Yahweh as the greatest of all powers. Even the act of resisting evil, as Johanan does in seeking to preempt Ishmael, leads to its own moral ambiguities. There can be no good outcome when people are locked into escalating cycles of conflict and mistrust toward one another.

In sum, the sinfulness of humanity means that every war of survival tends to devolve into a conflict of baser impulses in which all sides relinquish any claim to moral superiority. Because Israel has refused Yahweh’s offer to “do nothing,” it will need to do everything, sin included, for the sake of its survival. They finally return to Egypt, the empire to which they have been pining to return for centuries, and so have their wish. But just as they misremembered Egypt to be a place of safety and abundance (cf. Numbers 13–14), they will find that it once again is a place of death. The safest place on earth is wherever Yahweh promises to protect his vulnerable people, such as the wilderness in Moses’ time (Deuteronomy 8) or fallen Jerusalem in Jeremiah’s time—not where flawed human logic says they will be safest.Jeremiah 43

Jeremiah 44