Day 221: Jeremiah 30-33 | Read The Bible In A Year | Bible Study with Commentary by Dr. Manny Arango

Hey, Bible Nerds, this is Dr. Manny Arango. Welcome to the Bible Department podcast powered by Arma. We are walking through the entire Bible in a year. You can go to the description or thebibledepartment.com to download a reading plan and join the journey. Family, welcome to day 221. We are in Jeremiah chapter 30, and we're gonna go all the way to chapter 33 today. And what you may not know is that this section of Jeremiah is a scroll in and of itself. It's actually called the Book of Comfort or the Book of Consolation, Jeremiah 30, 31, 32, and 33. So we're keeping this entire scroll. Jeremiah is a collection of multiple scrolls. We'll actually probably get into that tomorrow or the next day. And we're keeping this scroll all together as one segment, as one chunk. And so if you've done the reading for the day, you'll probably realize that today's reading was insanely cohesive. If you haven't done the reading for the day, then you're probably gonna be confused by what I'm saying and what I have to say because you don't have context for it. So let's dive in. Like always, we're always gonna start off with context clues to get us oriented to the historical or cultural or linguistic or theological context that's going on.

And then I'll try to give you at least a nerdy nugget for each chapter. And then we'll leave off with a timeless truth because we are not studying history. We are studying the character and the nature of God, okay? We use history in order to learn theology. And these episodes are designed to learn who God is. So we'll always leave off with a timeless truth. So let's dive in. Context. The dates given are actually in chapter 32, verse one, okay? And the text tells us that this entire book of consolation is written in the 10th year of Zedekiah. Remember, Zedekiah is the very last king of Judah. I'm gonna do this probably almost every day that we study Jeremiah. The last five kings are Josiah, Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, and finally Zedekiah. So very, very, very last king. So the 10th year of Zedekiah and the 18th year of Nebuchadnezzar, that tells us exactly what year. Zedekiah became king in 597 BC, which would give us a date of around 588, okay? For these narratives. Also, Nebuchadnezzar became king in 605 BC, which would also give us a date of around 588 BC. So the 10th year of Zedekiah's reign and the 18th year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign get us to 588 BC.

And obviously we know from history when they started reigning. So that was really, really easy, really simple to figure out the context. So this entire chunk here, Jeremiah 30 to 33, would have been written. These events would have taken place during the siege, which ended in 586. So this is actually the second siege, the final siege that leads to the destruction, the fall of Jerusalem, possibly near the completion of that siege, which means these prophecies and these acts of hope and a secured future are being given when the armies of Babylon are surrounding the city and hope looks lost. So I want you to imagine in your mind, the Babylonian army is literally on the outside of the walls of the city. We are weeks away from the army breaking in, leveling Jerusalem, totally destroying the temple, setting Jerusalem on fire, burning it to the ground and taking captives off, okay? So that is the context. Nebuchadnezzar is right outside the gates. The Babylonian army is right outside the gates of Jerusalem and they have completely besieged the city. So that is the context for all this stuff. All right, now that we got the context for what we've read, let's actually jump into some nerdy nuggets and gonna try to give you at least one nugget per chapter.

We'll see how it goes. We don't want these episodes to be too, too long. So first nerdy nugget, I've already mentioned this, is that this entire section is known as the Book of Comfort or the Book of Consolation. So if you were to Google Jeremiah's Book of Comfort or Jeremiah's Book of Consolation. these chapters are gonna come up. Jeremiah chapter 30, 31, 32, and 33. Tomorrow, actually I'm pretty sure it's somewhere around chapter 35 or 36, we're gonna get into the construction of the book of Jeremiah, okay? Because Jeremiah is gonna tell us that he used a scribe by the name of Baruch or Baruch, and he's gonna tell us how the book of Jeremiah actually came into existence. So we're gonna talk about that tomorrow because the book of Jeremiah is a collection of multiple scrolls, okay? So Jeremiah 30 to 33 is one singular scroll. This is one cohesive unit or one cohesive body of work. All right, let's move to chapter 31. Chapter 31 is low-key famous or very well known because it outlines the new covenant. We'll go to Jeremiah chapter 31 and I'll just go to verse 31. It says this, The days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand and led them out of Egypt. So already Yahweh is communicating that the Mosaic covenant, that there's something that is incomplete. There's something that is lacking with the Mosaic covenant, okay? That's not just a New Testament or, no pun intended, new covenant idea. In the Old Covenant, right here in the Old Testament, the words Testament and covenant, by the way, are interchangeable, okay? They mean the exact same thing. So the Old Testament of your Bible is just the Old Covenant, which is the Mosaic covenant, and the New Testament is simply the New Covenant. And Jeremiah, who's prophesying from the Old Covenant, is telling us that this Mosaic covenant, there's something about it that is actually pointing to its fulfillment in another covenant, in a new covenant. Because they broke my

covenant, though I was a husband to them, declares the Lord, this is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God and they will be my people. All right, it goes on and on. However, Jesus, Paul, the rest of the New Testament authors are really going to pick up on this theme and believe that they are walking in the fulfillment of Jeremiah's prophecy, okay? So Jesus and the disciples and the rest of the gang are all believing that they are walking in the fulfillment of Jeremiah's words. So Christianity is not just like some contrived, made-up idea, or like a religion that came out of thin air. There's a lot of people who would believe, oh no, Jesus' followers just turned him into a religious figure after his death. No, no, no, no, no. The Old Testament, Judaism is pointing to Christianity. Christianity is the fulfillment of the Jewish religion and Jeremiah right here is pointing out, actually this Mosaic Covenant is cool, this is awesome, but Jeremiah is saying the same thing that the author of Hebrews is going to say in the New Testament, which is, although this is amazing, it was pointing to something else and that something else is not just something that we come up with in the New Testament. It's actually found on the pages of the Old Testament. Let me give you a nerdy nugget about this New Covenant. Yahweh says, through the prophet Jeremiah, that I will put my law in their minds and I will write it on their hearts. Now, you, we, probably don't realize that there was this ancient practice of predicting the future, soothsaying, prophesying, that involved emptying out the intestines or the entrails or the organs of an animal and seeing what message from the gods were in the organs of that animal. This is actually a very well-known ancient practice and so when we say, oh yeah, remember that prophet named Balaam, remember Balak employs Balaam to prophesy against Israel, yeah, when he has to go up on a hill and he makes sacrifices, well, he's not just making sacrifices like a burnt offering, he's splitting open a cow or different animals and he's seeing how their, how their organs spill out on the ground and based on how their organs spill out, that communicates a message. Okay, this is a

very well-known ancient practice. This is actually how pagan prophets prophesied or pagan oracles or pagan soothsayers tried to tell the future, okay? So when God says, I'm gonna put my Torah on their hearts, this is actually a pretty graphic image taken from the ancient practice of soothsaying, okay? This is how people would cut open animals and read their organs in order to learn the truth or the future. This image is saying that if someone were to do the same thing to a new covenant believer, that if they would be opened up and read the same way that a cow or a horse or a pig would be slit open so that their organs could give us a message, if someone were to do that to a New Testament believer, what is it that the world or what is it that they would read? Well, they would read that the Torah, that God's word has been written on our hearts. When you cut me open, it's almost like I worked at a church one time and the dominant color for our branding was blue. And so we came up with this phrase called bleed blue. Like if I cut you open, you should be bleeding blue. Like you should be loyal to the organization. You should bleed blue. God is essentially saying, hey, you should bleed Bible. That is what you, if I cut you open,

you should bleed Torah. You should bleed Bible. You should bleed wisdom. That that's the difference between the old covenant and the new covenant. That in the old covenant, the Torah was in their mind or the Torah was memorized or the Torah was studied. But God is saying in this new covenant, I don't want the Torah to just be studied or to just be memorized. I want it to be something you're in love with. I want it to be something that encapsulates your being. I want it to be something that gets branded on your heart. And this is obviously only fulfilled in Jesus's act on the cross. That there's something that happens to the human that allows us to be the kinds of people for who you cut us open, man, I bleed Bible. I heard this phrase, not this phrase or this story that people tell about Billy Graham, it's famous. Billy Graham didn't get on elevators with women, right? So if he's in a hotel or he's in a building and he's by himself on an elevator and a woman got on, he would just get off because he couldn't afford any scandals. You can't afford, and Billy Graham made it to the finish line of his death with no moral scandals. Zero sketchy stories about Billy Graham. So you can debate whether or not that's too extreme or not. I'd rather be on the side of extreme than be caught.

I'm not in any kind of ridiculousness or moral scandal. And there's this story, this anecdote that says, well, if I am on an elevator with a woman, this is Billy Graham, the first thing that comes to my mind is not, man, I love my wife so much. The moment I'm in like temptation, it doesn't have to be an elevator, but just a moment of temptation. The first thing that comes to my mind is not, man, I love my wife so much. The first thing that comes to my mind is not, man, I'm gonna lose my salary from this church or from the ministry if I get fired. The first thing that comes to my mind is not, man, we're gonna lose book sales. The first thing that comes to my mind is not, man, my children are gonna be so ashamed if I fall into a moral scandal. The first thing that comes to my mind is the word of God, the word of the Lord. The first thing that comes to my mind when I'm in the middle of temptation is scripture. That's what it means to be a new covenant believer, that the things that come to your mind are not the consequences or not what you stand to lose or what profession you're no longer gonna be able to have, but hey, I've put my word in your heart. That is the message of the New Testament, that we go from studying the word, memorizing the word,

and being slaves to the word to now, no, no, no, it's changed my desires. It's transformed me from the inside out. And man, when you put beets in hot water, what's in comes out. And I wanna be the kind of person where when you put me in hot water, what's in me comes out. And the thing that's in me is the word of the Lord, the word of God's in me. That's actually the reason that we would spend an entire year reading the Bible together, offering our minds and our hearts to the scriptures, because we want this stuff to get in us so that when we are in hot situations, whether that be trial, tribulation, suffering, temptation, that we believe Bible, that the word comes out. Family, the wait is over. My brand new book, Crushing Chaos is out now and available everywhere books are sold. Literally today, I walked into a bar. Barnes & Noble and I signed a bunch of copies at a physical location so you can grab this book at a physical Barnes & Noble or you can go to a books a million or Amazon or anywhere books are sold and grab a copy if you enjoy reading the Bible from an ancient perspective if you understand that the beauty of Scripture is actually knowing it in context then you'll love this book and if there's any chaos in your personal life I think that reading the Bible from an ancient perspective can actually help to crush the chaos in your life I think this book is gonna be a New York Times bestseller I really do I think we wrote a good one I think you should get a copy today all right back to the episode that's our

nerdy nugget for chapter 31 I talked about that for way too long okay chapter 32 Jeremiah goes to buy a field and Anatoth so you can probably remember Anatoth from the first couple of chapters of the book of Jeremiah it's his hometown remember there are people from Anatoth who came to persecute him Anatoth is his hometown the story is a prophetic act remember it's not as the words of the prophets that are prophetic but their actions are also prophetic Jeremiah purchases this field in the middle of a siege which means the Babylonians have already taken control of all the land of Judah Jeremiah buys it anyway to show that the Babylonians would not have the land forever okay so the Babylonians have taken control of the land but Jeremiah buys the field to show as a prophetic act that although the Babylonians control the land at the present moment they don't own the land Yahweh owns the land and if Yahweh owns the land he will restore it or return it to the people of Israel one day it would return to the ownership of the Jews this land would still be in his family in Jeremiah's family the Babylonians may claim it but it belonged to Jeremiah the Babylonians may claim ownership of Judah but it belonged to Yahweh and in time he would give it back to his people so that's what chapter 32 is all about okay Jeremiah slipping behind enemy lines going out to Anatoth in the middle of a siege and buying a field is a prophetic act almost in in defiance against the Babylonians saying no you may be in control of this land right now but God owns this land and Jeremiah buying it is a symbol a sign of hope in hope of restoration all right chapter 33 this is the whole chapter really is concerned with David David who's gonna be a righteous branch now here is where Jeremiah is borrowing language from Isaiah so this entire chapter is about David's eternal covenant connected to all this future hope so these chapters are insanely hopeful by the way I hope you've picked that up chapter 30 31 32 33 insanely hopeful so the tone has switched from the Babylonians are coming to kill us to well there's a hope God God's gonna restore us at some point there's gonna be a new covenant the the theme of this scroll of comfort or scroll of consolation is future oriented Jeremiah

took Isaiah's old image from jet from Isaiah 11 one of a branch of David's family that would grow back now Jeremiah uses that image again he actually used it back in chapter 23 so Jeremiah 23 and Jeremiah 33 are both using Isaiah's image of a righteous branch the righteous branch will spring up fulfilling all the promises that Yahweh made to David there would always be a son of David enthroned even if for a time the sons of David would languish in Babylonian prisons the future would be different so don't doubt the future based on what's happening in the present the son of David would rule forever also it was a son of David aka Zerubbabel that would lead the people home from Babylonian exile in 70 years time salvation both in the near future aka 70 years and in the distant future aka Jesus would come from the son of David so Jeremiah 33 pro David and an adoption of an image that really has its foundation in the book of Isaiah so this is proof that the prophets are actually reading each other's content especially latter prophets are reading former prophets content all right what's our timeless truth for the day, our timeless truth for the day, man, is that we want to be new covenant people, which means we want God's law. We want his instruction. We want his wisdom. We want his truth. We want his revelation to be written on our hearts. We want to be people of the new covenant. We don't just want his word to be in our mind. No, we want his word to actually be on the inside of us so much so that we bleed Bible. That's our timeless truth. That was true as a promise that God gave to Jeremiah. That was true as Jesus began to read these words and see his own ministry. And that definitely needs to be true for you and I, which is why you need to be on a streak, which is why you would dedicate yourself to discipline and in the area of reading God's word and studying his word. And it's why you'll meet me right back here tomorrow as we continue our trek through the book of Jeremiah. If you're on a streak, I'm proud of you. And even if you're not on a streak, can I challenge you? You're a new covenant person, which means when we cut you open, you bleed Bible. And so I want to challenge you, not just in terms of your behavior, but in terms of your identity. You're a new covenant person, which means you are a Bible nerd. You're a new covenant person, which means you have a hunger and a thirst for God's word. You're a new covenant person, which means the same way

that when Jesus was tempted, Bible came out of him. When you're tempted, we want the scriptures to come out of you. When you're placing hot water, we want what's in you to come out. And if bitterness and resentment and unforgiveness, or I don't know, lyrics to Drake or Ariana Grande or whoever else you listen to, if that stuff is what's in you, that's what's going to come out of you. But that doesn't have the power to actually save you or deliver you or sanctify you. So you'd be wise to get the word of God on the inside of you. And the thing that gives you the ability to do that is that you're a new covenant Christian. You're a new covenant believer. That's our timeless truth for the day. I hope that helps you, challenges you, blesses your life. And again, we want to focus on identity rather than behavior. The reason that I behave in this way is because I identify as a part of the new covenant that Jeremiah prophesied about. I'll see you right here tomorrow. We're going to go through Jeremiah chapter 34 to 37. So we got 34, 35, 36, 37, four chapters of the book of Jeremiah to cover tomorrow. I'll see you right here. I love you so much. So proud of you. See you tomorrow. Peace. Thanks so much for joining us on the Bible Department podcast. If this episode was helpful, how about you leave a comment, share with a friend, and subscribe so that you never miss an episode. To learn more about the show, head to thebibledepartment.com. We'll see you right back here tomorrow.