Jer. 20:1 ¶ When the priest Pashhur son of Immer, the chief officer in the temple of the LORD, heard Jeremiah prophesying these things,
Jer. 20:2 he had Jeremiah the prophet beaten and put in the stocks at the Upper Gate of Benjamin at the LORD’s temple.
Jer. 20:3 The next day, when Pashhur released him from the stocks, Jeremiah said to him, “The LORD’s name for you is not Pashhur, but Magor-missabib.
Jer. 20:4 For this is what the LORD says: ‘I will make you a terror to yourself and to all your friends; with your own eyes you will see them fall by the sword of their enemies. I will hand all Judah over to the king of Babylon, who will carry them away to Babylon or put them to the sword.
Jer. 20:5 I will hand over to their enemies all the wealth of this city—all its products, all its valuables and all the treasures of the kings of Judah. They will take it away as plunder and carry it off to Babylon.
Jer. 20:6 And you, Pashhur, and all who live in your house will go into exile to Babylon. There you will die and be buried, you and all your friends to whom you have prophesied lies.’”
Wow.
The priest “had” the prophet beaten. Like it was a decree or a hit. And then he’s imprisoned which means he would have just sat w/ his wounds for the night and not received any care or help or food, and then released.
The Jews took where their bodies were buried very very seriously, so for him to not have his body buried in Israel would be a real disgrace. It’s like God doesn’t even want their dead bodies in His land.
Is. 66:19 ¶ “I will set a sign among them, and I will send some of those who survive to the nations—to Tarshish, to the Libyans and Lydians (famous as archers), to Tubal and Greece, and to the distant islands that have not heard of my fame or seen my glory. They will proclaim my glory among the nations.
Is. 66:20 And they will bring all your brothers, from all the nations, to my holy mountain in Jerusalem as an offering to the LORD—on horses, in chariots and wagons, and on mules and camels,” says the LORD. “They will bring them, as the Israelites bring their grain offerings, to the temple of the LORD in ceremonially clean vessels.
Is. 66:21 And I will select some of them also to be priests and Levites,” says the LORD.
I read this and I am just amazed.
I get goosebumps and tears in my eyes.
Libyans, Lydians, and Greeks, and other people from the nations WILL BE SELECTED TO BE PRIESTS AND LEVITES.
In the 8th Century B.C., God tells the world that He is going to bust out of Abraham’s ancestry and out of the tribe of Levi and call priests from the nations. That blows me away. I don’t know why. I already know and experience GOD living IN me, so why am I so blown away that we are made into Levites.
I guess because that would have been such a crazy thing for Isaiah to say to the Jews then. That would be like saying I’m going to turn these druggies on the street into the elders and preachers of megachurches. awesome.
Is. 51:7 “Hear me, you who know what is right, you people who have my law in your hearts: Do not fear the reproach of men or be terrified by their insults.
Is. 51:8 For the moth will eat them up like a garment; the worm will devour them like wool. But my righteousness will last forever, my salvation through all generations.”
There are two main themes (I am thinking about today) through Isaiah 49-53
God is my avenger and He holds my payment in His hand. There are numerous places in here where he talks about moths eating things up. My wife pulled a shirt out of the closet just 2 days ago that had moth holes in it. The wild and amazing thing about moth holes is that most of the time you never see the moths.
David had the nickname “mothbane” when we lived in Asia, because any time he saw a moth he would kill it. Even if he was eating dinner. Even if we told him not to. The thing is, it wasn’t the moths that we could see that were tearing up our clothes. The moths we could see were safely locked OUT of our closets. It’s the moths IN our closets that were destroying our clothes.
I read all this stuff about evil men, and I can’t help but think how unseen their destruction is. It’s not obvious that God is fighting for the oppressed. It’s not blatant to the world, or media especially, that moths are eating holes through the insulting, evil powers of this age.
Moth and Rust. They both destroy slowly, from the inside out, and both destroy because of poor maintenance. If people would give attention to their insides, to the hidden areas inside the locked closets of their souls, there would be fewer holes, and less hidden destruction.
