Jeremiah (1-31) 6:1 Commentary and Bible Study

Through this chapter we shall see predominantly the first aim of the gospel. The primary aim of the preaching of the gospel of redemption – and that is really paramount in this chapter – is of course the great call to repentance. Now Jeremiah has in some senses a very bleak calling. He is to proclaim mercy and forgiveness to a people who, God has informed him, will not listen, and will not turn. And yet there is a remnant, – repeatedly mentioned through the calls of Jeremiah – a small but significant remnant of the people, who will, by the power of God and the grace of God, have their hearts opened to listen. They will listen to him, and they will flee to the south, but the vast majority will ignore God’s message. That doesn't alter the fact that the message is to be proclaimed, and it is to be proclaimed to all. It is to be proclaimed so as to communicate and to represent all the lovingkindness and the tender mercy of a redeeming God. It isn't to be proclaimed to the obdurate and the sinners in an indifferent way, in a cold way: ‘You people over there, you people with hardened hearts, this is what will become of you. There is no hope for you unless you repent’ – almost a grudging proclamation. No, it is the message of redemption of God's mercy. The tender of salvation is to be made with all the reasonings and the arguments that Jeremiah, by way of example, presents to us, and that is very significant in this book. That little word ‘O’ at the very beginning – ‘O ye children of Benjamin’ – is important because it tells us now that here is Jeremiah the prophet at work, appealing to the people. This is how he is to present himself and his message. He is to lift up his voice, and he is to appeal. So we are getting an example of what his message will be and his manner of address, encapsulated in these opening verses. ‘O ye children of Benjamin.’ He addresses the very smallest tribe, but he is actually addressing Jerusalem. And there are various ideas advanced as to why he should begin with Benjamin and not the people of Jerusalem in general, or the people of Judah in Jerusalem. Probably the reason is that the children of Benjamin occupied the portion of Jerusalem right adjacent to the north wall. The whole idea of the passage is going to be that invasion is coming from the north, so Benjamin will be the first to be affected, and therefore the first to be warned. Maybe that is why it is that he selects out the children of Benjamin for this address. ‘Gather yourselves to flee out of the midst of Jerusalem.’ This verse is variously translated in modern versions to lose this word ‘gather’, but it is important. It is again a rather flexible word. It is basically an exhortation, ‘Be strong to gather’, but it cannot mean exactly that in the context. Our translators have chosen ‘gather’. One modern attempt which is really remarkable is ‘pull yourselves together’; you must respond to this. It is a message of urgency, and so the ‘gather’ of the King James Version is pretty near to that; slightly different in meaning, but it is ‘be strong’ or ‘gather yourselves’ or ‘pull yourselves together’, to flee out of the midst of Jerusalem. Nowhere in Jerusalem is going to be safe; you must go; you must run. We will see the significance of this in a moment.The passage then becomes very curious, and it is the curious features of the pictures given in Jeremiah that usually signal the meaning, and the sense. ‘Blow the trumpet into Tekoa’ – well, why do that? Because the problem is that ‘evil appeareth out of the north, and great destruction’. But Tekoa was in the south, so surely this is all wrong. ‘Blow the trumpet in Tekoa? Sound the warning clarion call on the south side, as though the trouble is coming from there? Surely the warnings will begin up in Dan at the top of the country, and they will light the beacons or sound alarms in whatever way they can, and those alarms will be transmitted from hilltop to hilltop all the way down the land of Judah, down to Jerusalem, and only then into the south. But Jeremiah puts this completely the other way round, and this is going to be the key to the argument. Get ready to flee, and not only flee, but ‘blow the trumpet in Tekoa’. Not only this, but just further to complicate matters before we solve the problem: ‘and set up a sign of fire in Bethhaccerem.’ Bethhaccerem was between a third and a half way to Tekoa, and there in Bethhaccerem is going to be a beacon of some sort, a fire beacon, a smoke beacon set up on a hill. What is the significance of this? In order to flee and to make sure you run, says Jeremiah, get a beacon lit at a place three or four miles away on the road to Tekoa. Tekoa is significant because it is the southern-most tip of Judah at that time. If you went beyond Tekoa, you were into the wilderness of Tekoa, the wilderness of Judaea, and nobody lives there except a few settlers. They have got a flee down into the desert.Jeremiah is teaching that destruction is bound to come; judgment is bound to come. This is the historical invasion by Nebuchadnezzar at that time. There is no point in thinking about how to defend Jerusalem. God is not going to protect it; they must just get out. ‘If you listen to me,’ says Jeremiah, ‘if you believe and you are repentant, you will take the road south, and you will have a different mindset. You won't say to yourself, “But this is Jerusalem, this is God's place. He is present in his temple. Jerusalem cannot be destroyed; he is bound to protect it.”’ That is what the others said. That is how they excused their complacency and their indifference to the pleas of the prophet. ‘Don’t say that! Adopt an escape mentality. You are being given a warning. You have got to run; you have got to move. Follow the beacon of light, and go to where you will be safe.’