Grim

Saturday 19^th September

Read Jeremiah 9:13-22

“The Lord said, ‘It is because they have forsaken my law, which I set before them; they have not obeyed me or followed my law. ¹⁴ Instead, they have followed the stubbornness of their hearts; they have followed the Baals, as their ancestors taught them.’ ¹⁵ Therefore this is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: ‘See, I will make this people eat bitter food and drink poisoned water. ¹⁶ I will scatter them among nations that neither they nor their ancestors have known, and I will pursue them with the sword until I have made an end of them.’

¹⁷ This is what the Lord Almighty says:

‘Consider now! Call for the wailing women to come;
    send for the most skilful of them.
¹⁸ Let them come quickly
    and wail over us
till our eyes overflow with tears
    and water streams from our eyelids.
¹⁹ The sound of wailing is heard from Zion:
    “How ruined we are!
    How great is our shame!
We must leave our land
    because our houses are in ruins.”’

²⁰ Now, you women, hear the word of the Lord;
    open your ears to the words of his mouth.
Teach your daughters how to wail;
    teach one another a lament.
²¹ Death has climbed in through our windows
    and has entered our fortresses;
it has removed the children from the streets
    and the young men from the public squares.

²² Say, ‘This is what the Lord declares:

‘“Dead bodies will lie
    like dung on the open field,
like cut corn behind the reaper,
    with no one to gather them.”’” (NIVUK)

Yet more grim words. Having followed Baal, the fertility god of the near east (v14), they will be made to eat bitter food and drink poison (v15) and be exiled from the land they know as home (v16).

They will know the fate of Adam – exiled from the garden and the sweetest food and water – and they will meet death. I often wondered where the image of the grim reaper arose, the one who stole in windows and left with souls (v21), and here he is (v22).

“Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned – ¹³ To be sure, sin was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not charged against anyone’s account where there is no law. ¹⁴ Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come. ¹⁵ But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!” (Romans 5:12-15) (NIVUK)