every green oak tree

October 17, 2016

The invitation to repentance (Jer 3:12-3:13)

“Go!

Proclaim these words

Toward the north.

Say!

‘Return!

Faithless Israel!’

Says Yahweh.

‘I will not look on you in anger!

I am merciful!’

Says Yahweh.

‘I will not be angry forever.

Only acknowledge your guilt!

That you rebelled

Against Yahweh

Your God!

You scattered your favors

Among strangers

Under every green tree.

You have not obeyed my voice.’

Says Yahweh.”

Yahweh then told Jeremiah to say these words to the northern tribes. Tell them to return. Yahweh was not going to be angry forever with them because he was merciful. They only had to acknowledge that they rebelled against Yahweh, their God. They had scattered their favors under every green oak tree in false worship. They had not obeyed the voice of Yahweh. The problem, of course, was that they had already been sent into captivity, nearly a century earlier.

October 17, 2016

The days of King Josiah (Jer 3:6-3:6)

“Yahweh said to me

In the days of King Josiah.

‘Have you seen what she did?

That faithless one!

Israel!

She went up on every high hill.

She was under every green tree.

She played the whore there.”

During the days of King Josiah, 640-609 BCE, Yahweh spoke to Jeremiah. He asked Jeremiah if he had seen what Israel, the northern tribes, had done. They were the faithless ones who had been brought into captivity nearly a hundred years earlier. They went to every high hill and under every green oak tree, where they played the whore with these false idol worship services.