Reflections on Jeremiah 43

Jeremiah 43 (Contemporary English Version)
1. I told the people everything the LORD had told me.
   
2. But Azariah, Johanan and some other arrogant men said to me, "You're lying! The LORD didn't tell you to say that we shouldn't go to Egypt.
   
3. Baruch son of Neriah must have told you to say that. He wants the Babylonians to capture us, so they can take us away to Babylonia or even kill us."
   
4. Johanan, the other army officers, and everyone else refused to stay in Judah in spite of the LORD's command.
   
5. So Johanan and the officers led us away toward Egypt. The group that left Judah included those who had been scattered in other countries and who had then come back to live in Judah.
   
6. Baruch and I and others in the group had been staying with Gedaliah, because Nebuzaradan, the Babylonian officer in charge of the guard, had ordered him to take care of the king's daughters and quite a few men, women, and children.
   
7. The people disobeyed the LORD and went to Egypt. The group had settled in Tahpanhes,
   
8. when the LORD told me:
   
9. Jeremiah, carry some large stones to the entrance of the government building in Tahpanhes. Bury the stones underneath the brick pavement and be sure the Jews are watching.
   
10. Then tell them that I, the LORD All-Powerful, the God of Israel, have sent for my servant, Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia. I will bring him here and have him set up his throne and his royal tent over these stones that I told you to bury.
    
11. He will attack Egypt and kill many of its people; others will die of disease or be dragged away as prisoners.
    
12. I will have him set Egypt's temples on fire, and he will either burn or carry off their idols. He will destroy the sacred monuments at the temple of the sun-god. Then Nebuchadnezzar will pick the land clean, just like a shepherd picking the lice off his clothes. And he will return safely home.
    
13. (SEE 43:12)
    
    

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    Johanan was one of the Judean army commanders who escaped the fall of Judah at the hands of Babylon by fleeing, along with a group of other commanders and soldiers, into the countryside. Once Gedaliah was established as governor of Judah and the Babylonian forces had withdrawn from the country, Johanan and the other soldiers went to Mizpah where the vassal government had been setup. When governor Gedaliah was assassinated by Ishmael, another of the army commanders who led a contingent of soldiers in this attack, Ishmael captured all the people and led them in a forced march toward Ammon. Johanan formed a small force of soldiers and went after Ishmael and rescued the people he took captive. After their rescue, Johanan's plan was to take them all to Egypt where he felt they would be safe from the Babylonians who he was sure would retaliate in response to Ishmael's rebellion.
    
    Before leaving Judah, Johanan went to Jeremiah and asked him to "pray to the LORD your God on our behalf . . . that the LORD your God may tell us the way we should walk and the thing we should do." (42:2-3)  Johanan added that they would do whatever the Lord told them to do. However, when Jeremiah gave them the Lord's answer, which was not to go to Egypt but to stay in Judah, we get Johanan's response in 43:2 and following. He accused Jeremiah of lying and of working in partnership with Baruch to hand them over to the Babylonians to be put to death or deported. Johanan's response raises a couple of obvious questions: If he suspected Jeremiah of conspiring to hand them over to the Babylonians, why did he go to Jeremiah in the first place? Also, why did he make such a point of inquiring of the Lord and following His instruction if he was not going to follow those instructions?
    
    A possible clue toward answering these questions might be found in his request of Jeremiah to pray for them. He asked Jeremiah to pray to the Lord that He "may tell us the way we should walk and the thing we should do." (42:3) This leads us to suspect that Johanan was not seeking God's guidance in general. In other words, he wasn't asking God to tell them whether to stay in Judah or go to Egypt. He was going to Egypt. Instead, he wanted to know the best route to take going to Egypt and how to approach the Egyptians when they got there. When Jeremiah told them they were not to go to Egypt, it was not an option Johanan had considered, nor did he think it a feasible option. The only reason he could imagine that Jeremiah would tell him to do this was that Jeremiah was conspiring to hand them over to the Babylonians.
    
    When we seek God's guidance with the perimeters already defined, we can back ourselves into a corner as did Johanan. There is no point in even going to God if we have already determined the perimeters within which God must confine His counsel. We see how ridiculous this was in Johanan's case. God's counsel to him was not to even go to Egypt. Thus, instead of asking God what the right things was to do, Johanan asked God how best to do the wrong thing. With his mind set on Egypt and no thought of staying in Judah - even before inquiring of God - the only reasonable conclusion to Johanan for Jeremiah's instructions to stay in Judah was that Jeremiah was lying. He had backed himself into a corner by cutting off all but one option even before he inquired of God.
    
    This was a costly mistake for Johanan and those he led. Having escaped death or deportation at the hands of the Babylonians in their defeat of Judah, they now faced that same fate when Babylon invaded Egypt. This time they would not escape that fate because they did not obey God's instructions. And they did not follow God's instructions because they had already eliminated as an option before inquiring of God the very instructions God gave them.
    
    
    
    Ishmael Ishmael