In the Taftee class in the Methodist Church the class divided on the interpretation of the symbol of the 'lion' verse Jer 50:44. Who will come like a lion? The destroyer of Babylon? The Messiah? Both views were presented in the debate. (According to hearsay evidence. I was not there.)
Who is the 'them' and 'her' in the phrase 'I will make them suddenly run away from her'? The I refers to Yahweh. The best way of understanding this would be to see 'them' as Israel and 'her' as Babylon. Yahweh would make Israel run away from Babylon - prophesying the return from the exile. In which case the person coming like a lion would refer to the personYahweh has sent to destroy Babylon, the Medo-Persian empire who was the instrument of Yahweh. The term 'flooding of Jordan' is used in Jer 12:5 to signifiy a time of war in contrast to the time of peace in which Jeremiah was living. Hence it may refer to the Persian invasion.
Interestingly the same verse is used against Edom in Jer 49:19 changing the 'them' to 'him'. To make the interpretation above in the case of Edom does not work as Israel was not in captivity to Edom. So how do we understand the 'him' and 'her' in Jer 49:19? Most translations take the 'him' to be Edom and 'her' to be the land. So it means Yahweh will drive Edom from the land.
Applying this to the passage in Jer 50:44 it should mean Yahweh will drive Israel from Babylon back to Israel. So the person coming like a lion is to me best seen as Yahweh using His instrument the Medo-Persian empire.
No comments:
Post a Comment