In this chapter, God is telling Jeremiah about the destruction he has caused on his inheritance, Israel, because of their evil ways, that devastation being the result of God allowing the surrounding armies to attack them successfully.

But he also warns those armies about what will happen to them.

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It is sometimes hard to understand how God will use the enemies of Israel as his rod of discipline, but then turn against those enemies and destroy them! He does say, at times, that although he did have them perform his discipline, they went further than he allowed, and as such, their zeal in destroying for the sake of destroying would lead to their own destruction.

Yeah, I know- I don’t really get it, either, but then again, it’s God. God can do what he wants, and he doesn’t need our understanding or our permission, just our trust in the fact that what he does is always for the best of all in the end.

So, let’s see what the warning is:

“Here is what Adonai says: “As for all my evil neighbors who encroach on the heritage I gave to my people Isra’el as their possession, I will uproot them from their own land, and I will uproot Y’hudah from among them. Then, after I have uprooted them, I will take pity on them again and bring them back, each one to his inheritance, each one to his own land. Then, if they will carefully learn my people’s ways, swearing by my name, ‘As Adonai lives,’ just as they taught my people to swear by Ba‘al, they will be built up among my people.  But if they refuse to listen, then I will uproot that nation, uproot and destroy it,” says Adonai.”

Since this is Jeremiah, we can safely assume that the “evil neighbor” is Babylon. And the inheritance God is mentioning is clearly the land of Israel (not the current small percentage we have today, but the full amount of land God promised to give to us).

Now, I am going to interpret this passage in a more modern context: Babylon represents Christianity, and the inheritance is not the land, but the Torah. The encroachment is not a military attack but the way the nations of the world (through the UN) have constantly come against Israel and supported their enemies.

As for Christianity, it has always reduced the importance of Jews through their overt antisemitic actions, such as the Crusades, the Inquisition, and more subtle antisemitism, such as in modern times when the “Church” turned a blind eye to the Holocaust.

So, the rest of God’s warning is that for encroaching on his people (by supporting their enemies) and on their inheritance (meaning the rejection of Torah by Christianity), they will themselves be uprooted.

And we have seen some of that happen- Egypt was the world power, but after enslaving us they were destroyed; Spain used to be a world power, but after the Inquisition they have been reduced to a non-power; England screwed us over when they gave us Israel, but then they started to lose their world power through the loss of their colonies, and the “church” has been separated into dozens of separate religions, none of which work with the other.

And through all of this, for nearly 6,000 years, the Jews have remained steadfast because we have the Torah.

As for bringing us back from where we were sent in punishment, we have seen this happen as the State of Israel has flourished, and is now a world-leader in technology, agriculture, and science.

Not only that, but since its inception, 25% of all Nobel prizes awarded went to Jews. To put this in perspective, there are only about 2 of us for every 1,000 people in the world.

Ya tink maybe God meant what he said when he told Abraham his descendants would be a blessing to the world??

OK, back to Jeremiah- the last part of God’s warning, and this is the one you really need to hear, is that after God separates his people from their enemies, and both are back in their own country, if the enemies (i.e., nations of the world) do not learn the Torah, then they will eventually and finally be uprooted and destroyed.

In other words, if Christians do not stop telling Jews to ignore the Torah (equivalent to God’s saying “swear by Ba’al”) but rather learn to obey God’s Torah (i.e., swear by Adonai), they will be destroyed in the Acharit haYamim (End Days).

I could explain this in more detail, but I think that statement is enough to make someone who really believes in God to stop and think. If you believe that God means what he says, then you had better consider that ignoring anything God says to do is just rejecting God.

And that includes encroaching on his inheritance, which means anyone who supports the enemies of Israel, which today are the UN, Hamas and all the other terrorists, anything that is termed “Palestinian”, and the restriction of Israel’s right to recover its’ hostages and take back Gaza, then your eternal future is looking really bleak.

By the way, in case you didn’t know, Gaza originally belonged to Israel, but in 1994 they stupidly gave to the Arabs as a peace offering, and instead of working with us they have allowed it to become the center of anti-Israeli terrorist activities.

So, God warns the Gentiles in the world who have proven they are enemies to the Jews that they must come around to either obeying God (and not a religion) through obedience to his Torah, or they will eventually be destroyed.

Thank you for being here and please share these messages with everyone you know, even non-believers. Hey, after all, you never know how fertile the soil is until you plant a seed in it.

That’s it for this week, so l’hitraot and (an early) Shabbat Shalom!

(Only three more days until we can have a real sandwich again!)