A Story of Three Prophets

This is a follow-up to my post Information or Conversation, and it would probably be a good idea to read that entry first.

One element of God’s method of revealing himself to people is that he chooses specific people to accomplish specific missions. I want to look at the time of the exile, and three of God’s messengers, Jeremiah, Daniel, and Ezekiel. Now there will be those who accept a later date for Daniel and will question my using him in this part of the story. Let me simply state that I do believe that the stories of Daniel, though not likely the entire book, date from the time of the exile,were later written down and collected in what we now have as the Aramaic portions of Daniel. For more discussion see Dating the Book of Daniel.

At the time of the exile there were three distinct situations, three distinct groups of people to whom God needed to communicate his message. The first was the people of Judah who were rapidly heading toward exile and destruction. The second group was those who were already exiled and living in Babylon. The third was the Babylonian court, both the Babylonian king and officials for whom God had a mission, but also the exiles who were living in a state of privelege and facing the temptation to compromise away their faith.

The inhabitants of Judah were living in a dreamworld of security, based on the belief that the presence of the temple, and thus God’s presence, protected Jerusalem no matter what. The exiles in Babylon generally felt abandoned by God and either waited expectantly for their soon return or began to simply give up. At the same time the king of Babylon took the view that he was favored of the gods because of his successes, and those who lived in his court faced the constant danger of compromise of their principles in order to gain power and favor and even permanence in their new situation. Any of these attitudes presented a barrier to God’s plan.

God’s response was not merely to protect the facts. The facts were that the exile would be long but temporary, and that in the end the people would return. Jerusalem would be destroyed, but it would be rebuilt. Nebuchadnezzar was a great king and conqueror, but he also was limited and temporary and the way to success for the Jewish young people who found themselves there was faithfulness, not compromise. But even if they suffered for their faithfulness, the consequences of compromise would be even deeper.

Those were the facts, but God still needed messengers. None of the audiences actually wanted to listen, but there were ways to make things clear.

For Judah, there was Jeremiah, the weeping prophet. Not only one who could speak the message, but one who could weep the message, whose very life symbolized God’s love for Judah and his unwillingness to give up his people. God’s sorrow was expressed in the form of a prophet who spoke, suffered, cried, and was ignored, but who never gave up, who kept speaking until there was nothing left.

Ezekiel was himself an exile, capable of understanding the situation of the exiles. His inaugural vision (Ezekiel 1) reassured Ezekiel that God was still with the exiles, that in spite of judgment there was hope. The message became a part of Ezekiel. But the presentation was different from that of Jeremiah. Ezekiel was not allowed to mourn his own wife’s death (Ezekiel 24:15-27). Both his visions and his methods of expression were powerful and creative.

Daniel was one tempted to compromise in the court of the king. He had every opportunity to go over to the side of the winner, and to accept Nebuchadnezzar as the once and always king of the world. But he stood quietly for God and for faithfulness to his message.

Three messengers with similar messages, but different audiences, and different means to present that message–God involved in the daily activities of human beings, a microcosm of God acting in the flesh.