Jeremiah 25:1-11, Are You Angry at God? (2)

I believe that, in order to understand Jehoiakim’s anger at God, we need to begin with a simple timeline.  King Josiah was the last good king of Judah.  Here is a timeline of significant events in his reign.

 

Here are some quick clarifications.  The great revival that occurred during his reign was, sadly, full of pretense.  Josiah was drawn to God; but in the end, the nation followed him only because he commanded them to.  As Jeremiah said, Judah has not turned to Me with her whole heart, but in pretense, says the LORD (Jer. 3:10). 

Josiah’s death in battle is a little hard to understand at first.  Pharaoh led his army out of Egypt, taking the coastal route north, through Judah.  He was on his way to Carchemish to join the Assyrians in battle against the rising power, Babylon.  Josiah confronted him for reasons we are not told.  Josiah was defeated, and killed.  But what is interesting is that Pharaoh never made it to Carchemish.  And the Assyrians were defeated by the Babylonians.  That is significant.  The Assyrians had deported the northern ten tribes of Israel.  But now the Babylonians were the neighborhood bully, and they would be the ones to bring Judah to its knees.

Jehoiakim followed Josiah.  We noted the incident of burning the book of Jeremiah.  But from the chronology of Jeremiah we posted two days ago what is missing?  It is the defeat of Egypt by the Babylonians at Carchemish.  It also occurred in the fourth year of Jehoiakim (Jer. 46:2).  Four years after failing to get to Carchemish, Pharaoh felt compelled again to deal with the Babylonian problem.  Their defeat was the event that brought Jehoiakim to be angry at God.  How do we know?  We will answer that question tomorrow.