Jeremiah 34:15-16a And ye were now turned, and had done right in my sight, in proclaiming liberty every man to his neighbor; and ye had made a covenant before me in the house which is called by my name; but ye turned and polluted my name…
Who Are You?
The Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, PA has become an American icon, a symbol of our independence and liberty. The text on the bell is “proclaim liberty throughout the land” which is a reference to the year of Jubilee that God had ordained for the Jewish people. Every seventh year, Jewish masters were to let their slaves go free. If one Jew was working off a debt to another, it was not to be indefinite. He was to be given his liberty.
In Jeremiah’s day, however, the Jewish people were clearly not following God’s commands regarding the year of Jubilee. Jewish owners had kept their Jewish slaves, and God was sending judgment in the form of a Babylonian army. These slave owners were surely to be owned as slaves themselves because of their rebellion. So what do you think these rebels did? As the Babylonian army encroached upon their homeland, they let their slaves go, as they should have done long ago. Their act was not a virtue born out of a love for God. It was a virtue, if we can call it that, born of a desire to be relieved of the pressure that God had put upon them.
Along the way, however, the advancing Babylonian army was delayed by the Egyptian army. When the Jewish slave owners realized this, they took their slaves back. In other words, they had done the right thing, but they didn’t have the right heart. Of course, God knew their heart long before their hand revealed what was in their heart.
God took their rebellion personally. In Jeremiah 34:15 God says that those slave owners had polluted His name by living a life that was not an accurate reflection of the Holy God they served. In the end, we don’t have a good relationship with God merely by keeping the rules, but by keeping our hearts. The essence of this story is that what you do when there is no external pressure on you to do the right thing is a revelation of who you are. May God help us to think the right thing, to be the right person, and to do the right thing out of a love for God and for others.