(February 3, 2015)
One
thing that is hard to do with the scriptures is to know when not to take
larger meanings from them. Everything in
the scriptures tends to take on an exaggerated level of importance and leads us
to believe that there must of necessity be a moral message in each and every
recorded story from history.
The
governor’s refusal to take proactive steps against Ishmael, I think,
demonstrates the danger of viewing the scriptures in that way. There is no discussion at any point in this
narrative of the Lord (or even of Jeremiah, who by this point was part of the
governor’s household). Instead we have a
governor – a decent man, from what we know – who did not believe what was a
true report and it ended up getting him killed.
Can we
draw any other moral lessons from this? Should we take affirmative steps to destroy
those who would harm us? I don’t think
we can take any such message out of what happened. In fact, if there was one moral message to
take (and this might be a stretch), it would be that if you have a prophet
living in your house and someone says that another person is out to kill you,
take the time to stop by and discuss the matter with the prophet.
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