But afterward they changed their minds and took back the slaves they had freed and enslaved them again.



Jeremiah 34:11



In the thirty-fourth chapter of Jeremiah we find the tragic story of how many among the Israelites went back on their word and re-enslaved their fellow Israelites who they had set free from bondage. This entirely selfish action on the part of so many grieved the heart of God so much that he proclaimed the ruin of the guilty parties.



I will deliver [the leaders of the Israelites] into the hands of their enemies who want to kill them. Their dead bodies will become food for the birds and the wild animals.



Jeremiah 34:20



Now how does this apply to us today, surely Christians are not doing this, are they? Well, firstly we have to understand the place of the basic virtues being emphasised in this story. There are quite a few of these, but today I want to focus on three.



The first is the concept of freedom. Before the Israelites repented of their actions they were enslaving their own people, something which Moses, as God’s spokesperson, had allowed them to do on a sort of revolving temporary basis as indeed it states in this same chapter:



‘Every seventh year each of you must free any fellow Hebrews who have sold themselves to you. After they have served you six years, you must let them go free.’ Your ancestors, however, did not listen to me or pay attention to me. 



Jeremiah 34:14



Now, we know from Jesus statement in Matthew 19:8 regarding divorce that simply because Moses allowed something does not mean it was God’s original intention. We won’t get sidetracked on that now though, because what this passage makes clear is that God was not happy that the Israelites were not releasing their own brethren who were their slaves when each seventh year rolled around.



Now this is important, because God’s intention here was not to reinstate the seven year cycle of temporary servitude that the law of Moses allowed, no, now he had had enough.



The word came to Jeremiah from the LORD after King Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people in Jerusalem to proclaim freedom for the slaves. 



Everyone was to free their Hebrew slaves, both male and female; no one was to hold a fellow Hebrew in bondage.



Jeremiah 34:8-9



His instruction then was for all Israelites to be released from this burden. He wanted his people to be set completely free. He had freed them from Pharaoh years before, now he wanted to free them from themselves. If we look closely though God was bringing not just freedom but also another important state back to his people… he was in fact moving them towards equality.



The Israelites were immediately convicted of the wrong they had done and so they set their fellow Israelites free (Jeremiah 34:10), but for some reason, later on, they changed their minds. Maybe this freeing of their slaves had made life hard for them, because they now had a lack of labour to carry out the jobs they needed, or even just wanted, done. There may have even been other reasons, maybe the sudden system of equality made people feel threatened regarding their status and maybe they didn’t like not being able to tell their brothers and sisters what to do? For whatever reason though they went back and got their fellow Israelites and forced them back into slavery – what a terrible thing to do!



This teaches us that it is possible to repent of good and turn back to evil, but doing this not only wounds the ones who are hurt by this, it enslaves our own soul, as we find ourselves in enslavement to sin and...