Studying Jeremiah’s times as much like like ours, and a good interpretive lens for now, and came across this passage from Abraham Heschel’s “The Prophets” again…great book on the prophets i’m re-reading for interpretive maps. So well written and clear.  Plus, Jeremiah was asked to dramatize and do public performance art often to symbolize God’s messages. To go bury his underwear, as one of my favorite episodes goes…(God has often asked me to bury my underwear). About his times, Heschel writes:
 “His contemporaries had no understanding of the portent of their times, of the way in which God was present at that time. They did not care for time. But a prophet has a responsibility for the moment, an openness to what the moment reveals. He (or she) is a person who knows what time it is.” Nice definition about how the Kingdom interfaces with time and space. So the kings asked the prophets often, Ok, what time is it? They were to be like spiritual watches, and watchers!