GOD does not forget His own, even when they are suffering because of their waywardness and sin; thus we find a comforting message from Himself going to the captives in Babylon who had been carried away in the Great Captivity. They might have thought bitterly of Nebuchadnezzar as the cause of their deep distress, but they are reminded that it was God, their God, “Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel,” who had moved the king of Babylon to do what he did (verse 4).
They were to settle down in the place where they were, though far from their homes and the city of Jerusalem; and were to seek the peace of Babylon, and pray for it (verses 5-7). Their natural feeling would be far otherwise, even to be planning revenge for what had befallen them; but submission was called for. Babylon was a place preeminent for idol worship, and the children of Judah who feared God must have been continually grieved at what they saw and heard there. Nevertheless God had committed government in the earth to the Gentiles, even to Nebuchadnezzar, because His earthly people had utterly failed in the responsibility committed to them. And having mingled the worship of idols with the professed worship of the true God, they must now for a season leave their land to dwell among a people thoroughly steeped in idolatry.
False prophets and dreamers were among the captives of Judah, and God’s message to His people in a strange land warned them against heeding what they taught. When the seventy years (chapter 25:12) were over, He would visit them and perform His good word toward them, in bringing them back to Jerusalem (verses 8-10).
Such is the human heart that hard thoughts against God arise within in circumstances of trial, when the burden seems heavy and the way dark and dreary.
But hear His gracious accents, speaking in tender love:
“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith Jehovah—thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you an expected end” (literally, a latter end and hope) (verse 12).
The end of these painful circumstances (for some truly had faith in Him) would be blessing (verses 12-15). This is always the purpose of the trials God allows to burden His people.
Although there was a measure of recovery in the state of Judah at the time when, ending the seventy years’ captivity, Cyrus the Persian conqueror of Babylon proclaimed liberty to the Jews to return to Jerusalem, that measure was small (see Ezra and Nehemiah), and for its literal fulfillment, the word of verses 12-14 awaits the day long foretold that is yet to come.
In verses 15 to 19 the solemn judgment of God upon the people left in Jerusalem, which was given in chapter 24, is repeated in view of the relation evidently existing between the false prophets and false leaders who had gone to Babylon, and the wicked men remaining in Jerusalem.
Two of these prophets of lies and abandoned life are singled out in verses 20 to 23; they would not escape from God’s hand because in far away Babylon: for them death in a fearful form was coming. We are told nothing more than these verses disclose about these men who died for their iniquity in a foreign land. It is enough for us that the eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good. (Proverbs 15:33The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good. (Proverbs 15:3)).
Shemaiah the Nehelamite, another of the captives at Babylon, who showed by his letters whom he served, even Satan, tried to get Jeremiah imprisoned for his faithfulness to God. It does not appear that Jeremiah tried to defend himself against this attack; if he did, it was needless, for God takes care of those who seek wholeheartedly to serve Him; takes notice of all that seek to illtreat them and will in due time reward their enemies according to their deserts, as the last verse of the chapter shows (See 2 Timothy 4:1414Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil: the Lord reward him according to his works: (2 Timothy 4:14), which should be read, “The Lord will reward him according to his works.”)
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