Jeremiah (1-31) 25:34 Commentary and Bible Study

‘Howl you shepherds and cry.’ Who are the shepherds? Just the elders of the people, but particularly the false prophets and the priests, who led them spiritually to believe that God wouldn't let them be conquered, who told them that they were God's special people, that they were not sinners, and God would preserve them. But when this judgment comes the word is: ‘Howl, ye shepherds, and cry; and wallow yourselves in the ashes.' Notice how prophecy works, because while this prophecy speaks about the fall of Judah and Jerusalem, under the Chaldeans, under Nebuchadnezzar, it also looks forward to future events and particularly in verse 34. You are beginning to see the very end of time, the last judgment. The captivity of the people and their release pre-figures the fall of the Jewish nation in AD 70, so and after the coming of Christ and his atoning death and resurrection, the judgment of the nation then will come in the form of the destruction again of Judah and Jerusalem. And this taking into captivity pre-figures AD 70, it also pre-figures the end of time, when the world is arranged against the church, and tries in the very last days of history to batter it down and silence it. We are surely seeing the beginnings of that even now, with the great worldwide apostasy turning away from all religion, criminalization of the gospel in area after area. So a judgment will come down. It came down on Babylon; it came down again with the coming of Christ; and it will come down in the last day. ‘And the shepherds shall have no way to flee, nor the principal of the flock to escape.’ You see the politicians are increasingly utterly irreligious, certainly the church leaders of all the mainline denominations of Christianity and the false religious groups are. But they will ‘have no way to flee, nor the principal of the flock to escape’, and were these negative prophecies upon them. ‘And the peaceable habitations are cut down because of the fierce anger of the LORD. ³⁸ He hath forsaken his covert, as the lion: for their land is desolate because of the fierceness of the oppressor, and because of his fierce anger.’ Peace is stripped away, for the fierce anger of the Lord is against his people. ‘He hath forsaken his covert [his layer], as the lion.’ He is now come out on the attack, ‘for their land [Judah] is desolate because of the fierceness of the oppressor, and because of his fierce anger.’ But even the invasion of the Chaldeans and the seventy-year captivity is only a prophecy in itself, of the fall, of Israel with the coming of Christ and their judgment and the new order, the New Testament church of Christ, and the ultimate fulfilment of all these kinds of prophecies is in the very last day.