Jeremiah (1-31) 25:8 Commentary and Bible Study

‘Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts; Because ye have not heard my words,’ – that is what the prophets preached – ‘Behold, I will send and take all the families of the north’ – direction from which their enemies would attack. Extraordinarily Nebuchadnezzar is called the servant of the Lord. How so? Because God is using him as an instrument to carry out his judgment on Judah. Nebuchadnezzar is not the conscious servant of the Lord. He is doing what he does for his own purposes, to please himself, and his motives are not good, but evil. But God will use him and the Babylonians will come and there will be complete destruction of Judah and of the surrounding nations. ‘Moreover I will take from them the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones, and the light of the candle.’ These words closely resemble the words found in the Book of Revelation: ‘And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all. ²² And the voice of harpers, and musicians, and of pipers, and trumpeters, shall be heard no more at all in thee; and no craftsman, of whatsoever craft he be, shall be found any more in thee; and the sound of a millstone shall be heard no more at all in thee; ²³ And the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee (Revelation 18:21-23). The apostle John sees a vision about the future destruction of Babylon which describes it in very similar language to Jeremiah, but Jeremiah is describing here the destruction of Judah, not the downfall of Babylon. However, what Jeremiah speaks of goes beyond the physical calamity that will fall on Judah. This prophecy is in turn a picture of hell, and that applies to Babylon also. It is a picture of the complete removal of all sources of joy and happiness, of creativity and celebration, of hope and encouragement. That is coming on Judah when Babylon destroys its cities and its homes, but in a more profound sense it is coming on those who perish in hell, for that will be a place without any consolation.‘And this whole land shall be a desolation and an astonishment and these nations shall serve the King of Babylon seventy years.’ Now actually, that's not as bad as it sounds. Here is the principle that God had set a time during which things would languish very badly in Israel, but they would be able to live in relative peace in Babylon, and they had the hope. God had set a time for their return, and meanwhile they had to live in exile. That doesn't mean that nothing will be happening during those years. In the 70 years, while the people of God were in captivity in Babylon, what happened? They had such preachers and such prophets as Daniel in Babylon itself. They still had blessing. They still had the preaching of the word. There was still a remnant gathered in. There was still a great deal done. So it wasn't as though nothing was happening. But there was a period of seventy years during which the large scale outward blessing was not manifest. But God had a plan to raise up out of this a new generation. Why seventy years? Maybe it would take seventy years of decline to get rid of the poison that caused the decline. Maybe a whole generation has got to be cleared out.