Jeremiah (1-31) 27:1 Commentary and Bible Study

We see introduced in this 27th chapter the symbols of warning. Jeremiah was to make his message so very plain. We know that it is 609 BC when this took place. The following chapter tells us that and makes it clear. It is the first year of Jehoiakim. He was an evil king, and Jewish tradition, going way back, describes him as a tyrant and a murderer. From the Scripture, we certainly know he was evil, and he was an idolater. But he was a vassal king. He had signed away so much to Egypt, so he was a vassal to Pharaoh, and he was left with his kingdom of Judah, intact and able to rule it, but paying homage to Egypt, and following their instructions. But there was worse to come. Judgment was ahead and the prophet Jeremiah had already been warning for many years. He was held in contempt by many people. He was opposed by the princes and the priests. The prevailing attitude among the Jews was that God would not allow Judah and Jerusalem to fall. They were proud people, at least the majority of them. There were no doubt godly people among them, but they are almost obscured in the Biblical record because the spotlight falls on the rebellious attitude of the nation by and large. The people – they worshipped the Lord, and they worshipped false gods at the same time, and they didn't acknowledge their sin, not any of it: their idolatry and mistrust of the true God, and their refusal to trust in him and depend upon him and follow his ways. It was easier and better for their pride to believe that they had standing before God, and therefore he wouldn't let them sink. It was a foolish way of thinking, even rationally, because the ten northern tribes – Israel with its capital at Samaria – had been conquered and had gone into captivity. So the larger part of the Israelites had long since fallen, and you would think this would hang over their heads. It could happen to us. But they were too proud. And so once Josiah died – a good king – now we come to Jehoiakim, his second son, and he is a dreadful king, and the elders and the princes and the priests and the false prophets are encouraged by this. So Jeremiah is instructed by the Lord to keep going. He has another fourteen years of this before the judgment actually comes, and God's long delay with the prophet warning over so many years was completely misread by the people. Instead of them seeing in this delay – between the onset of the judgment prophecies and their fulfilment – an indication of God's mercy while the call to repentance went out, they saw the prophet as being false and scare-mongering, a troublemaker, an opponent of the country. They ridiculed him and opposed him. So now he's to make his situation worse and his message plain and to adopt a visual aid, bonds and yokes. The yokes the next chapter tells us were made of wood. They are obviously the kind of yokes that would be put on working animals, oxen, and which are symbols of slavery and servitude. The people who were not killed by the final invasion when it came would go into slavery and captivity. If they had only yielded to Babylon and to the emperor of Babylon, and the prophet had told them this, they would be left with their farms and their lands and a great degree of self-determination. Yes, they would be a vassal state to Babylon, but if they didn't surrender and yield their military and their noble people would by and large be destroyed and the residue go into slavery, and that would last, Jeremiah tells them, for 70 years. So now he goes about with yokes in the plural. Maybe he had many of them because they kept getting torn off him and he always would come out with another. You can imagine the children and the youngsters. ‘What's that man doing?’ And the answer would be given: ‘Oh he's just telling us we're all going into captivity.’ Well, the youngsters would be alarmed. Is it true? No, he's lost his mind. It's absurd. It couldn't possibly happen to us. ‘Make thee bonds.’ Perhaps he had to tie ropes to his ankles or a wrist, as well as don the wooden yoke. And this is very curious in verse 3: ‘Send them to the king of Edom, and to the king of Moab, and to the king of the Ammonites, and to the king of Tyrus, and to the king of Zidon, by the hand of the messengers [ambassadors] which come to Jerusalem unto Zedekiah king of Judah.’ Jeremiah still had access to the royal court, at least the outer chambers; he was somehow entitled to that, though he was a nuisance and ridiculed. And he could engage with these people and give them as presents. And it actually worked. The ambassadors of the smaller neighbouring states around Judah would carry them back to their kings. They all knew the name of Jeremiah, those kings. This prophet says, we are all going into captivity if we don't yield to the emperor of Babylon.