Jeremiah (1-31) 27:4 Commentary and Bible Study

The is the message to be delivered by the ambassadors. It is not yet a message to the children of Israel or to Jerusalem. It is a message to the Moabites and the other nations immediately surrounding them who also were going to fall at the hand of Nebuchadnezzar because of their wickedness. ‘Command them to say unto their masters, Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Thus shall ye say unto your masters.’ Every word of this is interesting. ‘I have made the earth, the man, and the beast that are upon the ground’, not like your local gods; they are not creators; they are not transcendent over all. They are not all powerful. ‘I have made the earth, the man and the beast that are upon the ground, by my great [unlimited] power, and by my outstretched arm’, which indicates a sort of instantaneous creation, ‘and have given it unto whom it seemed meet unto me.’ I have superintended affairs, allowing the wickedness of emperors, permitting their conquests when it serves my purpose because I had intended to judge those nations which they act against anyway. God in his mysterious wisdom and sovereignty over all is said to give the monarchy and rule to whoever is in power. That nation may not even recognise him, and have no intention of obeying him, but he will make use of it to bring about his will. ‘And now have I given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant’. God’s will cannot be resisted, and this is his decision. The vast majority of his providence is a mystery to us. He does not explain his decisions to us, and men must submit to them whether willingly or not. This is five years before Nebuchadnezzar became king, emperor of Babylon. He was at this time the crown prince, and he was earning his military spurs in minor undertakings, quelling riots in the existing Babylonian empire that might break out here and there. But they knew the name, before he even becomes king. ‘And now have I given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant; and the beasts of the field have I given him also to serve him.’ Watch out, says Jeremiah. It's in the future when he will come to the throne, but the hour is now drawing near. So total will his dominion be that even the beasts of the field will ne said to be under his rule. Babylon was in due time judged for all her hostility against Israel, against Judah, but for now it is part of the purposes of God that she's left free to conquer them. ‘And all nations shall serve him, and his son, and his son's son, until the very time of his land come.’ The duration of this empire is determined by God, and nothing can prevent it lasting until then. It will be a truly great empire. Babylon will be an empire covering the known world, and no other nation will defeat it. But finally its own end will come and it too will fall: ‘and then many nations and great kings shall serve themselves of him’. Then in verse 8, the warning begins: ‘And it shall come to pass, that the nation and kingdom which will not serve the same Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, and that will not put their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, that nation will I punish, saith the LORD.’ If you refuse, ‘You will be killed with the sword, and with the famine, and with the pestilence, until I have consumed them by his hand ‘with the sword, and with the famine, and with the pestilence, until I have consumed them by his hand.’ However strange it sounds to you, God has determined that this tyrant will rule this whole area of the world for seventy years – the seventy-year period is not mentioned yet, but it soon will be. Jeremiah says to them, ‘You will be under his control as vassal states, but actually you will survive. You will be able to remain in your lands but you will lose your sovereignty. That was the prophecy; that was the message to them.