Jeremiah (1-31) 29:1 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Jeremiah (1-31) 29:1

Comments

These are prophecies that apply not only to that age for their initial fulfilment, but to the age of Christ, the age of the Christian Church, for further fulfilment, and of course to the return of Christ for their ultimate fulfilment. These prophecies are to be fulfilled a first, second, and third time. And in fact, this prophecy, this letter, this statement, is to be fulfilled in a sense repeatedly, because it contains the pattern of how God prepares the world and his people for times of spiritual restoration in general. You can think of the Reformation, or you can think of revivals, and they have all tended to follow the same pattern. The passage tells us the steps that God takes towards spiritual restoration, and that is what we are chiefly interested in finding out. ‘Now these are the words of the letter that Jeremiah the prophet’ – who remained in Jerusalem – ‘sent from Jerusalem unto the residue of the elders.’ That probably means the elders who were not executed. Many were executed in that second invasion, and others yielded to the invaders, and were taken off into captivity and resettled, so many thousands of them. So here is the residue of the elders: the king and his entire court are carried away. ‘And to the priests, and the prophets’ – perhaps not all of them, but many of them were carried away – ‘and all the people who Nebuchadnezzar had carried away captive from Jerusalem, leaving a residue, a number behind. The letter is sent to those in Babylon. Now, it didn't go forth in any very significant way. It was given pretty much only by Jeremiah, and possibly some other faithful prophets left in Jerusalem and taken into Babylon, who echoed what Jeremiah said. But the size of any accompanying voices was so small that there is no reference to them; they are not conspicuous enough to be mentioned in these chapters. So the word of God goes forth. But can Jeremiah – it is his voice – be heard? How will God give final warnings and promises to the people heralding restoration through one lone prophet? Well, it is accomplished in a remarkable way. The heart of the king is overruled. He vacillates, it appears, though he is anti-Babylon and persuaded by his princes. Most of them have departed, and he has been persuaded that this Babylonian captivity would end within two years, and that they were not to try to settle in Babylon. But he vacillates, and suddenly he gets a change of heart, and he allows his own ambassadors or messengers to go to the Babylonian court to take this letter from Jeremiah, and to reveal it presumably to the emperor's court, and to have it distributed throughout the remnant.‘By the hand of Elasah the son of Shaphan, and Gemariah the son of Hilkiah, (whom Zedekiah king of Judah sent unto Babylon to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon) saying …’ The messengers, the noble messengers, are named. So suddenly Jeremiah gets unexpected help. He gets nothing less than full diplomatic representation to convey and disseminate his word to the leaders, the princes, the prophets, the people who have been taken into captivity.

Application

God will find a way of doing it. The same kind of thing happened with the release of the captives 70 years down the line. With the coming of Christ, there was John the Baptist, given no miracles, nothing spectacular, but such an amazing hearing and voice and attention that this wild man from the wilderness was the one who went before Christ and was able to sound through the whole of Judah that Messiah had come, the Lamb of God was here. It is the same when there is any restoration or awakening and revival. There is some mighty significant voice possibly very lonely or accompanied by very few helpers and fellow proclaimers. But this is the first stage, God moves. The return from Babylon is 70 years ahead at this stage, but God is moving and the message goes forth.

Questions

In 2 Kings 24, where we read a little more about this. ‘And Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came against the city, and his servants did besiege it’ (2 Kings 24:11). This is 597 BC. ‘And Jehoiachin the king of Judah went out to the king of Babylon, he, and his mother, and his servants, and his princes, and his officers: and the king of Babylon took him in the eighth year of his reign. ¹³ And he carried out thence all the treasures of the house of the LORD, and the treasures of the king's house, and cut in pieces all the vessels of gold which Solomon king of Israel had made in the temple of the LORD, as the LORD had said. ¹⁴ And he carried away all Jerusalem’ – all who were not killed; not literally all, many were left behind, but it means a great number. ‘And all the princes, and all the mighty men of valour, even ten thousand captives, and all the craftsmen and smiths’ – in other words, he left them without fighting soldiers, and without the means of making weapons. ‘None remained, save the poorest sort of the people of the land. ¹⁵ And he carried away Jehoiachin to Babylon, and the king's mother, and the king's wives, and his officers, and the mighty of the land, those carried he into captivity from Jerusalem to Babylon. ¹⁶ And all the men of might, even seven thousand, and craftsmen and smiths a thousand, all that were strong and apt for war, even them the king of Babylon brought captive to Babylon. ¹⁷ And the king of Babylon made Mattaniah his father's brother king in his stead, and changed his name to Zedekiah.’ So Jerusalem and Judah got a puppet king to rule over the remnant of lower-class people who were left. Zedekiah, in due time, turned against Babylon, and that is when Jerusalem was finally attacked and fell. Verse 18: ‘Zedekiah was twenty and one years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Hamutal, the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah. ¹⁹ And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, according to all that Jehoiakim had done. ²⁰ For through the anger of the LORD it came to pass in Jerusalem and Judah, until he had cast them out from his presence, that Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.’ So those that lived and survived were now in Babylon, and Jeremiah writes to them. And that's the first stage, the first event that precedes any spiritual restoration. The word of God goes forth.

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Jeremiah (1-31) 29:1 Commentary and Bible Study