Prophecy concerning the 70 years of exile
25
📚The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the people of Judah, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, which was the first year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon; 2 📚Jeremiah the prophet spoke this to all the people of Judah, and to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, 3 📚“From the thirteenth year of Josiah the son of Amon king of Judah, to this day, which is the twenty-third year, the word of the LORD has come to me, and I have spoken to you, rising early and speaking; but you have not listened.25:1-3 Jeremiah had twenty-three years of very difficult and apparently fruitless ministry. Actually he was a success – all through those years he faithfully stood for God and delivered God’s messages just as God gave them to him. Success is doing what God tells us to do, not in appearing to be great before men. If the people did not listen it was not Jeremiah’s fault.⚜
4 📚“And the LORD has sent to you all his servants the prophets, rising early and sending them; but you have not listened, or turned your ear to hear. 5 📚They said, ‘Now every one of you turn back from his evil way, and from your evil deeds, and live in the land that the LORD has given to you and to your fathers forever and ever, 6 📚and do not go after other gods to serve them and to worship them, and do not provoke me to anger with the works of your hands; and I will do you no harm.’
25:4-6 He is referring to the prophets who came before him (Jer 7:25-26).⚜
7 📚‘“Yet you have not listened to me 📖, says the LORD, provoking me to anger with the works of your hands 📖 to your own harm 📖. 8 Therefore 📖 thus says the LORD of hosts: Because you have not heard my words, 9 📚see, I will send and take all the clans of the north 📖, says the LORD, and my servant 📖 Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, and will bring them against this land, and against its inhabitants, and against all these surrounding nations, and will utterly destroy them, and make them an object of astonishment and of hissing, and a perpetual desolation. 10 📚Moreover, I will take away from them the sound of joy, and the sound of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones, and the light of the candle. 11 📚And this whole land will be a desolation 📖, and an object of astonishment. And these nations 📖 will serve the king of Babylon seventy years 📖.
12 📚‘“And it will come about when seventy years are completed, that I will punish the king of Babylon, and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their sin, says the LORD, and will make it a perpetual desolation.
25:12 Jer 50:18. God used Babylon to punish Judah and Jerusalem, but this does not mean Babylon was a righteous nation. In fact, they were a very wicked nation, and God, after using them against Judah, punished them too. Observe that Jehovah, the God of the Bible, is the God over all nations and exercises authority over all (Jer 27:5). This is a truth the king of Babylon himself learned (Dan 4:34-35).⚜
13 📚And I will bring on that land all I have spoken and proclaimed against it, all that is written in this book, which Jeremiah has prophesied against all the nations. 14 📚For many nations 📖 and great kings will enslave them also; and I will repay 📖 them in accordance with their deeds, and in accordance with the works of their own hands.’
The cup of God’s anger
15 📚“For thus said the LORD God of Israel to me: ‘Take this wine cup of fury from my hand, and cause all the nations, to whom I send you, to drink it. 16 📚And they will drink, and be shaken, and go mad, because of the sword that I will send among them.’ ”
25:15-16 The cup of wrath here signifies God’s proclamations of judgments against the nations named in verses 18 to 26.⚜
17 📚Then I took the cup from the LORD’s hand, and caused all the nations to whom the LORD sent me to drink it:
25:17 See Jer 1:10. Jeremiah’s making the nations drink from the cup signifies his proclamation of God’s revelation against them. He did not need to go to the nations named, and of course would not have taken a literal cup even if he had gone. He merely declared and wrote God’s revelation and thus it became effective (Jer 1:12; Isa 55:11). The very speaking of God’s words by the prophet made this fulfillment certain. Whenever God spoke through His prophets He purposed to do what He said He would do.⚜
18 📚namely Jerusalem and the cities of Judah and its kings and its princes, to make them a desolation, an object of astonishment, a hissing, and a curse, as it is today; 19 📚Pharaoh king of Egypt and his servants and his princes and all his people, 20 📚and all the mixed people, and all the kings of the land of Uz, and all the kings of the land of the Philistines, and Ashkelon, and Azzah, and Ekron, and the rest of Ashdod, 21 📚Edom, and Moab, and the children of Ammon, 22 📚and all the kings of Tyre, and all the kings of Sidon, and the kings of the coastlands which are across the sea, 23 📚Dedan, and Tema, and Buz, and all who are in the farthest corners, 24 📚and all the kings of Arabia, and all the kings of the mixed people who live in the desert, 25 📚and all the kings of Zimri, and all the kings of Elam, and all the kings of the Medes, 26 📚and all the kings of the north, far and near, one with the other, and all the kingdoms of the world which are on the surface of the earth; and after them, the king of Sheshach 📖 will drink.
25:26 Verses 18 to 25 list places and peoples not too far distant from Israel. Here the word of God through the prophet reaches out to the ends of the earth. God will punish every country in the world for their sins.⚜
27 📚“Therefore you shall say to them, Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: ‘Drink 📖, and be drunk, and vomit, and fall, and rise no more, because of the sword which I will send among you.’ 28 📚And it will be, if they refuse to take the cup from your hand to drink, that you must say to them, ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts: You will certainly drink.
25:28 No doubt the nations would like to reject God’s cup of wrath but none can escape.⚜
29 📚For, see, I begin to bring disaster on the city which is called by my name 📖, and should you be completely unpunished? You will not be unpunished, for I will call for a sword on all the inhabitants of the earth, says the LORD of hosts.’
30 📚“Therefore prophesy against them all these words, and say to them,
“‘The LORD will roar from on high,
and utter his voice from
his holy dwelling place.
He will roar mightily against
his habitation;
he will give a shout, like those
who trample grapes,
against all the inhabitants of the earth.
31 📚A noise will come to the ends
of the earth, for the LORD has
a controversy with the nations,
he will plead his case with all flesh.
He will give those who are wicked
to the sword,’”
says the LORD.
32 📚Thus says the LORD of hosts:
“See, disaster will spread from nation to nation,
and a great whirlwind will be raised up
from the ends of the earth.
33 📚And on that day those slain by the LORD will be from one end of the earth even to the other end of the earth. They will not be lamented, or gathered, or buried. They will be refuse on the ground”.
34 📚Wail, you shepherds, and cry,
and roll yourselves in the ashes,
you leader of the flock,
for the time for your slaughter
and for your dispersion has come,
and you will fall like a choice vessel.
35 📚And the shepherds will have
no way to flee,
or the leader of the flock to escape.
36 📚A sound of the cry of the shepherds,
and a wailing of the leader of the flock,
will be heard;
for the LORD has ruined their pasture.
37 📚And the peaceful folds are cut down
because of the fierce anger
of the LORD.
38 📚He has left his lair, like the lion;
for their land is desolate because
of the fierceness of the oppressor,
and because of his fierce anger.
25:30-38 The Babylonian conquest of western Asia and Judah, the fall of Babylon a few decades later, and the rise of the Medo-Persian empire ushered in a time of great upheaval among the nations. Invasions, fierce battles with great slaughter, destruction and misery everywhere – these are the themes of these verses. In v 31 the reason for it all is given (and the reason for similar times throughout human history). It was a time of God’s judgment on wicked peoples. The tumult of battle is the Lord’s roar from heaven, His shout is like those treading grapes (v 30; Isa 63:3; Joel 3:13; Rev 14:19-20). Those slain in battle are “slain by the LORD” (v 33). The destruction brought by armies is His work of destruction (v 36). All is a result of His fierce anger (vs 37,38).