42
📚Then all the officers of the army, and Johanan the son of Kareah, and Jezaniah the son of Hoshaiah, and all the people from the least to the greatest, came near 42:1 This whole chapter and the first three verses of the next chapter give an illustration of self-deception in praying for God’s will. All the people together with their leaders were involved in this sad affair. They thought they wanted God’s will (v 2), they asked for prayer that they might know it (v 3), and evidently they were convinced of their willingness to obey it (v 6). But when God revealed His will they refused to do a single thing He told them. Obviously they hoped that God would tell them to do only what they wanted to do anyway.⚜
2 📚and said to Jeremiah the prophet, “Please let our plea be acceptable to you, and pray for us to the LORD your God, and for this whole remnant (for we remain only a few out of many, as you can see), 3 📚that the LORD your God will show us the way in which we should walk, and the thing that we should do”.
4 📚Then Jeremiah the prophet said to them, “I have heard you. See, I will pray to the LORD your God in accordance with your words; and it will be that whatever answer the LORD gives you, I will declare it to you. I will keep nothing back 📖 from you”.
5 📚Then they said to Jeremiah, “May the LORD be a true and faithful witness between us, if we do not act in accordance with everything which the LORD your God sends us by you, 6 📚whether it is good or bad, we will obey the voice of the LORD our God, to whom we send you, so that it may be well with us, when we obey the voice of the LORD our God”.
7 📚And ten days later it came about that the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah.
42:7 Jeremiah would not speak until He got God’s message, and it took ten days to receive an answer from God. Years may pass before God answers some prayers.⚜
8 📚Then he called Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the officers of the army who were with him, and all the people from the least to the greatest, 9 📚and said to them, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, to whom you sent me to present your request before him: 10 📚If you will still remain in this land, then I will build you up, and not tear you down, and I will plant you, and not uproot you, for I relent concerning the disaster that I have brought on you. 11 📚Do not be afraid of the king of Babylon, of whom you are afraid. Do not be afraid of him, says the LORD, for I am with you to save you, and to deliver you from his hand. 12 📚And I will show mercy on you, so that he may have mercy on you, and cause you to return to your own land.
42:12 1 Kings 8:50. When God has compassion on us He can and will cause men to show compassion toward us, and the compassion they show should cause us to recognize God’s compassion to us.⚜
13 📚“But if you say, ‘We will not live in this land’, disobeying the voice of the LORD your God, 14 📚saying, ‘No! But we will go to the land of Egypt, where we will not see any war or hear the sound of the trumpet, or be hungry for bread; and we will live there’, 15 📚Then in that case hear the word of the LORD, you remnant of Judah. Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: If you definitely set your faces to go into Egypt, and do go to settle there, 16 📚then it will happen that the sword, which you fear, will overtake you there in the land of Egypt, and the famine, which you fear, will follow you closely there in Egypt; and there you will die. 17 📚So it will be with all the men who set their faces to go to Egypt to settle there. They will die by the sword, by famine, and by the plague, and none of them will remain or escape from the disaster that I will bring on them. 18 📚For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Just as my anger and my fury were poured out on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so will my fury be poured out on you when you enter Egypt; and you will become an oath, and an object of astonishment and cursing and scorn; and you will see this place no more.
42:8-18 Nothing could be more plain, more solemn than this message.⚜
19 📚“The LORD has said concerning you, O remnant of Judah, Do not go to Egypt. Know for a certainty that I have warned you this day. 20 📚For you dissembled in your hearts when you sent me to the LORD your God, saying, ‘Pray for us to the LORD our God. Declare to us all that the LORD our God says and we will act accordingly.’ 21 📚And now today I have declared it to you, but you have not obeyed the voice of the LORD your God, or anything which he has sent to you by me. 22 📚Now therefore know for a certainty that you will die by the sword, by famine, and by the plague, in the place where you desire to go and settle”.
42:19-22 Jeremiah adds his personal loving exhortation to the people. But God has enabled him to discern the true state of their hearts (v 20). All the time they were waiting for God’s will to be revealed to Jeremiah they were (possibly unconsciously) determined to have their own way. This is just one more example among a great many in the Bible of what fallen human beings are like. We may think we want to know and do God’s will when actually we only want God to tell us to do what we want to do.⚜