Reading: Jeremiah 49-50, Psalm 26
Today we continue the list of judgments against the nations surrounding Israel, ending with the destruction of Babylon by the Persians. The prophesies themselves are almost like a cliffs notes of the minor prophets- all these nations have been warned by various prophets, and like Israel they have not listened. Now Babylon is coming to roll over all of them like a steam press. Wrath, justice, vengeance. Woot.
But we already heard all of this, and more than once in many cases. Why is it here in Jeremiah? Why put it out of time order (these were delivered in the days of Jehoiakim, a full generation before the fall of Jerusalem). Jeremiah does quite a bit of this jumping back and forth in time to make a point, and I don’t think this is an accident here. Sandwiched between two stories of the fall of Jerusalem and the exile, we get a (rather long) reminder that God is executing judgment on the whole of humankind, not just Israel. Even the nation that God uses for his discipline, Babylon, will be subject to a greater power. This echoes the complaint of Habakkuk, when God reveals that there will always be a greater power that overcomes the powerful nation of the day. We must look forward to Daniel to see that there will be a Last power- a greatest power that can never be undone. That day is hinted at in Jeremiah but beyond his visions.
Speaking of which, did you notice a repeated line about restoration in these otherwise violent passages? Afterwards, I shall restore the fortunes of… This is the kind of promise we have come to expect from God about the people of Israel. It is right in the Mosaic covenant: When the people are disobedient, God will judge them, then he will restore them. All part of the plan to make Israel exactly what it was intended to be. But here, this does not reference Israel. For goodness sake, is that a message of restoration aimed at the Ammonites?! The worshipers of Molech, practitioners of ritual prostitution and child sacrifice? The people that God told Israel to wipe out in the promised land, and to stay far away from in the future. Those guys. God will restore their fortunes? Yes. That is what God says here.
It is not as overt as in the last chapters of Isaiah or the visions of Daniel, but the book of Jeremiah also gives us a vision of that Last Kingdom, the one that overcomes all of the others without itself becoming wicked and deserving of judgment. Jeremiah’s vision includes restoration for even the worst people Israel interacts with. Note, however, that it does not include restoration for all the people Israel interacts with. I think God is giving little glimpses of what his own rule of the world will have in it. In the Kingdom of God there are all kinds of people. The people of Israel. Moabites. Ammonites. Egyptians. These all get the appended note that God will work a restoration on them. The Philistines and the Edomites, not so much. Now, I do not think this means that no descendants of Esau or migrants from Caphtor will be live in the Kingdom of God. The New Testament gives us a vision of people from every nation worshiping before the throne of God. But, I do think that there is an implication that not every group of people, not every culture, will survive. Individuals may be saved, but perhaps not the values of the nations. This is a much larger topic than I have time for here, but bears considering.
The restoration promised in Jeremiah for the people of Israel took a long time. It is still not wholly completed. The same stands true for the nations around them. The long story of the human nations fighting one another and being used by God to bring judgment on each other continues to the present day. We are fortunate to live in a time when the King of the Kingdom of God has appeared and can be known, but he has not taken his place as personal ruler. The struggle of nations will continue until he does, and the last King takes an eternal throne. The messages of judgment in Jeremiah, stuck between the stories of Jerusalem’s destruction, are really messages of a hope long foreseen still a long time to come.