JEREMIAH | Lesson 4 | Lesson Notes / Talking Points
Read Jeremiah 29.1-23
Program note: Just in case you are following these lesson notes by the lesson number, there have been three weeks of interruption in my postings due to life events I’ve been dealing with. I wasn’t able to compose and post Lesson Notes for those three weeks’ lessons. This is actually the 7th lesson in our current survey/study of Jeremiah, but I am keeping the Lesson Notes consecutive to avoid any further confusion…
MAKING THE CONNECTIONS & SETTING THE CONTEXT
Our primary focus for this lesson will be on chapter 29.1-23, but chapter 29 is the culmination of a three-chapter section that begins in chapter 27. So it will be helpful to us – and even essential – in our understanding of the contents of this lesson to at least get a bird’s-eye view of the events and circumstances leading up to chapter 29. So I will try to establish a general timeline and orders of events to help us see where everybody is and why these messages are so meaningful…not only to the immediate recipients, but also in the broader redemptive purposes of God – and especially as they relate to the coming of Christ in the fullness of time and the Gospel. Chapters 30-31 deal extensively with Yahweh’s plans for the immediate restoration of Judah and prophecies of the New Covenant.
I / ch 29.1-3 / Jeremiah writes a letter from Yahweh to Jewish exiles in Babylon
1/ Jeremiah is still in Jerusalem. But a sizable contingent of the Jewish people has been carried captive to Babylon. It will help us to remember that these deportations and ‘Babylonian captivity’ didn’t happen in one ‘fell swoop.’ There were three significant deportations to Babylon over a twenty-year span:
[1] The first deportation occurred under the reign of King Jehoiakim in 605 BC (2 Kings 23.36-24.4 / see also Daniel 1.1-2);
[2] The second deportation was in 598 BC during the three-month reign of King Jehoiachin (2 Kings 24.8-17);
[3] The third and final deportation occurred in the eleventh year of Zedekiah, 585 BC, when the Babylonians destroyed and desolated Jerusalem and the Temple (2 Kings 24.18 – 25.21).
2/ So when Jeremiah writes this Jeremiah 29 letter, he was writing to those Jews who had been taken captive to Babylon during the second deportation reference above. And the third and final deportation and destruction of Jerusalem had not yet occurred.
3/ Jeremiah dates and times this letter ‘in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah…in the fifth month of the fourth year…’ / see Jeremiah 27.1 & 28.1. This would be in 594 BC, four years after the second deportation and about seven years before the third and final deportation and destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple.
II / ch 29.4-7 / “Settle in…make yourselves at home…you’re going to be there a while…”
1/ Yahweh’s instructions to the Jewish exiles in Babylon can be summed up in this simple message:
“Settle in…make yourselves at home…you’re going to be there a while! This is going to be your ‘new normal’ for years to come!” Yahweh keeps His own clock, calendar, and schedule. He knows what He is doing and what He’s going to do – and when He will do it. He knows where He is going and where He is taking us. We need to remember this at all times. We seldom or never know precisely why things are happening to us. We don’t know the reasons, whys, or wherefores of the events and timings of those events in our lives. What we do need to know is: what does God instruct me to do today…at this time…in this event…in these circumstances? We must learn to trust God’s purposes, will, timing, and wisdom. We must trust and rest in His undying love for us, His faithful mercies toward us, and His unfailing purposes to always do us good for His Glory! see, remember, and trust Romans 8.28!
2/ So here’s the life-plan Yahweh prescribed for them during this exile in this foreign land:
- ‘Build houses and live in them’ ‘Make yourselves at home.’ This is not going to be just a temporary visit or stay-over. Babylon is not a ‘rest stop’ before you begin your soon return trip back home to Jerusalem. This is going to be your home for the next several years – seventy years in fact [more on that later…]
- ‘Plant gardens and eat their produce’ This, too, directs their attention and plans for many seasons to come. They must make provisions for their long-term stay.
- ‘Take wives and have sons and daughters’ Make and continue your plans to marry and have families.
- ‘Take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters’ Do you see where Yahweh is going with these instructions? He’s foreseeing them being in Babylon for generations! We’re looking at three generations at least…themselves, their children, their grandchildren.
- ‘Multiply there, and do not decrease’ This is the same creation mandate God gave the human race from the beginning / see Genesis 1.28. NOTE: we are also beginning to see Yahweh’s plans He has for their being in Babylon. He has taken them there to prepare them for returning them to their homeland. He is planning a New Exodus. Their population has been decimated by these invasions and massacres of their enemies because of their insistent and persistent rebellions against Him. But He has plans to redeem them from this bondage and captivity also just like He did from Egypt / see chs 16.14-15 & 23.7-8. BUT, in the meantime, Yahweh will bless them by making them grow and increase in numbers – re-populating His covenant people and nation – even in the very midst of their enemy captors / see Exodus 1.7. And so, Yahweh’s plans for sending them to Babylon are at least three-fold: punitive, preservative, restorative.
- ‘But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to Yahweh on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare’ This word that is translated ‘welfare’ three times in this verse is the common Hebrew word ‘shalom’ or ‘peace.’ ‘Shalom’ is the ultimate blessing of Yahweh [see Numbers 6.22-27 & Romans 5.1-11, et. al.]. But God’s ‘shalom/peace’ is not merely the absence of war, conflict, or trouble. Because they were experiencing all of these even while Yahweh was blessing them with ‘shalom’ in Babylon. Rather, God’s ‘shalom/peace’ is ‘well-being, wholeness, completeness, welfare’ which is found being in a right relationship with God through His mercy, grace, and covenant. Yahweh’s plan for sending them to Babylon for seventy years was to cleanse them from their idolatries and rebellions, bring them to confession of their sins and repentance from them, and restore them to a loving and obedient relationship with Himself. They were also to seek the ‘shalom’ of the cities in which they lived by bearing faithful witness to Yahweh [just like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah did during their times in the courts of Babylon] by praying to Yahweh on its behalf. Just like we find in our own times … when the cities and societies in which we are living are doing well and living in peace, we share in that benefit. When civil and social unrest, chaos, and troubles come, we suffer the communal consequences along with everyone else.
III / ch 29.8-9 / Conflicts and contradictory promises of the lying false prophets
1/ Following up on this instruction and Divine prescription for ‘shalom/peace,’ Yahweh then immediately issues another dire warning to the exiles in Babylon not to listen to, take heed, and certainly not to trust in and follow the counter/contradictory promises they were hearing from the lying false prophets who were among them. These lying false prophets had been opposing and contradicting Yahweh’s messages through Jeremiah from the beginning / see chs 2.8, 26-27; 5.30-31; 14.13-16; 23.9-40; 26.11; 27.9-18; et. al. When Jeremiah would deliver Yahweh’s messages of the coming destruction by the Babylonians, the lying false prophets would contradict him and say, ‘Yahweh would never do that or let that happen to us!’ When Jeremiah would warn them from Yahweh of the times of war, famine, and disease [see ch 29.17], the false prophets would contradict Jeremiah by promising ‘Peace [shalom], peace,’ when there is no peace / chs 6.14 & 8.11. Contrast these last soothing promises from these lying false prophets with what Yahweh has just told the exiles in Babylon: that they would find their ‘shalom/peace’ only by faithfully seeking, serving, and praying to Him there in the land of their captivity.
2/ When Jeremiah would call the people to repentance and to forsake their faithlessness and sins against Yahweh, the lying prophets would re-assure the rebellious people that they really didn’t have to change any of their ways – Yahweh was obligated by His covenant faithfulness to protect and preserve them.
3/ In fact, the conflict got so personal and heated that in ch 27.1-2, Yahweh instructed Jeremiah to make a neck-yoke and place it around his neck to symbolize the coming bondage and captivity. One of the lying false prophets, Hananiah, violently ripped the neck-yoke from Jeremiah’s neck and broke it in the presence of the people to symbolize Yahweh’s intentions to reverse the on-going captivity and bring back all the captives who had already been taken to Babylon: Within two years I will bring back to this place all the vessels of the LORD’s house, which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon took away from this place and carried to Babylon. 4 I will also bring back to this place Jeconiah [Jehoiachin] the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and all the exiles from Judah who went to Babylon, declares the LORD, for I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon / ch 28.1-10. It’s like Yahweh was telling the exiles ‘Settle in and make yourselves at home…you’re going to be there for seventy years’ and the lying false prophets were giving the contradictory message ‘Don’t bother to unpack your bags … you’ll be coming back within two years.’ The upshot of this blasphemy against Yahweh and violence to Yahweh’s true prophet, Yahweh struck him dead within two months / ch 28.17.
4/ Yahweh will pick up these warnings and condemnations again more fully in vv 15-32, and name names in doing so … but for now He’s trying to get the exiles’ attention so they won’t be distracted, diverted, and deceived by the constant cacophony they were hearing from these lying false prophets.
IV / ch 29.10-14 / ‘For I know the plans I have for you, declares Yahweh’
1/ How many times have we all heard, seen, or read the words of v 11 quoted as a kind of unconditional, ‘blanket blessing’ that God gives to everyone. “As of the end of 2018, Bible Gateway identified this verse as the year’s most frequently read on its website. Moreover, as Christianity Today observed, ‘Not only was Jeremiah 29.11 the most popular verse of the year [2018] on Bible Gateway, it also claimed the YouVersion top spot in the developed West (Australia, Canada, Japan, and the United Kingdom) and the Global South (Dhana, Indonesia, Nigeria, the Philippines, and the United Arab Emirates), spanning demographics in a way that other verses didn’t.’” / From Jerry Hwang, ESV Expository Commentary.
2/ Everybody wants to claim it, everybody wants it to be true for them – regardless of how they’re living or what the contextual conditions or interpretations of the words are. Everybody wants to think and obligate God to plan only ‘good’ things for them and promise them that He desires and plans only to give them the life and things they want and enjoy.
3/ It was then – and it is now – the ‘go-to’ verse for all the so-called ‘prosperity gospel’ teachings and philosophies. The lying false prophets, both back in Jerusalem and here in Babylon, were deceiving the people of Judah into believing that Yahweh’s purposes and plans for them would not allow ‘bad’ things to happen to them … regardless of their faith in Him, relationship with Him, or lifestyle and conduct in His Presence. “The siren song of prosperity theology beckons thus within the believer’s heart: ‘God is all-powerful, so He can do anything He wants. God is all-loving, so He wants to give me what I want. Since what I want is security, health, and wealth, God is able and willing to give these things to me as long as I have faith’” [Jerry Hwang, ibid].
4/ However, what we must do to be true to the Scriptures and what Yahweh is promising is look at the specific plans He has for Judah:
- For thus says Yahweh, When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. This is a promise Jeremiah first reveals in ch 25.8-12. Yahweh had warned them of the coming destruction by Babylon and had also promised He would restore back to Jerusalem at a later time, but in these contexts, He specifies the seventy-year duration of the captivity. When Daniel was in Babylon during the entire seventy-year duration, he was so confident of Yahweh’s faithfulness, that when he knew the seventy years were coming to fulfillment, he began fasting and praying to know how Yahweh would keep His promise / see Daniel 9.1-2.
- For I know the plans I have for you, declares Yahweh, plans for welfare [shalom], and not for evil [harm], to give you a future and a hope. This shalom,future, and a hope were faithfully fulfilled by Yahweh when He restored them to Jerusalem by the decree of Cyrus.
- Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will hear you. You will seek Me and find Me, when you seek Me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares Yahweh, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and call the places where I have driven you, declares Yahweh, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile. The indispensable condition Yahweh places upon them is that they must repent of the sins and rebellions that necessitated His sending them to Babylon in the first place, and return to Him with the exclusive, unqualified love He required from them in the beginning, and pray to Him with worship and service. They had ‘returned’ to Him in previous crises, and He delivered them time and again, but those prayers and reformations had been only ‘in pretense’ / see ch 3.10. Our repentance must be sincere, genuine, and with our whole hearts. This is God’s standing call to all of us in every generation, in every circumstance / Isaiah 55.6-9. And it finds its ultimate fulfillment in our faith in Jesus Christ and our redemption in Him.
V / ch 29.15-23 / Curses on the lying false prophets
1/ vv 15-19 / Jeremiah’s letter from Yahweh continues as Yahweh now directs His judgments personally and more specifically toward the lying false prophets. These false prophets were exiles themselves and were working to establish their standing and exert their deceptive influence among the other exiles. Because you have said, “Yahweh has raised up prophets for us in Babylon.” These false prophets in Babylon were actually sending messages back to Jerusalem and those who hadn’t yet been deported to Babylon, telling them that the prophesied judgments from Yahweh through Jeremiah would not be happening. Yahweh simply says: Oh, yes, it will!
2/ vv 20-23 / There were two lying false prophets in particular: Ahab and Zedekiah [different than the kings by the same names]. They were blaspheming Yahweh by claiming to be sent by Him and speaking in His Name. Yahweh pronounces curses and judgments on them by warning the exiles not to believe them. He had not sent them, and they were not speaking His words. Yahweh foretells their fellow exiles that He will demonstrate His sovereignty, the Holiness of His Name, and the veracity of His Word by having Nebuchadnezzar execute them by burning them alive [‘roasted in the fire,’ v 22] for daring to prophesy lies in His Name / see Deuteronomy 18.20-22. If the people will not put them to death, Yahweh will have Nebuchadnezzar do it. Whereas this Ahab and Zedekiah aspired to make names and reputations for themselves as Yahweh’s true prophets and His spokesmen to the people, Yahweh denounces them and says instead their names will go down in history as illustrious curses: “Because of them this curse shall be used by all the exiles from Judah in Babylon: ‘The LORD make you like Zedekiah and Ahab, whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire,’ 23 because they have done an outrageous thing in Israel, they have committed adultery with their neighbors’ wives, and they have spoken in my Name lying words that I did not command them. I am the One who knows, and I am witness, declares the LORD.”
~Dave Parks 