JEREMIAH 25

 

OPENS WITH...The Cup of Fury in God's Hand

 

Verses 1-2 tells us God's word to Judah and Jerusalem 70 Years of Judgment.

 

"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), which Jeremiah the prophet spoke to all the people of Judah and to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying:"

 

In the 4TH year of Jehoiakim...

 

This was 605 b.c., an IMPORTANT year in world history and Biblical history. In world history the Egyptians were overwhelmed at Carchemish (Jeremiah 46:2ff.) in modern Turkey, near the Syrian border. The Babylonian armies chased the fleeing Egyptians south. In Biblical history Nebuchadnezzar came to Jerusalem but had to leave quickly because his father died and it was the first year of his reign in Babylon. It's possible that this prophecy came between the two events.

 

Morgan believed that though this prophecy was first given in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, Jeremiah here repeated it as part of the extended prophecy to King Zedekiah (began in Jeremiah 24). "Thus again Zedekiah, reminded of the prophecy delivered in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, would see how inevitable was the doom now threatening himself and Jerusalem."

 

Jeremiah the prophet spoke to all the people of Judah and to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem...

 

ONCE AGAIN...Though few received it, this was a message for all.

 

Verses 3-7 tells us The rejected word of the prophets.

 

"From the thirteenth year of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, even to this day, this is the twenty-third year in which the word of the Lord has come to me; and I have spoken to you, rising early and speaking, but you have not listened. And the Lord has sent to you all His servants the prophets, rising early and sending them, but you have not listened nor inclined your ear to hear. They said, Repent now everyone of his evil way and his evil doings, and dwell in the land that the Lord has given to you and your fathers forever and ever. Do not go after other gods to serve them and worship them, and do not provoke Me to anger with the works of your hands; and I will not harm you. Yet you have not listened to Me, says the Lord, that you might provoke Me to anger with the works of your hands to your own hurt."

 

This is the 23RD YEAR in which the word of the Lord has come to me...

 

Jeremiah was only a little more than halfway through his long 42 years of work as The Lord's prophet. Yet with 23 years of experience God told Jeremiah he STILL had something to say to the people of Judah.

 

Jeremiah had "prophesied for almost twenty years under Josiah, followed by three months under Jehoahaz and three years under Jehoiakim.

 

But you have not listened...

 

Despite his many years of faithful service to God and the people, they did NOT listen to Jeremiah. They also did NOT listen to other servants the prophets that God sent to them EITHER.

 

They said, "Repent now everyone of his evil way and evil doings": This was the message of both Jeremiah and the other faithful prophets of The Lord. Over his complete ministry there were at times other faithful prophets who spoke a similar message as Jeremiah, warning the people against idolatry and to return to godly living.

 

Yet you have NOT listened to Me...

 

When the people of Judah IGNORED GOD'S faithful prophets they were NOT just ignoring the human messengers; they rejected the God who sent the message. This hardened disobedience provoked God to anger.

 

Verses 8-11 tells us 70 YEARS of desolation.

 

"Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts: Because you have not heard My words, behold, I will send and take all the families of the north, says the Lord, and Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, My servant, and will bring them against this land, against its inhabitants, and against these nations all around, and will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, a hissing, and perpetual desolations. Moreover I will take from them the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones and the light of the lamp. And this whole land shall be a desolation and an astonishment, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years."

 

Thus says the Lord of hosts...

 

When God introduces Himself as the commander of heavenly armies (hosts), it is important to listen carefully.

 

Families of the north...

 

These people have been interpreted as being the allies of the king of Babylon, the many nations comprising the Babylonian Empire, subunits or divisions of a tribe, a political unit, or the Babylonians in general.

 

Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, My servant, and will bring them against this land...

 

The conquering king of Babylon was God's servant in accomplishing this work of judgment. God would raise Nebuchadnezzar up to not only conquer Judah, but also against these nations all around.

 

When Jeremiah made this prophecy Babylon had just established itself as the dominant world power by defeating the rival Egyptians at Carchemish. The world waited to see what they would do with their power, and God told them through Jeremiah.

 

It was not so much that God's pleasure was on him but that as the Lord's instrument he as to execute the divine plan for Judah and the nations. He was unconsciously doing God's will by devoting whole populations to destruction.

 

Make them an astonishment, a hissing, and perpetual desolation...

 

As Jeremiah did many times before, he announced the coming Babylonian conquest of Judah and Jerusalem.

 

The sound of the millstones and the light of the lamp...

 

Where then the noise of the mill is not heard, nor the light of the candle seen, there must be desolation; because these things are heard and seen in every inhabited country.

 

Jeremiah graphically highlights the unnatural silence and the frightening darkness of a desolated Judah.

 

These nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years...

 

Here God gave Jeremiah an additional revelation. The forced exile of the people of God out of the Promised Land would last for seventy years.

 

MANY secular/new age then and now religious leaders CHOOSE to see the 70 years as symbolic instead of literal. However, there is good reason to believe that the seventy years spoke of a literal 70 years. The number of years is PRECISE, namely, from the fourth year of Jehoiakim (the first year of Nebuchadnezzar) to the end of the Babylonian dynasty with the coming of Cyrus (confirmed in. 2 Chronicles 36:21-22; Ezra 1:1-3). The reckoning must be precise because Daniel (confirmation Daniel 9:1-2) went to Babylon with the first deportation and knew that he had been there seventy years.

 

Verses 12-14 God tells Jeremiah what happens AFTER the seventy years.

 

"Then it will come to pass, when seventy years are completed, that I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their iniquity, says the Lord; and I will make it a perpetual desolation. So I will bring on that land all My words which I have pronounced against it, all that is written in this book, which Jeremiah has prophesied concerning all the nations. (For many nations and great kings shall be served by them also; and I will repay them according to their deeds and according to the works of their own hands.)"

 

When the seventy years are complete, that I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation...

 

70 years would not only measure the time of exile; it would also measure the time until God brought judgment upon Babylon. Even as they made Judah a desolation (Jeremiah 25:11) so God would make Babylon a perpetual desolation.

 

Judah's desolation was appointed for 70 years; Babylon's was to be perpetual. The Babylonian Empire NEVER again ruled as such. The nation of Israel was formed again in the ancient world and exists even today.

 

I will repay them according to their deeds...

 

Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians were God's servant (Jeremiah 25:9) in carrying out His judgment against Judah, they would be judged by their evil deeds and works of their own hands. They served God's purpose, but it did not excuse or justify their ADDED CHOSEN actions AGAINST THE JEWISH PEOPLE.

 

Many nations and great kings...

 

AND SINCE WE HAVE ALREADY STUDIED DANIEL we know...The 'many nations' and 'great kings' refer to the Medes and the Persians with their many allies or tributary kings under Cyrus the Great. They would impose forced labor on the once-invincible Babylonians.

 

Verses 15-16 tells us The cup of God's fury.

 

"For thus says 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. And they will drink and stagger and go mad because of the sword that I will send among them."

 

Take this wine cup of fury from My hand...

 

God spoke to Jeremiah with a picture, and in the picture God, as a bartender of judgment, gave the prophet a cup of fury, of judgment. "Or, Take this smoking wine cup.

 

DID YOU KNOW...Several times in the Old Testament a cup is a powerful picture of the wrath and judgment of God.

 

PSALM 75:8, "For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup, and the wine is red; it is fully mixed, and He pours it out; surely its dregs shall all the wicked of the earth drain and drink down."

 

ISAIAH 51:17, "Awake, awake! Stand up, O Jerusalem, you who have drunk at the hand of the Lord The cup of His fury; you have drunk the dregs of the cup of trembling, and drained it out."

 

LUKE 22:42, "Jesus referred to this picture of the cup of fury when He asked in Gethsemane if the cup might pass from Him."

 

In this sense, the cup did NOT represent death, but judgment. Jesus became, as it were, an enemy of God, who was judged and forced to drink the cup of fury from the Father so we would NOT have to drink from that cup. Taking this figurative cup was the source of Jesus greatest agony on the cross.

 

Cause all the nations, to whom I send you, to drink it...

 

Jeremiah would announce God's judgment (in the picture of the cup of fury) to the nations surrounding Judah.

 

They will drink and stagger and go mad because of the sword that I will send...

 

Under the judgment to come, they would act as if they were intoxicated and impaired. They would act as if they were not in their right mind. The cup of God's wrath does not just intoxicate and inebriate; it staggers and stupefies.

In its familiar reference to the nations and their downfall, its picture of judgment in the form of drunken stupor and collapse is all too recognizable in the collective madness that can take hold of a people to destroy it from within, by godless infatuations and perversions.

 

Verses 17-26 tells us Jerusalem as the cup of staggering.

 

"Then I took the cup from the Lords hand, and made all the nations drink, to whom the Lord had sent me: Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, its kings and its princes, to make them a desolation, an astonishment, a hissing, and a curse, as it is this day; Pharaoh king of Egypt, his servants, his princes, and all his people; all the mixed multitude, all the kings of the land of Uz, all the kings of the land of the Philistines (namely, Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron, and the remnant of Ashdod); Edom, Moab, and the people of Ammon; all the kings of Tyre, all the kings of Sidon, and the kings of the coastlands which are across the sea; Dedan, Tema, Buz, and all who are in the farthest corners; all the kings of Arabia and all the kings of the mixed multitude who dwell in the desert; all the kings of Zimri, all the kings of Elam, and all the kings of the Medes; all the kings of the north, far and near, one with another; and all the kingdoms of the world which are on the face of the earth. Also the king of Sheshach shall drink after them."

 

Then I took the cup from the Lord's hand, and made all the nations to drink...

 

Jeremiah simply spoke according to the picture described in the previous verses The Lord gave him.

 

Jerusalem and the cities of Judah...

 

Judgment would begin among the people of God. They would be the first to drink the cup of God's fury. Yet judgment would come upon the other nations. This principle was repeated in Proverbs 11:31 and 1 Peter 4:18: If the righteous one is scarcely saved, where will the ungodly and the sinner appear?

 

Pharaoh king of Egypt...

 

Jeremiah began the list of judgment by mentioning Egypt, the other world power of the day. This was followed by a long list of other peoples and nations, with a special focus upon their kings or leaders. Since the list is so complete, there is not likely any particular event or period in which all these nations were judged. This list has its ultimate fulfillment at the end of the age in the judgment of the nations.

 

1. All the mixed multitude

2. All the kings of the land of Uz

3. All the kings of the land of the Philistines

4. Edom, Moab, and the people of Ammon

5. All the kings of Tyre, all the kings of Sidon

6. The kings of the coastlands

7. Dedan, Tema, Buz, and all who are in the farthest corners

8. All the kings of Arabia

9. All the kings of the mixed multitude who dwell in the desert

10. All the kings of Zimri

11. All the kings of Elam, and all the kings of the Medes

12. All the kings of the north, far and near

13. All the kingdoms of the world which are on the face of the earth, emphasizing the complete character of this judgment.

 

DID YOU KNOW...Pharaoh king of Egypt: "Of whom Herodotus writeth that he persuaded himself and boasted, that his kingdom was so strong that no god or man could take it from him. He was afterwards hanged by his own subjects."

 

The land of Uz, the home of Job (Job 1:1) probably lay to the east of Palestine. In Lamentations 4:21 it s connected with Edom."

 

Dedan: "Was son of Abraham, by Keturah, Genesis 25:3."

 

Tema: "Was one of the sons of Ishmael, in the north of Arabia, Genesis 36:15."

 

Buz: "Brother of Uz, descendants of Nahor, brother of Abraham, settled in Arabia Deserta, Genesis 22:21."

 

Zimri: "Descendants of Abraham, by Keturah, Genesis 25:2, 6."

 

KIDNER adds, "Since these kingdoms made up virtually the entire world of the Old Testament, the final verses can go on to speak in more and more sweeping terms, to present finally a picture which transcends these limits, to be fulfilled (as I see it) in the truly universal judgment of the end-time."

 

Also the king of Sheshach shall drink after them...

 

At the end of this long list, Jeremiah emphasized the judgment to come upon Sheshach - a code name for the Babylonians.

 

Even though there was a sense in which Nebuchadnezzar was God's servant (Jeremiah 25:9) and God used the Babylonians, judgment still came upon them.

 

Verses 27-29 tells us The nations must drink the cup.

 

"Therefore you shall say to them, Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Drink, be drunk, and vomit! Fall and rise no more, because of the sword which I will send among you. And it shall be, if they refuse to take the cup from your hand to drink, then you shall say to them, Thus says the Lord of hosts: You shall certainly drink! For behold, I begin to bring calamity on the city which is called by My name, and should you be utterly unpunished? You shall not be unpunished, for I will call for a sword on all the inhabitants of the earth, says the Lord of hosts."

 

Drink, be drunk, and vomit...

 

As much as they might not want it, there was NO escaping this judgment to come. God would judge them with a figurative cup but a literal sword. If the cup was refused, God would insist: You shall certainly drink. Judgment could not simply be avoided by denial or positive thinking, as false priests, prophets, then and now claimed. Denial would not save you. Avoidance would not save you. Rejection would not save you.

 

For behold, I begin to bring calamity on the city which is called by My name, and should you be utterly unpunished...

 

While judgment would begin among God's people (Jeremiah 25:18) it would in no way finish there. The judgment of God's people was a certain prophecy of coming judgment upon the nations.

 

I will call for a sword on all the inhabitants of the earth...

 

Through history God has dealt with EACH of the nations listed in the previous verses. Yet the global reach of this judgment points to its ultimate fulfillment at the end of the age. The God of heavenly armies - the Lord of hosts - promised it so.

 

Verses 30-33 tells us The Lord's controversy with the nations.

 

"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 habitation;

He will roar mightily against His fold.

He will give a shout, as those who tread the grapes,

Against all the inhabitants of the earth.

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.

Thus says the Lord of hosts:

Behold, disaster shall go forth

From nation to nation,

And a great whirlwind shall be raised up

From the farthest parts of the earth.

And at that day the slain of the Lord shall be from one end of the earth even to the other end of the earth. They shall not be lamented, or gathered, or buried; they shall become refuse on the ground."

 

The Lord will roar from on high, and utter His voice from His holy habitation...

 

When the judgment comes, God's voice will be heard like the roar from a mighty lion. Those who did NOT want to hear God before will be forced to hear Him then. This would be true of His own people (His fold) and ALL the inhabitants of the earth.

 

A shout, as those who tread the grapes...

 

Treading the grapes at harvest time was a celebration. There will be an element of righteous joy in the judgment of God at the end of the age.

 

Disaster shall go forth from nation to nation...

 

Repeatedly, the worldwide nature of the judgment is emphasized.

 

At that day the slain of the Lord shall be from one end of the earth even to the other end...

 

This ghastly picture is almost beyond comprehension. Nevertheless it fits the descriptions of judgment found in the Book of Revelation (Revelation 19:11-18).

 

Refuse on the ground...

 

As the Judge of all the earth, God reads His indictment of mankind: the victims of the coming disaster will lie like so much manure on the surface of the ground.

 

 

Verses 34-38 tells us the anger of the Lord against the shepherds.

 

"Wail, shepherds, and cry!

Roll about in the ashes,

You leaders of the flock!

For the days of your slaughter and your dispersions are fulfilled;

You shall fall like a precious vessel.

And the shepherds will have no way to flee,

Nor the leaders of the flock to escape.

A voice of the cry of the shepherds,

And a wailing of the leaders to the flock will be heard.

For the Lord has plundered their pasture,

And the peaceful dwellings are cut down

Because of the fierce anger of the Lord.

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."

 

Wail, shepherds, and cry...

 

This has reference first to the kings and leaders of the nations, emphasized in the roster of judgment earlier in the chapter (Jeremiah 25:17-26). Kings and other political, social, as well religious leaders were called shepherds in those ancient cultures.

 

Amos 2:14 describes how the royal and mighty would no be able to escape judgment: "Therefore flight shall perish from the swift, the strong shall not strengthen his power, nor shall the mighty deliver himself."

 

For the days of your slaughter and your dispersions are fulfilled...

 

This has first in mind the judgment against Babylon for their conquest and exile of Judah. Other nations with similar sins would face similar judgment. Using this picture of judgment against shepherds, the Lord has plundered their pasture.

 

He has left His lair like the lion...

 

The Lord in judgment is pictured as a lion coming against the shepherds and the flocks. They would not be able to resist Him as the shepherd David killed a lion (1 Samuel 17:34-36).

 

Because of the fierceness of the Oppressor, and because of His fierce anger...

 

Judgment would certainly come and it would come with passion, with fierce anger.

 

It is also possible that the oppressor refers to the agents of God's judgment (such as the Babylonians), and not directly to God Himself. Either way, the promise is sure: judgment is coming.

 

It is never pleasant to read of destruction, but this is the corollary of the Lord's righteousness. It must also be remembered that it was anticipatory, and thus The Lord God of Hosts allowed the nations MUCH MUCH concerned time to repent.