10.31.2014 Old Testament: Jer 29.15–19

To read the Bible in a year, read Jeremiah 29–30 on October 31, In the year of our Lord 2014

By Don Ruhl

The Jews thought that the existence of prophets in Babylon meant that the captivity would not last long,

Because you have said, “The Lord has raised up prophets for us in Babylon”—

Whether the people referred to false prophets who spoke of the captivity as being short, or whether the people spoke of the true prophets and by their mere existence, that the Lord would make the captivity short, I cannot say, but either way, they misunderstood the Lord. He continued,

…therefore thus says the Lord concerning the king who sits on the throne of David, concerning all the people who dwell in this city, and concerning your brethren who have not gone out with you into captivity—thus says the Lord of hosts: Behold, I will send on them the sword, the famine, and the pestilence, and will make them like rotten figs that cannot be eaten, they are so bad. And I will pursue them with the sword, with famine, and with pestilence; and I will deliver them to trouble among all the kingdoms of the earth—to be a curse, an astonishment, a hissing, and a reproach among all the nations where I have driven them, because they have not heeded My words, says the Lord, which I sent to them by My servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them; neither would you heed, says the Lord (Jeremiah 29.15–19). 

They still had to pay the dear price for their unfaithfulness to the Lord, and for worshiping false gods, and for doing all the abominations associated with those false gods. The Lord cared for His people, hence He gave them prophets, but He also hated what His people did, and He took action against them for it.