Jeremiah 25
God sentences Judah to 70 years
Jeremiah’s 23 years with no listeners
1God gave Jeremiah a message to deliver four years into the reign of Judah’s King Jehoiakim, [1] son of King Josiah. That was also the first year of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign as king of Babylon. 2Jeremiah passed the message along to people in the city of Jerusalem and throughout Judah. 3Jeremiah said:For the past 23 years, God has been giving me messages to pass along to you. I’ve done that since the thirteenth year of King Josiah’s reign over Judah. He was King Amon’s son. I have persisted in telling you what the LORD said. And you have persisted in not listening. 4The LORD sent you prophet after prophet, delivering his messages. You haven’t given the slightest indication of interest. You’re not listening.
5They’ve told you to stop doing what you know is wrong if you want to keep living in this land he gave your ancestors to keep forever. [2] 6They told you to stop worshiping idols and provoking God. 7But the LORD says you don’t listen to him. Instead you sin so much that you make him angry. 8So, the LORD of everyone says this:
You ignored me and disobeyed me. 9So, here’s your punishment. I’m going to rally all kingdoms in the northland, [3] including King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. For this campaign, he serves under my command. These combined armies will attack and destroy you and your neighboring nations. When the invaders are done, the ruins they leave behind will horrify witnesses. You’ll live in shame for the rest of your lives, suffering constant insults.
10I’ll end their laughter and the joyful sound of their brides and grooms. I’ll stop millstones from grinding grain, and I’ll leave you in the darkness, without light for your lamps. 11I’m turning these hills and fields into ruins and wasteland. And what’s left of the kingdoms will answer to Babylon’s king for the next 70 years. [4]
12When you’ve served your 70-year sentence, I’ll punish the Babylonian homeland for their sins. 13I’ll hit them and the other distant nations with everything I warned them about in the prophecies of Jeremiah. 14Kings from various nations will conquer, capture, and enslave them. I’ll see to it that they get what they deserve for their behavior.
God’s brand of wine: Wrath
15The LORD and God of Israel said:Take this cup of wine I’m holding. I’m calling this wine Wrath. And I want you to serve it to the following nations. Make each of them take a swallow. 16Once they get a stiff drink of this, they’re going to stagger around like confused drunks. That’s the effect enemy swords will have on them.
17So in the vision, [5] I served wine to the nations. 18I went to Jerusalem and the other towns of Judah. Kings, officials, and citizens would all suffer the wrath and witness the destruction. Survivors would become the butt of jokes and target of insults.
19I also took the wine, the cup of wrath, to other nations and towns:
- Egypt, with the king known as Pharaoh, his officials, and citizens,
Then Babylon [8] can kick back and relax with a drink. [9]
27After that, the LORD told me to say this to the people:
The LORD of everyone and the God of you, Israel, has this message for you: Have a drink. Have another. Get yourself puking drunk and then pass out and stay down. Either way, you’re dead. I’m sending an army to kill you with swords. 28If anyone refuses to drink from the cup of Wrath, tell them, “The LORD of everyone commands you to drink.”
29I’m bringing disaster to Jerusalem, the city associated with my name. I’ve already started it. I’m punishing you. You’re going to have to take it because you can’t escape it. The sword is coming for everyone in the world.
LORD of the sky is coming, mad
30Give the people this prophecy:The LORD will roar down out of the sky
Leaving his holy throne.
He will raise his voice, criticizing humanity.
He’ll scream like someone stomping grapes.
Will rumble all over the world.
The LORD is leveling charges against all humans.
He’ll sentence the guilty
And see them cut down by the sword.
32The LORD of everyone says:
Look. Disaster is coming,
And it’ll spread from nation to nation.
It will explode in chaos and war
And expand from here to the ends of the earth.
33Dead bodies will litter the ground
All over the world.
They’ll be no one left to mourn the dead
Or to bury the bodies.
Corpses will lie in the dirt like manure.
Death to Judah’s leaders
34Scream, you shepherd leaders of Judah.
Roll in the ashes [10] and cry, you lords of the flock.
It’s butchering season,
And this time it’s your turn to die.
But you can’t get away.
Lords of the flock must die.
36Listen to them squeal
The death-cry of a shepherd.
The LORD is destroying
Their peace in the valley,
Their calm in the meadow.
37The heat of God’s anger
Will consume life in the pasture.
38Like a lion leaves the thick brush,
The LORD will devour all life in the land.
People will drop beneath the sword
Of the LORD’s decimating anger.
Footnotes
The year would have been about 605 BC. Jehoiakim reigned from about 609-598 BC.
“Forever” gets an asterisk. The Israelite people had an obligation to obey God, according to the agreement God made with them in the time of Moses. The contract, or covenant, between God and the Jewish people was a two-way street. When Jews obeyed God, then God gave them protection and prosperity. On the flip side, the contract provided stern penalties for breach of contract—to the point of exile and the end of Israel as a nation (Deuteronomy 27—28).
“Northland” means kingdoms that will invade from the north. That includes Babylon, in the east. They travel northwest alongside their source of drinking water, the Euphrates River. Then they turn south as they approach the coastland of the Mediterranean Sea.
Many scholars say by “70 years,” Jeremiah probably meant “a long time” or “a lifetime.” The main exile lasted only about 50 years, from the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BC until Persians from what is now Iran defeated Babylonians from what is now Iraq in 538 BC. Persian King Cyrus freed Jews and other political prisoners and told them to go home and rebuild their temples and pray for him. Ancient Persian documents of baked clay cylinders confirm that. Jews finished rebuilding their Temple in 515 BC, 71 years after Babylonians tore down the Temple King Solomon had built.
The text doesn’t say this was a vision, but it seems a fair guess since Jeremiah writes a lot about prophets getting messages from God in dreams. Also, it’s hard to imagine Jeremiah traveling throughout the Middle East with a cup of wine for rulers of enemy kingdoms.
The land alongside the Nile River is drought-resistant because of the size of the river. So, especially in times of drought, outsiders would migrant there to survive. Hebrew ancestors of today’s Jewish people moved there in the time of Jacob, close to 4,000 years ago. They ended up enslaved until the Bible says God sent Moses to free them.
Where Buz was, no one seems to know. If the phrase following the name is correct, the people of Buz likely lived along the edge of the desert. But that phrase itself is an educated guess. Another way of translating it is to say it referred to a group of people who shaved the hair off the temples on their heads. Some herder group reportedly did that.
The Hebrew word translated in English is “Sheshack,” which many say is an alternate or coded name for Babylon.
The drink of God’s Wrath, though, will wait half a century, when Persians from what is now Iran overrun Babylon and take control of the empire.
One mourning custom was to dress in torn clothes or rough, burlap-like feed sack and put ashes on heads and face.
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