March 18, Jeremiah 46
"Fear not, O Jacob my servant, declares the LORD, for I am with you. I will make a full end of all the nations to which I have driven you, but of you I will not make a full end. I will discipline you in just measure , and I will by no means leave you unpunished." - Jeremiah 46:28
When God first called Jeremiah, he said, "Behold, I have put my words in your mouth. See, I have set you this day over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to break down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant." We often remember Jeremiah's stern warnings and dark prophecies about the nation of Judah and the city of Jerusalem. But God gave his faithful prophet a much broader job description than to only prophesy to the hardheaded and hardhearted descendants of Abraham who were his contemporaries.
Chapter 46 is the first of six chapters that contain Jeremiah's prophecies to the Gentile nations around Judah. In this chapter, Jeremiah began with the nation of Egypt.
Egypt and Israel/Judah had a long history, going all the way back to Abraham's visits and sojourns in Egypt. In the days of Jacob, Egypt became a gracious host to Jacob and about seventy members of his family during a famine. But over the following 400 years, the Egyptians became cruel taskmasters over the Israelites. Then God called Moses to go to Egypt and bring the descendants out. The six dozen people who went to Egypt had become a nation of two million or more. Through ten plagues on the nation of Egypt and their final humiliating defeat at the Red Sea, God delivered his people and promised to give them a land of their own.
In the nine centuries that had passed, Egypt had been both enemy and ally at times to Israel. Now, after Nebuchadnezzar had destroyed Jerusalem and taken many thousands of the people away to Babylon, the people who had been left behind ignored Jeremiah's warnings and God's prohibition, and returned to live in Egypt . T h e y f e a r e d t h e r e t u r n o f Nebuchadnezzar after some Israelites murdered the Babylonian king's appointed governor over Judah. God told them the same Nebuchadnezzar they fled to escape was coming to Egypt to destroy it. They as guests of the Egyptians would share their fate.
Through Jeremiah, God told the Egyptians that their mercenary soldiers hired from neighboring countries would desert and run away as the Chaldeans advanced. Nebuchadnezzar's forces would sweep into Egypt, kill their king and appoint another in his place and destroy the cities of Egypt just as they had done in Judah. Egypt had killed Judah's good king Josiah in a battle about 610 BC, and God was avenging that death just as he had punished his own people by the hands of the Chaldeans. The nation of Egypt would be devastated when the day of their calamity and the time of their punishment came to them.
God's final sentence of doom was put in these words: "Behold, I am bringing punishment upon Amon of Thebes, and Pharaoh and Egypt and her gods and her kings, upon Pharaoh and those who trust in him." That last phrase covered the people of Judah who had disobeyed God and run to Egypt for protection from Nebuchadnezzar. Egypt's military, throne and idols would all fall to the Babylonian attackers.
But to those people of Judah who were hiding in Egypt, God made a commitment to keep a remnant of Israelites alive so the Messianic promises could be fulfilled. He would make a full end of these other nations, but not the people of Jacob. He would discipline and punish them, but their line would continue.
Only God could have such control over nations and keep such promises. God used nations like a mighty chess player, moving his pieces where he willed to accomplish his purposes. When God empowered either the Israelites or the enemies of Israel, the nation that had God with them was unbeatable. The other side was defeated, and it was all according to God's plan and purpose.
Let's never doubt that Almighty God is still in control and uses nations as he pleases to accomplish his will. Let's trust that when God makes a promise, there is no doubt that it will be kept. I want to be on the blessings side of those promises, not the curses side. I trust you do as well.
Copyright © 2024 by Michael B. McElroy. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Today in God's Word—March 2024
East Tallassee Church of Christ
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