Jeremiah 27:4

"And give them a charge unto their masters, saying, Thus saith Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel, Thus shall ye say unto your masters: I have made the earth, the men and the beasts that are upon the face of the earth, by my great power, and by my outstretched arm; and I give it unto whom it seemeth right unto me. And now have I given all these lands into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant; and the beasts of the field also have I given him to serve him. And all the nations shall serve him, and his son, and his son's son, until the time of his own land come: and then many nations and great kings shall make him their bondman."

The Bible makes it clear indeed that "The Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will" (Daniel 4:25). By divine inspiration, Jeremiah here made it plain enough that God had given dominion over the world of that period into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar.

This is a staggering thought, especially in view of the truth that very evil men often prove to be the very ones to whom God gives such vast power and dominion. The wisdom of Matthew Henry in contemplating this is appropriate.

The things of this world are not the best things, for God often gives the largest share of them to bad men, men who are rivals of God and rebels against him. Nebuchadnezzar was a proud, wicked man, but he had world dominion by divine fight. He was a very bad man, but God called him his servant. If God so uses and rewards evil men who serve him, however unwittingly, how much more wonderfully will God reward and honor those who love God and truly serve him![1]

"I have made the earth and the men and the beasts that are upon the face of the earth ..." (Jeremiah 27:5). God here reveals himself to be not merely the Creator and Sustainer of all created things, but as their Sovereign Lord and Controller also. He is the God of history who has his hand firmly upon the progression of the nations as well. As Paul expressed it, "God made of one every nation of men to dwell on the earth, having determined their appointed seasons, and the bounds of their habitation" (Acts 17:26). Note in this very paragraph, God had appointed a "season" for the dominion of Babylon, and also that there would be another "season" when Babylon's time came to be themselves the bondmen of others!

"Him and his son, and his son's son ..." (Jeremiah 27:7). Cheyne declared that this is not intelligible unless we should understand the "seventy years" of captivity as "a round number."[2] Cheyne's error was his failure to see that the expression here is, "a very general one, signifying Nebuchadnezzar and all of his successors until the whole seventy years expired."[3] Of course, there were other successors to Nebuchadnezzar during this period. Thus it is not the number seventy which is "round," but this abbreviation of Nebuchadnezzar's successors.

"Until the time of his own land come ..." (Jeremiah 27:7). Of course, this is the predictive prophecy of an event to occur many years after the death of Jeremiah; and the radical critics, following their crazy rule about there being no predictive prophecy in the Bible promptly label this verse as a "vatticinium ex eventu".[4] But, as noted above, if this event had already happened why was it necessary for the announcer to dress himself up in an ox yoke? Henderson, Keil, Graf, and many other discerning scholars refuse to allow such ridiculous, high-handed, illogical misinterpretations of the scriptures.

This predictive prophecy of the end of Babylonian domination and the subjection of them to others "was fulfilled in the destruction of the Chaldean Empire by Cyrus and his allies at the termination of the seventy years of Jewish exile in Babylon."[5]