Jeremiah 27:19

"For thus saith Jehovah of hosts concerning the pillars, and concerning the sea, and concerning the bases, and concerning the residue of the vessels that are left in the city, which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon took not, when he carried away captive Jeconiah the son of Jehoiachim, king of Judah, from Jerusalem to Babylon, and all the nobles of Judah and Jerusalem: yea, thus saith Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel, concerning the vessels that are left in the house of Jehovah, and in the house of the king of Judah, and at Jerusalem: They shall be carried to Babylon, and there shall they be, until the day that I visit them, saith Jehovah; then will I bring them up, and restore them to this place."

Behold, what a magnificent predictive prophecy we have here:

(1) the remaining treasures of the temple, the king's house, and the city of Jerusalem shall also be carried away to Babylon;

(2) the vessels shall not be destroyed there, but shall be preserved to that day when God will visit them; and

(3) He will indeed visit them and restore them to Jerusalem at the time when his Divine Will may desire to do so!

Did it happen? Certainly! Was this prophecy written after the event? Ridiculous! The man who stated this was wearing an ox yoke; and if it had all already happened, he would never have been dressed like that! He was wearing the yoke only as an effort to persuade those sinners to believe the truth. They did not believe it; and of course they would have believed it if it had already come to pass.

Of course, the infidel critics never stop trying to "prove" the prophecy came after the captivity. As Smith said, "They seized upon the word `nobles' which Jeremiah used here; and they claimed that it was a word that came into use after the captivity; but that is not true.

Jeremiah used it again in Jeremiah 39:6; Isaiah used it Isaiah 34:12; and in 1 Kings 21:8, the word is used of the nobles of Samaria. In fact it was a word in very common usage both in Chaldee and Syriac."[14]

"Then will I bring them up and restore them to this place ..." (Jeremiah 27:22). Ash stated that, "The Septuagint (LXX) says nothing about the eventual restoration of the treasures, nor does it offer any restoration hope. Some argue that the Septuagint (LXX) may represent the original text, since a restoration hope would be out of place in an oracle of this tenor."[15] We regret that respected commentators would include a canard of this kind in their commentaries. Of course, it is true that "some argue" in this manner; but no believer can accept such false arguments.

Why all of this attention to the LXX? The critics glorify it when it supports their denials; but when it contradicts their denials, they seem to be totally ignorant of its existence. For example, the Septuagint (LXX) properly translates the Hebrew word [~`almah] as The Virgin; but has anyone ever heard of a radical critic accepting that?

Two radical critical dictums are respected in such a comment: (1) that the shorter text of similar ones is "original," a foolish rule that has never been proved and is clearly untrue in many cases; and (2) that a promise of blessing cannot be included in a prophecy of condemnation, disaster, or punishment. This rule also is false. Christ promised heaven in the same passage that speaks of hell; and we refuse to accept a rule that would butcher almost every statement Jesus Christ ever uttered.

A hundred years before Jeremiah was born, Isaiah promised the "return of the remnant," and proved the prophecy by naming one of his sons, "A Remnant Shall Return." Did Jeremiah know about that promise? Indeed he did; and can any one deny that this would have been an appropriate time for him to mention it and to embellish the thought of it with the additional prophecy that the sacred vessels of the temple would also return?