Jeremiah 29:1

JEREMIAH 29

JEREMIAH'S LETTER TO THE EXILES

The date of this chapter is some time after the first wave of captives had been carried to Babylon following the first Babylonian capture of the city in 597 B.C. Jehoiachin was deposed after a very brief three months on the throne; and the puppet king Zedekiah, an uncle of his, had been installed as the vassal king of his overlord the king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar.

The false prophets were busy spreading the falsehood that the captivity would shortly end; Jehoiachin (Jeconiah) would be restored, and all the vessels of the temple would be restored to Jerusalem. This was the message of Hananiah (of the preceding chapter) who had promised all of these wonderful things would take place in a mere couple of years.

The crowd of false prophets similar to Hananiah were circulating the same falsehoods in Babylon; and the letter in this chapter was written by Jeremiah in order to counteract and frustrate the evil campaign of the false prophets.

It was simply not the will of God that Israel's captivity should be over within so short a time as the false prophets were saying. Yet it is easy to understand why the false prophets believed that the captivity would soon end. There still remained in the person of Zedekiah a representative of the house of David on the throne in Jerusalem; the temple still stood, despite the robbing of many of its treasures; and upon these grounds, the false prophets imagined that the complete independence of Judah might soon be restored.

God had ordained and commanded the captivity of Judah as a punishment upon the rebellious, apostate nation; it was God's intention to humble and discipline his people, and bring them at last to an acceptable relationship to Himself; and, if their captivity had been nothing but an extended intrigue against their captors, the purpose of God would surely have been frustrated. The captivity would not be short, but long, (Jeremiah 29:4); it would last into the third generation; and the vast majority of the captives would never see Jerusalem again! Jeremiah's letter was for the purpose of destroying the campaign of the false prophets.

This chapter is somewhat complex; and some scholars find as many as "four separate letters"[1] in it; some would follow the LXX and remove most of the chapter; others would make the prophecy of the further destruction of Judah a separate letter that somehow became incorporated into this chapter, basing their postulation upon the premise that Zedekiah would not have allowed a prophecy like that to go to Babylon, etc., etc.

There are not four letters here. The first words of the chapter state that, "These are the words of THE LETTER" that Jeremiah wrote to the captives from Jerusalem. It was a delegation from Zedekiah that bore the letter to Babylon, and there is no need to suppose that Zedekiah ever saw Jeremiah's letter. Besides that, even if he had seen it, the primary thrust of it was clearly in line with Zedekiah's own kingly interests. If some kind of a rebellion in Babylon had resulted in the restoration of Jehoiachin to his throne, it would have meant the fall of Zedekiah.

Jeremiah 29:1-4

"Now these are the words of the letter that Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem unto the residue of the elders of the captivity, and to the priests, and to the prophets, and to all the people, whom Nebuchadnezzar had carried away captive from Jerusalem to Babylon (after that Jeconiah the king, and the queen-mother, and the eunuchs, and the princes of Judah and Jerusalem, and the craftsmen, and the smiths, were deported from Jerusalem), by the hand of Elasah the son of Shaphan, and Gemariah the son of Hilkiah (whom Zedekiah king of Judah sent unto Babylon to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon), saying, Thus saith Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel, unto all the captivity, whom I have caused to be carried away captive from Jerusalem unto Babylon."

"The queen-mother, and the eunuchs, and the princes ..." (Jeremiah 29:2). The queen-mother's name was Nehushta the daughter of Elnathan (2 Kings 24:8); and in the Jewish system she was a very important person who seems to have worn a crown and occupied a throne adjacent to that of the king.

Scholars have a lot of trouble with the word "eunuchs" in this passage; and Cheyne even called it a gloss;[2] but the Bible fully explains it. The princes of Judah and Jerusalem had already been captured and carried away to Babylon, among whom were Daniel and his friends; and they had been emasculated, given new names, and given into the charge of Nebuchadnezzar's "prince of the eunuchs" (Daniel 1:7). Therefore, the word "eunuchs" in this place is absolutely appropriate. As Thompson said, "The essential historicity of this material cannot be doubted."[3]

"The craftsmen and the smiths ..." (Jeremiah 29:2). It was the policy of Nebuchadnezzar to bring skilled artisans and persons with technical knowledge into Babylon in order to help him, "build and beautify the city."[4] God later identified Nebuchadnezzar's kingdom as "the head of gold," as it pertained to lesser kingdoms which would follow his; and this was surely one of the reasons for that preference. Nebuchadnezzar did not import young women to satisfy his lust, but skilled workers to help him build and beautify.

"Elasah the son of Shaphan ..." (Jeremiah 29:3). "This man was probably a brother of Ahikam (See Jeremiah 26:24)."[5] He was therefore a friend and protector of Jeremiah; and, if it had been necessary to shield the contents of Jeremiah's letter from the eyes of Zedekiah, Elasah was surely the person who could and would have done so.

The exact date and purpose of this embassy to Babylon is not known; but, "as Zedekiah himself went to Babylon in his fourth year,"[6] this embassy might have been preparatory to that visit.

"The captives, whom I have caused to be carried away ..." (Jeremiah 29:4). God here reveals himself as the cause of the captivity. "God Himself has brought about the exile; and, since the Lord's will was behind it, the better part of wisdom for Judah was submission."[7]