Encouragement to the Captives

Jeremiah 29:1-14  

1 Now these are the words of the letter that Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the remainder of the elders who were carried away captive—to the priests, the prophets, and all the people whom Nebuchadnezzar had carried away captive from Jerusalem to Babylon. 2 (This happened after Jeconiah the king, the queen mother, the eunuchs, the princes of Judah and Jerusalem, the craftsmen, and the smiths had departed from Jerusalem.) 3 The letter was sent by the hand of Elasah the son of Shaphan, and Gemariah the son of Hilkiah, whom Zedekiah king of Judah sent to Babylon, to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, saying,

4 Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all who were carried away captive, whom I have caused to be carried away from Jerusalem to Babylon:

5 Build houses and dwell in them; plant gardens and eat their fruit. 6 Take wives and beget sons and daughters; and take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands, so that they may bear sons and daughters—that you may be increased there, and not diminished. 7 And seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be carried away captive, and pray to the LORD for it; for in its peace you will have peace. 8 For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let your prophets and your diviners who are in your midst deceive you, nor listen to your dreams which you cause to be dreamed. 9 For they prophesy falsely to you in My name; I have not sent them, says the LORD.

10 For thus says the LORD: After seventy years are completed at Babylon, I will visit you and perform My good word toward you, and cause you to return to this place. 11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. 12 Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. 13 And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you, says the LORD, and I will bring you back from your captivity; I will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you, says the LORD, and I will bring you to the place from which I cause you to be carried away captive.

Encouragement to the captives.  God used Jeremiah to send an encouraging letter to the priests, prophets, and all others taken captive to Babylon as a reminder of His grace in this act of loving discipline for their good (Romans 8:28).  The LORD had moved Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon to take them but God promised to return them after seventy years, giving them a future and a hope of it to cling to in faith and to teach their children to expect that deliverance to come.  He commanded them to settle in for the long haul, building houses and earring off the good of the land in Babylon while they sojourned there, a picture of our life in the world in Christ until we are called into the promised land of eternal salvation into His presence.  They were told to be fruitful and multiply and not to hold back with worry and wither away as a people.  We also are to live quiet lives in the hope of the gospel as we multiply disciples after Christ, our spiritual children along with our own natural ones.  They were also not to hate or despise their captors of the foreign land holding them, but as pilgrims and sojourners (Hebrews 11:13-14) in the land God placed them accountable to His will and word.  We do so as well in the world, yet we also yearn to be in the heavenly country and not return to the one we were called out of as Israel was.  There is a larger and far better place we will be citizens of and no land here we may be pulled from is worth going back to compared to that Celestial City (Hebrews 11:15-16)!  We then strive to live in peace and pray for peace (1 Timothy 2:1-3) in this world until that time and not fight to make these lands into the perfect one to follow our death and resurrection, for they all pale in comparison and are not worth trying vainly to make into what they can never become.  We do well to heed Jeremiah’s warning not to listen to misleading and false voices as if in His name to live otherwise.  After the seventy years, the people of God were returned to their city of worship in God’s presence just as after the prescribed time known only to the Lord we will be taken to  New Jerusalem. The promise to Israel were founded on God’s good for them with thoughts of peace and not evil, plans for a future and with hope.  We also have the gospel promise of His good future of eternal peace in Christ begun now (Romans 5:1).  Therefore, this verse is a promise of a similar sort to the earthly one give to God’s people then but in a higher sense and in an unshakable kingdom given to us (Hebrews 12:27-28).  When we pray, He hears and answers according to His word and will.  Of that we can be certain.  When our hearts are set on knowing Him and on our pilgrimage as His followers (Psalm 84:5), then we will see Him now and forever.  We ask, seek, and knock (Matthew 7:7) on heaven’s door in Christ with the assurance that we are heard and that He will answer for His glory according to His will and for our good.  He has already brought us out of the captivity of sin’s bondage (Ephesians 4:8) and not just a temporal captivity like that of Babylon.  He gathered Israel out of Babylon back to Jerusalem then as a shadow of His eternal deliverance for us in Christ into the Celestial City of the New Jerusalem brought down from heaven to earth to abide in forever to worship Him in His presence!  This is encouragement to the captives that they can be set free indeed with us by His working of deliverance from sin’s bondage and its resulting judgment of God’s wrath we all are born under (John 8:31, 36).  If He sets us free, we are indeed free forever and have this future and hope secured for us.  Therefore we do not ever lose hope.