And Jehovah hath sent unto you all his servants the prophets, rising early and sending; but ye have not hearkened, nor inclined your ear to hear,
Jeremiah spoke this word in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, after twenty-three years of preaching that changed nothing. Verse 4 looks past Jeremiah to every messenger God had sent before him — and asks what God does when no one will listen.
This is not one ignored sermon. One writer sets out the dates and the count of years.
This date is of the greatest value for working out dates. The fourth year of Israel's king, Jehoiakim, falls in the same year as the first year of the Gentiles' king, Nebuchadnezzar... Up to this date the prophet shows that he had taken pains to declare the word of the Lord to them for 23 years. They did not listen. He began in the thirteenth year of Josiah.
The phrase describes effort: God taking trouble over people, morning after morning. One commentator measures that effort against a human father's — Jonadab, in the book of Jeremiah:
It was not as though God had taken no pains with Israel. Jonadab had never worked so hard or so steadily with his sons, and he had no prophets to send to them.
Some treat this record of warning after warning as a complaint against God — a book of nothing but scolding. One writer answers, and turns the charge into praise.
As to prophecy, I may say it is a constant attack on evil. God's patience went on rising up early and sending prophets, till there was no remedy — and unbelief throws that in God's face. I adore Him for it, as for all His goodness.
The generation that heard Jeremiah did not start with a clean slate.
God, in His goodness, has kept renewing His testimony. In His patience He has sent His prophets, rising up early, as it is said, to send them until there was no remedy... Here we see sin inherited, and the people held responsible under God's government for the sins of their fathers. In moral terms their sins were the sum of all the sins before them — sins God had borne with, in a patience they despised and used as their chance to sink deeper into evil.
Generation after generation refused, and still the messengers came. Another writer puts it as strongly as possible:
God did not know how to take His prophets away from Israel. He kept rising up early and sending them, though generations had refused them.
The servants in this verse are one stage in a longer story. One writer follows the line of messengers to a last one who was not a servant at all.
They went on in wickedness; they made the golden calf. So there were now sinners and law-breakers. But this was not all: God sent the prophets to deal with their consciences, "rising up early, and sending them." After all this, God says, "I have still one Son, they will respect Him;" but they cast Him out.
Warning finally gives way to judgment. One writer notes where it starts, and how far it goes.
So it is a universal principle that God in judgment begins with what bears His name — His people, His city, His house. And if He begins there, where can He stop? He cannot pass by His proud enemies. Judgment falls first on the nations that had most to do with His people, and it does not stop until it takes in all the kings, kingdoms, and inhabitants of the earth.
- Patience. God repeats Himself: twenty-three years of preaching, and behind Jeremiah a whole line of sent servants. He rises early like a man who will not drop the matter.
- Pains. The picture is real effort. No father ever worked as hard over his sons as God worked over Israel — and no father had prophets to send.
- Despised. They took the patience that should have melted them as permission. The delay became room to sin deeper, and guilt piled up across generations.
- The Son. Servants first, then the one Son. When they cast Him out too, the line of messengers reached its end.
- Judgment. When it came, it began with what bore God's name — His people, His city, His house — and then reached the nations. Nearness to God is no shelter from Him.
when they said, Turn again now every one from his evil way, and from the wickedness of your doings, and dwell in the land that Jehovah hath given unto you and to your fathers from of old even for ever.
Jeremiah 25 opens with a date and a look back. The prophet reminds Judah of the message God sent him — and every other prophet — to deliver. Verse 5 is that message at its simplest: turn, and stay in the land. Why did God repeat it for so long to people who would not listen?
The chapter fixes the year, and it was not a quiet one:
The fourth year of Jehoiakim was also the first year of Nebuchadrezzar. In this eventful year Nebuchadrezzar fought the battle of Carchemish and defeated Egypt. Babylon's supremacy was now secure. At this critical time the prophet gives a look back over his ministry among them. From the thirteenth year of Josiah he had spoken to them, but they had not heard. The Lord sent other servants, too, but they did not hear.
The words of verse 5 were not Jeremiah's own idea. God sent prophet after prophet with them, and the people still would not bend:
The chapter begins by announcing God's judgment on Jerusalem, because she had refused to hear the call to repentance put before her for twenty-three years. And here let us notice the hardness of the people's heart. They were stubborn in evil, and refused to submit to God's testimony, despite all the trouble God took, if we may put it that way, to warn them. These are His own words: "Jehovah has sent to you all His servants the prophets, rising early and sending them, but you have not listened." Jehovah had always set before the people a full and lasting blessing, if they repented; but they would not.
The offer was not empty. God had already passed sentence on Judah, yet listening could still hold it off:
From the time of Manasseh this unchangeable decree had gone out from the Lord. It was suspended during Josiah's reign. It would have stayed suspended under the kings who followed him, had they been willing to listen (Jer. 25:1-11).
Why does God announce disaster before it comes?
Now, if God threatens, it is in order that man may turn from his iniquity and be spared. Why else should He warn the sinner? Why not leave him to ripen unwarned for judgment? But these are not the ways of God.
The reward for turning is simple: they keep the land God gave them. But holding that land had come with a condition from the day they entered it:
Grace had led them so far. It was the God of their fathers — the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob — who had brought them out of Egypt. He had carried them through one wilderness after another, until they crossed the Jordan and were planted in the Canaan promised to the fathers. Grace had set them in the land, as God long before in His goodness had set Adam in the Garden. But now they must hold it on the terms of their own covenant — on condition of obedience.
Yet the verse calls the land theirs "forever," and Israel's history in it was anything but permanent. Commentators answer that what Israel held and what God promised are two different things:
Last, God gave the land to Abraham's descendants "for ever," or as it is put elsewhere, "for an everlasting possession." Israel's hold on Canaan was certainly nothing like that. But has the Lord forgotten His promise?… Far from it. In the same prophecy the Lord speaks of holding the land on condition, and foretells that Israel will be cast out if they disobey. In that very prophecy He points forward to the time when the promise made to Abraham will receive its true fulfilment.
Verse 5 was refused, and the rest of the chapter spells out what followed:
We have seen the evils of the people of God, especially of Judah, laid bare. They had refused it all — God's patience, His warnings that grew more solemn, and His gracious encouragements. So, because of their deliberate and persistent idolatry, their well-deserved punishment at the hand of the king of Babylon is announced.
- Turn — repeated. For twenty-three years God sent the same call — through Jeremiah, and through every other prophet.
- Turn — one by one. The call reaches each person about his own evil way and his own deeds.
- Turn — and stay. The reward is to keep living in the land God gave their fathers. They held it on condition of obedience, as Adam held the Garden.
- Turn — because warning is mercy. God warns so that people may turn and be spared. The sentence on Judah held off while its kings would listen.
- Turn — or lose it. Refusing God's patient warnings brought Babylon. But the promise of the land "forever" still waits on God to fulfil it.