behold, I will send and take all the families of the north, saith Jehovah, and [I will send] to Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land, and against the inhabitants thereof, and against all these nations round about; and I will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, and a hissing, and perpetual wastes.
Judah ignored Jeremiah's warnings for twenty-three years. Now God names the army He will send against her and her neighbours — and He calls its pagan king His own servant.
The judgment is not sudden. It follows a long stretch of patience that Judah spent refusing to listen.
Jeremiah 25 closes this part of the prophecy with a general summary of God's judgments on the earth. He gives the earth into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar. God judges Israel first, though He had always held the door open to her. The chapter begins by announcing His judgment on Jerusalem. She had refused to hear the call to repentance He sent her for twenty-three years. Notice here the hardness of the people's heart. They were stubborn in evil, and refused to bow the neck to God's testimony, despite all the trouble God took to warn them.
The word "servant" had belonged to Judah's own king. Here God moves it to Babylon's.
That last phrase, "My servant," is a remarkable word. It was no longer Zedekiah, My servant, but Nebuchadnezzar, My servant. The children of Israel and of Judah were about to lose their special place as His nation too. It was now a question, not of being His servant as a special honour, but merely in providence. Nebuchadnezzar, the idolatrous Gentile, could be His servant in this way as much as anyone else.
The word itself has a wide range in Scripture, and Nebuchadnezzar sits at the far end of it.
Scripture often uses the term "servant" of people God commissions to carry out some special duty for Him. It applies the word to Abraham, Moses, Joshua, David and Job — and even to Nebuchadnezzar, the first great head of Gentile rule (Genesis 26:24; Numbers 12:7; Judges 2:8; 2 Samuel 7:8; Job 1:8; Jeremiah 25:9; Jeremiah 43:10).
The date stamped on this chapter marks a turning point that reaches far past Judah's borders.
Sovereign power over Jerusalem is for now in the hands of the Gentile nations. This state of things began in the days of Nebuchadnezzar with the Babylonian captivity. It dates from the fourth year of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, when power over men, beasts and birds passed into Nebuchadnezzar's hands as the head of gold (Jeremiah 25:9-11; 27:6-7; Daniel 2:37-38). Those times will run on until the stone cut out without hands breaks in pieces the image of Nebuchadnezzar's dream.
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God names Judah first, and the surrounding peoples follow. That order is itself a principle.
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? It is impossible for Him to pass by His proud enemies. So a judgment follows. It falls first on the nations that had most to do with His people. But it does not stop until He takes in all the kings, kingdoms, and inhabitants of the earth.
God can use a man without approving him. In time He judged every rod He picked up.
God might use Jeroboam to chastise Solomon and his house; He might use the kings of Assyria to chastise Jeroboam's subjects; and He might use Nebuchadnezzar to chastise Judah and its kings. But God has been obliged to judge each of these in turn. These rods of His anger (Isaiah 10:5) were no more faithful to God than the people He used them against.
The desolation announced here has a fixed length. Years later, Daniel read that number in Jeremiah's book.
To Daniel these "books" came as "the word of the Lord." He received Jeremiah's writings as inspired by God, and so authoritative. He accepted them without question. Happy are we if we follow his example and treat our Bible the same way. The passage that affected Daniel so deeply was Jeremiah 25:8-14, where Jeremiah predicted "desolations" lasting seventy years. Daniel must have realized at once that the seventy years had nearly run their course, and that deliverance of some kind was near at hand.
- Cause. God did not act on a sudden mood. Twenty-three years of ignored warnings stand behind this sentence.
- Transfer. "My servant" moves from Judah's king to Babylon's — service as providence, no longer service as honour.
- Reach. Judgment starts at the house that bears God's name, and once it starts there it cannot stop at the border.
- Reckoning. The servant is a tool, and God judges the tool in its turn. Being used by Him guarantees nothing about the user.
- Hope. Seventy years is a measured number. Daniel read it as God's word and saw the end of the desolation written into its start.
And I will cause to perish from them the voice of mirth and the voice of joy, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones and the light of the lamp.
The sentence here falls not on armies or kings but on ordinary life: wedding songs, the grinding of grain, the lamp at night. Why would God take away a nation's simplest joys?
One writer sees Jeremiah 25 as the point the whole book is built around.
In Jeremiah, God has preserved an order which is not chronological. It is not the order of date, but an order beautifully arranged around its central event. Jeremiah 25 sets out that event — the desolation of Jerusalem, when God forsakes His shelter, His earthly centre. All the nations are overthrown as a result, while Babylon rises to supremacy. This is the solemn climax.
The list is deliberately domestic. Not one item in it is military or political.
And now the solemn verdict is announced. The northern power is coming against this land, headed by King Nebuchadnezzar, whom the Lord here calls "My servant" for the first time. He will take all mirth and joy from them; the whole land shall be a desolation, and they shall serve the king of Babylon for seventy years.
One writer weighs what losing these sounds means for the land itself.
God would cause all festive occasions to vanish away from the land of His delight, on which His eyes rest continually.
The silence is not arbitrary. It comes at the end of a long stretch of refused warnings, and the reason given is idolatry held onto on purpose.
We have seen the evils of God's people, and of Judah above all, laid bare. They had refused all the patient persistence of God's warnings, which grew more solemn, and they had refused His gracious encouragements too. So, because they chose idolatry and held to it, He announces their fitting punishment at the hand of the king of Babylon. After their seventy years of captivity, the Lord must deal with the one who punished them, and with no such limit as He set for Judah. Had the instrument of divine judgment lifted itself up in pride? Then it must surely be judged itself, without mercy.
The title God gives this king is startling. Judah's own king loses it, and a foreign, idol-worshipping ruler receives it.
It was no longer Zedekiah, My servant, but Nebuchadnezzar, My servant. The children of Israel and of Judah were about to lose their special place as His nation too. It was now a question, not of being His servant as a special honour, but merely in providence. Nebuchadnezzar, the idolatrous Gentile, could be His servant in this way as much as anyone else.
God sets a time limit on the silence. One reader of Jeremiah found that limit and acted on it.
After seventy years it would be God's mind that they should return to Jerusalem. This shows how important it is to make sure of the mind of God for us at this moment. It was clearly from these very verses that Daniel gathered God's mind about this return, and it set him praying with his whole heart.
The same list — millstone, lamp, bridegroom and bride — returns in Revelation, over the great city there. One writer reads each item as a strand of what that city offers.
In the sight of men it is an imposing system, called a "great city." There is everything in it to appeal to the natural man. Within it you find the millstone, which speaks of the commerce by which it has enriched men with material wealth. You find the artificial light of the lamp, which speaks of its appeal to natural sentiment. And you find the voice of the bridegroom and the bride, which speaks of natural joy.
- Warning first. The sentence falls only after long patience. Refused warnings and chosen idolatry bring the fitting punishment at Babylon's hand.
- Then silence. God removes normal life, not grandeur: mirth, weddings, grinding, lamplight. These festive occasions vanish from the land His eyes rest on.
- By His servant. The title once worn by Judah's king passes to Nebuchadnezzar. An idolater can be God's servant in providence, though not as a special honour.
- Within a limit. Seventy years is a boundary God sets, not an abandonment. Daniel found that limit and turned it into wholehearted prayer. When it ends, the punisher is judged in turn.
- And again. The same millstone, lamp and wedding voice fall silent over the great city in Revelation — its commerce, its sentiment, its natural joy, all gone.
And this whole land shall become a waste, an astonishment; and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.
This verse fixes two things at once: the ruin of Judah, and how long it will last. Two questions press. Why would God hand His own land over to a foreign king? And why seventy years?
Jeremiah warned and pleaded through the last days of the kingdom. When the sentence came, it carried an exact length.
Jeremiah prophesied during the closing days of the kingdom. He kept warning his people that the coming judgments were certain. He kept pleading with them to repent and humble themselves before the God whose anger they had provoked by their wickedness and folly… First, Cyrus is named long years before he was born into this world. Later, while announcing the coming captivity of the people, Jeremiah proclaims the exact length of their exile.
In this chapter God calls the king of Babylon His own servant. That title had belonged to someone else.
It is a remarkable word. It was no longer Zedekiah, My servant, but it was Nebuchadnezzar, My servant. The children of Israel and of Judah were about to lose their special place as His nation, too. It was now a question, not of being His servant as a special honour, but only in providence. Nebuchadnezzar, the idolatrous Gentile, could be His servant in this way as much as anyone else.
Commentators see this handover as the start of a long era, not a passing episode. The Gentiles are the nations outside Israel.
The times of the Gentiles began with Nebuchadnezzar. God allowed him to make Israel pay tribute. He dethroned Judah's king and carried the people away captive. From then until the Lord comes to reign, "the times of the Gentiles" run their course. It is worth seeing why God allowed this. It began because of Israel's idolatry. It continued later because of their great sin in rejecting their Messiah.
"These nations" puts Judah in the same sentence as the peoples around it. God's judgment starts with His own, and then it spreads.
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? It is impossible for Him to pass by His proud enemies. So this judgment falls first on the nations that had most to do with His people. But it does not stop until He takes in all the kings, kingdoms, and inhabitants of the earth.
There is another reason the land had to lie empty. The law gave the land a rest year, one in every seven, and Israel never kept it.
There is no record of the Sabbatical year or the year of Jubilee ever being kept. Leviticus 26:34-35 predicts what would happen if the Israelites did not let the land keep its sabbaths. It reads almost like a prophecy: the land would lie desolate because it did not rest in its sabbaths. Jeremiah 25:11-12, Jeremiah 29:10 and Daniel 9:2 give the actual desolation as seventy years. The land was to have rested one year in every seven. So the 70 years answer to 70 × 7 = 490 years… It seems that in this, as in everything else, they failed to obey. But the Jubilee will be made good to them in grace when they own their Messiah.
God set the length Himself. Both ends of the number matter.
Jehovah measured the stay of seventy years in Babylon. It was long enough to complete His chastening. It was short enough to prove His tender mercy, and to leave room for a greater display of Himself.
One man in exile took his comfort from that limit.
Daniel is acting here in faith. He had the comfort of knowing more. When God pronounced the judgment of captivity on His people, He had also declared its limit. Jeremiah had predicted that it would last seventy years. He had also predicted that afterwards God would judge Babylon by the hand of Cyrus. So Daniel was wrapped up in the interests of the people of God, and his thoughts were on this promised deliverance.
- Cause. Israel's idolatry brought the sentence. Jeremiah warned and pleaded for years before it fell.
- Instrument. The title "My servant" passes from Judah's king to Nebuchadnezzar. Rule moves into Gentile hands, and the times of the Gentiles begin.
- Measure. Seventy years matches the seventy rest years the land never got. God collected in one stretch what Israel withheld across 490 years.
- Limit. The number is mercy inside judgment: long enough to do the chastening, short enough to show His tenderness.
- Result. God's stated limit gave Daniel something firm to hold in exile. And the judgment in this chapter runs past Babylon to all the kings and nations of the earth.
And it shall come to pass, when seventy years are accomplished, [that] I will visit on the king of Babylon and on that nation, saith Jehovah, their iniquity, and on the land of the Chaldeans, and I will make it perpetual desolations.
The seventy years announced over Judah were not only a sentence on God's people. They were also a clock running on the empire that carried them away. When the time is up, the same word that handed Judah over turns on the king of Babylon, his nation and his land. The punishment given to the punisher carries no seventy-year limit.
The measure God set for Judah is not the measure He sets for Babylon.
They had refused all God's patient warnings, which grew more solemn as time went on, and His gracious encouragements too. So, because of their deliberate and persistent idolatry, He announces the punishment they deserve at the hand of the king of Babylon. After their seventy years' captivity, Jehovah must in turn visit their punisher — and with no such limit as He set for Judah. Had the instrument of divine judgment lifted itself up proudly? Then it must surely be judged itself, without mercy.
This is God's settled way with every power He uses.
God might use Jeroboam to discipline Solomon and his house. He might use the kings of Assyria to discipline Jeroboam's subjects. He might use Nebuchadnezzar to discipline Judah and its kings. But God has had to judge every one of them in their turn. These rods of His anger were no more faithful to God than the people He used them against.
Babylon falls for its own guilt, not just for its role as God's instrument. One writer points to the moment that guilt came to a head.
God allowed Nebuchadnezzar to destroy the temple, after the glory had departed, and to take its holy vessels into Babylon. But God brought Nebuchadnezzar low in His own time. Later the godless Belshazzar challenged the God of Israel by using the holy vessels to praise the gods of his own making. Then God stepped in to defend the honour of His name in the overthrow of Babylon and its godless ruler. God was patient. He allowed the holy vessels to stay in Nebuchadnezzar's temple, but He would not tolerate their use for the worship of other gods.
In this chapter the cup of wrath goes first to Jerusalem, and only then to the other nations. One writer draws a principle from that order.
It is therefore a universal principle that God in judgment begins with that which bears His name — His people, His city, His house. And if He begins there, where can He stop? It is impossible for Him to pass by His proud enemies.
The lasting ruin named here falls on a real king, a real nation and a real land.
In chapter 25:12 God gives the surrounding nations up to Nebuchadnezzar for lasting desolation. Then, at the end of seventy years, He gives up the king, the nation and the land of the Chaldeans, and makes it a lasting desolation.
Some point to the small settlement that still sits on the site.
Babylon was forty-eight miles round: a small Arab place is at one corner of its site. Does that make Babylon rebuilt or inhabited? Is it not a proof of the opposite, and of its ruin?
The seventy years ran out on time, and history names the man God used to end the captivity.
When the 70 years' captivity that Jeremiah prophesied ran out, God stirred up the spirit of Cyrus. A proclamation went out that the house of the LORD God of Israel was to be rebuilt, and the captives had permission to return. He also restored the holy vessels that had been carried from Jerusalem to Babylon... This would be about B.C. 536, the 70 years of captivity having begun in B.C. 606, the date of the first captivity of Judah.
Daniel learned that the captivity was ending from a book, not from a vision.
God could have told Daniel directly, by vision or dreams or an angel, that the long captivity of His people was drawing to a close. But this is not His way. As a rule, He works a miracle only when one is needed. Suppose His saints or servants can learn His will by careful study of His Word and communion with Himself. Then they need not, and should not, expect Him to make His mind known by some shorter or easier way. By studying the writings of God's servants, Daniel understood that the desolations of the beloved city of his fathers were about to end.
- Measured — Judah's punishment was fixed at seventy years. Babylon's has no such limit.
- Reversed — When the time is up, God breaks the rod He used. No instrument stays useful for ever.
- Deserved — Babylon falls "for their iniquity," not just for its role. Its abuse of the vessels from God's house sealed the case.
- Universal — God begins judgment with what bears His name. Having begun there, He will not pass over His proud enemies.
- Trustworthy — The seventy years ended on time. Cyrus sent the captives home, and Daniel found it all in a book.
And I will bring upon that land all my words which I have pronounced against it, all that is written in this book, which Jeremiah hath prophesied against all the nations.
Judah's seventy years of servitude to Babylon have just been announced. Now God turns to Babylon itself, and verse 13 is His guarantee: every word He has spoken against that land, and everything already written down, will come true.
God used Babylon as the instrument of His judgment on His own people. That service did not shield Babylon from judgment of its own.
After their seventy years of captivity, Jehovah must deal in turn with the one who punished them. And He set no limit to that judgment, as He had set one for Judah. Had the instrument of divine judgment lifted itself up proudly? Then it must face judgment itself, without mercy.
God does not invent a new charge against Babylon. He brings on that land what is already on record — a record an exile could later read for himself.
When the seventy years are ended, God would punish the Babylonian nation and its king for their iniquity. Everything written in this book of Jeremiah about Babylon must come to pass, including the final desolation. Daniel read the book of Jeremiah while he was in Babylon. He may have dwelt on this passage. Then he turned to the Lord in the remarkable prayer recorded in the ninth chapter of the book that bears his name.
Why was there a book to read? Because God told Jeremiah to write, and to write again.
No other prophet was told to write as often as Jeremiah. "Write in a book all the words that I have spoken to you" (30:2). "Take a scroll and write on it all the words that I have spoken to you" (36:2). And when the scroll was burned, the Lord said, "Take another scroll and write on it all the former words that were in the first scroll" (36:28).
The verse ends by saying Jeremiah prophesied against all the nations. In this chapter Judah is counted among those nations, not set above them.
The cup of vengeance is in the hand of the Lord (Jer. 25), to give to the nations in His judgment. And the Jews come first among the nations — not for blessing, but for chastening and punishment. So God ordained Jeremiah a prophet to the nations. The distinctive feature of his prophecy is that Jerusalem comes first for judgment when God takes up the world to deal with its sins.
Babylon did fall, and the seventy years did end. But these words reach far past one empire's collapse.
It is therefore a universal principle that God in judgment begins with that which bears His name — His people, His city, His house. And if He begins there, where can He stop? It is impossible for Him to pass by His arrogant enemies. So judgment falls first on the nations that had most to do with His people. But it does not stop until He takes in all the kings, kingdoms, and inhabitants of the earth. To limit this to what happened long ago is to make the prophetic word a matter of private interpretation. It crams into a small, short-lived space something that is plainly and clearly unlimited in reach.
Why trust a promise that God will bring all His words to pass? Look at how exactly the first part of it came true.
The words of Jeremiah — or rather the words of the Lord through him — have been proved again and again to be of divine origin by the exactness with which they came true. They were fulfilled with such precision in public, private, and personal detail that no honest person can question them. And what still waits to be fulfilled will no doubt come true with the same perfection. Our God fixed the months and years, and timed the shining of the moon and the sun. He spoke all the words of prophecy, and His word must be done.
- Written — Babylon's judgment was no last-minute decision. It already stood on record in a book God told Jeremiah to write.
- Read — Daniel found that written word in exile, and it moved him to prayer.
- Returned — The empire God used to punish His people is judged next, and with no set limit like Judah's seventy years.
- Widened — The book was aimed at all the nations, with Jerusalem first in line, not exempt.
- Warranted — The precision of what has already come true is the ground for trusting what has not.
For many nations and great kings shall serve themselves of them also; and I will recompense them according to their deeds, and according to the work of their hands.
Jeremiah 25 puts Judah and her neighbours under Babylon for seventy years. Then verse 14 turns the sentence on Babylon: the empire that enslaved others will itself serve, and God will repay the Chaldeans for their own deeds.
The chapter first exposes Judah's guilt. It names Babylon as the instrument of punishment. But the punisher is next in line, and his own sentence has no fixed limit.
After their seventy years of captivity, Jehovah must in turn punish the one who chastised them. And God set no limit on that judgment, as He had set one for Judah. Had the instrument of God's judgment lifted itself up in pride? Then it too must surely be judged, without mercy.
This was not a one-off. God works this way.
God employs the pride and iniquity of the wicked for the chastisement of His people; and afterwards He destroys the instrument.
God really did hand the nations over to Babylon. But the grant had a time limit built into it.
But God measured out Babylon's supremacy. It was no purpose of mercy. It was only His sovereign arrangement in providence, carrying out the chastisement Judah and the nations needed. Once that was over, after the third generation, many nations and great kings would make Babylon's king serve them — as surely as all nations would serve him until then.
These seventy years cover more than Israel. And they are not the seventy years Daniel later read about.
These 70 years must not be confused with the 70 years of Jeremiah 29:10, from which Daniel later learned that God would restore the people. What is said here is that "these nations" — not only Israel — should serve the King of Babylon for 70 years. At the end of that period God would punish them in their turn for their own iniquity, and other nations and kings would make Babylon serve them (vv. 12-14).
So who were the many nations and great kings? And why did Babylon's fall matter to God?
Its doom has come under the Medes, led on by Cyrus the Persian. The consequence of deepest interest to God is that the fall of Babylon opens the door for the return of His people from captivity. It is a picture of a final deliverance. Then one greater than Cyrus will be there to destroy the last holder of the last empire completely.
"According to their deeds" is not a vague threat. Babylon showed no mercy, and the repayment took the shape of what she had done.
The destruction of Babylon is foretold. The empire would be laid in the dust. Instead of living in luxury, the Chaldeans would pass over the river into captivity in shame. The first great Gentile empire ruled the world as the mistress of kingdoms. Now it would sink to the place of a slave at the millstone. So God would take vengeance on those who had shown no mercy to His people, and none would stay His hand.
The sentence against Babylon went into a book: "everything written in this book." One reader in Babylon found it and prayed.
Verses 12-14. When the seventy years are ended, God would punish the Babylonian nation and its king (Belshazzar) for their iniquity. Everything this book of Jeremiah says about Babylon will come to pass, including the final desolation. Daniel was in Babylon. When he read the book of Jeremiah, he perhaps dwelt on this passage. He then turned to the Lord in that remarkable prayer in the ninth chapter of the book that bears his name.
The chapter also reaches past the Babylon of history. One writer says it looks on to "the universal judgment of the inhabited earth at the end of the age" (William Kelly).
- Measured. Babylon's world dominion was a real grant from God, but a limited one — providence, not mercy, and timed to end.
- Judged. The time runs out, and God destroys the instrument He used on His people. Serving His purpose saves no one.
- Reversed. What Babylon did to others comes back on Babylon. The mistress of kingdoms goes to the millstone, and great kings make her serve them.
- Repaid. "According to their deeds" means the deeds themselves set the payment. Babylon showed no mercy, and no one held God's hand back.
- Written. The sentence stood on record in Jeremiah's book, and Daniel read it and turned to God in prayer over it.