And ye shall call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you;
These words reach Jews already deported to Babylon, whose exile is real and measured but not the end of God's dealings with them. God promises to hear them when they call — so why does He tie His settled purpose to their asking?
The promise stands at the end of a fixed period, and that length was no accident:
The stay of seventy years in Babylon was measured by the Lord. It was long enough to complete His discipline; it was short enough to prove His tender mercy, and leave room for a greater display of Himself.
So the invitation to pray is not a vague offer. It sits inside a timetable God set.
The promise of seventy years did its work through three very different people:
It was clearly this word that years later set Daniel praying... So for the fulfilment of this promise Jeremiah was used in prophecy; Daniel in prayer; and Cyrus, a man who did not know the Lord, in providence.
Prayer did not replace God's plan, and it did not force it. It was the channel God had named in advance. The one who believed the written word was the one who prayed.
Daniel shows what praying "according to this promise" looks like in practice. He came to God with Scripture in his hand and sin on his conscience:
He had learned "from books" how long this desolation was to continue... Still, he set his face to seek by prayer and pleading, with fasting and sackcloth and ashes, and so he cried to the Lord his God. He wants light, but he begins by confession. He goes down. He hides nothing. He had learned that to the God he was dealing with, "all things were naked and open." Above all else, this God looks for openness, truth, and sincerity in those who pray to Him.
Knowing the promise did not make him casual about it. It made him honest.
The verse leads straight into the condition attached to finding God. The object of the search is a Person, not information:
Notice that they seek "Him"; they seek to please Him, to be more like Him. This is not a merely "intellectual" activity, but it is a question of the whole heart being engaged. My heart yearning after Him day by day, all day long. "You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart" is the wonderful promise.
Commentators read the promise as reaching beyond the return from Babylon. Israel's story began with God seeking them; their future turns on them seeking Him, the way Ruth seeks out Boaz in the Old Testament story:
Long ago He had sought them; He found them in a desert land... But in the last days the Lord must be sought, as Ruth now seeks Boaz, and as He testifies through His prophets. "I will return again to my place, until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face, and in their distress earnestly seek me" (Hosea 5:15). "Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you"... And again, "This also I will let the house of Israel ask me to do for them: to increase their people like a flock" (Ezekiel 36:37).
One writer aims the verse at people who assume God has written them off:
He did not know what the Christian knows, nor that God says, "I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you." God has so thought of us that He has sent His only Son into the world to die for us. For "Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God" (1 Peter 3:18).
- Measured — God set the seventy years: long enough to correct His people, short enough to prove His mercy.
- Written — the promise was in a book before it was in anyone's mouth; Daniel found it by reading, and it set him praying.
- Honest — he came with confession and hid nothing, because the God who promises is the God from whom nothing is hidden.
- Whole — the finding is tied to seeking Him with the whole heart, a Person sought, not a subject studied.
- Faithful — the God who kept His word to the exiles sent His Son to die for us and bring us to Himself.
and ye shall seek me and find me, for ye shall search for me with all your heart,
Jeremiah wrote this in a letter to Jews already carried off to Babylon, who wanted their exile over fast. God ties the promise to one condition — the whole heart — and the chapter keeps asking what He means by the trouble He has sent.
One writer says how faith should meet a discipline like the exile:
When God sends discipline, faith bows to it instead of fighting it. If the Lord acts because we have done wrong, faith does not treat the wrong lightly, and it does not treat the discipline lightly either. Faith accepts the discipline humbly and admits the wrong.
Two verses earlier God tells them what His thoughts toward them are. One writer sets those thoughts behind the judgment itself:
God must carry out judgment, though such work is not what He delights in. Behind it all He says, "I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope" (Jer. 29:11). The end, which is always before God, is the blessing of His people in peace and love, the expression of His own nature.
God had made this promise long before Jeremiah. One writer points out what God did not make the condition:
God's faithfulness is in full action, just as He promised in Leviticus, in Deuteronomy, and in His answer to Solomon's prayer. He had promised that if enemies carried them into captivity and they turned to Him there with all their heart, He would bring them back. He never said, if they kept the law to the letter, for they could not have done that.
The object of the search is God Himself — "you will seek me" — and that shapes what the searching looks like:
Notice that they seek "Him"; they seek to please Him, to be more like Him. This is not just an "intellectual" activity. It engages the whole heart. My heart yearning after Him day by day, all day long.
The reverse of the whole heart is the divided one, and that division has a practical cost in prayer:
Why is it that our prayers are not answered? James gives us two reasons. One is double-mindedness — that is, the mind half on one thing and half on another. If my mind is half on the world and half on Christ, I may pray every day of my life and get no answer to my prayers. When I seek the Lord, let it be as Chronicles puts it: "They sought Him with their whole desire, and He was found by them." God answers that kind of prayer.
One writer takes an earlier case of people who sought God and found Him, and draws the rule from it:
"He was found by them." Even in the darkest moments of human history, He has never hidden Himself from those who seek Him. To find the Lord! What a treasure! Why should they not rejoice! What rest when He is found!
The return of a remnant after the exile answered part of this. The next verse reaches further, to a gathering out of all the nations:
He promises an answer to their cry, and if they seek Him, He will be found. How gracious and merciful He is toward His own! In His own time He will carry out all His gracious purposes for that nation. The return of a remnant after the exile carried out part of them. Verse 14 speaks of the larger return, "gathered out from all the nations."
- All the trouble — the exile was discipline from God's hand. Faith bows to it instead of fighting it, and admits the wrong.
- All the intent — behind the judgment stand thoughts of peace. God always aims at the blessing of His people, because that expresses what He is.
- All the heart — the condition is not flawless law-keeping but undivided desire. A mind half on the world and half on Christ can pray for years and get nothing.
- All of Him — the search is for a Person to please and be like, not a subject to master. He has never hidden Himself from anyone who searches that way.
- All the nations — the return of a remnant answered this in part. Verse 14 reaches to a wider gathering still to come.