This prophecy about Israel's neighbors anticipates chapters 46-51, which contain oracles against Gentile nations.
12:14 The Lord promised to judge Judah's neighbor nations that had robbed His people of what the Lord had given them. Many of these neighboring people would go into captivity as well as the people of Judah. Among these were the Egyptians, Assyrians, Edomites, Moabites, Ammonites, Arameans, and even the Babylonians.
"Numerous ancient Near Eastern texts include the threat of exile among the lists of curses designed for evildoers, especially treaty-breakers."229
12:15 The Lord would have compassion on these neighbors of Judah's as well as on Judah and would bring some of them back to the land at the end of the captivity along with the Judahites (cf. 48:47; 49:6).
12:16 If these neighbors came to trust and worship Yahweh (cf. Gen. 31:51-53), as they had formerly taught the Judahites to trust in Baal, the Lord would accept them (cf. Ruth).
"At the same time, there is no concession to the old ways or the old gods--in our modern terms, to religious pluralism"230
Verses 15 and 16 will find fulfillment in the Millennium (cf. Gen. 12:1-3; Zech. 14:16; Rom. 11:15).
12:17 But if they would not respond to the Lord positively, the Lord promised to destroy these nations again (cf. v. 14; Zech. 14:9, 16-19).
"This passage gives us a rare glimpse into the consternation and anguish that evil causes God. The anguish is especially acute for him when his own people are responsible for it. In these verses the Lord expresses both love and hate for his people, emotions we usually consider mutually exclusive, at least for God. When the Lord opened himself up to his people in love, he also opened himself to the possibility of hurt."231
