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Chapter 25 serves as a capstone for all of Jeremiah's previous prophecies. The prophet's perspective now broadens quickly to include the whole world and divine judgments ordained for it.
25:1-2 Jeremiah received another prophetic message from the Lord in 605 B.C., which he delivered to the people of Jerusalem and Judah.335This was a timely prophecy because in this year Nebuchadnezzar defeated Pharaoh Necho at Carchemish. His victory resulted in the balance of power shifting in the ancient Near East from Assyria to Neo-Babylonia. The Judahites would have wondered how this change would affect them. Later the same year Nebuchadnezzar invaded Palestine, attacked Jerusalem, and deported some of the people of Judah to Babylon.
25:3 The prophet announced that he had been preaching to his audience regularly for 23 years, but they had not paid attention to what he had said. According to 1:2, Jeremiah began his ministry in 627 B.C.
25:4 The Lord had repeatedly sent other prophets to them, true prophets, but the people did not listen to them either.336
25:5-6 The message of all these prophets had been to turn from evil lifestyles and activities. If the people did, the Lord would allow them to remain in their land forever. They were to reject the pagan deities and handmade gods that they served and worshipped because they angered Yahweh (cf. Matt. 4:10).337If they did, He would do them no harm.
25:7 Yet the people had not listened to the Lord but provoked Him to anger by making idols to their own harm.
25:8-9 The Lord announced that because they had not obeyed Him He would bring Nebuchadnezzar down from the north and destroy them and their neighbor nations with an awful, everlasting devastation. Nebuchadnezzar was the Lord's servant in the same sense Cyrus was (cf. Isa. 44:28-45:1); he served the Lord by carrying out His will for the most part unwittingly (cf. 27:6; 43:10; Acts 2:23). Since God's people would not listen to His servants the prophets (v. 4), the Lord would send another type of servant to get their attention.
25:10 He would remove everyday joy from their lives, even the joy of new marriages, as well as the productivity of the people. They would run out of grain, oil, and other necessities. He would leave them dwelling in darkness. All these expressions refer to the ending of life (cf. Eccles. 12:3-6).
"I must say that when I pray for my country and our culture, I do not pray for God's justice. I can only plead for His mercy. If we had the justice of God, we would not have peace. We would have a situation like Jeremiah's. How dare we pray for justice upon our culture when we have so deliberately turned away for God and His revelation? Why should God bless us?"338
25:11 The whole land would remain a horrible desolation for 70 years during which Israel and Judah would be absent from the Promised Land. This is the first prophecy of the length of the Babylonian captivity. The Israelites had not observed 70 sabbatical years, so the seventy-year exile restored rest to the land (2 Chron. 36:20-21).
25:12 After 70 years, the Lord promised to punish the king of Babylon and his nation for their sins and make their land a desolation forever (cf. Hab. 1-2).339Babylon fell in 539 B.C. when Cyrus the Persian captured and overthrew it.340It did not become a complete desolation, however, which has led literal interpreters to conclude that a future destruction of Babylon will fulfill this prophecy (Rev. 16:19; 17:1-19:10).341
25:13 The Lord would fulfill all the prophecies that Jeremiah had giving concerning Babylon. When the Lord made this promise some of Jeremiah's prophecies were already in a book.
25:14 Other nations and great kings would enslave the Babylonians, Judah's mighty captors. Yahweh would pay back Babylon for all that she had done. Some of these many nations with great kings included the Medes, the Persians, and their several allies under Cyrus the Great.
