Where is God’s reign when the kingdom falls? (Jeremiah 41–52)

Just as Jeremiah had said, Babylon swept through the whole region, ingesting all nations into its kingdom. God’s nation was no more. They lost the land where God’s anointed reigned. They lost the land Joshua fought for. They lost the land God promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

How could they make sense of the world now? They’d regressed 700 years, to the time before God formed them as his nation at Sinai. The leaders and influencers were captives in Babylon. What should those who were left behind do now?

Feeling exposed and insecure, they considered going back to Egypt where Pharaoh might protect them. They asked Jeremiah.

Jeremiah 42 (NIV)
⁹ He said to them, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel … says: ¹⁰ ‘If you stay in this land, I will build you up and not tear you down … ¹¹ Do not be afraid of the king of Babylon … ¹⁹ Remnant of Judah, the Lord has told you, ‘Do not go to Egypt.’”

The crucial question is trust. Having lost the Lord’s protection, they want to move to Egypt. Isn’t that what their ancestor Jacob did when a famine threatened their survival?

It’s hard to overstate their disillusionment with God. The political and spiritual powers of this present world seemed closer:

Jeremiah 43 (NIV)
⁷ So they entered Egypt in disobedience to the Lord … ¹⁵ Then all the men who knew that their wives were burning incense to other gods … said to Jeremiah, ¹⁶ “We will not listen to the message you have spoken to us in the name of the Lord! … ¹⁸ Ever since we stopped burning incense to the Queen of Heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have had nothing and have been perishing by sword and famine.”

For many, religion is about getting God’s help, serving God if he blesses us. When it doesn’t happen, we look elsewhere because we expect God to serve us. That’s the wrong way round, and it will disillusion us.

God has good plans for us, but his agenda extends beyond my lifetime and locale. In the world where things aren’t right yet, partnering with God involves a cross.

God’s nation was gone, but God’s reign was not. Jeremiah calls disillusioned doubters to trust the sovereign who reigns over all nations, all political structures, all peoples of the earth. The Lord reigns over Egypt and Babylon and everything in between:

• Egypt (Jeremiah 46)
• Philistia (47)
• Moab (48)
• Ammon, Edom, Syria, and Elam (49)
• Babylon (50–51)

Jeremiah’s point is that Babylon had not taken the world from God. The empire that claimed authority over God’s kingdom would not survive. Like Assyria before it, Babylon would fall (50:18) because of her arrogance against God’s authority (50:31). At the sound of Babylon’s capture the earth will tremble; its cry will resound among the nations (50:46).

Those who rely on the political systems of this world are shortsighted. Every Babylon falls, while Zion — the city of God’s reign — is ultimately restored.

God calls us to leave the political systems of the world, to cling to the one true sovereign who reigns over all the earth at all times. Even in difficult times. Especially in difficult times.

Jeremiah 51 (NIV)
⁶ Flee from Babylon! Run for your lives! Do not be destroyed because of her sins. It is time for the Lord’s vengeance; he will repay her what she deserves. ⁷ Babylon was a gold cup in the Lord’s hand; she made the whole earth drunk. The nations drank her wine; therefore they have now gone mad. ⁸ Babylon will suddenly fall and be broken. Wail over her! Get balm for her pain; perhaps she can be healed.
⁹ ‘We would have healed Babylon, but she cannot be healed; let us leave her and each go to our own land, for her judgment reaches to the skies, it rises as high as the heavens.’
¹⁰ ‘The Lord has vindicated us; come, let us tell in Zion what the Lord our God has done.’

Babylon became a symbol for everything that’s wrong with a world where people dominate each other. That symbol echoes through the Bible to the final book. Jeremiah’s phrases reappear in the visions of Revelation where they again describe the oppressive nature of political power and disregard for what God has decreed for us.

There’s no point trying to fix “Babylon.” She sinks in the dust (image above), just like Jeremiah said (51:37). Her demise is a tragic disaster for all who rely on her political and financial power (Revelation 18).

But it’s good news for those who rely on God’s proclamation that the Lamb reintroduces God’s reign. The throne of heaven returns to earth in the new Jerusalem, an enormous city the size of the then-known world.  The one who holds the eternal throne is true to his word: “See, I am making everything new!” (Revelation 21:5).

Conclusion

Jeremiah’s book is all about allegiance. He was not aligned with the temple leaders and kings of Judah who wanted power for themselves. He was not aligned with Babylon or Egypt, the political powers of his day.

Jeremiah spoke for the true sovereign over all people. Faced with the fallen kingdom, Jeremiah declared that the earthly powers would fall, that the reign of God would be restored to the earth.

In the most painful of times, Jeremiah calls us to faithful faith.

What others are saying

Christopher J. H. Wright, The Message of Jeremiah: Grace in the End, The Bible Speaks Today (Nottingham, England: Inter-Varsity Press, 2014), 399–400:

The people’s reasons for wanting to go to Egypt are understandable (Jeremiah 42:14). Their lives had been shattered and shredded for two long years now, through the horrors of invasion, the ravages and hunger of a long siege, the death or exile of large numbers of their relatives, internal displacement as refugees in their own land, chaotic and violent civil war among rival leaders, and continuing perceived threat from ‘the enemy from the north’. They longed for a place of plenty, peace and stability, free from war and want. Egypt seemed to offer all of that, even if it meant leaving their beloved homeland. It was very alluring. It was also utterly illusory. …

The alternatives were clear, then. Stay in the land and trust the promises of God. That way they could participate in the future God was planning — the building and planting, the destiny of the ‘good figs’. That would take enormous courage and faith, in the face of very real fears. That was what God now commanded and called for. Or go to Egypt for illusory safety and defy the word of God they had requested. That way they would cut themselves off from the purposes of God, sever themselves from his covenant blessing, and exit the plot. God’s story with God’s people would continue, but they would not be part of it. For them, the story would end where it had begun — refugees in Egypt, but with no exodus ahead.

John Goldingay, The Book of Jeremiah, NICOT (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2021), 796, 804-805:

Deuteronomy 17:16 declared that they were never to go back to Egypt, and Jeremiah has hinted at lots of reasons for this (2:6, 18, 36; 9:26[25]; 24:8; 25:19; 26:21–23) …

The Judahites thought they could escape from the Babylonians by going to Egypt, but Yahweh warned them that the Egyptians were going to be caught by the same calamities. …  As usual, Jeremiah’s declaration saw a form of fulfillment, but not one that exactly or fully corresponded to the picture he gave. In the 37th year of his reign (568/567), Nebuchadrezzar invaded Egypt and engaged with Pharaoh Amasis, though according to what seems to be the Egyptian version of events, Amasis won  a crucial battle against the “Asiatics.” It was a raid, not an occupation, which fits the prophecy. In a more radical way, Sun House “was demolished, destroyed, and stopped when the Lord Christ was incarnated and came to this world” [quoting Ephrem the Syrian’s commentary on Jeremiah].

Related posts

• Speaking for the enemy? (Jeremiah 37–40)
• New covenant, new king (Jeremiah 31)
• The plans I have for you (Jeremiah 29)
• The hands that shape history (Jeremiah 18)
• Temple as God’s presence (Jeremiah 7)