Scripture Daily

Context No. 448 of 4322 · Jeremiah

Context · Reflection

Jeremiah 25:7-11: in context

7“Yet you have not listened to me,” says the LORD, “that you may provoke me to anger with the work of your hands to your own hurt.” 8Therefore the LORD of Armies says: “Because you have not heard my words, 9behold, I will send and take all the families of the north,” says the LORD, “and I will send to Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land, and against its inhabitants, and against all these nations around. I will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, and a hissing, and perpetual desolations. 10Moreover I will take from them the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones, and the light of the lamp. 11This whole land will be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years.

This is a word of judgment on Judah for refusing to listen to God, and it contains one of the most unsettling phrases in the whole book. God announces that he will bring the armies of the north against the land, and then he names their leader: I will send for Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant. My servant. The brutal pagan tyrant who will burn Jerusalem, tear down the temple, and drag the people into exile, God calls his servant. The destroyer is, without knowing it, an instrument in God's hand.

That is hard to sit with, and it needs to be held carefully. It does not mean God approves of Nebuchadnezzar or excuses his cruelty; later in the very same book God turns and judges Babylon for its violence and pride. Nebuchadnezzar is fully wicked and fully accountable, and he is also, mysteriously, being used to accomplish a purpose larger than his own ambitions. God is sovereign even over his enemies, even over the forces that devastate his people, so thoroughly that he can call the tyrant my servant while still holding him guilty. The passage then makes the coming loss vivid by naming what will fall silent: the voice of mirth and gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the bride, the sound of the millstones grinding the daily bread, the light of the lamp. The judgment is the silencing of ordinary life itself.

The phrase my servant is meant to unsettle, but it can also steady me. It means that even the powers and people that seem to be running roughshod over everything, the forces that devastate a life, are not outside God's sovereignty. They are not the final authors of the story; God is, and he can bend even a Nebuchadnezzar to his purposes and then call that tyrant to account. When some force feels like it is destroying everything and answering to no one, can I hold the hard, steadying truth that God is sovereign even over that, able to use even what is wicked without ever excusing it, so that nothing that comes against me is finally beyond his hand?

Sources