NOTES for Jer 25:1-38

Jeremiah’s preaching has already continued for twenty-three years. Such a long period must have seemed to many of his listeners sufficient reason not to take the prophet’s words seriously: after all, the years pass, and apparently nothing of what was predicted comes true. But what seems long to people is very fleeting on the scale of eternity. So the people may have to add to their answer for old sins a reckoning for their unwillingness to listen to warnings.

But just when the prophetic description of the disasters that are to fall on the sinful people through Babylon reaches its climax, we hear a completely unexpected prophecy, one that seems logically unconnected with the preceding ones: a prediction of the coming punishment that will befall Babylon itself. This is not easy for a human consciousness accustomed to operating with the elementary opposition “some are good, others are bad” to assimilate.

But the Bible reveals to us the complexity, many-sidedness, and ambiguity of what takes place in the earthly world. And if the Lord can permit a sinner to become the instrument of another sinner’s severe and at times harsh correction, it does not follow at all that He approves every deed of the one who has become such an instrument. Moreover, one will also have to answer for crimes committed in the process of punishing other criminals, for evil, even when directed against bearers of evil, cannot be good.