Original Meaning

AT ONE STAGE in the collection of Jeremiah’s prophecies, chapter 25 likely concluded the collection or, at least, ended a section on judgment of the nations. Beginning with chapter 26, the reader of Jeremiah is provided with a series of biographical prose accounts about the prophet, which make a somewhat different impression than the preceding collections of poetic oracles. One may summarize the literary placement issue somewhat differently by observing that chapter 25 brings to a conclusion the first half of the prophetic book. The material within it assists the reader in looking back to the poetic oracles or forward to the prose accounts.

It is possible that the early form of Jeremiah’s prophecies recorded in Baruch’s first scroll (ch. 36) ended with the almost apocalyptic portrayal of multinational judgment in chapter 25. Note the reference to Jeremiah’s “book” in 25:13. In its current form chapter 25 in Hebrew has similarities to the oracles against the nations and Babylon in chapters 46–51, which now conclude the book. The initial verse of the chapter places the prophecy in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, which was also the first year of Nebuchadnezzar’s kingship.1 This was a time of political change and uncertainty, when the political map was being redrawn by the Babylonians, and Jehoiakim, an Egyptian appointee, faced a dangerous and uncertain future. Jeremiah uses the opportunity to announce that the judgment to come on Judah is but a part of the administration of the Lord’s justice in international affairs.

In the Greek version of Jeremiah’s book, this chapter is much expanded to include additional oracles against the nations found elsewhere in the Hebrew version.2 The peoples and nations named in 25:19–26 are contemporaries of Judah. They too have been assessed and founding wanting in the courts of the Lord. The language is stylized, and judgment is depicted on a universal scale. At points the depiction reflects a historical process in convulsion, as if to say that the decisive point in the judgment of the world has arrived (cf. 25:30–31). In other words, the chapter contains a combination of historical allusion and symbolic portrait, anticipating the apocalyptic language of Ezekiel, Zechariah, and Daniel and paving the way for the apocalyptic language in the New Testament.

25:1–14. This material reports oracular material that God gives to Jeremiah. That it is also a summary statement is clear from verse 3—a reference to twenty-three years of preaching on the part of the prophet. Jeremiah’s work is set in the context of God’s ongoing prophetic witness among the people carried out by his “servants the prophets” (26:5; cf. 2 Kings 9:7; 24:2). The refusal of the people to heed Jeremiah’s warnings and earlier calls for repentance (cf. Jer. 25:5) has now led to the brink of judgment. Babylon, and more particularly Nebuchadnezzar, are identified as a foe from the north. The judgment to come on Judah and Jerusalem is only part of what Nebuchadnezzar will do. Other nations will also come under his domination.

Verse 9 describes Nebuchadnezzar as God’s “servant.” This is a shocking term to use but fully consistent with Jeremiah’s message. The prophet portrays the historical judgment to come on Judah as God’s work against his sinful people. Nebuchadnezzar is not a “loose cannon” but an agent in the employ of God. In Daniel Nebuchadnezzar will bear witness in his own frailty that God is sovereign (Dan. 4:1–37). The king’s servanthood does not make him morally superior or grant him saving knowledge of God. One may compare the language of “anointed” used to describe Cyrus in his historical role of liberator from the Exile, where it is explicitly stated that the Persian king does not know the Lord (Isa. 45:1–7).

In the judgments against Judah, a servitude to Babylon of “seventy years” is projected (Jer. 25:11–12). The actual period was about sixty-six years, if one reckons from the first year of Nebuchadnezzar’s kingship in 605 B.C. to the fall of Babylon in 539, or seventy years almost exactly3 if one reckons from the destruction of the temple in 586 to its rededication in 516 (cf. Ezra 6:15). More likely, seventy is a round number representing the fulfillment of an extended period (2 Chron. 36:21; Zech. 1:12–14). It should be contrasted with the short period predicted by Hananiah for Babylonian hegemony (Jer. 28:3–4).4

That Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon are the Lord’s servants in the historical process does not make them immune from his standards of justice, however. Babylon too will be judged for its iniquities (25:12–14). This short prophecy anticipates elements in chapters 46–49 (judgment against nations) and 50–51 (judgment against Babylon).5 As noted above, the oracles against the nations in chapters 46–51 actually come in the Greek version after 25:13 and its reference to “things … prophesied by Jeremiah against all the nations.”

25:15–38. This section vividly depicts the imagery of the nations drinking from the Lord’s “cup” of wrath. Such a cup, which presupposes the staggering of someone inebriated and out of control, is a metaphor for the turmoil to come among the nations, when God’s sword of judgment is unleashed. As a prophetic symbol of judgment, God’s cup of wrath is widespread. In 51:7 Babylon herself is described as the intoxicating cup, but the cup is more usually related directly to God and his judgment.6

A long listing of states and rulers comprises a summary for “all the kingdoms on the face of the earth” (25:26). The exaggerated imagery continues with the naming of Babylon as Sheshach, a cryptogram or symbolic name. In turn, Babylon too will drink the cup of wrath.

All the nations are caught up in the description of the judgment to come. It is not just Jerusalem, “the city that bears [God’s] Name” (v. 29), who will bear judgment. God is depicted as cosmic Judge, and the imagery employed suggests a type of sweeping judgment beyond the circumstances of the late seventh/early sixth centuries B.C. The face of the earth is strewn about with the effects of destruction. Here is prophetic proclamation like that in Daniel and Zechariah, which depict cataclysmic change in apocalyptic form.

Bridging Contexts

ORACLES AGAINST NATIONS. Oracles against nations are a common part of prophetic books (e.g., Isa. 13–23; Amos 1–2). There does not seem to be one reason for the judgments announced against these peoples. Perhaps they oppressed Israel or Judah, or perhaps their inhumanity, broadly distributed in their neighbors’ suffering, has provoked the Lord to anger. But common to all these oracles is the assumption that the Lord is sovereign over all the nations (including Babylon). Jeremiah 25 makes this assumption plain by the radical claim that Nebuchadnezzar is the Lord’s “servant” (25:9). Nebuchadnezzar’s work in subjecting Judah (or other nations) to his rule is not against God’s designs but part of them. That is the extent of his servanthood; he is a tool to carry out God’s larger designs.

That such oracles are part of prophetic books is also part of God’s design. The reference to God’s “servants the prophets” (25:4) reflects God’s commitment to interpreting his acts for his people through appointed means. The broader message seems to be: Listen and learn the ways of the Lord, who shapes history, judges iniquity, and seeks to form a people for himself from among the nations. In the stylized language of judgment (e.g., the cup of wrath or judgment, 25:17, 28; cf. 51:7), one encounters a mode of prophecy that will find echoes at Gethsemane (Matt. 26:39) and in John’s visions (Rev. 16–17).

Jeremiah and Nebuchadnezzar. One might see the relevance of these differing claims about servants by thinking of “a tale of two servants” (Nebuchadnezzar and Jeremiah). With apologies to Charles Dickens, one might see in Nebuchadnezzar’s role the “best of times” for him and in Jeremiah’s prophetic service “the worst of times” for the prophet. But there is an important caveat here. Nebuchadnezzar’s historical success is no reason to think that he labors to be faithful to God, nor is Jeremiah’s rejection and seeming failure any reason to think he has been faithless to God. On the contrary, readers should note carefully that the chapter is intended to explain why disaster overtook Judah and also to demonstrate that God is Lord of all nations.

There is a pattern portrayed in Jeremiah 25 that will repeat itself in history. Injustice and infidelity on the part of God’s people lead to historical judgment. Yet how things change when seen in the light of God’s plan to use whatever means necessary to carry out his judgment amid his larger redemptive purposes! Nebuchadnezzar’s kingdom is now in the trash bin of history, but the heirs of Jeremiah’s word are still the recipient of God’s grace.

Contemporary Significance

HISTORICAL PROVIDENCE. The claims of chapter 25 play a significant role in assessing what is meant by God’s historical providence. (1) The prophetic perspective on God’s historical judgments is not so much a blueprint about the future as it is a revelation about God’s purpose. Judgment in the historical process can be self-incurred, but its moral dimension is shaped by the Creator in surprising ways.

(2) While God’s purpose in judging and reforming his people takes shape in the historical process, God’s providence was not limited to Israel, nor is it now limited to the church. Other nations, as part of God’s universal purpose are judged and shaped as well.

(3) Judgment is not all that God intends for the future of nations (cf. Gen. 12:3) as his near and far purposes are worked out.

(4) The work of God is a process and not just an occasional event. Historical events are part of his proximate designs and are used in service of his eternal designs, which no one fully grasps. God’s judgments are unsearchable (Rom. 11:33); they stand, however, in the service of his undeserved mercy—the ultimate goal of his providence.

In light of these affirmations Christians cannot assume that the misfortune of every nation is God’s judgment and that a period of relative peace is evidence of his favor. God’s work through the historical process is more complicated than that. There is no time in world history when this confession lacks application. The larger pattern can only be glimpsed by faith, and that faith must allow for a transhistorical culmination that cannot be fully grasped at any one point in history.

The book of Revelation (like Jeremiah) portrays the suffering of God’s people as something that does come on the church because of some failures. Persecution of the church, however, becomes even more insidious precisely because some Christians seek to serve the risen Christ rather than Rome (symbolized in Revelation as Babylon!). The bowls of God’s wrath strike universally. Nevertheless, the community of saints in the heavenly Jerusalem is drawn universally from all nations and peoples. From what angle can one possibly see the final result of God’s work? Certainly not from within the span of historical existence. The full significance of God as Lord and Judge of all history is better seen at the end of history, not at its midpoint.

Perhaps one way for modern Christians to read the judgments against the nations in Jeremiah is to hear them as announcements of God’s reckoning in the midst of a process that still continues and as historical signs of what the future will hold for the impenitent and unrighteous. Pertinent illustrations abound in the surprising changes of the last twenty years. Who would have predicted the dissolution of the USSR, the changes in Eastern Europe, or those in South Africa? Only time will tell their full impact, but even now God is at work in those circumstances and in the churches of these regions.

Seventy years. The prophecy of the seventy years reminds believers that God’s means of testing and refining take time. As with the issues of universal justice and the fate of nations, a process of refinement is best understood at the end. How many people have confessed a quick fix in their Christian lives only to realize that God is not through with them yet? Sometimes the education and desired changes are just beginning! So it can be in the life of a congregation as well as in that of a people. God’s process of sanctification has a goal, but we may never see it fully realized in our lifetime. Such was the fate of many in Jeremiah’s day who trudged into exile and died there. It was also the privilege of Jeremiah to say that the process did not end with the Exile. In the cross and resurrection, believers have seen that it does not end with death either.

A profound interpretation of the cup that sends the nations reeling comes with Jesus’ wrestling prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane (Matt. 26:36–46). He knows that the manifestation of God’s righteous judgment is at hand. Indeed, it is about to fall on him as a sacrificial lamb. In prayer he struggles to bring his emotions into line with what he knows to be God’s will. He will trust God with the immediate events to come—though they entail much suffering on his part—because he trusts God with the future of all his creation.