As Jeremiah delivered this bold proclamation, Babylon was a superpower, an empire in its heyday, with Israel and Judah under its full control. As we read it centuries later, so many are still held captive by cruel and corrupt regimes, poverty, sickness, addiction, mental health battles, loneliness and more… ‘Yet their Redeemer is strong; the Lord Almighty is his name’ (v 34).

Jeremiah’s first listeners would have understood the resonance and been reminded of another time their captors refused to let them go (Exodus 5–11). You can’t underestimate the power of the Exodus story to build faith and trust in God and his ability to carry out audacious rescues. The God who had brought them out of slavery through parted waters would again deliver (Exodus 14:29–31). They could be confident of that. 

These prophecies have sweeping scope, speaking of matters concerning nations and empires, armies and entire populations. This doesn’t mean God isn’t mindful of the relative minutiae of each of our lives, as Psalm 139 so beautifully reminds us. He knows us down to the very number of hairs on our heads (Luke 12:7). And with him on our side, there is nothing and no one we need fear.

Dear Lord, when I am in the depths of hopeless despair, help me to know for certain that there are no limits to your willingness or power to save.

For a long time Babylon was the foe from the north, summoned by the Lord to chasten Judah and the surrounding nations. Now, in a reversal of fortunes, it is Babylon which will bear the brunt of the chastening by the Lord at the hands of a foe from further north: an invincible army, a coalition of the Medes, Persians and mercenaries from their vassal states (v 3). The day had come for Babylon to be filled with fear, consumed as in a fire, cut down by the sword, plundered and made desolate so that no self-respecting human beings would choose to inhabit it (vs 39,40). But why? What did Babylon do to become the enemy of the Lord?

Babylon became arrogant, led astray by false prophets and idolatry. It had not recognised that its power had been delegated from the Lord, the Holy One of Israel (v 29) and, like Pharaoh of old, it oppressed Israel and refused to set its people free (v 33). In its arrogance, Babylon did not take account of Israel’s Redeemer (go’el), the divine role akin to the human next of kin whose duty it was to avenge the killing of a loved one or redeem a relative and their property from slavery; this Redeemer is so strong that no shepherd (king) can stand against him (v 44). Just as the Lord had redeemed Israel from slavery in Egypt through Moses, so now he would repeat that feat by saving Israel from Babylonian exile in a second exodus. So, although Israel was in dire straits, it could always depend upon its Kinsman Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, to come to its people's aid and liberate them. In Jesus, that Kinsman Redeemer, with his inexhaustible resources, is available to us.

The Lord graciously allows us to share in his mission to bring the world to the obedience of faith. Let us not take this privilege for granted nor become arrogant.