What does Jeremias Chapter 27 say, and which statements belong to its speaker?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

The neck-bands command distinguishes revelation and dispatch dates. Submission and refusal receive stated land outcomes. Remaining vessels await Babylonian visitation and return.

Chapter breakdown

Jeremias 27 commands bands and chains worn on the neck and sent through visiting messengers to Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre and Sidon. The word dates to Joakim's beginning; the edition distinguishes dispatch under Sedecias. The Lord made earth, men and beasts and gives these lands and field-beasts to Nabuchodonosor. Nations serve him, son and son's son until their time; the edition identifies the successors and must remain attributed rather than independently certified history. The difficult final clause says many nations and great kings shall serve him.

Refusal of Babylon's yoke brings sword, famine and pestilence. Prophets, diviners, dreamers, soothsayers and sorcerers promising no servitude are rejected as lying and leading to removal and death. Submission permits remaining, tilling and dwelling in their land. Sedecias receives the same appeal to serve king and people and live; unsent prophets and their hearers perish.

Priests and people must reject promises of immediate return of vessels. Prophets possessing the word should intercede that remaining vessels do not go to Babylon. Pillars, sea, bases and remaining vessels, left during Jechonias's deportation with great men, will go there until visitation and restoration. Wood, leather, gold, bronze, peaceful farming, diplomatic conspiracy and a new cause that earlier warnings were ignored are not supplied.

The story inside

Opening: The neck-bands command distinguishes revelation and dispatch dates. Development: Submission and refusal receive stated land outcomes. Conclusion: Remaining vessels await Babylonian visitation and return.

Lessons worth keeping

1
The neck-bands command distinguishes revelation and dispatch dates.
2
Submission and refusal receive stated land outcomes.
3
Remaining vessels await Babylonian visitation and return.

Test your recall

Which images and requests does the speaker use, and what does the chapter leave unresolved?

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

Lines 86788–86808
27:5. I made the earth, and the men and the beasts that are upon the face of the earth, by my great power, and by my stretched out arm: and I have given it to whom it seemed good in my eyes. 27:6. And now I have given all these lands into the hand of Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon my servant: moreover also the beasts of the field I have given him to serve him. 27:7. And all nations shall serve him, and his son, and his son’s son: till the time come for his land and himself: and many nations and great kings shall serve him. His son.... Viz., Evilmerodach; and his son’s son, Nabonydus, or Nabonadius, the Baltassar of Daniel, chap. 5., and the last of the Chaldean kings. 27:8. But the nation and kingdom that will not serve Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon, and whosoever will not bend his neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon: I will visit upon that nation with the sword, and with famine, and with pestilence, saith the Lord: till I consume them by his hand.
Lines 86846–86865
27:18. But if they be prophets, and the word of the Lord be in them: let them interpose themselves before the Lord of hosts, that the vessels which were left in the house of the Lord, and in the house of the king of Juda, and in Jerusalem, may not go to Babylon. 27:19. For thus saith the Lord of hosts to the pillars, and to the sea, and to the bases, and to the rest of the vessels that remain in this city: 27:20. Which Nabuchodonosor the king of Babylon did not take, when he carried away Jechonias the son of Joakim the king of Juda, from Jerusalem to Babylon, and all the great men of Juda and Jerusalem. 27:21. For thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel, to the vessels that are left in the house of the Lord, and in the house of the king of Juda and Jerusalem: 27:22. They shall be carried to Babylon, and there they shall be until the day of their visitation, saith the Lord: and I will cause them to be brought, and to be restored in this place.