Jeremiah at end (chapter 51)

Jeremiah's last prophesies are aimed at encouraging Israel. It is violent and bloody but so have the previous years. We have to understand the time. In chapter 51, Jeremiah sends a scroll to Babylon with a scribe going with the conquered king, King Zedekiah. I think Zedekiah had the horrible experience of watching his sons killed and then being blinded. What a painful ordeal! Then he is allowed to live as a living sign of Nebuchadnezzar's victory and Israel's utter defeat.

In this horrible time for God's people God sends Jeremiah to encourage. His work tell that Babylon, the city that seems so powerful, so dominating, will soon be overthrown. And at its destruction it will never rise again.

A scribe is given a scroll to be read in Babylon to the people who are exiled there. Then Jeremiah instructs that the scroll be weighed down and thrown into the Euphrates as a sign. Just as the scroll sinks, never to rise again, so Babylon will sink, never to risk again. Jeremiah is pronouncing God's judgment on Babylon, as he pronounced judgment on Israel.

In contrast God's chosen people have been beaten and many killed. But the remnant will rise again. God is not defeated. He has had his hand in all this, to punish Israel. But God is not defeated. He is still alive and still their God, even though they are not in the promised land.

God is not a god fixed in a certain place. He is the God of the whole world, the whole universe. He has been hard on Israel but he will be merciful again. His judgement is not forever.