Jeremiah 40

CHAPTERS 4042THEME: Jeremiah prophecies to remnant left in landIn these three chapters we find Jeremiah speaking to those who were left in the land of Judah after the destruction of Jerusalem. They were the very poor, the blind, the crippled, the lame, and another group which would be called the criminal element, a hard group of people. Jeremiah chose to stay with the people in the land. He had a message for them.

Jeremiah 40:1

JEREMIAH RELEASEDNebuchadnezzar permitted Jeremiah to do what he wished to do. He could have gone with the captives to Babylon, but, interestingly enough, Jeremiah did not want to do that. I think he would have been given special privileges if he had gone, but Jeremiah couldn’t bear to see his brethren suffer as they did there by the canals of Babylon where they sat down and hung up their harps and wept when they remembered Zion. Jeremiah did not want to go with them. They had rejected his message, and they had rejected him. In Babylon God would raise up another prophet, Ezekiel, who would speak to them. Jeremiah chose to remain in Judah with the poor remnant which were left there. Who really loved that land? Jeremiah. Who was the real patriot? Jeremiah. Who really had the best interests of the people at heart? It was Jeremiah. This is quite obvious now. You will remember that Jeremiah had urged them to surrender to Nebuchadnezzar. I believe that if they had obeyed God and gone willingly, they would not have gone into captivity. They probably would have received the kind of treatment that Jeremiah received from Nebuchadnezzar, and they probably would have been permitted to stay in the land. Now in verse Jer_40:8 we are introduced to Ishmael who plots to murder Gedaliah whom Nebuchadnezzar had made governor over the cities of Judah.