Jeremiah 12:14 - Meaning and Application

The prophets sometimes spoke in God’s name with messages of both judgment and mercy to the nations around Israel. But here the message is aimed at all who had, in one way or another, harmed God’s people, either by oppressing them or by celebrating their fall. God says they were his evil neighbors, evil neighbors to his church, because what they did against his people he counted as done against himself.

It was often the lot of good people to live among bad neighbors who were unkind and irritating. These were the Moabites, Ammonites, Syrians, Edomites, and Egyptians, who had been bad neighbors to Israel by helping to corrupt them and draw them away from God. Now they joined the Chaldeans in making Israel desolate. It is just with God to make those the tools of our trouble whom we have made tools of sin.

God charges them with meddling with the inheritance he gave his people Israel. They seized what did not belong to them, and even used for themselves what God had set apart for his own people. The one who said, “Do not touch my anointed ones,” also said, “Do not touch their inheritance,” and it would be at their own peril if they did. Not only the persons of God’s people, but also their property, are under his protection.

God says he will break the power they had over his people and force them to give up what they had taken. “I will pluck out the house of Judah from among them.” This would be a great kindness to his people, who had either been carried off by them or held as prisoners when they fled there for shelter. But it would be a great humiliation for their enemies, like a lion losing its prey. Judah could not, or would not, make a bold effort for freedom, but God would gently and powerfully pull them out. By his Spirit he would move them to come out, and by his power he would make their oppressors let them go, as he pulled Israel out of Egypt.

God would also bring on them the same troubles they had helped bring on his people. “I will pluck them out of their land.” Judgment began at the house of God, but it did not end there. Nebuchadnezzar, after he had wasted the land of Israel, turned against these evil neighbors too and became a scourge to them.

There is also mercy prepared for any of them who would join themselves to God and become his people, as in Jeremiah 12:15-16. They had drawn God’s backsliding people into idol worship. If now they would be drawn by a returning people into the worship of the true and living God, their old hostility would be forgiven. The barrier that had kept them at a distance would be removed, and they would stand on the same level as the Israel of God.

This was partly fulfilled after the return from captivity, when many from the lands around Israel became Jews. It was also meant to be fulfilled in the conversion of the Gentiles to the faith of Christ. Let Israel not be bitter and unforgiving toward them, though they had been injured by them, because God is not unforgiving. After he has plucked them out in justice for their sin and in concern for Israel’s honor, he will return and have mercy on them. Though they are heathen and have no claim on the covenant promises, they can still benefit from the compassion of the Creator, who will look on them as the work of his hands.

God’s disputes with his creatures, though they cannot be argued away, can be settled in peace. Those who were not only strangers, but also enemies in their minds through evil works, may be reconciled (Colossians 1:21). The terms of this mercy are that they will diligently learn the ways of God’s people. That means the ways God’s people truly walk in, not the crooked ways they have wandered into, but the paths God directs them to take.

There are good ways that belong especially to God’s people, though they may differ in some lesser matters. These include holiness, a mind set on heaven, love, peace, prayer, keeping the Sabbath holy, and faithful use of God’s appointed ordinances. Anyone who wants a place among God’s people and a final end like theirs must learn these ways and walk in them. They must watch the pattern of God’s people and shape their own lives by it. By close fellowship with God’s people, they must learn to do as they do.

Learning these ways takes care and effort. We must watch closely, and we must work diligently (Hebrews 12:15, Luke 13:24). In particular, they must learn to honor God’s name by making their solemn promises and appeals to him alone. They must learn to say, “The Lord lives,” owning him, worshiping him, and standing by his judgment, instead of swearing by Baal. It was bad enough that they themselves swore by Baal. It was worse that they taught God’s own people, who had been better instructed. Yet if they truly reform, they will be accepted.

We should not despair of the conversion of the worst people, even those who have helped lead others into sin. They may still be brought to repentance and find mercy. And those whom we have worked hard to draw into evil, when God opens their eyes and ours, we should work just as hard to follow in what is good. It is a holy sort of revenge on ourselves to become learners from those in duty to whom we once were teachers in sin. The conversion of the deceived may even become the occasion for the conversion of the deceivers, so that those who fell together into the ditch may be pulled out together.

As a fruit of this mercy, they will be restored to their own land, as Jeremiah 12:15 says. “I will bring them again, every man to his inheritance.” The same hand that uprooted them will plant them again.

They will also come to share in the spiritual privileges of God’s Israel. If they are willing to learn the ways of my people, follow their rules, and live within the limits of my family, then they will be built up in the midst of my people. They will not only be brought in among them, with a place and a name in the house of the Lord, where there was even a court for Gentiles, but they will be joined to them more deeply. Old hostility will be removed, and they will be both strengthened and settled among God’s people. See (Isaiah 56:5-7).

The lesson is clear: those who carefully learn the ways of God’s people will enjoy the blessings and comforts of God’s people.

Next, Jeremiah turns to those who still cling to their own evil ways, even if many around them turn to the Lord (Jeremiah 12:17). If they refuse to obey and keep resisting, the Lord says, I will completely uproot and destroy that nation, that family, or that individual. Those who will not be guided by God’s grace will be ruined by God’s justice. And if disobedient nations are destroyed, then disobedient churches should expect even more, since they have been given better light and greater responsibility.