Jeremiah 27:12 - Meaning and Application

What had been said to all the nations is here applied with special care to the Jews, because Jeremiah felt deep concern for them. Judah and Jerusalem had often fought against the king of Babylon and had always been defeated. Many of their important people and much of their wealth had already been taken to Babylon, along with some of the vessels from the Lord’s house.

The question now was how this struggle would end. Some in Jerusalem claimed to be prophets and kept telling the people to hold out a little longer, saying they would soon beat the king of Babylon and get back everything they had lost. Jeremiah is sent instead to tell them to give in, because if they refused, they would lose what little remained. That is the purpose of these verses.

Jeremiah first speaks to the king of Judah, urging him to surrender to the king of Babylon. What the king did would affect the whole people, so Jeremiah speaks to him as one who represents them all (Jeremiah 27:12): “Bring your necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon and live.” Is it wisdom to submit to the heavy iron yoke of a cruel ruler so that one may save bodily life? Then surely it is far wiser to submit to the kind and easy yoke of our rightful Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, so that we may save our souls.

We should bring our hearts low in repentance and faith, and that is the path to heaven and glory. Jeremiah’s warning to a dying nation is much less forceful than what we may say to dying sinners: Why will you die by sword and famine, miserable deaths that you bring on yourselves while trying to avoid a miserable life? God had already spoken, in general, about all who refused to submit to the king of Babylon, and he wanted them to take that warning personally and fear it.

It would be good if sinners would do the same with the judgment threatened against all who will not have Christ rule over them. They should reason with themselves: Why should we die the second death, which is far worse than death by sword and famine, when we could submit and live?

Jeremiah also speaks to the priests and the people (Jeremiah 27:16), urging them to serve the king of Babylon so they might live and keep the city from being destroyed (Jeremiah 27:17): “Why should it be laid waste, as it surely will be if you keep resisting?” The priests had been Jeremiah’s enemies and had tried to kill him, yet he shows himself to be their friend and seeks to preserve their lives. That is a good example for us, to repay evil with good.

When wicked people hate the upright, the righteous still seek the good of their lives and souls (Proverbs 29:10). The situation was already very serious. They were standing at the edge of ruin, and if they had listened to Jeremiah, they could have avoided it. Still, he keeps warning them kindly, hoping they will at last understand what brings peace, even if only at the last moment.

In both appeals, Jeremiah warns them not to believe the false prophets who were lulling them into false comfort, because the people liked hearing soothing words. “Do not listen to the words of the prophets” (Jeremiah 27:14), “your prophets” (Jeremiah 27:16). They were not God’s prophets. He had never sent them. They did not serve him or try to please him. They were theirs, because they said what the people wanted to hear and tried only to please them.

These prophets led the people to believe two false things. First, they said the king of Babylon’s power over them would soon be broken. “You will not serve the king of Babylon” (Jeremiah 27:14), they said. In other words, there was no need to submit, because they would not be forced to submit. They claimed to speak in the name of the Lord (Jeremiah 27:15), as if God had sent them to spare the people the shame of surrender. But it was a lie. They said God had sent them, but the Lord denied it: “I have not sent them.”

They also said the people would never be brought under the king of Babylon, but that was false too, as the outcome proved. They said stubborn resistance would protect both the city and the people, but that also was false, because it would end in exile and death. It was all a lie from start to finish. Those prophets who deceived the people with lies ended up deceiving themselves. The blind leaders and the blind followers fell together into the ditch. They would perish, along with the prophets who prophesied to them, who could not even save themselves.

Those who encourage sinners to keep walking in sinful ways will finally perish with them. Second, these prophets said that the vessels of the temple, which the king of Babylon had already taken away, would soon be brought back (Jeremiah 27:16). They knew this would please the priests, who cared more for the gold of the temple than for the temple that gave the gold its sacred use. These vessels were taken when Jeconiah, king of Judah, was carried captive to Babylon (Jeremiah 27:20). The account is a sad one (2 Kings 24:13, 2 Kings 24:15; 2 Chronicles 36:10). All the fine vessels, meaning the gold vessels in the house of the Lord, together with all the treasures, were taken as spoil and carried to Babylon.

This grieved them more than anything else, because the temple was their pride and their confidence. Its stripping away was a clear sign of what the true prophet had told them, that their God had departed from them. So the false prophets had no other way to calm them than by promising that the king of Babylon would have to return them soon. Jeremiah answers this by calling them to do what they should have done all along: pray for the vessels that remained, instead of boasting that they could bring back the ones that were gone (Jeremiah 27:18).

“If they are prophets,” he says, “and if the word of the Lord is with them,” if they truly have access to heaven and any standing there, then let them use that for good. Let them try to stop the judgment. Let them stand in the gap and, like a priest with a censer, stand between the living and the dead, between what has already been taken and what still remains, so the plague may stop. Let them pray to the Lord of hosts that the remaining vessels do not go after the others.

Instead of prophesying, let them pray. Prophets must be praying people. By being much in prayer, they should show that they truly keep company with heaven. We cannot think that those who do not often send their prayers heavenward are truly hearing from heaven as prophets.

By praying for the safety and success of the sanctuary, they would show, as prophets should, that they cared for the public good. If God answered their prayers, that would also show that he favored them.

Instead of worrying about getting back what had already been taken, they should do what they could to protect what was still left. They should count it a great mercy if they could keep even that much. When God’s judgments are in the land, we should not aim for great gains, but be thankful for a little.

But even this smaller hope would not be granted. The bronze vessels would go after the gold ones, as Jeremiah had already said (Jeremiah 27:19, Jeremiah 27:22). Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, had found such rich spoil before that he would surely return and take everything he could find, both from the house of the Lord and from the king’s house. All of it would be carried off to Babylon in triumph and kept there.

Still, God ends with a gracious promise: in time, he would visit those vessels in mercy, according to his purpose, and bring them back to their proper place. They were clearly under special divine care, or else they would have been melted down and used for something else. God was preserving them for the second temple. We read especially of their return in Ezra 1:8.

The lesson is this: if the church’s prosperity does not return in our own time, we should not lose hope. It will come in God’s time. Those who said, “The vessels of the Lord’s house will soon be brought back,” were speaking falsehood (Jeremiah 27:16). But the one who said, “They will at last be brought back,” spoke the truth. We often set our own clock ahead of God’s, and then complain when they do not match. But the Lord is a God of justice, and we should wait for him.