Jeremiah 27King James Version
Jeremiah wears a yoke on his own neck as a sign. Submit to the king of Babylon and live. The false prophets are telling the people the Lord will break Nebuchadnezzar's yoke. They are wrong. Wear the yoke.
God tells Jeremiah to wear a yoke and send copies to five neighboring kings conspiring against Babylon. The message: God gave all these lands to Nebuchadnezzar. Any nation that submits will survive; any that resists will be destroyed. False prophets say the opposite. The same word goes to Zedekiah: submit to Babylon's yoke and live.
Nebuchadnezzar is God's instrument for this moment in history. Resisting him means resisting the God who deployed him.
5: "I have made the earth, the man and the beast that are upon the ground, by my great power and by my outstretched arm, and have given it unto whom it seemed meet unto me." The claim that God's sovereignty extends to appointing foreign emperors.
Around 594 BC, early in Zedekiah's reign. Ambassadors from five neighboring nations have come to Jerusalem, apparently to coordinate anti-Babylonian resistance. Jeremiah shows up to their meeting wearing a wooden yoke. The theater of it was unmistakable.
Jeremiah, who wears the yoke publicly. Zedekiah, who receives the same word the surrounding kings receive. The false prophets who promise Babylon's power will be broken. Nebuchadnezzar, identified explicitly as God's servant.
Calling a pagan emperor God's servant was theologically radical and politically treasonous. The yoke symbol became a central image: Israel chose the yoke of Babylon's political dominance over the yoke of God's covenant, and those two yokes cannot both be worn at once. The chapter is a direct setup for the conflict with Hananiah in chapter 28.
For when the path that looks like capitulation and weakness is actually the path of wisdom and survival. Jeremiah had to wear the message on his body to make it visible to people who would not hear it any other way.
1In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah came this word unto Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,
2Thus saith the LORD to me; Make thee bonds and yokes, and put them upon thy neck,
3And send them to the king of Edom, and to the king of Moab, and to the king of the Ammonites, and to the king of Tyrus, and to the king of Zidon, by the hand of the messengers which come to Jerusalem unto Zedekiah king of Judah;
4And command them to say unto their masters, Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Thus shall ye say unto your masters;
5I have made the earth, the man and the beast that are upon the ground, by my great power and by my outstretched arm, and have given it unto whom it seemed meet unto me.
6And now have I given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant; and the beasts of the field have I given him also to serve him.
7And all nations shall serve him, and his son, and his son's son, until the very time of his land come: and then many nations and great kings shall serve themselves of him.
8And it shall come to pass, that the nation and kingdom which will not serve the same Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, and that will not put their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, that nation will I punish, saith the LORD, with the sword, and with the famine, and with the pestilence, until I have consumed them by his hand.
9Therefore hearken not ye to your prophets, nor to your diviners, nor to your dreamers, nor to your enchanters, nor to your sorcerers, which speak unto you, saying, Ye shall not serve the king of Babylon:
10For they prophesy a lie unto you, to remove you far from your land; and that I should drive you out, and ye should perish.
11But the nations that bring their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and serve him, those will I let remain still in their own land, saith the LORD; and they shall till it, and dwell therein.
12I spake also to Zedekiah king of Judah according to all these words, saying, Bring your necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and serve him and his people, and live.
13Why will ye die, thou and thy people, by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence, as the LORD hath spoken against the nation that will not serve the king of Babylon?
14Therefore hearken not unto the words of the prophets that speak unto you, saying, Ye shall not serve the king of Babylon: for they prophesy a lie unto you.
15For I have not sent them, saith the LORD, yet they prophesy a lie in my name; that I might drive you out, and that ye might perish, ye, and the prophets that prophesy unto you.
16Also I spake to the priests and to all this people, saying, Thus saith the LORD; Hearken not to the words of your prophets that prophesy unto you, saying, Behold, the vessels of the LORD'S house shall now shortly be brought again from Babylon: for they prophesy a lie unto you.
17Hearken not unto them; serve the king of Babylon, and live: wherefore should this city be laid waste?
18But if they be prophets, and if the word of the LORD be with them, let them now make intercession to the LORD of hosts, that the vessels which are left in the house of the LORD, and in the house of the king of Judah, and at Jerusalem, go not to Babylon.
19For thus saith the LORD of hosts concerning the pillars, and concerning the sea, and concerning the bases, and concerning the residue of the vessels that remain in this city,
20Which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon took not, when he carried away captive Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah from Jerusalem to Babylon, and all the nobles of Judah and Jerusalem;
21Yea, thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, concerning the vessels that remain in the house of the LORD, and in the house of the king of Judah and of Jerusalem;
22They shall be carried to Babylon, and there shall they be until the day that I visit them, saith the LORD; then will I bring them up, and restore them to this place.