LORD’S DAY, JUNE 3
Daniel 9:1-2
Jeremiah 25:8-14

“… I will punish the king of Babylon,
and that nation, saith the LORD,
for their iniquity …”

A SEVENTY-YEAR SENTENCE

Daniel 9 opens with a scene of Darius the Mede occupying the throne of the Chaldeans and Daniel contemplating God’s dealings with his own people in exile. The year was about 538 BC, almost seventy years since the Jews were first taken captive to Babylon. As Daniel read Jeremiah’s prophecy of God’s sentence “… in the desolations of Jerusalem” (Dan 9:2), he was deeply moved on behalf of his people and his country. Although he had been in Babylon all this while, he had by no means forgotten his heritage and his status. Seventy years in exile, in a foreign land steeped in idolatry, with little prospect of ever seeing one’s homeland again might well have destroyed one’s faith in God. But not Daniel. Pray to be like Daniel.

What was God’s word which came to Jeremiah? Jeremiah 25 takes us back to the year 605 BC when Jeremiah the “weeping prophet” declared God’s solemn word to the evil king Jehoiakim of Judah. Read Jeremiah 25:9-10.

God’s people were sentenced to serve the Babylonian king seventy years. In passing sentence on His beloved firstborn, it must have grieved God’s heart known only to Himself. But in this we see His righteousness exercised.

Israel was the object of His special love, a people who had received the knowledge of God’s Word, deliverance from bondage in Egypt and supernatural nourishment by God’s almighty hand. (Read Deuteronomy 32:9-10.) In spite of all that God had done for them, the king and people rebelled and sinned grievously against the Lord. They ignored God’s warnings and spurned God’s servants. Their sin was not one of ignorance. It was one of wilful disobedience.

When the king heard God’s warning from Jeremiah, he flew into a rage, cut up the scroll of God’s Word and cast it into the fire (Jer 36:23). The seventy-year sentence was fully deserved.

THOUGHT: “God cannot overlook sin.” Do I agree? Why?
PRAYER: Lord, help me to see things as Thou seest.