Jeremiah 29 is a letter. It was carried from Jerusalem to Babylon and read aloud to the captives who had been taken there with King Jeconiah. They wanted to hear that they would be home soon, and their own prophets were promising exactly that. Jeremiah’s letter told them to unpack: build houses, plant gardens, raise families, and pray for the city of their enemies. It also holds one of the best-loved promises in the Bible, “I know the thoughts that I think toward you,” and that promise means more, not less, when it is read in the place God first put it.
A study in Jeremiah 29 · Arthur Baldwin · StandUp4Jesus.Org · 15 min read
A Letter To Babylon
“Now these are the words of the letter that Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem unto the residue of the elders which were carried away captives, and to the priests, and to the prophets, and to all the people whom Nebuchadnezzar had carried away captive from Jerusalem to Babylon;”
Jeremiah 29:1
The captives in this letter are the “good figs” of chapter 24: King Jeconiah, the queen mother, the court officials, the princes, and the craftsmen, taken to Babylon in the deportation of 597 BC. Jeremiah could not go to them, so he wrote. The letter went with two royal messengers, “Elasah the son of Shaphan, and Gemariah the son of Hilkiah,” whom King Zedekiah was sending to Nebuchadnezzar on state business (29:3). Elasah was most likely a brother of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan who had protected Jeremiah’s life (26:24). God once again used a friendly family to carry His word.
Psalm 137 tells us how many of the exiles felt: “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion” (Psalm 137:1). “How shall we sing the LORD’s song in a strange land?” (Psalm 137:4). Jeremiah’s letter is God’s answer to that question.
Build Ye Houses, And Plant Gardens
“Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, unto all that are carried away captives, whom I have caused to be carried away from Jerusalem unto Babylon; Build ye houses, and dwell in them; and plant gardens, and eat the fruit of them; Take ye wives, and beget sons and daughters; and take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters; that ye may be increased there, and not diminished.”
Jeremiah 29:4-6
Notice the first thing God says: these are the people “whom I have caused to be carried away.” Nebuchadnezzar had marched them to Babylon, but God takes responsibility for it. They were not lost. They had been placed.
Then come the instructions, and they are startlingly ordinary. Build houses. Plant gardens, the kind of thing you do only if you plan to be around when they bear fruit. Get married. Have children, and let your children marry and have children. In other words, plan on being there for a long time. A people waiting for a quick rescue would live out of their bags. God told them to put down roots.
The exiles’ lives were not on hold until they got home. Their years in Babylon were real years, to be lived well and faithfully. It is easy to treat a hard season as wasted time, something to get through until life starts again. God says to live it, fully, where He has put us.
Seek The Peace Of The City
“And seek the peace of the city whither I have caused you to be carried away captives, and pray unto the LORD for it: for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace.”
Jeremiah 29:7
This is one of the most surprising commands in the Old Testament. Babylon had burned their villages and dragged them from their homes. And God tells them to work for Babylon’s good and to pray for it. Not to plot against it, not to curse it, but to pray for “the peace” of the city that conquered them.
“With what tender compassion did God inform His captive people of His plans for Israel! He knew that should they be persuaded by false prophets to look for a speedy deliverance, their position in Babylon would be made very difficult. Any demonstration or insurrection on their part would awaken the vigilance and severity of the Chaldean authorities and would lead to a further restriction of their liberties.”
Ellen G. White · Prophets and Kings, p. 441
Daniel and his friends lived out this letter. They served the king of Babylon honestly and well, and they rose to high office. Yet they never gave up their faith. Daniel “purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself” (Daniel 1:8), and later prayed toward Jerusalem three times a day even when it was against the law. Seeking the peace of the city never meant becoming like the city.
The New Testament gives Christians the same counsel. Paul asks that prayers be made “for kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty” (1 Timothy 2:2). Peter calls believers “strangers and pilgrims” (1 Peter 2:11). Like the exiles, we live in a city that is not our final home, for “our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Philippians 3:20). And while we wait, we are to be a blessing to the place where we live.
Thoughts Of Peace, And Not Of Evil
“For thus saith the LORD, That after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place. For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.”
Jeremiah 29:10, 11
Verse 11 is printed on cards, cups and wall plaques everywhere. It is often read as a promise that God will soon make things go well. But look at the verse just before it. The “thoughts of peace” came with a timetable: “after seventy years be accomplished.” Most of the adults who first heard this letter would die in Babylon. The good end God promised was real, but it lay on the other side of a long wait.
That does not make the promise smaller. It makes it stronger. God’s “thoughts of peace” were not cancelled by the captivity. They were working through it. The Hebrew words behind “an expected end” mean “a future and a hope.” Babylon looked like the end of the story. God said it was not. He had already planned the ending, and it was good.
“Satan has represented God as selfish and oppressive, as claiming all, and giving nothing, as requiring the service of His creatures for His own glory, and making no sacrifice for their good. But the gift of Christ reveals the Father’s heart. It testifies that the thoughts of God toward us are ‘thoughts of peace, and not of evil.’”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 57
If we ever wonder what God really thinks of us, we do not have to guess from our circumstances. We can look at the cross. That is where His “thoughts of peace” are shown most clearly. So when the promise is claimed today, it is best claimed the way the exiles had to claim it: not as a guarantee that hard times will end quickly, but as an assurance that God’s purpose toward His people is good, and that He will bring them home.
With All Your Heart
“Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart. And I will be found of you, saith the LORD: and I will turn away your captivity, and I will gather you from all the nations, and from all the places whither I have driven you, saith the LORD; and I will bring you again into the place whence I caused you to be carried away captive.”
Jeremiah 29:12-14
Here is what the “expected end” would look like. The captives would pray, and God would listen. They would seek Him and find Him. This is the very thing Moses had promised centuries before, for a people scattered among the nations: “if from thence thou shalt seek the LORD thy God, thou shalt find him, if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul” (Deuteronomy 4:29).
Babylon had no temple. The sacrifices had stopped. And yet God says, “I will be found of you.” He could be found by a captive praying in a foreign city just as surely as by a priest in Jerusalem. The only condition was the heart: “when ye shall search for me with all your heart.”
“The whole heart must be yielded to God, or the change can never be wrought in us by which we are to be restored to His likeness.”
Ellen G. White · Steps to Christ, p. 43
Half-hearted seeking is really not seeking at all. But the promise is not that we must search a long time before God lets Himself be found. He is already near. Jesus says, “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him” (Revelation 3:20). The searching with all the heart is mostly the work of opening the door.
Prophets In Babylon
“For thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Let not your prophets and your diviners, that be in the midst of you, deceive you, neither hearken to your dreams which ye cause to be dreamed. For they prophesy falsely unto you in my name: I have not sent them, saith the LORD.”
Jeremiah 29:8, 9
The false prophets had followed the people into exile. While Hananiah was promising a two-year captivity in Jerusalem (chapter 28), others were preaching the same thing in Babylon. Notice the phrase “your dreams which ye cause to be dreamed.” The people wanted these dreams. The prophets were giving the audience what it asked for.
Jeremiah names two of them: “Ahab the son of Kolaiah,” and “Zedekiah the son of Maaseiah, which prophesy a lie unto you in my name” (29:21). Their private lives matched their public lies: they “committed adultery with their neighbours’ wives, and have spoken lying words in my name” (29:23). Nebuchadnezzar would execute them, probably for stirring up rebellion. And God adds a quiet, searching line: “even I know, and am a witness, saith the LORD.” What was hidden from the people was never hidden from Him.
“Now therefore why hast thou not reproved Jeremiah of Anathoth, which maketh himself a prophet to you? For therefore he sent unto us in Babylon, saying, This captivity is long: build ye houses, and dwell in them; and plant gardens, and eat the fruit of them.”
Jeremiah 29:27, 28
The letter caused a reaction. A man in Babylon named Shemaiah wrote back to the priests in Jerusalem, demanding that they lock Jeremiah “in prison, and in the stocks” as a madman (29:26). His complaint is revealing. Jeremiah’s crime was telling the exiles, “This captivity is long.” The truth was simply unwelcome.
God’s verdict on Shemaiah echoes His verdict on Hananiah: “he caused you to trust in a lie,” and “he hath taught rebellion against the LORD” (29:31, 32). And his punishment fit the crime. He had told the people they did not need to wait for God’s timing. So he would not live to see it: “neither shall he behold the good that I will do for my people” (29:32).
The exiles who believed Jeremiah’s letter had a hard road. They had to accept a long captivity, live faithfully in a pagan city, and wait for a promise many of them would not see fulfilled in their lifetime. But they were the ones who would “seek” God “and find” Him. The good He had planned was real, and their children came home. When the seventy years were complete, Cyrus issued his decree, and the first company of exiles set out for Jerusalem.
