Jeremiah 27-31

Amplified Bible

The Nations to Submit to Nebuchadnezzar

27 In the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah the son of Josiah, king of Judah, this word came to Jeremiah from the Lord: ²Thus says the Lord to me, “Make for yourself bonds and yokes and put them on your neck, ³and send word to the king of Edom, to the king of Moab, to the king of the sons of Ammon, to the king of Tyre, and to the king of Sidon by the messengers who come to Jerusalem to Zedekiah king of Judah. ⁴Command them to go to their masters, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, you shall say this to your masters: ⁵“I have made the earth, the men and the animals that are on the face of the earth by My great power and by My outstretched arm, and I will give it to whomever pleases Me. ⁶Now I have given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, My servant and instrument, and I have also given the wild animals of the field to serve him. ⁷All nations shall serve him and his son and his grandson until the [appointed] time [of punishment] for his own land comes; then many nations and great kings shall make him their servant.

⁸“But any nation or kingdom that will not serve this same Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and put its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, that nation I will punish,” says the Lord, “with the sword, with famine and with pestilence (virulent disease), until I have destroyed it by Nebuchadnezzar’s hand. ⁹And as for you, do not listen to your [counterfeit] prophets, your diviners, your dreams and dreamers, your soothsayers or your sorcerers, who say to you, ‘You will not serve the king of Babylon.’ ¹⁰For they prophesy a lie to you which will cause you to be removed far from your land; and I will drive you out and you will perish. ¹¹But the nation which will bow its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon and serve him, that nation I will let remain on its own land,” says the Lord, “to cultivate it and live in it.”’”

¹²I spoke to Zedekiah king of Judah in the same way, saying, “Bring your necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon and serve him and his people, and live! ¹³Why will you die, you and your people, by the sword, by famine and by virulent disease, as the Lord has spoken to any nation which will not serve the king of Babylon? ¹⁴Do not listen to and believe the words of the [false] prophets who are saying to you, ‘You will not serve the king of Babylon,’ for they prophesy a lie to you; ¹⁵for I have not sent them,” says the Lord, “but they are prophesying falsely in My Name, in order that I may drive you out and that you may perish, you [together] with the [false] prophets who prophesy to you.”

¹⁶Then I said to the priests and to all these people, saying, “Thus says the Lord: Do not listen to the words of your [false] prophets who are prophesying to you, saying, ‘Behold, the articles of the Lord’s house will now shortly be brought ^[a]back from Babylon’; for they are prophesying a lie to you. ¹⁷Do not listen to them; serve the king of Babylon, and live! Why should this city become a ruin? ¹⁸But if they are [true] prophets, and if the word of the Lord is [really spoken] by them, let them now entreat the Lord of hosts that the articles which are [still] left in the house of the Lord, in the house of the king of Judah and in Jerusalem may not go to Babylon. ¹⁹For thus says the Lord of hosts concerning the [bronze] ^[b]pillars, the [bronze] ^[c]Sea, the [bronze] bases [of the ten basins in Solomon’s temple used for washing sacrificial animals], and the rest of the articles that are left in this city (Jerusalem),^(A) ²⁰which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon did not take when he carried ^[d]Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon, along with all the nobles of Judah and Jerusalem. ²¹Yes, thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, concerning the articles which remain in the house of the Lord, in the house of the king of Judah and in Jerusalem, ²²‘They will be ^[e]carried to Babylon and they will be there until the day that I visit them [with My favor],’ says the Lord. ‘Then I will bring them back and restore them to this place.’”

Hananiah’s False Prophecy

28 In the same year, in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the fourth year and the fifth month, the [false] prophet Hananiah the son of Azzur, who was from Gibeon [one of the priests’ cities], spoke [without godly authority] to me in the house of the Lord in the presence of the priests and all the people, saying: ²“Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, ‘I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon. ³Within two years I am going to bring back to this place all the articles of the Lord’s house, which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon took away from this place and carried to Babylon. ⁴And I will also bring back to this place Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, along with all the exiles from Judah who went to Babylon,’ says the Lord, ‘for I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon.’”^(B)

⁵Then the prophet Jeremiah spoke to the prophet Hananiah in the presence of the priests and all the people who stood in the house of the Lord, ⁶and the prophet Jeremiah said, “Amen! May the Lord do so; may the Lord confirm and fulfill your words which you have prophesied to bring back the articles of the Lord’s house and all the captives, from Babylon to this place. ⁷Nevertheless, listen now to this word which I am about to speak in your hearing and in the hearing of all the people! ⁸The prophets who were before me and before you from ancient times prophesied against many lands and against great kingdoms, of war and of disaster and of virulent disease. ⁹But as for the prophet who [on the contrary] prophesies of peace, when that prophet’s word comes to pass, [only] then will it be known that the Lord has truly sent him.”

¹⁰Then Hananiah the [false] prophet took the yoke off the neck of the prophet Jeremiah and smashed it. ¹¹Hananiah spoke in the presence of all the people, saying, “Thus says the Lord, ‘Even so within two full years I will break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon from the neck of all the nations.’” Then the prophet Jeremiah went his way.

¹²The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah [some time] after Hananiah the prophet had broken the yoke off the neck of the prophet Jeremiah, saying, ¹³“Go and tell Hananiah, ‘The Lord says this, “You have broken yokes of wood, but you have made in their place bars of iron.” ¹⁴For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, “I have put the iron yoke [of servitude] on the neck of all these nations, that they may serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon; and they will serve him. And I have even given him the beasts of the field.”’”^(C) ¹⁵Then the prophet Jeremiah said to Hananiah the prophet, “Listen now, Hananiah, the Lord has not sent you, and you have made this people trust in a lie. ¹⁶Therefore thus says the Lord, ‘Behold, I am about to send you away from the face of the earth. This year you will die, because you have spoken and counseled rebellion against the Lord.’”

¹⁷So Hananiah the [false] prophet died [two months later], the same year, in the seventh month.

Message to the Exiles

29 Now these are the words of the letter which Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the rest of the elders in exile and to the priests, the prophets and all the people whom ^[f]Nebuchadnezzar had taken into captivity from Jerusalem to Babylon. ²(This was after King Jeconiah and the queen mother, the eunuchs, the princes (court officials) of Judah and Jerusalem, the craftsmen and the smiths had departed from Jerusalem.) ³The letter was hand-carried by Elasah the son of Shaphan and Gemariah the son of Hilkiah, whom Zedekiah king of Judah sent to Babylon to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, saying, ⁴“So says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the captives whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon, ⁵‘Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their fruit. ⁶Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there and do not decrease [in number]. ⁷Seek peace and well-being for the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf; for in its peace (well-being) you will have peace.’ ⁸For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, ‘Do not let your [false] prophets who are among you and your diviners deceive you; pay no attention and attach no significance to the dreams which they dream or to yours, ⁹for they prophesy falsely to you in My Name. I have not sent them,’ says the Lord.

¹⁰“For thus says the Lord, ‘When seventy years [of exile] have been completed for Babylon, I will visit (inspect) you and keep My good promise to you, to bring you back to this place. ¹¹For I know the plans and thoughts that I have for you,’ says the Lord, ‘plans for peace and well-being and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. ¹²Then you will call on Me and you will come and pray to Me, and I will hear [your voice] and I will listen to you. ¹³Then [with a deep longing] you will seek Me and require Me [as a vital necessity] and [you will] find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.^(D) ¹⁴I will be found by you,’ says the Lord, ‘and I will restore your fortunes and I will [free you and] gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you,’ says the Lord, ‘and I will bring you back to the place from where I sent you into exile.’

¹⁵“Because you [who have remained in Jerusalem] have said, ‘The Lord has raised up prophets for us in Babylon,’ ¹⁶thus says the Lord concerning the king who sits on the throne of David, and concerning all the people who live in this city, your brothers (fellow people of Judah) who did not go with you into captivity— ¹⁷thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘Behold (listen very carefully), I am sending the sword, famine, and virulent disease (pestilence) on them, and I will make them like rotten figs that are so bad they cannot be eaten. ¹⁸I will pursue them with the sword, with famine and with virulent disease; and I will make them a terror (warning) to all the kingdoms of the earth, to be a curse, a horror, a hissing, and a disgrace among all the nations to which I have driven them, ¹⁹because they have not listened to and honored My words,’ says the Lord, ‘which I sent to them again and again by My servants the prophets. Moreover, you [exiles] did not listen [either],’ says the Lord.^(E) ²⁰Hear, therefore, the word of the Lord, all you exiles whom I have sent away from Jerusalem to Babylon.

²¹“Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, concerning Ahab the son of Kolaiah and concerning Zedekiah the son of Maaseiah, who are prophesying lies to you in My Name, ‘Behold, I will hand them over to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and he will slaughter them before your eyes [yes, all the false prophets in Babylon whom you follow shall die]!^(F) ²²Because of them, this curse shall be taken up and used by all the exiles from Judah who are in Babylon, saying, “May the Lord make you like Zedekiah and like Ahab, whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire, ²³because they have acted foolishly in Israel and have committed adultery with their neighbors’ wives and in My Name have spoken false and concocted words, which I did not command them. I am He who knows and I am a witness,” says the Lord.’”

²⁴Also you shall speak to Shemaiah of Nehelam [among the exiles in Babylon], saying, ²⁵“Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, ‘Because you have sent letters in your own name to all the people who are in Jerusalem, and to Zephaniah the son of Maaseiah, the priest, and to all the priests, saying, ²⁶“The Lord has made you [Zephaniah] priest instead of Jehoiada the [deputy] priest, to be the overseer in the house of the Lord over every madman who prophesies, to put him in the stocks and in the iron collar, ²⁷now therefore [continued the letter from Shemaiah in Babylon to Zephaniah in Jerusalem], why have you not rebuked Jeremiah of Anathoth, who prophesies to you? ²⁸For he has sent word to us in Babylon, saying, ‘This captivity [of yours] will be long; build houses and live in them and plant gardens and eat their fruit.’”’”

²⁹Zephaniah the priest read this letter to Jeremiah the prophet. ³⁰Then came the word of the Lord to Jeremiah, saying, ³¹“Send [this message] to all the exiles, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord concerning Shemaiah of Nehelam, “Because Shemaiah has prophesied to you, although I did not send him, and he has made you trust in a lie,” ³²therefore thus says the Lord, “Behold, I am about to punish Shemaiah of Nehelam and his descendants. He will not have anyone [born] to live among this people, nor will he see the good that I am about to do to My people,” says the Lord, “because he has spoken and preached rebellion against the Lord.”’”

Freedom from Captivity Promised

30 The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord: ²“Thus says the Lord God of Israel, ‘Write in a book all the words which I have spoken to you. ³For behold (hear this), the days are coming,’ says the Lord, ‘when I will restore the fortunes of My people Israel and Judah,’ says the Lord, ‘and I will return them to the land that I gave to their forefathers and they will take possession of it.’”

⁴Now these are the words the Lord spoke concerning Israel and Judah:

⁵“Thus says the Lord,

‘We have heard a terrified voice
Of panic and dread, and there is no peace.
⁶
‘Ask now, and see
Whether a man can give birth [to a child].
Why then do I see every man
With his hands on his ^[g]loins, as a woman in labor?
Why have all faces turned pale?
⁷
‘Alas! for that day is great,
There is none like it;
It is the time of Jacob’s [unequaled] trouble,
But he will be saved from it.^(G)

⁸‘It shall come about on that day,’ says the Lord of hosts, ‘that I will break the yoke off your neck and I will tear off your bonds and force apart your shackles; and strangers will no longer make slaves of the people [of Israel]. ⁹But they shall serve the Lord their God and [the descendant of] David their King, whom I will raise up for them.^(H)

¹⁰
‘Fear not, O Jacob My servant,’ says the Lord,
‘Nor be dismayed or downcast, O Israel;
For behold, I will save you from a distant land [of exile]
And your descendants from the land of their captivity.
Jacob will return and will be quiet and at ease,
And no one will make him afraid.
¹¹
‘For I am with you,’ says the Lord, ‘to save you;
For I will destroy completely all the nations where I have scattered you,
But I will not destroy you completely.
But I will judge and discipline you fairly
And will by no means regard you as guiltless and leave you unpunished.’

¹²
“For thus says the Lord,
‘Your wound is incurable
And your injury is beyond healing.
¹³
‘There is no one to plead your cause;
No [device to close and allow the] healing of your wound,
No recovery for you.
¹⁴
‘All your lovers (allies) have forgotten you;
They do not seek and long for you.
For I have injured you with the wound of an enemy,
With the punishment of a cruel and merciless foe,
Because your guilt is great
And your sins are glaring and innumerable.
¹⁵
‘Why do you cry out over your injury [since it is the natural result of your sin]?
Your pain is incurable (deadly).
Because your guilt is great
And your sins are glaring and innumerable,
I have done these things to you.
¹⁶
‘Therefore all who devour you will be devoured;
And all your adversaries, every one of them, will go into captivity.
And they who plunder you will become plunder,
And all who prey upon you I will give for prey.
¹⁷
‘For I will restore health to you
And I will heal your wounds,’ says the Lord,
‘Because they have called you an outcast, saying:
“This is Zion; no one seeks her and no one cares for her.”’

Restoration of Jacob

¹⁸
“Thus says the Lord,
‘Behold (hear this), I will restore the fortunes of the tents of Jacob
And have mercy on his dwelling places;
The city will be rebuilt on its [old, mound-like] ruin,
And the palace will stand on its rightful place.
¹⁹
‘From them (city, palace) will come [songs of] thanksgiving
And the voices of those who dance and celebrate.
And I will multiply them and they will not be diminished [in number];
I will also honor them and they will not be insignificant.
²⁰
‘Their children too will be as in former times,
And their congregation will be established before Me;
And I will punish all their oppressors.
²¹
‘Their prince will be one of them,
And their ruler will come forward from among them.
I will bring him near and he shall approach Me,
For who is he who would have the boldness and would dare [on his own initiative] to risk his life to approach Me?’ says the Lord.
²²
‘Then you shall be My people,
And I will be your God.’”^(I)

²³
Behold, the tempest of the Lord!
Wrath has gone forth,
A sweeping and gathering tempest;
It will burst on the head of the wicked.
²⁴
The fierce (righteous) anger of the Lord will not turn back
Until He has fulfilled and until He has accomplished
The intent of His heart (mind);
In the latter days you will understand this.

Israel’s Mourning Turned to Joy

31 “At that time,” says the Lord, “I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be My people.”

²
Thus says the Lord,
“The people who survived the sword
Found grace in the wilderness [of exile]—
Israel (the Northern Kingdom), when it went to find its rest.”
³
The Lord appeared to me (^[h]Israel) from ages past, saying,
“I have loved you with an everlasting love;
Therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you and continued My faithfulness to you.^(J)
⁴
“Again I will build you and you will be rebuilt,
O Virgin Israel!
You will again be adorned with your tambourines and ^[i]timbrels
And go out to the dances of those who celebrate.^(K)
⁵
“Again you will plant vineyards
On the mountains of Samaria;
The planters will plant
And enjoy the [abundant] fruit [in peace].
⁶
“For there will be a day when the watchmen
On the hills of Ephraim cry out,
‘Arise, and let us go up to Zion,
To the Lord our God.’”

⁷
For thus says the Lord,
“Sing aloud with gladness for Jacob,
And shout for the first and foremost of the nations [the chosen people, Israel];
Proclaim, give praise and say,
‘O Lord save Your people,
The remnant of Israel!’
⁸
“Behold, I am bringing them from the north country,
And I will gather them from the remote parts of the earth,
Among them [will be] the blind and the lame,
The woman with child and she who labors in childbirth, together;
A great company, they will return here [to Jerusalem].
⁹
“They will come with weeping [in repentance and for joy],
And by [their] prayer [for the future] I will lead them;
I will make them walk by streams of waters,
On a straight path in which they will not stumble,
For I am a Father to Israel,
And Ephraim (Israel) is My firstborn.”

¹⁰
Hear the word of the Lord, O you nations,
And declare it in the isles and coastlands far away,
And say, “He who scattered Israel will gather him
And will keep him as a shepherd keeps his flock.”
¹¹
For the Lord has ransomed Jacob
And has redeemed him from the hand of him who was stronger than he.
¹²
“They will come and sing aloud and shout for joy on the height of Zion,
And will be radiant [with joy] over the goodness of the Lord—
For the grain, for the new wine, for the oil,
And for the young of the flock and the herd.
And their life will be like a watered garden,
And they shall never sorrow or languish again.
¹³
“Then the virgin will rejoice in the dance,
And the young men and old, together,
For I will turn their mourning into joy
And will comfort them and make them rejoice after their sorrow.
¹⁴
“I will fully satisfy the soul of the priests with abundance,
And My people will be satisfied with My goodness,” says the Lord.

¹⁵
Thus says the Lord,
“A ^[j]voice is heard in Ramah,
Lamentation (songs of mourning) and bitter weeping.
Rachel (Israel) is weeping for her children;
She refuses to be comforted for her children,
Because they are gone.”^(L)

¹⁶Thus says the Lord,

“Restrain your voice from weeping
And your eyes from tears,
For your work will be rewarded,” says the Lord;
“And your children will return from the enemy’s land.
¹⁷
“There is [confident] hope for your future,” says the Lord;
“Your children will come back to their own country.
¹⁸
“I have surely heard Ephraim (Israel) moaning and grieving,
‘You have chastised me, and I was chastised,
Like a bull unaccustomed to the yoke or an untrained calf;
Bring me back that I may be restored,
For You are the Lord my God.
¹⁹
‘After I turned away [from You], I repented;
After I was instructed, I struck my thigh [in remorse];
I was ashamed and even humiliated
Because I carried the disgrace of my youth [as a nation].’
²⁰
“Is Ephraim My dear son?
Is he a darling and beloved child?
For as often as I have spoken against him,
I certainly still remember him.
Therefore My affection is renewed and My heart longs for him;
I will surely have mercy on him,” says the Lord.

²¹
“Place for yourself road signs [toward Canaan],
Make for yourself guideposts;
Turn your thought and attention to the highway,
To the way by which you went [into exile].
Retrace your steps, O virgin of Israel,
Return to these your cities.
²²
“How long will you hesitate [to return],
O you faithless and renegade daughter?
For the Lord has created a ^[k]new thing in the land [of Israel]:
A woman will encompass (tenderly love) a man.”

²³Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, “Once more they will speak these words in the land of Judah (the Southern Kingdom) and in her cities when I restore their fortunes and release them from exile,

‘The Lord bless you, O habitation of justice and righteousness,
O holy mountain!’

²⁴And [the people of] Judah and all its cities will live there together—the farmer and they who wander about with flocks. ²⁵For I [fully] satisfy the weary soul, and I replenish every languishing and sorrowful person.” ²⁶At this I (Jeremiah) awoke and looked, and my [trancelike] sleep was sweet [in the assurance it gave] to me.

A New Covenant

²⁷“Behold (listen carefully), the days are coming,” says the Lord, “when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man and with the seed of beast. ²⁸It will be that as I have watched over them to uproot and to break down, to overthrow, destroy, and afflict with disaster, so I will watch over them to build and to plant [with good],” says the Lord.

²⁹
“In those days they will not say again,
‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes,
And the children’s teeth are set on edge.’^(M)

³⁰But everyone will die [only] for his own wickedness; every man who eats sour grapes—his [own] teeth shall be set on edge.

³¹“Behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the ^[l]house of Israel (the Northern Kingdom) and with the house of Judah (the Southern Kingdom),^(N) ³²not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” says the Lord. ³³“But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” says the Lord, “I will put My law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they will be My people. ³⁴And each man will no longer teach his neighbor and his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know Me [through personal experience], from the least of them to the greatest,” says the Lord. “For I will forgive their wickedness, and I will no longer remember their sin.”^(O)

³⁵
Thus says the Lord,
Who gives the sun for light by day
And the fixed order of the moon and of the stars for light by night,
Who stirs up the sea’s roaring billows or stills the waves when they roar;
The Lord of hosts is His name:
³⁶
“If this fixed order departs
From before Me,” says the Lord,
“Then the descendants of Israel also will cease
From being a nation before Me forever.”

³⁷Thus says the Lord,

“If the heavens above can be measured
And the foundations of the earth searched out below,
Then I will also cast off and abandon all the descendants of Israel
For all that they have done,” says the Lord.

³⁸“Behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord, “when the city [of Jerusalem] will be rebuilt for the Lord from the ^[m]Tower of Hananel to the Corner Gate. ³⁹The measuring line will go out farther straight ahead to the hill Gareb; then it will turn to ^[n]Goah. ⁴⁰And the whole valley (Hinnom) of the dead bodies and [the hill] of the ashes [long dumped there from the temple sacrifices], and all the fields as far as the brook Kidron, to the corner of the Horse Gate toward the east, shall be holy to the Lord. It (the city) will not be uprooted or overthrown anymore to the end of the age.”^(P)

Footnotes

Jeremiah 27:16 Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem three times. The second time was during the reign of King Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, whom he took captive with all the nobles of Judah and Jerusalem (27:20), at which time he carried away some of the sacred articles of the temple. The third siege was now imminent.
Jeremiah 27:19 Each pillar stood about twenty-seven feet high.
Jeremiah 27:19 This was the basin at which the priests washed their hands and feet before ministering at the altar.
Jeremiah 27:20 Also known as Jehoiachin and Coniah.
Jeremiah 27:22 This prophesy was fulfilled when the remaining sacred articles were carried to Babylon (2 Kin 25:13; 2 Chr 36:18; Jer 52:17-23), where they were kept for seventy years (2 Chr 36:21), the length of the captivity foretold by Jeremiah (Jer 29:10). They were then returned to Jerusalem (Ezra 1:7; 7:19).
Jeremiah 29:1 In Hebrew there are two ways of spelling the name of the ruler of Babylon resulting in two English variations: Nebuchadnezzar and Nebuchadrezzar.
Jeremiah 30:6 The midsection of the body between the lower ribs and the hips.
Jeremiah 31:3 Also referred to as Samaria, Ephraim, Jacob, and Rachel in this chapter.
Jeremiah 31:4 Small one-headed drums.
Jeremiah 31:15 The mourning at Ramah is associated with the cry of the mothers of the boy babies and toddlers of Bethlehem who would be killed by Herod the Great during his attempt to destroy young Jesus (Matt 2:17, 18). Rachel, Jacob’s favorite wife, was the mother of Joseph (Gen 35:24). The tribes descended from Joseph’s sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, were the most powerful in the Northern Kingdom.
Jeremiah 31:22 This passage probably personifies Israel as an erring but deeply penitent wife, who will devote herself to winning back and being worthy of the love of her divine husband and Lord, who had rejected her.
Jeremiah 31:31 The kingdom was united under David and his successor, Solomon, but split after Solomon’s son, Rehoboam became king.
Jeremiah 31:38 Many times after the days of the Old Testament, Jerusalem was destroyed. Travelers in later centuries reported it to be an almost deserted city—its buildings were ruins filled with rubble, its inhabitants were few. Yet not only did God’s word declare that it would be rebuilt, but also drew a detailed word map of the outline the city would follow—from a well-known tower to the gate at a certain corner, then on over a particular hill, coming now outside the walls of the original city and taking in a large area marked by familiar landmarks. Eight recognizable details are given here, and Zechariah adds another (14:10). Also, the city’s expansion was to be toward the northwest. Twenty-five hundred years later, in 1935, the prophecy had been fulfilled, as if indeed with God’s “measuring line” (v 39). So unlikely seemed this prophecy’s fulfillment that some early commentators suggested that it should be interpreted spiritually.
Jeremiah 31:39 The exact location of Goah remains unknown.