Judgment on the Nations (2): Jeremiah 49 (1)

Pray Psalm 60.1-4.
O God, You have cast us off;
You have broken us down;
You have been displeased;
Oh, restore us again!
You have made the earth tremble;
You have broken it;
Heal its breaches, for it is shaking.
You have shown Your people hard things;
You have made us drink the wine of confusion.
You have given a banner to those who fear You,
That it may be displayed because of the truth.

Sing Psalm 60.1-4.
(Ein’ Feste Burg: A Mighty Fortress is Our God)
O God, You have rejected us, and broken us in anger.
Restore us, for each beam and truss of Your house strains in danger.
Our rifts and breaches heal. The hardship that we feel,
like strong drink bends us low; ‘neath Your flag let us go,
that truth may once more flourish!

Read and meditate on Jeremiah 46.1-6.

Prepare.
1. Why did God pronounce judgment against Ammon?

2. What did God promise the captives of Ammon?

Meditate.
Ammon comes now into the Lord’s crosshairs, and this for several reasons.

First, the Ammonites shared the guilt of Moab in resisting Israel’s journey to the land of promise. They went to war against them and lost (Deut. 23.3-9). They also joined with Moab in the days of Jehoshaphat in going to war against Judah; but God defeated them at that time as well (2 Chron. 20.1-25).

Since they were not able to overwhelm the people of Judah by war, the Ammonites aimed instead to corrupt their religion, by introducing the worship of their god Milcom to the people of Gad (Jer. 49.1). They also had made an idol out of their great wealth (v. 4), boasting that they could resist anyone who tried to overthrow them.

Jeremiah had extended the cup of God’s judgment against Ammon back in chapter 25, but the real viciousness of the Ammonites would not be revealed until Jerusalem and its temple were reduced to rubble by Nebuchadnezzar.

Then the people of Ammon would rejoice with great celebration and clapping of hands and stamping of feet to the people of Judah humbled so (Ezek. 25.1-7). God’s response to Ammon’s treachery would be to make a complete end of Ammon – all her villages burned (v. 2), her cities plundered (v. 3), her deity and its priests taken captive (v. 3), and all her people driven out in the face of Nebuchadnezzar’s armies (v. 5).

But though God’s judgment against Ammon would be complete, still for those who had been taken captive from Ammon, God held out the promise of return. Ammon itself would not be re-established, but the people who had gone into captivity from there would be returned, doubtless as part of God’s return of His own people to the land of Israel (v. 6). The word “afterward” in the NKJV is the Hebrew word which is elsewhere translated “latter days.” And this points the restoration of the Ammonite people, a Gentile nation, to the time of Christ and the Spirit.

Reflect.
1. How many different ways did Ammon try to overthrow Israel? How does the enemy of our souls try to overthrow God’s people today?

2. Why do you think God specifically mentioned the destruction and captivity of Ammon’s false god?

3. How ultimately would God “bring back” the captives of Ammon? Do we have a role in this?

He now says the same thing of the children of Ammon, as he said before of the Moabites, that some hope yet remained for them, for God would at length show mercy to that nation… But though God built, as it were, a wall to separate his people from aliens, it was yet his will to give some preludes of his favor, and of the calling of the Gentiles. The Prophet, then, had here a regard to the kingdom of Christ. John Calvin (1509-1564), Commentary on Jeremiah 49.6

Use me, Lord, to bring others into Your Kingdom, even today, as I…

Pray Psalm 60.5-12.
Pray for revival in God’s churches and for a great awakening throughout the world, in which multitudes of lost people from every nation will come to know Jesus as Savior and Lord.

Sing Psalm 60.5-12.
Psalm 60.5-12 (Ein’ Feste Burg: A Mighty Fortress is Our God)
That Your beloved may be spared, save, Lord, and hear our pleading.
In holiness have You declared, “Exult in Me exceeding!”
All nations west and east, the greatest to the least,
from south to north are all Your portion when You call –
let praise from all be rising!

Who now shall lead against our foes when God has left us falt’ring?
Lord, You have left us to our woes, uur foes o’er us exalting.
Grant strength to win the day! Lord, help us in the way!
The strength of man is vain the victory to gain;
through Jesus we will triumph!

T. M. Moore

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Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. All quotations from Church Fathers from Ancient Christian Commentary Series, General Editor Thomas C. Oden (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2006). All psalms for singing are from The Ailbe Psalter (available by clicking here).