By Elizabeth Prata
Jeremiah 29:5-7 says, Build houses and live in them; and plant gardens and eat their produce. 6Take wives and father sons and daughters, and take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands, so that they may give birth to sons and daughters; and grow in numbers there and do not decrease. Seek the prosperity of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD in its behalf; for in its prosperity will be your prosperity.’
The exile had just begun. God is sending his rebellious People to Babylon, where they would remain for 70 years. God did promise to re-gather them to Jerusalem after the 70 years was fulfilled. That occurred in Ezra & Nehemiah’s time. But for now, they are being removed from their beloved Jerusalem, and carried off to a foreign city.
The city of Babylon was large and it was beautiful. But it was filled with idols, foreign tongues, and unfamiliar cultures. Their leader was a king under whom they would be living as a conquered people. They considered Nebuchadnezzar a ruthless tyrant.
They hated living there, they hated everything about the city, and they had to follow rules contra to their preferred way of living.
And yet… God said to seek the city’s prosperity. He said to settle in, do good, and have children in that hated city.
Matthew Henry commentary says of that verse:
He directs them to seek the good of the country where they were captives (v. 7), to pray for it, to endeavour to promote it. This forbids them to attempt any thing against the public peace while they were subjects to the king of Babylon. Though he was a heathen, an idolater, an oppressor, and an enemy to God and his church, yet, while he gave them protection, they must pay him allegiance, and live quiet and peaceable lives under him, in all godliness and honesty, not plotting to shake off his yoke, but patiently leaving it to God in due time to work deliverance for them. Nay, they must pray to God for the peace of the places where they were, that they might oblige them to continue their kindness to them and disprove the character that had been given their nation, that they were hurtful to kings and provinces, and moved sedition, Ezra 4:15.
Both the wisdom of the serpent and the innocency of the dove required them to be true to the government they lived under: For in the peace thereof you shall have peace; should the country be embroiled in war, they would have the greatest share in the calamitous effects of it. Thus the primitive Christians, according to the temper of their holy religion, prayed for the powers that were, though they were persecuting powers. And, if they were to pray for and seek the peace of the land of their captivity, much more reason have we to pray for the welfare of the land of our nativity, where we are a free people under a good government, that in the peace thereof we and ours may have peace. Every passenger is concerned in the safety of the ship.
Henry, M. (1994). Matthew Henry’s commentary on the whole Bible: complete and unabridged in one volume (p. 1284). Hendrickson.
Wow.
In today’s time we often have a choice to live in or move out of a place that does not suit us. Many people living in Los Angeles, New York, or for example, Paris, leave because of the grime, crime, or unrest. If they can move, they do. But the Jews did not have that choice. They were carried off, plopped into Babylon, and told by the God of the Universe to seek its prosperity and to pray for its leader.
For the people today who are ‘stuck’ in a hated city and don’t have the means or opportunity to get out, do you pray for the city? Its leaders?
We should seek the prosperity of the place where the Lord has placed us, pray for its leaders, and settle in to do good in Jesus’ name.
