This last passage (Jeremiah 12:14–17) is in prose, and it represents the divine response of the lament that started in Jeremiah 12:7. It is of course the Lord himself speaking throughout the lament. This passage also introduces the surprising promise of restoration after judgment not just for Judah, but for other nations too.
An important word in the passage is the Hebrew verb ntsh, translated as uproot.
This takes the reader back to the commission of Jeremiah in Jeremiah 1:8 (see also Jeremiah 18:7–8).1 Jeremiah’s ministry was always going to have implications for nations beyond just Judah.
The Lord says to his evil neighbours
who touch the heritage that I have given my people Israel to inherit,
that he will pluck them from their land. The Hebrew word naga is translated as touch
and literally means to touch on
as on an enemy (Zechariah 2:8) and the Lord describes them as his neighbours because he is the king who chooses to dwell in his land with his own people.2 The foreign nations, which were used by the Lord to pour out his judgment onto the nation of Israel by taking them into exile, will themselves face the Lord’s judgment as he takes them into exile.
The threat of exile was not unique to Israel. Many Near Eastern texts include the threat of exile as punishment for those that broke treaties.3
This promise of judgment on the nations around Judah anticipates the material of Jeremiah 30:1–33:26 and Jeremiah 46:1–51:64. Jeremiah is therefore given a bigger perspective of the sovereign Lord working out his purposes which places Jeremiah’s personal struggles and questions expressed in Jeremiah 11:18–12:6 in context.4
14 Thus says the LORD concerning all my evil neighbors who touch the heritage that I have given my people Israel to inherit: “Behold, I will pluck them up from their land, and I will pluck up the house of Judah from among them.