The Lord’s word to the kings ends with a promise. But any nation that will bring its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon and serve him, I will leave on its own land, to work it and dwell there, declares the Lord.
Resisting the Babylonians will only result in invasion and exile, but submitting to Nebuchadnezzar would mean that the nations could remain in their land where life would continue pretty much as normal. This would be the Lord’s doing. It is the Lord who will bring the Babylonian invasion and exile if they resist, and it is the Lord who will leave them in their land if they submit to the Babylonian king. Jeremiah’s message is not simply based on the political realities of the region, but on the fact that the Lord rules over all the nations. Babylon is simply his servant serving the Lord’s purposes, but this also meant that resisting Babylon was futile.1
The rebellion against Babylon being planned in Jerusalem never materialized. There is no suggestion in Scripture that Jeremiah’s message to the envoys was the reason for this failure. But in the context of Jeremiah 27:1–22, the primary purpose of the Lord’s word to the kings of the nations is to serve as a warning to Zedekiah that seeking help to set Judah free from Babylon was both foolish and futile and would only result in judgment.2 This much is made explicitly clear in the following verses.
11 But any nation that will bring its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon and serve him, I will leave on its own land, to work it and dwell there, declares the LORD.”’”