The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Quick Note on Jeremiah 25:9

Featured Writers James Goetz
#1

I have no time to write an essay, but only a quick note.

Jeremiah 25:9 says that Nebuchadnezzar would “charam” the Kingdom of Judah. “Charam” can mean “completely destroy” and sometimes refers to “the irrevocable giving over of things or persons to the LORD”. Some people call this “annihilation”. I find it interesting that the context of charam in Jeremiah 25:1-11 isn’t the annihilation of the Kingdom of Judah but a punishment that would result in eventual restoration after seventy years.

*I will summon all the peoples of the north and my servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon," declares the LORD, "and I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants and against all the surrounding nations. I will completely destroy [a] them and make them an object of horror and scorn, and an everlasting ruin. (Jeremiah 25:9 TNIV)

a. Jeremiah 25:9 The Hebrew term refers to the irrevocable giving over of things or persons to the LORD, often by totally destroying them.*

#2

Yep! I haven’t said much specifically about it here, but I’ve occasionally referred to it in passing: God wholly ruins, utterly destroys Israel (both kingdoms); but promises to restore it. (Come to think of it, this verse isn’t far from that place in Jeremiah I like to reference concerning Rachel in Ramah weeping for her children because they are not. But she will be comforted because God will restore her children, symbolized by rebel ‘Ephraim’, i.e. using Absalom, David’s rebel son, as a symbol of God’s love for His own rebellious children–whom He has had to punish to the death.)