Jeremiah 47:7

Jeremiah 47 belongs to the prophet’s messages to the nations around Israel, which fill Jeremiah 46–51 and show that the LORD rules every people, Israel and the nations alike. Jeremiah 47 is given wholly to the Philistines, who lived on the coastal plain by the Mediterranean in cities such as Gaza, Ashkelon and Ashdod. The verses before ours (Jeremiah 47:1–5) describe judgment rising like a flood out of the north and overwhelming the land and its people. Verses 6 and 7 close the chapter with a cry and its answer.

The Philistines were among Israel’s oldest enemies. They settled on the south-western coast of Canaan around the twelfth century BC and are counted among the “Sea Peoples”, thought to have come from the Aegean. They fought Israel through the days of the judges and the early kings, as the books of Judges and 1 Samuel record. Ashkelon was one of their five chief cities, with Gaza, Ashdod, Gath and Ekron, and it was an important port and stronghold. Their coast lay along the Via Maris, the old road between Egypt and Mesopotamia, which left them open to every army that marched that way.

The invasion Jeremiah foresees is most likely that of the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar in the late seventh and early sixth centuries BC. After his victory at Carchemish in 605 BC he pushed west and brought nation after nation under his rule, the Philistine cities among them. Great powers destroyed coastal cities often enough in that age, and Jeremiah says that this destruction came because the LORD sent it.

The sword stands for the army God uses to carry out his judgment, most likely the Babylonian army. Calling it “the sword of the LORD” puts the whole campaign in his hand, so that the coming war is his own act of justice against the Philistines. Isaiah speaks of Assyria in the same way, calling it “the rod of mine anger” (Isaiah 10:5).

The Hebrew word, chereb, means a sword, and it can also mean another cutting tool such as a knife or chisel, a battering-ram, or war itself. Strong’s ties its name to its destructive effect. In the prophets the sword stands again and again for war and judgment, and everyone in Jeremiah’s day understood that a drawn sword meant battle and a sheathed sword meant the battle was over.

Jeremiah speaks to the sword as though it could hear him. He calls out to it, asks it a question and gives it orders. Addressing the weapon in this way makes the judgment vivid and close, as if the blade were swinging in front of the speaker.

“How long will it be ere thou be quiet?” is a cry of anguish and weariness. The speaker is longing for the killing to end, and the question pours out how endless the judgment feels to those living under it. It may be Jeremiah’s own compassionate heart speaking, grieving even over an enemy of his people, or he may be giving voice to the afflicted themselves. On either reading the cry shows how heavy God’s judgment is for the people who bear it.

The word for “quiet” is shâqaṭ, to be quiet, still or at rest. The plea then turns into a run of commands. “Put up thyself into thy scabbard” asks the sword to go back into its sheath, the plain sign that a battle is over and the weapon is put away. “Rest” is râgaʻ, to settle down and be at ease after exertion. “Be still” is dâmam, to be silent, to stop, to cease. Set beside “quiet”, these commands pile up into one longing for the destruction to stop altogether and for silence to fall on the ravaged land.

Scripture makes room for this kind of cry. Habakkuk prays in the same spirit, “in wrath remember mercy” (Habakkuk 3:2), and Lamentations 1 is a whole chapter of grief over Jerusalem’s desolation, uttered under a judgment that was righteous.

Verse 7 answers the cry: “How can it be quiet, seeing the LORD hath given it a charge against Ashkelon, and against the sea shore? there hath he appointed it.” The “it” is the sword of verse 6. The same word, shâqaṭ, that asked the sword to be quiet now explains why it must keep working. God has given it a task, and its work goes on until that task is done.

“Given it a charge” translates tsâvâh, which means to command, to appoint or to put under orders. The sword acts under the LORD’s direct and specific command, so its work is obedience to him. “Appointed” is yâʻad, to appoint, fix or designate. God has fixed the place, “there”, meaning Ashkelon and the coast. Ashkelon is named first and stands for the whole Philistine nation, and “the sea shore” widens the judgment to their entire coastal land.

What God has decreed stands. The psalmist says that the LORD brings the counsel of the nations to nothing while “the counsel of the LORD standeth for ever” (Psalm 33:10–11). God declares the end from the beginning, and his counsel shall stand (Isaiah 46:10). Daniel records that none can stay his hand (Daniel 4:35). The word that goes out of his mouth accomplishes what he pleases (Isaiah 55:11). In Jeremiah 25:15–38 the LORD hands the cup of his wrath to nation after nation, holding all of them to account, and the sword against Ashkelon is one part of that.

The sword carries out God’s justice, and it goes only where he sends it. Its work is severe, and the cry of verse 6 shows how severe. It is also the righteous answer of a holy God to sin and rebellion, the kind of consequence he set before Israel in the blessings and curses of Deuteronomy 28. His judgments always have a purpose: bringing justice, calling nations to repentance, or carrying forward his plan to redeem and restore.

These two verses leave the Philistines’ sins unnamed. Their idolatry, their violence and their long opposition to God’s people stand behind this judgment, as with the other nations Jeremiah addresses. The lament feels the full weight of the sword and still leaves its righteousness unquestioned, so grief and trust in God’s justice stand side by side.

The Lord Jesus brings together both sides of this passage, judgment and peace. At his first coming, “God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved” (John 3:17). He is the “Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6), and he gives a peace the world cannot give (John 14:27). That peace was won at the cross, where God set him forth as a propitiation (Romans 3:25) and his justice against sin was fully satisfied. He is “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).

The sword also points to his return as Judge. All power in heaven and in earth has been given to him (Matthew 28:18), and God has ordained him to be the Judge of the living and the dead (Acts 10:42). Just as God appointed the sword against Ashkelon, he has appointed his Son to that work. Revelation shows a sharp sword going out of his mouth, with which he strikes the nations and rules them with a rod of iron (Revelation 19:15), and every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord (Philippians 2:10–11). Then the cry of “how long” will have its final answer. God will wipe away every tear from the eyes of his people, and death, sorrow and crying will be gone (Revelation 21:4). For those who are found in Christ, the sword of judgment is put up for ever.

These verses show God ruling the nations and the wars among them. Every part of Ashkelon’s fall was in his hand: he gave the charge, named the city and appointed the place. That is firm ground for us in a world full of conflict, much of which is beyond our understanding, because the God who directed the sword then directs history now. It is also a sober word to anyone who defies him, since his judgment stands against all human strength and cunning.

They also show that grief over judgment belongs in the life of faith. The cry of “how long” is honest prayer in the face of overwhelming suffering, and Scripture keeps it right beside the answer that God’s purpose will be done. We may pray for mercy and for an end to violence while trusting that his justice is right, as we wait for the day when Christ himself puts the sword away.