and led the offspring of the house of Israel out of the north country and out of all the countries where he had driven them. Then they shall dwell in their own land.
All right, when we come to the prophet Jeremiah, now we come to the seventh century BC. Jeremiah himself, we read at the outset of his prophecy in chapter one, that he was consecrated by God to be a prophet to the nations. He was consecrated by God before he was even born. While he was still in his mother’s womb, he says, God had set him apart to speak for him. He was born into a priestly family near Jerusalem, best we can tell, around 650 BC. He was called and enlisted into service when he was a very young man around 627 BC. This is the 13th year of King Josiah.
No doubt at that point things looked rather good for Israel. Josiah was one of the few good kings of Judah. But eventually things turned south like they often did, so often did in ancient Israel. And Jeremiah the prophet became unwelcome by the nation and he even suffered at the hands of later kings, Jehoiakim and Zedekiah. In terms of the big picture, the geographical map, political map, Assyria now—remember that was the leading power of the day when Isaiah was prophesying and Isaiah warned about them—Assyria now is on the decline in terms of their military strength, and Babylon is on the rise. They are an increasing threat to Judah, and they’ve been warned about that from the prophets. Jeremiah himself does, and others do as well.
And Jeremiah ministers then during the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians. There was a series of defeats actually beginning 608, something like that, BC and then culminating in the final sack of Jerusalem in 587, 586 BC. At that point there were a number of deportations. The prominent citizens of Jerusalem were taken away. Daniel was taken at that time, so was Ezekiel. Others were taken off to Babylon, lived in exile there for the 70 years that were prophesied. And then they returned, as Pastor Greg has read for us last couple of Sundays, in the book of Ezra.
King Jehoiakim had foolishly led a rebellion against Babylon, and that was squashed, and now the kings are being deported. The successor king, Jehoiachin—Jehoiachin, they come up with the best names, don’t they?—Jehoiachin, who’s also known as Jeconiah, who’s also known as Coniah, he was deported and deposed by Babylon, taken off, and then puppet kings were put in his place. And at that point, then, Jeremiah, as you know, writes the other book, and that is the book of Lamentations, where he laments the fall of Jerusalem, the judgment that has fallen on God’s people.
Now all of that was a serious challenge to the Davidic promise. God had promised David that he would have a king, that his descendant would rule on his throne. That means that Jerusalem will be prominent. But now Jerusalem’s been sacked, the king himself is carried away, and it seems this is just a catastrophic event that everything that God had promised, it seems, has fallen to the ground. Jeremiah’s prophecy then is around 600 BC and his message to Judah is, in one large part, a message of criticism and judgment because of their unfaithfulness to God. And he highlights the covenant curses that God has warned Israel of way back to the time of Moses, and Judah now has been unfaithful and those covenant curses have come. So he’s announcing judgment.
But still, Jeremiah’s prophecy offers real hope because later in his prophecy in particular, he offers this hope that God will still come and still fulfill his promises and still bring blessing to his people. Jeremiah chapters 30 to 33 are known as the book of comfort. In that book of comfort we had the famous passage of the new covenant that is prophesied in Jeremiah chapter 31: that God will come yet and he will fulfill his promises yet and he’ll work in a marvelous way on behalf of his people.
Jeremiah chapters 1 through 20 are largely then an exposure of Judah’s unfaithfulness, and here’s the reason for the judgment that’s coming. Jeremiah 21 and following now, we have prophecies that are during the reigns of Jehoiakim and Zedekiah, toward the very end now, and it’s a denunciation of both of those kings for their unfaithfulness, and it’s also a denunciation of the false prophets that have come to Judah at this time. They claim to be speaking for God; they don’t. They make up their own message, they’re speaking a false message, they’re false prophets, and Jeremiah speaks against them as well.
The Judgment on Jeconiah
Now in that kind of context is what brings us then closer to our passage, and in chapter 22, what is especially significant is the judgment that is announced on Jeconiah. Jehoiachin, Jeconiah, Coniah, that guy. Jeremiah 22 verses 28 and following. Look at that. “Is this man Coniah, a despised, broken pot, a vessel no one cares for? Why are he and his children hurled and cast into a land that they do not know? O land, land, land, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord, write this man down as childless. A man who shall not succeed in his days, for none of his offspring shall succeed in sitting on the throne of David and ruling again in Judah.”
So verse 28 now is referring to Jeconiah the king as a worthless piece of pottery. Just toss it aside, it’s worthless. He’s been carried off to Babylon into exile, deported. He’s worthless, he’s not worth a thing. Verses 29 and 30 then announce the verdict. “O land, land, land, hear the word of the Lord.” So he’s passionate here, his heart is aching as he speaks. That’s the “O land,” the passionate “land, land, land,” what happened? Then verse 30, “Write him down as childless, a man who shall not succeed in his days. For none of his offspring shall succeed sitting on the throne of David and ruling again in Judah.”
So, the prophet says, take a census, and in that census mark down the king, Jeconiah, as childless. Now, in fact, he had some children. They were carried off into Babylon, too. But mark him down as childless. And that prophecy was fulfilled. He reigned just three months. He was carried off into Babylon himself. And he had seven sons. We read of them in 1 Chronicles 3. They were made eunuchs in Babylon. No successor for Jeconiah. He’s childless, just as the prophet had said. After the return, 70 years later when Judah returned to her homeland, grandson Zerubbabel was made governor of Judah, but he was not a king. He had no descendants to reign. Jeremiah’s prophecy was fulfilled. This king is childless. No successor of his will reign.
Now you have to understand the significance of that in terms of the big picture of scripture. That is just catastrophic. God made this big promise to David: “Your son, your descendant, will reign on your throne.” And it happens through David, Solomon, Rehoboam, and on down through his descendants until it comes finally to Jeconiah, Jehoiachin. He’s an unfaithful man. God says he’s like a piece of old pottery. Throw him away. He’s worthless. Write him down as childless. He has no successor. And that’s not just a problem now for Jeconiah. This is a problem for Israel as well. What about God’s promise that David would have a son reigning on the throne? It has come to this king and now he’s childless. What’ll happen?
A Change of Tone: Two Promises
Well, we come then to chapter 23. And we’ll look then at these first eight verses that I read earlier. Verses 1 and 2, we have a denunciation of the leaders and the false prophets who had led Judah astray. Verse 1, “Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture,” declares the Lord. That’s the false prophets. That’s the kings, the leaders of Israel who had led the nation astray in their unfaithfulness to God. And now they’ve encountered the covenant curses that God had said would come if they were unfaithful. Verses nine through 40 of the same chapter, we have an extended denunciation of them as well. They fail to speak God’s word faithfully and they’ve misled God’s sheep. God then is going to bring judgment on them.
Verse two, “Therefore, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who care for my people. You have scattered my flock and have driven them away. You have not attended to them. Behold, I will attend to you for your evil deeds,” declares the Lord. Now there’s obviously a play on words here. Same words used twice, but with very different meanings. Verse two again, at the end of the verse, “You have not attended to them.” Your sheep, my sheep, my people, you’ve not attended to them. So I will attend to you. You didn’t take care of them; I’ll take care of you because of it. The same words, but obviously very different connotations. You didn’t do your job; I’ll do mine. I’ll take care of you. And clearly then he’s prophesying, as it pans out, the Babylonian exile that will come.
Now in verses three and four, we suddenly have a change of tone. Now we’ve seen this in the prophets, where they’ll shift from judgment to hope with just a breath. And that’s what happens here in verse three. There’s this change of tone and he makes two promises.
The first one is in verse three and it’s stated in two ways. “I will gather the remnant of my flock out of the countries where I’ve driven them. I will bring them back to their fold and they shall be fruitful and multiply.” So Israel is here cast as a scattered flock of sheep but God says, “I’ll return them to their own pasture. I’ll bring them home.” Well, there are plenty of prophecies in Jeremiah, Ezekiel, others that deal with and treat the same theme and the same threat. “I’ll send you away to the other countries. I’ll send you to Babylon. I’ll bring wicked Babylon on you. They’ll conquer you and they’ll carry you off.” That’s the prophecy here. And that, but he says here, “I will bring you home from it.” And again, that’s the return that Pastor Greg has read about the last couple of Sunday mornings in our scripture reading.
Second promise, verse four. Verse three, “I’ll bring you back.” Verse four, “I will set shepherds over them who will care for them. And they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall any be missing,” declares the Lord. So “I will bring new shepherds in their place.” These wicked shepherds, “I’ll get rid of them. But I’ll bring new shepherds in, and they’ll be faithful, and they will care for my people.” Now, this is a promise that he makes other places in his prophecy as well, as early as Jeremiah 3:15. “I’ll give you shepherds after my own heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding.” Here in chapter 23, the first two verses, we have false shepherds, those who destroy the sheep, lead them astray, lead them in their unfaithfulness. But now, verse three and four, “I’ll have new shepherds for you. They will be faithful, they will rule well, the prophets will speak the word of the Lord, and you will be ruled by a faithful king.” This is shepherd imagery, probably working back to David, who was the shepherd king.
The Righteous Branch
Now when we get to verse five, the prophet seems to take even a longer look ahead. “Behold, the days are coming.” He doesn’t say when. “The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will raise up for David a righteous branch and he shall reign as king and deal wisely and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.” I’ll raise up a branch. Now that is rather common ancient Near Eastern terminology to designate a royal heir who will come. “I’ll raise up a branch.” Actually, the Hebrew here is a sprout. Not a branch of a tree, but a sprout growing up from the ground. Used in other places in just that sense—a plant of the field and so on. Again, this is a rather common terminology for the royal heir who will come.
And what he says here is, “I’ll bring a branch,” notice it, “for David. I’ll bring a branch for David.” Now that’s a startling thing in this prophecy because just a few verses earlier, at the end of chapter 22, Coniah has been written childless. No descendant of his will prosper on the throne. But in verse five now of chapter 23 we read, “The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will raise up for David a righteous sprout.” That is out of that desolation that I’ll bring about because of your kings and your leaders, your shepherds’ unfaithfulness. Out of that desolation that I brought to Jeconiah, writing him childless. Out of that desolation and waste, I’ll cause to bring up a shoot; a sprout will come up for David.
And clearly what he’s saying here is, “I’ll keep my promise to David after all.” Clearly the reference is back to 2 Samuel chapter seven when God made a promise that David’s son would rule. And here he says, “He shall,” verse five at the end of the verse, “and he shall reign as king.” So Jeconiah is written down as childless; immediate family, there’s no successor at all, but God’s promise to David stands. “I’ll bring up a sprout for David.” Now we have this kind of imagery elsewhere in the prophets. Isaiah, you might remember in chapter four, speaks of that as the branch—this beautiful branch was the prize of Israel in her gathered, renewed blessing of God. We find it later in Jeremiah 33 as well. Zechariah uses this imagery as well. This branch will come, this sprout will come up for David.
At the end of verse five here, he gives us the characteristics of this branch, this sprout for David who will come. First of all, it says he will be a righteous branch. Now that’s important. God had promised to David—let’s go back to 2 Samuel 7. Try to remember all of that. Remember David says, “I’m gonna build you a house.” God says, “No, I’ll build you a house. I’ll build you a dynasty. Your son will rule.” And God—there’s a little tension built into the promise. “If your son disobeys, I’ll whip him. I’ll whip him with the rod of men.” What he’s doing here, bringing Babylon in. In other words, David’s son will rule—God makes that promise—but he’s got to be a faithful son. And these unfaithful sons, they’ll be judged. And so Jeconiah comes along, he’s unfaithful, God brings judgment. That’s what he said he would do. There’s a tension built in that David’s son will rule, but you gotta find a faithful one. Where’s he gonna be? They just, one fails after another. You got a couple of good kings coming up here and there, but that’s it. And so that’s the tension that’s built into it, but what he says here is, “I will bring another sprout for David, and he will be a righteous branch.” Unlike Jeconiah, unlike Jehoiakim before him, unlike Zedekiah after him, he’ll be a righteous branch. God will keep his promise.
It says again in verse five now, “He’ll be a righteous branch, and he will reign as king.” That is, as David’s promised heir. He will reign as king. And then notice this next expression: “He will deal wisely.” You remember that expression from elsewhere? That’s Isaiah 52 at the beginning of that fifth servant song. “He will deal wisely.” The idea is that he will work prudently and succeed in accomplishing God’s purpose for him. He’ll be successful. And then it says, “He shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.” Well, that’s a note that we’ve seen in other prophecies as well. In Isaiah chapter 42, we saw that he’ll bring justice to the nations. The servant songs repeat that several times over. We saw that in Isaiah chapter two, Isaiah chapter four, where we have this picture of the hill of Zion being elevated above the hills of the earth and all the world flowing into it and learning from the Messiah there in Jerusalem how to live and to beat their swords into plowshares and so on. So he’ll execute justice and righteousness in the land.
The Lord Our Righteousness
And then verse six. In brief, it describes the consequences of his arrival. “In his days, Judah will be saved and Israel will dwell securely.” So they will be returned, they will be protected under this righteous king, this heir of David, who will come.
Now, this is great. Verse 6, toward the end of the verse, is the name by which he will be called: “The Lord is our righteousness.” There might be here a little play on words because the later king Zedekiah means “the Lord is righteousness.” Zedekiah was not a faithful or a righteous king. But here now we have a faithful son. His name is “The Lord is our righteousness.” There’s a translation question here. It depends on which version you have, what you’re reading in front of you. My version here, the English Standard Version, ESV, reads, “The Lord, his name shall be called, ‘The Lord is our righteousness.'” Now the word “is,” the be verb, is not there in the Hebrew. It’s entirely common for the translations to supply the be verb, and so that may be the right translation here: “The Lord is our righteousness.” Other translations—the King James, the Christian Standard Bible, the NIV, the NAS—all of them translate this simply: “This is the name by which he will be called, ‘The Lord Our Righteousness.'”
Now you see the difference. The ESV is making an affirmation about the Lord: “He is righteous.” But the other translations, and I think they are right, I think they have it right, it’s making an affirmation about the branch, the king. His name is righteousness. He is “The Lord Our Righteousness.” So the branch himself is the Lord our righteousness. I want you to get that before I move on. The branch, the king himself, his name is “The Lord Our Righteousness.”
Now that has a twofold significance. Number one, the branch is the Lord. We’ve seen that before. Here we have the deity, the Messiah again. The Davidic King comes and yet he is the Lord himself. And here’s the prophecy of the incarnation of God the Son, come as the Son of David. Now the first significance of that is that the branch himself is the Lord. The second, and this is the point of it, the second significance of it is the branch himself is the Lord our righteousness. The branch himself is our righteousness. He is our righteousness. That is to say, the righteousness that we have as his people is simply him. The righteousness that we have before God is him. He is our righteousness. His people are righteous, but they are righteous only because of their association with him. He is their righteousness.
Now you might remember we saw this in Isaiah 53 in verse 11: “By his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous.” That is, his people are righteous, but the reason they are righteous and the only reason they are righteous is because they are associated with him. Well, all of this is simply, in a nutshell and in germ form, the whole New Testament doctrine of justification by faith. Here it is. We read it in the New Testament in bigger words and more plain words, spelled out more clearly. God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. We find that kind of thing over and over again in Romans chapter 3. There’s that exposition of the doctrine that Paul gives that God—if you can just believe it—God justifies the ungodly. God can declare an ungodly sinner to be righteous. And how does he do that? Well, that’s the doctrine of justification that we find in the New Testament spelled out so plainly: that the Lord Jesus comes as the sinner’s substitute, he stands in their place, bears their sin, and in exchange he gives them his righteousness. So that our righteousness now, joined to Jesus by faith, our righteousness is simply him.
You might have thought that in order to be accepted by God, you’ve got to be righteous. Well, you’re half right. You have to be righteous to be accepted by God. But where in the world are you gonna get that kind of righteousness? What Jeremiah announces here 600 years ahead of the fact is that when this branch, this king comes, he will be the righteousness of his people. This is marvelous. This is just marvelous gospel truth.
John Bunyan writes—remember the author of Pilgrim’s Progress, 1600s—writes that when he first came to Christ, he struggled for a good long time with this matter of assurance. “I’m not good enough, how can God accept me?” And he just labored under this cloud of doubt until one day he recognized—he heard the words overheard by someone else saying it—”My righteousness is in heaven.” There’s the ascended Christ. There’s my righteousness. And whatever unrighteousness I have is more than answered because he is my righteousness. There is my acceptance before God. Everything that God requires of me is in the righteous branch. His name is the Lord our righteousness.
Well, that is the testimony, that’s the hope of every Christian. Don’t ever, don’t ever fall into the trap of thinking, “Well, I hope when I die, God will remember all the good things I did.” That is no way for a Christian to talk. My whole hope before God has nothing, nothing whatever to do with anything I did. My whole hope before God is that Jesus Christ is my righteousness. And I have in him everything that God requires of me.
Well, the New Testament unpacks this at length, of course, but here it was already from 600 years before the coming of Jesus. The prophet tells us, Judah has been unfaithful, the kings have been cut off, Jeconiah is written down as childless, but God will bring up a sprout for David yet, and he not only will himself be faithful and righteous, and not only will he bring righteousness and justice to the earth, but he will be our righteousness. Ah, it’s the glory of the gospel, the freeness of the gospel, that God then can justify the ungodly because all of the demands of God’s justice are met for us in the person of Jesus who took the penalty of sin in our place and gives us his righteousness in exchange.
Well, verses seven and eight, I won’t take time for these. These take the longest look and description of the king’s reign. He will come, he’ll restore his people. They’ll be gathered together. Jeremiah picks that up almost word for word. In Jeremiah chapter 33, he repeats the same promise. He stresses the inviolability of that promise that he’ll bring his people back, he’ll save them. He connects it to the Abrahamic promise that God’s promise of global salvation will be fulfilled. God promised it to Abraham and it will be fulfilled through David’s son. The long and short then of this prophecy is the ancient kings of Israel, Judah, they failed. But that’s not the end of God’s promise. David will have a faithful son. That faithful son comes, his name is Jesus, and he is the righteousness of all God’s people.