Now these are the words of the letter that Jeremiah the prophet sent.
Messages to exiles
I. The very fact that a message was sent to them under an express Divine appointment was consolatory. Wherever God’s children are scattered, the written Word is to them a source of permanent encouragement. In the severest ways of justice God does not forget His own children, but has in reserve ample consolations for them, when they lie under the common judgment
II. The particular providence of God, appearing on their behalf under all their calamities, was a source of consolation.
1. He is the Lord of hosts, of all the armies above and below, and yet is the God of Israel; and though He permits their captivity, He does not break His relation to them--their covenant-God still, though under a cloud.
2. He assumes the active agency in their dispersion. “I have caused them to be carried away.” Certainly it must be a great sin which induces a loving father to cast his child out of doors. But sin is a great scatterer, and is always followed by a driving away and a casting out. Yet the fact of God’s being the agent in their dispersion is referred to as a ground of consolation; since it reconciles us to our troubles to see the hand of God in them, and to trace an all-gracious and merciful design in them.
III. The promise of the stability and security of their social and domestic interests was given.
IV. The prospect of a certain and favourable issue to their trials (verse 11). (S. Thodey.)
