Sharpen the arrows, fill the quivers!
The Lord has aroused the spirit of the kings of the Medes,
Because His purpose is against Babylon to destroy it;
For it is the vengeance of the Lord, vengeance for His temple (Jeremiah 51:11).

Even as Nebuchadnezzar was in the midst of sacking Jerusalem and the temple in Jerusalem, God was already preparing the Medes to destroy the Babylonians. In fact, just as Nebuchadnezzar was leading out the last group of exiles, Jeremiah sent along with these exiles the prophecy of Babylon's doom (cf. Jeremiah 51:59-64). The LORD, who used Babylon as a club to judge the nations and Judah for their rebellion and idolatry, had already had in mind the destruction of this very same club.

The prophet Habakkuk complained to God that He was not dealing with the sinful people of Judah. God responded to him that He was bringing the Babylonians to judge them. Then the prophet complained that God was using an ungodly and wicked nation to judge His people. God responded to him that the Babylonians, after God was done using them, would also be destroyed. After this, the prophet praises the LORD:

I heard and my heart pounded,
    my lips quivered at the sound;
decay crept into my bones,
    and my legs trembled.
Yet I will wait patiently for the day of calamity
    to come on the nation invading us.
Though the fig tree does not bud
    and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
    and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
    and no cattle in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
    I will be joyful in God my Savior (Habakkuk 3:16-18).

Habakkuk saw that God was prepared to judge both His own people and the godless nations around them. There was no injustice in God. The fire of His wrath would consume all the guilty. There was no basis for any of his complaints. His complaints were replaced by a holy fear and trembling, which led Habakkuk to take his eyes off of his circumstances and to desperately look to God his sovereign Savior for sustaining strength:

The Sovereign Lord is my strength;
    he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
    he enables me to tread on the heights (Habakkuk 3:19).

Friends, let us not foolishly imagine that there is any injustice God. And let us not second-guess His wisdom in the distribution of His grace. Instead, let us have the attitude of Habakkuk at the end of his dialogue with God: holy fear. Let us trust in God completely. Let us obey Him wholeheartedly. Let us cling to the grace He's freely given us in Christ. And let us not underestimate the depth and breadth of His wrath. As Paul wrote for the Philippian believers:

Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose (Philippians 2:12-13).

These are the people whom Nebuchadnezzar carried away into exile: in the seventh year 3,023 Jews; in the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar 832 persons from Jerusalem; in the twenty-third year of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried into exile 745 Jewish people; there were 4,600 persons in all (Jeremiah 52:28-30).

There is some confusion as to the times of the deportation of Jews to Babylon, as well as to the number. Jeremiah 52:30 indicates 4600 people were deported over three separate occasions; however, consider the account in Kings:

Then he led away into exile all Jerusalem and all the captains and all the mighty men of valor, ten thousand captives, and all the craftsmen and the smiths. None remained except the poorest people of the land... All the men of valor, seven thousand, and the craftsmen and the smiths, one thousand, all strong and fit for war, and these the king of Babylon brought into exile to Babylon. (2 Kings 24:14, 16).

Now, the context of the account Kings is the deportation that happened under the rule of King Jehoiachin. The context of Jeremiah is the deportations that happened during the seige of Jerusalem under the rule of Zedekiah. I believe that this goes part-way to explain the discrepancy.

The problem comes when considering the time frame "in the seventh year" in Jeremaiah 52:28. This dating seems to put the time of this deportation way before the events surrounding the seige of Jerusalem. However, it is possible that there was a scribal omission, such that the original reading of this text should be "in the seventeenth year" rather than "in the seventh year". This view is supported by such eminent schoars as Keil & Delitsche in their commentary on Jeremiah 52:24:

Ewald (History of the People of Israel, iii. p. 738) accordingly assumes that in Jeremiah 52:28, after שׁבע, the word עשׂרה has been omitted, as in 2 Chronicles 36:9, where the age of Jehoiachin is given; hence he thinks that, instead of "in the seventh," we must read "in the seventeenth year of Nebuchadnezzar." On such a view, the reference would be to a deportation which took place under Zedekiah, a year before the capture, or during the time of the siege of Jerusalem, and that, too, out of the country districts of Judah in contrast with Jerusalem,Jeremiah 52:29. This supposition is favoured not merely by the small number of those who are said to have been carried away, but also by the context of the narrative, inasmuch as, in what precedes, it is only the capture of Jerusalem and the deportation of the people in Zedekiah's time that is treated of. Ngelsbach has objected to this supposition, that it was not likely the great mass of the people would be carried away during the war, at a time when the approach of the Egyptian army (cf. Jeremiah 37:5) was an object of dread. But the objection does not weaken the supposition, since the former rests on two presuppositions that are quite erroneous: viz., first, that the deportation took place before the defeat of the auxiliary army from Egypt, where as it may have followed that event; and secondly, that the Chaldeans, by keeping the hostile Jews in the country, might have been able to get some assistance against the Egyptian army, whereas, by removing the hostile population of Judah, they would but diminish the number of the enemies with which they had to contend. We therefore regard this conjecture as highly probable, because it is the means of settling all difficulties, and because we can thereby account for the small number of those who were carried away in the deportations during and after the destruction of Jerusalem.

To put these observations into chronological perspective. Three major occasions for deportation seem to have occurred as part of the event we know as the Babylonian Captivity:

First Deportation (597 BC): 18,000 (10,000 captives + 7000 mighty men + 1000 craftsmen) Jews exiled by Nebuchadnezzar to Babylon

Second Deportation (587 BC): 3,855 Jews (3,023 + 832 from Jerusalem) exiled by Nebuchadnezzar to Babylon

Third Deportation (582 BC): 745 Jews exiled by Nebuzaradan ("the captain of the guard") to Babylon

So, the total number of exiles to Babylon, according to the Biblical account, comes to around 22,600. Now, consider how many returned from exile seventy years later:

The whole assembly numbered 42,360, 65 besides their male and female servants who numbered 7,337; and they had 200 singing men and women (Ezra 2:64). 

What seems clear is that the population of Jews in exile did not shrink. The number of Jews that returned from exile was nearly double the Jews that went into exile. I believe this is a testament to God's faithfulness and providence toward His chosen people. God promised to protect and prosper His people in exile, and that is exactly what happened. 

Friends, this is another example for us of how God provides in the midst of adversity. Let us trust and obey Him.

"You are my war club, my weapon for battle—with you I shatter nations, with you I destroy kingdoms, with you I shatter horse and rider,with you I shatter chariot and driver, with you I shatter man and woman, with you I shatter old man and youth, with you I shatter young man and young woman, with you I shatter shepherd and flock, with you I shatter farmer and oxen, with you I shatter governors and officials.

"I am against you, you destroying mountain, you who destroy the whole earth," declares the Lord. "I will stretch out my hand against you, roll you off the cliffs, and make you a burned-out mountain. No rock will be taken from you for a cornerstone, nor any stone for a foundation, for you will be desolate forever," declares the Lord. (Jeremiah 51:20-23, 25, 26 NIV)

God is speaking to and of Babylon when He says, "You are my war club, my weapon for battle-- with you I shatter nations...." And He is again speaking to Babylon when He says, "I am against you, you destroying mountain, you who destroy the whole earth." But how is it that one moment the great nation of Babylon is God's instrument for wrath while the next moment they are the object of His wrath?

Can God use the wicked for His purposes and then judge them? Yes! Remember the Egyptian Pharoah in the Exodus? God hardened Pharoah's heart against God's very commands, so that He might show His power through him. Judas Iscariot was also raised up so that he might betray Jesus to death and so fulfill God's great work of redemption through the cross. Is this unjust of God? Can't God, who formed us, do with us whatever He wishes to do? Does He make us wicked? Isn't it rather that we are all born in the wickedness of our sinful natures, and God directs the inherent wickedness of some of us  to fulfill His good purposes? So while we are judged for our root rebellion against Him, it is also evident that our rebellion will not thwart God's purposes but is just as subject to His will as those that trust and obey Him. 

Thus, human responsibility and God's sovereignty are not mutually exclusive. They are not the the yin and yang of destiny, for the one side, namely, human responsibility, is subsumed under the other, namely, God's sovereignty.

The Bible teaches that all humanity is under sin and is sinful (Romans 5:12ff), dead in trespasses (Ephesians 2:1ff), blind to any spiritual understanding or acceptance (1 Corinthians 2:14) and naturally turn away from God (Romans 3:3ff). Therefore, all humanity is subject to the punishment that goes with sin, namely eternal death (Romans 6:23). Now, among the perishing, so for all humanity, for apart from God's grace we will all perish, God directs some in their wickedness, even hardening their hearts, to show His power through signs and wonders (e.g. the great deliverance of Israel from the Egyptian Pharoah) while He enables faith in others so that He might show His glory in their salvation. Paul somewhat cryptically says as much in his discussion of God's election:

One of you will say to me: "Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will?" But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? "Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?'" Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use? What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory— even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles? (Romans 9:19-24 NIV)

Notice that both the objects of God's wrath and the the objects of God's mercy were both "prepared" beforehand for their fate. The difference is that the objects of God's wrath are said to have "prepared themselves" (Gk middle voice, though not clear in the English) while the God Himself "prepared" (Gk active voice) the objects of mercy. So God did not make the objects of God's wrath evil, but God uses them in their wickedness to accomplish His purposes. All are already "clay" to begin with and worthy only of being discarded, but God, as the Potter, actively chose to make something special out of some of the clay. These are the ones that He has called from among both the Jews and Gentiles to be the objects of his mercy, whom He "prepared in advance" for glory. The expression "in advance" suggests the predestination of believers, while the objects of wrath "prepared themselves," suggesting the natural outcome of the free will of unbelievers (cf. Ephesians 2:1-3). While the one is predestined, the other has destined themselves.

When we understand these things, then we can better understand what is happening in this scenario in Jeremiah with respect to Babylon, which is both the tool and object of God's wrath. 

Friends,

We are told in our reading that King Zedekiah is captured. His troops desert him. Nebuchadnezzar kills Zedekiah's sons right in front of his eyes. Then he blinds him, so that his last visual memory is of the death of his children, destroying any hope of an enduring posterity. Finally, he is put in prison until the day of his death. While in prison, his days would be prolonged in physical and emotional pain, with his only preoccupation being a reflection on a life that led to this terrible end. And we are not told that Zedekiah ever repented. Perhaps in the midst of his despair in prison, he was also consumed with anger toward God.

I am reminded of those that suffer God's judgment in the Book of Revelation. Repeatedly, we are told that they "did not repent of what they had made" (Revelation 9:20),"they refused to repent and glorify Him" (Revelation 16:9), "they refused to repent of what they had done" (Revelation 16:11). Here we get a glimpse of the stubbornness of the human heart.

Many rebel against God because they cannot accept the wrath of God, which is connected to His holy standard. Others rebel against Him in a more subtle way. They twist the truth of God and take the bite out of God's wrath, making it more acceptable to them. The latter are like the prophets that prophesied lies about God in the final days of Judah, saying "Peace! Peace! When there was no peace." Even if the intention is good, it is a dangerous place to be, because it challenges the integrity of God, and brings into question whether they truly know the God that they proclaim.

Dear friends, even when some biblical truth is hard to accept, let us still embrace it in faith, knowing that it is the Word of God. Let us not play the dangerous game, which many play today, of only accepting what they like and rejecting or twisting or changing the rest of it. If some things are hard, let us confess it and humble ourselves and cry out, "Lord, help me because of my unbelief."