A Covenant with the Day and the Night

Passage: Jeremiah 33:14-28

In Jeremiah 33 God makes an unbelievable promise to Jeremiah. God says, “A day will come when a descendant of David will rule this land with justice and righteousness. And in that day the Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will be secure.” Jeremiah isn’t buying it. He says, “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but my neighbors are saying, ‘God’s rejected both his kingdoms – Israel and Judah.’ We’ve become a laughingstock to the world because it’s obvious, God, that you’ve rejected your people.”

God’s response is remarkable. He says to Jeremiah, “If you can break my covenant with the day and the night, then I’ll break the covenants I made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I’ll break the covenant I made to David.” In other words, God says, “I’m not just paying lip service to something I said in the past. I have made commitments that no force in heaven or on earth can undo.” The commitments? To Abraham, Isaac and Jacob God said, “I’ll make your descendants more numerous than the stars of the sky. And I will one day bless the nations of the world through you.” To David God said, “A descendant of David will always reign.” These promises sound like hyperbole. Like, at the very least, gross exaggeration. In his conversation with Jeremiah God says, “I wasn’t just making that stuff up. I gave my word – a word that I can undo no more easily than you can reroute the courses of the planets and stars.”

Does God keep his promises? Through the descendants of Abraham God brings the Savior of the world. And through David’s lineage God brings not just the king of the Jews, but the Lord of all Creation. No force in Heaven or on Earth can undo that which God covenants to do.