https://literalword.com/esv?q=Jeremiah+43
Observations from today’s readings and today’s S-WOD, Thursday, 20 August 2026:
Jeremiah 43:1-4 — When Jeremiah finished speaking to all the people all these words of the LORD their God, with which the LORD their God had sent him to them, Azariah the son of Hoshaiah and Johanan the son of Kareah and all the insolent men said to Jeremiah, “You are telling a lie. The LORD our God did not send you to say, ‘Do not go to Egypt to live there,’ but Baruch the son of Neriah has set you against us, to deliver us into the hand of the Chaldeans, that they may kill us or take us into exile in Babylon.” So Johanan the son of Kareah and all the commanders of the forces and all the people did not obey the voice of the LORD, to remain in the land of Judah.
Jeremiah 42 ended with the people promising that whatever God said, they would obey. Jeremiah 43 begins with God giving them exactly what they requested — and their immediate rejection of it. Nothing was wrong with God’s answer. Nothing was unclear about Jeremiah’s message. Their problem was that God had said what they did not want to hear. Having already determined that Egypt offered greater security than remaining in Judah, they now had only two choices: change their plans or discredit the messenger. They chose the messenger.
This is the predictable progression of a heart determined to have its own way. First we develop the conclusion we want. Then we reinterpret God’s Word around that conclusion. Finally, if Scripture will not bend, we find reasons to dismiss the person faithfully applying it. Azariah does not present evidence that Jeremiah has suddenly become a false prophet. Jeremiah’s previous prophecies concerning Jerusalem had just been fulfilled before their eyes. Instead, Azariah simply declares, “You are telling a lie,” and then constructs an alternative explanation: Baruch must be manipulating Jeremiah. When people become determined not to accept what God has said, they can become remarkably willing to believe explanations far less credible than the truth they are rejecting.
This is why pride is so spiritually dangerous. The text specifically describes these men as insolent. Pride does not merely make us think too highly of ourselves; it makes us increasingly unteachable. Humility says, “I may be wrong; show me from God’s Word.” Pride says, “If your interpretation contradicts what I have already decided, you must be wrong.” Proverbs therefore warns that the fool is right in his own eyes, while the wise person listens to counsel (Proverbs 12:15). God gives grace to the humble precisely because humility places us in a posture to receive correction, while pride increasingly closes the heart against it (James 4:6).
Knowing whom to trust for spiritual counsel therefore matters enormously. The question is not simply, “Who agrees with me?” but, “Who loves Christ and me enough to tell me what Scripture says even when neither of us likes the answer?” Jeremiah had spent decades proving himself such a man. He had spoken God’s Word when kings threatened him, officials imprisoned him, crowds hated him, and obedience brought him nothing personally but suffering. A trustworthy counselor is not someone who always confirms our instincts but someone whose loyalty to Christ and Scripture is greater than his desire to please us. Wise believers should deliberately cultivate relationships with mature Christians who know God’s Word, demonstrate godly character, have nothing to gain from flattering them, and possess enough courage to tell them when they are wrong (Proverbs 27:5-6).
Yet even the best biblical counsel accomplishes little if we have already decided not to receive it. The deeper question is therefore not merely, “Do I have godly people advising me?” but, “When they show me something from Scripture that contradicts what I want, am I willing to change?” We can seek counsel from pastors, elders, mature believers, spouses, and friends and still simply shop for opinions until someone tells us what we wanted to hear. Paul warned that people would accumulate teachers to suit their own passions rather than endure sound teaching (2 Timothy 4:3-4). The mature believer seeks not an ally for his preferences but help submitting those preferences to Christ.
Jesus presents the perfect opposite of Azariah’s posture. Christ did not manipulate the Father’s will around His desires but submitted Himself completely to it. In Gethsemane, facing suffering beyond anything we can comprehend, He prayed, “Not my will, but yours, be done” (Luke 22:42). His obedience carried Him to the cross, where He bore the judgment deserved by proud, self-willed sinners like us. The Gospel therefore does more than forgive our refusal to listen to God. Through union with Christ and the indwelling Holy Spirit, God progressively gives us the mind of Christ, teaching us to surrender our wills to His and increasingly desire what He desires (Philippians 2:5, 13).
There is a sobering progression from Jeremiah 42 into Jeremiah 43: fear produced self-deception; self-deception hardened into pride; pride rejected God’s Word; and rejected truth now becomes open disobedience. Sin rarely remains merely an idea. What the heart repeatedly chooses eventually becomes the direction of the life. The answer is not greater confidence in our own judgment but deeper dependence upon Christ. Before rejecting uncomfortable biblical counsel, we should therefore ask: Is this counsel actually contrary to Scripture, or merely contrary to me? Am I rejecting what has been said because it is false, or because obedience will cost me something? And do I have people in my life whom I have genuinely authorized to tell me biblical truth when I least want to hear it?
Jeremiah 43:5-7 — But Johanan the son of Kareah and all the commanders of the forces took all the remnant of Judah who had returned to live in the land of Judah from all the nations to which they had been driven — the men, the women, the children, the princesses, and every person whom Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard had left with Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, son of Shaphan; also Jeremiah the prophet and Baruch the son of Neriah. And they came into the land of Egypt, for they did not obey the voice of the LORD. And they arrived at Tahpanhes.
The words are painfully simple: “they did not obey the voice of the LORD.” Their disobedience was no longer merely an attitude of the heart or an argument against Jeremiah. It now had a destination. Fear had produced unbelief, unbelief had hardened into pride, pride had rejected God’s Word, and rejection now became action. Sin follows this progression repeatedly throughout Scripture. What we permit in the heart eventually shapes where our feet take us. James describes the same movement when desire conceives and gives birth to sin, and sin, when fully grown, brings forth death (James 1:14-15).
The destination makes their choice especially tragic. They went to Egypt. Nearly nine hundred years earlier, God had delivered Israel from Egyptian bondage with a mighty hand, brought them through the Red Sea, entered covenant with them, and led them toward the land He had promised. Now their descendants voluntarily reverse the Exodus. The people whom God had brought out of Egypt return to Egypt because they no longer trust the God who brought them out. The geographical movement exposes the spiritual movement of their hearts.
This is one of sin’s recurring temptations. Under pressure, we can begin romanticizing what God has already delivered us from. Israel had done this in the wilderness when hardship caused them to remember Egypt’s food while conveniently forgetting Egypt’s slavery (Numbers 11:4-6). Fear makes yesterday’s bondage look safer than today’s dependence upon God. The believer can do the same with old sins, relationships, habits, ambitions, coping mechanisms, or patterns of self-reliance. When following Christ becomes costly, the old life can suddenly appear easier. But grace never delivers us from slavery so that we can return to it. Paul asks believers who have been liberated from sin, “How can we who died to sin still live in it?” (Romans 6:2). Christ did not merely forgive us in Egypt; He brought us out to belong to Him.
There is another disturbing feature in the text. Johanan and the commanders did not merely disobey personally. They “took all the remnant” with them, including Jeremiah and Baruch. Their rebellion now imposed consequences upon people who had not chosen it. Jeremiah had faithfully proclaimed exactly the opposite course, yet he was apparently carried into Egypt with those who rejected his counsel. The man who obeyed God suffered because of the decisions of those who did not. This is an important corrective to the assumption that obedience always produces favorable immediate circumstances. Sometimes faithfulness means suffering consequences created by somebody else’s sin. Jeremiah’s presence in Egypt did not mean he had missed God’s will. It meant that in a fallen world the obedient sometimes suffer alongside the disobedient.
That truth matters whenever we suffer because of another person’s choices. A spouse’s betrayal, a parent’s failure, a leader’s misconduct, a child’s rebellion, an employer’s decision, or another person’s recklessness can radically alter circumstances we never chose. Scripture never requires us to pretend such wrongs do not matter. Yet neither does another person’s sin possess the authority to remove us from God’s sovereign care. Jeremiah could be carried somewhere he did not want to go, but he could not be carried somewhere God could not find him. The next verse will make that unmistakable: in Tahpanhes, Egypt, “the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah” (Jeremiah 43:8). They could remove Jeremiah from Judah, but they could not remove Jeremiah from God.
This points powerfully toward Christ. Jesus suffered more profoundly from the sins of others than anyone who has ever lived. He was betrayed, falsely accused, unjustly condemned, mocked, beaten, and crucified, yet none of those sinful actions placed Him outside the Father’s sovereign purpose. At the cross, human wickedness and divine sovereignty intersected without making God the author of evil: Jesus was delivered up according to God’s definite plan, while those who crucified Him remained responsible for their wicked actions (Acts 2:23). What appeared to be the triumph of sinful men became the very means through which God accomplished our salvation.
Union with Christ therefore gives believers extraordinary freedom when other people’s choices disrupt our lives. We may not control where their decisions take us, but they cannot determine who we become there. Our calling remains the same: abide in Christ, obey His Word, love as He loves, and trust the Father to use even unwanted circumstances to conform us to His Son (Romans 8:28-29). Jeremiah’s ministry was not finished because someone else forced him into Egypt. God still had work for him there.
The contrast is striking. Johanan reached the destination he wanted and remained outside God’s will; Jeremiah reached a destination he never wanted and remained within God’s will. That distinction matters enormously. The measure of a life is not whether circumstances unfold according to our plans but whether we remain faithful to Christ within the circumstances God permits. We can get exactly what we want and be spiritually miserable, or lose everything we wanted and discover that Christ is still enough.
Egypt therefore becomes more than a location in this chapter. It exposes the futility of seeking security anywhere apart from God. The remnant believed Egypt could provide what obedience could not: protection, stability, food, and freedom from Babylon. But they had confused favorable circumstances with genuine security. Their tragedy was not simply that they went south instead of staying north; they sought from Egypt what God had promised to provide Himself. Whenever anything other than Christ becomes the place to which our hearts instinctively run for ultimate security, peace, identity, or hope, we are retracing their road to Tahpanhes.
Where do I instinctively run when trusting God becomes difficult? Is there something Christ has delivered me from that adversity makes me tempted to return to? And when circumstances I did not choose are forced upon me by the actions of others, do I become consumed by what they have done, or do I believe that no person can carry me beyond the presence, purposes, and transforming grace of God?
Jeremiah 43:8-13 — Then the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah in Tahpanhes: Take in your hands large stones and hide them in the mortar in the pavement that is at the entrance to Pharaoh’s palace in Tahpanhes, in the sight of the men of Judah, and say to them, Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will send and take Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and I will set his throne above these stones that I have hidden, and he will spread his royal canopy over them. He shall come and strike the land of Egypt, giving over to the pestilence those who are doomed to the pestilence, to captivity those who are doomed to captivity, and to the sword those who are doomed to the sword. I shall kindle a fire in the temples of the gods of Egypt, and he shall burn them and carry them away captive. And he shall clean the land of Egypt as a shepherd cleans his cloak of vermin, and he shall go away from there in peace. He shall break the obelisks of Heliopolis, which is in the land of Egypt, and the temples of the gods of Egypt he shall burn with fire.
The first words are easy to pass over, but they are among the most encouraging in the chapter: “Then the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah in Tahpanhes.” Jeremiah had been carried into Egypt by people who rejected God’s Word, yet God’s Word followed him there. His location had changed; his calling had not. He was surrounded by the consequences of other people’s disobedience, but he remained in fellowship with God and useful to Him. This is an important word for anyone living in circumstances created by someone else’s sin. Another person may profoundly alter the conditions of our life, but no one has the power to remove us from God’s presence, terminate His purposes for us, or prevent us from faithfully serving Him there. Joseph served God in a prison he did not deserve; Daniel served Him in an exile he did not choose; Paul wrote letters from imprisonment that still strengthen the Church. Faithfulness is never dependent upon ideal circumstances.
God now gives Jeremiah another visible prophecy. He is to bury large stones in the pavement at Pharaoh’s palace while the Judeans watch. Those stones silently declared that the very place to which they had fled from Nebuchadnezzar would eventually become the place where Nebuchadnezzar established his authority. They had gone to Egypt because they feared Babylon, yet Babylon would follow them there. God had already warned them, “the sword that you fear shall overtake you there in the land of Egypt” (Jeremiah 42:16). Now He makes that warning visible. The refuge they chose instead of God could not protect them from what they feared.
The irony is severe because God had offered them precisely what they were seeking. In Judah He had promised, “Do not fear the king of Babylon… for I am with you, to save you and to deliver you from his hand” (Jeremiah 42:11). They rejected God’s promised security because it required trusting Him and chose Egypt because its security could be seen. Yet visible security without God proved less secure than apparent danger with God. This is the fundamental choice running through chapters 42-43: Will we trust the God we cannot see or the refuge we can?
That question reaches far beyond Judah and Egypt. We can make money, position, relationships, political power, health, reputation, careful planning, or our own competence into our Egypt. These things may be genuine gifts from God and wisely used, but they become idols when we ask them to provide the ultimate security, identity, peace, or future that belongs to God alone. Idolatry is not merely bowing before a statue. It is trusting something created to provide what only the Creator can guarantee. Whatever we believe we cannot be secure without has begun competing with God for our trust.
God’s description of Nebuchadnezzar as “my servant” reinforces His absolute sovereignty. Nebuchadnezzar did not worship the Lord, yet he could not operate outside the Lord’s authority. The king whom Judah feared was himself under the command of Judah’s God. This does not excuse Nebuchadnezzar’s wickedness; Scripture holds human beings accountable for their actions even while affirming God’s sovereign rule over history. But it does expose the irrationality of Judah’s fear. They were treating Babylon as though Nebuchadnezzar possessed independent power when the Lord could summon, direct, limit, and ultimately judge him. The believer never faces an autonomous enemy. Nothing enters our lives outside the sovereign boundaries of the Father who has already demonstrated His love for us at the cross.
The judgment against Egypt’s temples and obelisks takes the lesson even deeper. Egypt’s gods represented the spiritual foundation beneath Egypt’s apparent strength. Once again, as during the Exodus, the Lord would demonstrate that the gods of Egypt could neither save themselves nor those who trusted them (Exodus 12:12). God does not merely confront the things we fear; He confronts the false gods to which we run because of those fears. His purpose is not simply to deprive us of substitutes but to free us from trusting them. Sometimes His mercy includes allowing the inadequacy of our earthly refuges to become painfully obvious so that our hearts return to the only One who can truly sustain us.
Christ is the final answer to this human search for refuge. We spend enormous energy attempting to construct lives in which nothing can threaten us, yet the Gospel begins by confronting us with enemies no earthly refuge can defeat: sin, judgment, and death. Wealth cannot purchase righteousness. Power cannot prevent death. Success cannot reconcile us to God. But Jesus entered our vulnerability, bore God’s judgment against our sin on the cross, rose victorious over death, and now becomes the eternal refuge of everyone united to Him. Our security is therefore not that nothing painful can happen to us, but that nothing can happen which can separate us from Christ or prevent Him from bringing us safely into His kingdom (Romans 8:35-39; 2 Timothy 4:18).
This radically changes how Christians face uncertainty. We need not construct an Egypt where suffering cannot reach us. No such place exists in this world. Our peace comes from something infinitely better: wherever obedience leads, Christ is there. The same Savior who says, “In the world you will have tribulation” also says, “Take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). Union with Christ means His life is our life, His Father is our Father, His inheritance is our inheritance, and His resurrection guarantees our future. The believer can therefore choose obedience over apparent security because our ultimate safety has already been secured by Someone no earthly power can defeat.
Jeremiah standing in Tahpanhes is therefore a striking contrast to the people surrounding him. They were in Egypt because they did not trust God; Jeremiah was in Egypt still hearing from God. They had reached the refuge they wanted and discovered that Babylon was coming; Jeremiah had lost the circumstances he wanted and discovered that the Lord was still speaking. The decisive question is never simply where we are or what circumstances surround us, but whether we are abiding in Christ there.
What am I presently tempted to trust because it feels more tangible than God’s promises? Am I asking some created thing to give me the security that only Christ can provide? If God removed the earthly refuge I depend upon most, would I still believe that having Christ means I possess everything necessary for life, hope, and eternity?
“Cross” Fit S-WOD (Spiritual Workout of the Day) – 20 August 2026: Read Jeremiah 43:1-13 and Luke 22:39-46 together. Identify one area where fear, comfort, security, or personal preference may be influencing you to seek God’s approval for what you already want rather than genuinely surrendering to His will. Bring that specific issue before the Lord and pray Jesus’ words, “Not my will, but yours, be done.” Then share the decision with one mature believer whom you trust to give you biblical counsel even when it contradicts what you want to hear, and commit today to obey whatever God has already made clear in His Word.
Pray: “Father, You alone are my refuge and security. Forgive me for the times I have asked for Your direction while secretly determining where I wanted to go, rejected truth because it challenged my desires, or trusted what I could see more than what You have said. Thank You that no circumstance, no enemy, and not even the consequences of another person’s sin can carry me beyond Your presence or purposes. Thank You for Jesus, who perfectly submitted His will to Yours and went obediently to the cross to rescue me from sin and bring me into fellowship with You. Through Your Spirit, unite my heart and will increasingly with Christ so that I desire what You desire and trust where You lead. Give me humility to receive correction, courage to obey when obedience appears costly, and faith to believe that Christ Himself is infinitely greater than every Egypt I might seek for security. Wherever You place me, keep me abiding in Christ and conforming to His likeness until faith becomes sight and I dwell securely with You forever. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”
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