“Now these are
the people of the province who came back from the captivity, of those who had
been carried away, whom Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon had carried away to
Babylon, and who returned to Jerusalem and Judah, everyone to his own
city.” (v.1)
Here in
chapter 2 we find a listing of all who returned to Jerusalem and Judah
numbering 42,360, excluding 7,337 male and female servants, and 200 men and
women singers (vv.64-65). All these were
saved from continued captivity by the Word of the LORD, to His prophet Isaiah,
through His shepherd Cyrus, and recorded in scripture one hundred and seventy years before Cyrus was even
born (Isaiah 45:1).
This
salvation of entire families should give us great confidence that God desires
to see them saved, completely. No matter how old they are or how far they might have strayed, God’s heart is to
save them and “bring them again into their own border.”
The Truth
Thus says
the Lord: “Refrain your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears; for your
work shall be rewarded, says the Lord and they shall come back from the land of
the enemy. There is hope in your future, says the Lord, that your
children shall come back to their own border.” (Jeremiah 31:15-16)
