Verse 14
God promised to free the exiles soon and to supply their needs. Westerners tend to read verses like this one through individualistic glasses. We ask if there were not individuals who died in exile. There probably were. The prophet’s perspective was much more collective; he viewed the Israelites as a unit. By saying they would not die in exile he meant that the nation would not cease to exist while in captivity. While this was true of the Babylonian exiles, the promises of salvation in this section of the book anticipate a larger spiritual redemption as well, as I have noted. In fact, life in Babylonian exile was far from harsh for most of the Israelites (cf. Jeremiah 29:4-7), so much so that most of them chose not to return to the Promised Land when they could.
Be the first to react on this!
