This is the text of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the surviving elders among the exiles and to the priests, the prophets and all the other people Nebuchadnezzar had carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon … This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon …
- Jeremiah 29:1, 4
 
Reading comp question: who carried the exiles from Jerusalem?
 
Nebuchadnezzar! Definitely. His armies overwhelmed Jerusalem, crushed and militarily humiliated the Judeans. He swept away leaders, priests, prophets, and anyone who could mount a meaningful rebellion and displaced them to Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar did it.
 
But the passage also says that the Lord Almighty carried the people from Jerusalem to Babylon. The God of the promises – who gave the people the land of promise – did this. We know about his covenant love and faithfulness. Exile-making sounds discordant to the story we know about him.
 
How can both Nebuchadnezzar and the Lord Almighty carry the people off into exile?
 
There’s something in us that wants simple answers. We want one person to blame or one explanation that wraps up all the loose ends. And we want to telescope a situation like this out into all of our challenging situations … if God carried his people into exile, maybe my hard experiences in life are also his doing.
 
This tension shows up time and time again in the Bible. And this tension isn’t resolved. Our apologetic attempts to get God off the hook (also known as theodicies) and our fatalistic attempts to turn up the volume on God’s sovereignty enough to drown out human responsibility … these all come crashing down when confronted with the weight of the Bible’s casual way of introducing these tensions.
 
Instead of resolving the tension, we’re taught to live in its midst. Yes, humans like Nebuchadnezzar carry people into exile. No one is denying our human experience of humiliation, frustration, and pain. And yet the Lord Almighty engages too. And this gives us hope that we might experience comfort, growth, and redemption even as we struggle.
 
Where are you tempted to clip this tension? Do you tend to overly focus on the human or the divine side of this tension? What might it look like for you to accept and explore this tension?