What does Jeremiah 29:11 mean?

What does “For I know the plans I have for you” mean?

In Jeremiah 29:11, which reads “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you” on this page, God’s thoughts toward the exiles mean peace and wellbeing.³ The verse goes on: “thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you hope and a future.”

Georg Fischer uses two English words for the one phrase: “thoughts” of peace in his text, and “plans” in his heading for the verse.³ Wilhelm Wessels also quotes the verse in English with “plans.”¹

In the book of Jeremiah, the word for peace calls up the false promises of other prophets. In Jeremiah 6:13-14, repeated in 8:10-11, prophets and priests promise peace when there is none. The book calls their message deceit. In chapter 29 the word comes back, after military defeat and life in a foreign country. In verses 12 to 14, the exiles can now take up God’s offer.³ Verse 13 reads, “You shall seek me, and find me.”

Doniwen Pietersen and Dirk Human find that in Jeremiah 29, exile is a place of peace. The homeland is the place of sword, famine and plague.²

Who was Jeremiah 29:11 written to?

Jeremiah 29:11 is addressed to the Judeans taken to Babylon in 597 BCE, with King Jehoiachin and his mother. The letter went from Jeremiah in Jerusalem to the exiles’ leaders, the priests and the prophets, and to all the people.¹

Two royal envoys carried the letter, Elasah son of Shaphan and Gemariah son of Hilkiah, sent by King Zedekiah to Nebuchadnezzar.¹ Doniwen Pietersen and Dirk Human read the envoys’ real task as diplomatic, probably to assure Nebuchadnezzar of Zedekiah’s loyalty. Carrying the letter was a side errand. Plots against Babylon were common in those years. In 594 or 593 BCE, small states in the west, Judah among them, discussed a revolt against Babylon.²

Takalani Muswubi finds that Babylon deported the political, religious and intellectual leaders, to remove anyone who might lead a future uprising. Only the lower classes were left behind in Judah. Muswubi points to Daniel 1:3-4, where some of the deported are raised to positions of authority in Babylon.⁴

What are the seventy years in Jeremiah 29:10?

In Jeremiah 29:10, the seventy years mean a long stay in a foreign country. The verse reads, “After seventy years are accomplished for Babylon, I will visit you.” Wilhelm Wessels names the length of the stay as probably one of the main disputes of the day.¹

In Jeremiah 28:3-4, a rival prophet named Hananiah says the exiles will be back in Jerusalem within two years. The vessels of the temple will come back with them.¹ In Jerusalem, many expected Babylon’s victory to be short-lived. To Jeremiah’s hearers, the city had withstood foreign powers for over 400 years, and its temple still stood.⁴

In verses 5 to 7, the letter tells the exiles to build houses and to work the land.¹ Doniwen Pietersen and Dirk Human read these commands as a way of saying the exile will be very long. Trees take years to bear fruit, and children take years to grow up, marry and have children of their own.²

In this part of Jeremiah, hope is not for now but for later, when the seventy years for Babylon are complete.²

Is Jeremiah 29:11 taken out of context?

Jeremiah 29:11 is often quoted on its own, out of its context. The promise runs on to verse 14, which ends: “I will bring you again to the place from where I caused you to be carried away captive.” Wilhelm Wessels reads the verse within verses 1 to 14. Read there, the promise of verses 11 to 14 would be kept, but only after a long stay in a foreign country.¹

The chapter falls into seven parts, and verses 10 to 14 are one of them. Verses 10 to 14 and verses 4 to 7 speak of hope and restoration. Verses 8 and 9, and 15 to 23, deal with true and false prophets. Scholars debate whether verses 10 to 14 belonged to the first letter at all. Wessels rejects the view that they were added later.¹

Verse 12 reads, “You shall call on me, and you shall go and pray to me, and I will listen to you.” Doniwen Pietersen and Dirk Human read the promise as unconditional, with the calling and seeking following from it. The same study reports a reading of verses 12 to 14 as conditions for the return. That reading takes the prayer in Daniel 9 as an attempt to meet them.²

When was Jeremiah 29:11 written?

Jeremiah 29:11 belongs to a letter composed between the exile of 597 BCE and Jerusalem’s fall in 587 BCE. Doniwen Pietersen and Dirk Human give that date. The same study holds that the letter came from the prophet himself, written by his own hand or by a scribe such as Baruch.² The first deportation to Babylon came in 597 BCE. Jerusalem’s final destruction and exile came in 587 BCE. Babylon fell to the Persians in 539 BCE. The exiles’ return began in 538 BCE.⁵ In the book’s final form, the letter would also speak to Jews living after Babylon’s empire fell.²

Takalani Muswubi reads chapter 29 as several letters edited into one, beginning with Jeremiah’s letter from Jerusalem. Replies came back from Babylon, from a prophet named Shemaiah. Shemaiah wrote to the priests in Jerusalem that Jeremiah was mad and should be imprisoned.⁴

Jeremiah is the longest single book of the Bible, and most of it deals with disaster. Georg Fischer holds that the book was composed late, most probably centuries after the events it describes. Fischer finds that the book uses the fall of Jerusalem in 587 BCE to speak to problems of its own time.³