The Righteous Rule of the Righteous Branch

My first two “Christmas Branch” posts dealt with Isaiah 4 and Isaiah 11. Now we’ll look at Jeremiah’s development of this theme, specifically in chapter 23 and 33. In doing so, we’re moving from the eighth century to the sixth century B.C. Jeremiah predicts and witnesses the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem and the exile of the people of Judah. His Branch prophecies are given in this excruciating setting.

To appreciate what Jeremiah says, it would help us to think about some current events. This past week witnessed the stunning overthrow of the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria after fourteen years of civil war. Assad and his father held power for fifty-three years and carried out an autocratic reign of terror. It’s estimated that some 100,000 people were tortured to death in prison. Then there were hundreds of thousands more killed out in the country, including by the use of chemical weapons.

Assad’s crimes have been called “the worst atrocities of the twenty-first century,” and one expert says that there is more documented evidence against him than the Allies had against the Nazis at the Nuremberg trials (cnn). The Assad dictatorship is one in a long succession of governments that have oppressed their own people. It’s an extreme example of the problem that Jeremiah is addressing in chapters 21 and 22. Here the Lord denounces the civil leaders of his people, the kings of Judah in particular. He goes after the last four kings of Judah, descendants of Josiah who were so unlike their godly forefather: Jehoahaz (Shallum), Jehoiakim, Jeconiah (Jehoiachin), and Zedekiah. The Davidic dynasty is roundly rebuked for their persistent rebellion against the Lord and for their injustices against their own people.

That’s the background to the great Messianic promise in our text, what Jeremiah records in 23:5:

Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.

In contrast to the cruelty the Judeans had experienced from so many of their leaders, this verse predicts the righteous rule of the righteous Branch. Jeremiah anticipates the nature of the Baby born in Bethlehem and the nature of the kingdom he will establish on earth one day. This is one of the great truths that renews our hope during Advent, even while the world is overrun by political unrighteousness and upheaval and uncertainty.

Theologian Carl Henry declared somewhere,

The early Christians did not say in dismay, ‘Look what the world has come to,’ but in delight, ‘Look what has come to the world!’

That’s the attitude Jeremiah’s prophecy is cultivating. As we make our way through verses 1–8, we see God promising to take three actions to relieve his people of their suffering and to bless them with a kingdom where they will be treated fairly and compassionately.

God will judge the evil leaders of his people (vv. 1–2).

¹ “Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!” declares the LORD. ² Therefore thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who care for my people: “You have scattered my flock and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. Behold, I will attend to you for your evil deeds, declares the LORD.

In verse. 2 the word translated care is ironic. It’s the same word as the one translated shepherds (ra‘ah). The shepherds were supposed to shepherd, but what did they actually do? They destroy and scatter the sheep (v. 1). What is that referring to?

For one, injustice and ill-gotten gain (22:13–17):

¹³ “Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness, and his upper rooms by injustice, who makes his neighbor serve him for nothing and does not give him his wages, ¹⁴ who says, ‘I will build myself a great house with spacious upper rooms,’ who cuts out windows for it, paneling it with cedar and painting it with vermilion.

The world is increasingly learning of how lavishly the Assad family lived: $7000 shoes, a fleet of luxury cars, a $1 billion mansion. All of this while the Syrian people were being starved and brutalized (fox, cnn). Again that’s an extreme example, but in principle it’s the kind of ruthless abuse of power Jeremiah is addressing. He also confronts the widespread idolatry the kings of Judah had permitted and sponsored (22:8–9).

In response to all of this, there’s another play on words in 23:2: “You have not attended to them. . . . I will attend to you.” The word here is paqad, which has to do with “visiting” in the sense of inspecting an area of responsibility and dealing appropriately with it. As the NIV puts it, “Because . . . you have not bestowed care on them, I will bestow punishment on you.” That will signal the end of oppressive rulers!

God will appoint good leaders over his people (vv. 3–4).

³ Then I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. ⁴ I will set shepherds over them who will care for them, and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall any be missing, declares the LORD.

What a beautiful and encouraging set of promises! But what are they talking about exactly? Some think the regathering predicted is the return from exile. If so, the good shepherds would be people like Ezra, Nehemiah, and Zerubbabel. But that’s unlikely for a couple of reasons. (1) Verse 3 says the regathering will be “out of all the countries where I have driven them,” not just Babylon. (2) Verse 4 says, “They shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall any be missing.” That isn’t exactly what happened in the post-exilic period. Judah was a colony first of Persia, then of Greece, then of Rome, and then the Romans destroyed the rebuilt Temple. The Jewish people were dominated and oppressed by these foreign powers and often lived in fear. In fact, fear and dismay continue to this day!

So it seems this is talking about what we saw in Isaiah 11 in the previous post—how in the end times the Lord is going to regather Israelites from all over the globe and establish them in their promised land. But who will be the good shepherds he will set over his people?

We don’t know for sure, but remember something Jesus said to his original disciples in Matthew 19:28: “Truly, I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” That shouldn’t surprise us since Revelation 20 says that in some way all his people will reign with Christ for a thousand years (vv. 4, 6).

However it works exactly, in the future God has prepared for his people Israel they will never again suffer under oppressive leadership. And all believers will be there enjoying the same blessing with them. In fact, in verse 4 Jeremiah uses the same wordplay he used in verse 2: “shepherds . . . who will shepherd.” This time they will actually do their job!

That’s one of the glorious things we have to look forward to. And it ought to be a special encouragement to believers who today are suffering under dictatorial regimes. And the same goes for anyone who has been taken advantage of or abused by someone in leadership of any kind. In the coming kingdom we will have leaders we can fully trust and confidently follow.

God will send the ideal Leader to his people (vv. 5–8).

⁵ “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. ⁶ In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘The LORD is our righteousness.’ ⁷ “Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when they shall no longer say, ‘As the LORD lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt,’ ⁸ but ‘As the LORD lives who brought up and led the offspring of the house of Israel out of the north country and out of all the countries where he had driven them.’ Then they shall dwell in their own land.”

These verses repeat what Isaiah 11 prophesied about the eschatological regathering of Israel under a Davidic ruler called the Branch. Both texts have a special emphasis on the justice of his reign. That answers to God’s expectations for the Davidic kings that Jeremiah had laid out in 22:1–3:

¹ Thus says the LORD: Go down to the house of the king of Judah and speak there this word, ² and say, ‘Hear the word of the LORD, O king of Judah, who sits on the throne of David, you, and your servants, and your people who enter these gates. ³ Thus says the LORD: Do justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place.

With the coming of the Branch, that ideal will finally become reality! And what Jeremiah says also corresponds to what John says in Revelation 19:11:

Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war.

John calls this figure “The Word of God” (v. 13) and “King of kings and Lord of lords” (v. 16). The Branch who will bring perfect justice to the world is the Lord Jesus Christ!

But we also need to consider what Jeremiah says about the Branch that isn’t in Isaiah 11. It’s in 23:6b:

And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘The LORD is our righteousness.’

Remember Zedekiah, the last king of Judah? In Hebrew his name is Tsidqiyyahu, and it means “Yahweh is my righteousness.” His reign was a disturbing contradiction of his name. But when the Davidic Branch comes, he will be Yahweh Tsidqenu: “Yahweh is our righteousness.” The point is that Yahweh—and Yahweh alone—is the source of the righteousness that will pervade the final kingdom of God.

But what does “righteousness” mean anyway? It means conformity to a standard, and each context has a particular standard in view. In Jeremiah’s context the standard is treating people with fairness and dignity instead of tyrannizing them. That includes punishing oppressors and rescuing those who have been oppressed. So righteousness here involves working out justice and deliverance and vindication.

We need to tie this in with the other Branch passage in Jeremiah. It’s in ch. 33, and it’s in the context of the promise of the New Covenant:

¹⁴ “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. ¹⁵ In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David, and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. ¹⁶ In those days Judah will be saved, and Jerusalem will dwell securely. And this is the name by which it will be called: ‘The LORD is our righteousness.’ ¹⁷ “For thus says the LORD: David shall never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel, ¹⁸ and the Levitical priests shall never lack a man in my presence to offer burnt offerings, to burn grain offerings, and to make sacrifices forever.”

What these verses say about the Branch is almost the same as chapter 23. But there’s an important difference: it’s not the Branch who is called “Yahweh is our righteousness.” Instead, the city of Jerusalem is called that! Society will be so thoroughly marked by the righteousness the Branch works out that the city will take on his name.

Think of it—a city where there is no favoritism, no abuse, no corruption. Everything rightly ordered according to God’s standards. This will be the utopia the human race has always longed for, and it will come about because of the reign of King Jesus. He will reign with absolute authority. But even as he reigns for his own glory, every decision he makes will also be with the good of his people in his heart.

The arrival of that King is what we’re celebrating at Christmas! What did the magi ask in Matthew 2:2? “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews?” And they were asking that of King Herod, who had a history of butchering his subjects and who would go on to slaughter the babies of Bethlehem because of his jealousy for power. In contrast to that, in Matthew 20:25–28 Jesus describes his rule as the opposite of what Herod did: our King came to serve us and to give his life as a ransom for us!

Jehovah Tsidkenu

For the people of Israel to say “Yahweh is our righteousness” is to confess that no merely human king could work out the righteousness that’s needed. It’s a way of admitting that they were relying totally on Yahweh to create a society where justice and peace prevail.

If that’s true on the level of human relationships, it’s even more true on the level of our relationship to God. That’s why the NT makes so much of the righteous standing that only Jesus can provide for people. In 1 Corinthians 1, Paul put it this way:

³⁰ And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, ³¹ so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

That last line about boasting in the Lord is from Jeremiah 9:24. Maybe Paul was also thinking about Jeremiah’s “Yahweh our righteousness” passages. At any rate, he returns to this theme in 2 Corinthians 5:21:

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

This is why believers have long taken Jeremiah’s expression about societal righteousness and applied it to God’s way of saving individual human beings: justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. The beloved nineteenth-century pastor Robert Murray M’Cheyne wrote a hymn on this central doctrine that uses Jeremiah’s title for the Branch: “Jehovah Tsidkenu.” The hymn is also called “The Watchword of the Reformers” because of its theme of coming to trust in Christ alone for righteousness. It’s not a Christmas carol, but it touchingly describes the personal impact of the Christ whose birth we celebrate during Advent.

I once was a stranger to grace and to God,
I knew not my danger, and felt not my load;
Though friends spoke in rapture of Christ on the tree,
Jehovah Tsidkenu was nothing to me.

Like tears from the daughters of Zion that roll,
I wept when the waters went over His soul;
Yet thought not that my sins had nail’d to the tree
Jehovah Tsidkenu – ’twas nothing to me.

When free grace awoke me, by light from on high,
Then legal fears shook me, I trembled to die;
No refuge, no safety in self could I see, –
Jehovah Tsidkenu my Saviour must be.

My terrors all vanished before the sweet name;
My guilty fears banished, with boldness I came
To drink at the fountain, life-giving and free, –
Jehovah Tsidkenu is all things to me.

Even treading the valley, the shadow of death,
This “watchword” shall rally my faltering breath;
For while from life’s fever my God sets me free,
Jehovah Tsidkenu, my death song shall be.