Jeremiah 25:4
And the LORD hath sent unto you all his servants the prophets, rising early and sending them; but ye have not hearkened, nor inclined your ear to hear. And the LORD hath sent unto you all his servants the prophets, rising early and sending them; but ye have not hearkened, nor inclined your ear to hear.
Jeremiah 25 was given very soon after the beginning of the Babylonian captivity. It contains the sure promise of the restoration of Israel after seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem, and its testimony about the number of the years is very plain. The verse means that God repeatedly sent all His servants the prophets to warn Judah and call the people to turn from evil, rising early and sending them, but they would not hearken nor incline the ear to hear. Their persistent refusal to listen to these repeated warnings preceded the judgment announced against them, and that rejection brought the judgment upon them.
That judgment came when God used the Chaldeans to take Judah into captivity, with punishment proportionate to the light given and the warnings received. More than sixty years after Jeremiah 25 was written, in the first year of Darius the Mede, Daniel studied this prophecy prayerfully in the books together with the letters and records of Jeremiah 27-31 and understood from it the seventy years, while still perplexed over how those seventy years related to the twenty-three hundred years to elapse before the cleansing of the sanctuary. From this prophecy Daniel learned that the seventy years of captivity were nearing their close, and this realization shapes his prayer for Jerusalem and its ruined sanctuary. The lesson also applies to God's people in later times, showing that God continues to warn and reprove through His servants and may delay judgment to allow repentance, but will ultimately judge persistent wrongdoing.