Jeremiah 32:19, commentary and pictures

God is great in wisdom and planning and mighty in action, with His eyes open upon all the paths of men to repay each one according to personal conduct and its fruit, and in this He measures character. Jeremiah prayed this after buying the ancestral field at Anathoth and preserving the deeds, when his faith was sorely tried by the outlook for Judah and he was perplexed and bowed with sorrow over those who refused to repent and sought further light on God's purpose for mankind. Because He knows all deeds and holds all accountable, no one can excuse unfaithfulness to His requirements, and His righteous recompense fell upon Jerusalem in its burning and captivity, yet His eternal purpose stood to bring again all the promised good and plant His people assuredly. For this reason He is to be regarded with holy fear and reverence, cheerful obedience, gratitude for His great love, and whole confident trust that keeps His honor constantly in view. Human genius, ability and scholarship avail nothing without Him, so His aid must be sought in all planning for His work with Christ as the One mighty in counsel to preside and direct, while councils that plan in self-sufficiency and strife He will oppose and bring to nothing as He carries forward His own work through human agents united with Him.

Setting and Meaning

Jeremiah uttered this declaration in prayer just after he had bought the ancestral field at Anathoth and made arrangement for the careful preserving of the deeds. His faith, until then unshaken, was at that moment sorely tried by the discouraging outlook for Judah. Perplexed in spirit and bowed with sorrow over those who refused to repent, he appealed to God for further enlightenment concerning the divine purpose for mankind.

The declaration stands between an acknowledgment that God made heaven and earth by great power with nothing too hard for Him, that He shows loyal love to thousands while repaying parental guilt upon the children, and that He bears the name of the great mighty God the Lord of hosts. It stands also beside the remembrance that He performed signs in Egypt and in Israel, delivered Israel from Egypt with power and terror, and gave them a land flowing with milk and honey sworn to their fathers. It then recalls that He brought all this evil upon them because, after they entered and possessed that land, they did not obey His voice nor walk in His law.

God is great in planning, wisdom and counsel and powerful and mighty in action and work. His eyes are open watching all the ways and paths of human beings. He repays each person according to personal conduct and its results, taking account of both ways and the fruit of doings, and in this He measures character. Because He thus knows people's deeds and holds them accountable, no one can excuse unfaithfulness to His requirements.

That righteous recompense fell upon Jerusalem in its fall to the Chaldeans, the burning of its gates and palaces, and the carrying away of its inhabitants captive, yet His eternal purpose for Israel still stood. As surely as He brought all the threatened evil upon the people, He would bring upon them all the promised good. He would gather them from all countries where He had driven them in anger, bring them again to dwell safely as His people, give them one heart and one way to fear Him, make an everlasting covenant to do them good and put His fear in their hearts, and rejoice over them and plant them assuredly. So fields would again be bought for money with evidences sealed and witnessed in Benjamin, about Jerusalem, in Judah, in the mountains, in the valley, and in the south when He caused their captivity to return.

Trusting His Counsel

Because He plans with great wisdom and works with great power, watching all the ways of human beings and giving to each according to conduct and its results, He is to be regarded with holy fear and reverence, with cheerful obedience, with gratitude for His great love, and with whole confident trust that keeps His honor and glory constantly in view.

He is wonderful and mighty in counsel, excellent in working, and entirely able to accomplish His designs and what He wills. He knows the end from the beginning and knows what is best when things do not go as men expect, and as the One full of wisdom, grace, power and supreme wisdom He alone is mighty in counsel. Human genius, logic, eloquence, great natural ability and high scholarship do not avail in His work. Men of great ability fail when they trust in themselves, while those of feebler intellect and less favorable surroundings are wonderfully successful when united with Him. When He helps all obstacles are overcome, and He accepts those with a humble, trusting, contrite heart and hears their prayer.

He is the great Leader who can restore and work for those who seek Him humbly, and He will be a help to all who call upon Him and be found by those who seek Him with all the heart. Proud self-sufficiency and human plans made without seeking Him do not reflect His wisdom. Human workers make mistakes and human inventions He does not recognize, and human planning and devising that braces the human will against His will is the worst folly. He can set in order what becomes out of joint through unconsecrated human management, and the heart surrendered to His wise discipline will trust every working out of His providence even when the ways and works of men are not His ways and purposes, giving no real cause to doubt Him or cast away confidence in Him and His living oracles.

His aid must be sought in planning His work, and human plans and purposes must be laid with His aid, for He is the One to seek for wisdom with human difficulties. Workers are to have less confidence in self and far greater confidence in Him, and because He does not give the same line of work to each worker they need to counsel together in the freedom and confidence that should exist among His workmen. To plan without Him is to act in own strength while His presence does not preside, with strife and an unchristlike spirit controlling minds and hearts. Jesus Christ as the One mighty in counsel is to direct the plans laid in business meetings and to preside at every meeting for His cause and work. He is to be wanted by one's side as Judge and Counselor in all business meetings as well as social and religious meetings, with His presence recognized so there is no lightness, self is not made prominent, and the importance of the work to be done is realized. Councils for the progress of His work should therefore seek Him in earnest prayer to preside, for Christ holds supreme wisdom to direct planning, and as the One mighty in counsel He guides prophetic writings and presents before His messenger the true condition of things.

He will work to carry forward His own work and is with His people so none need to fail. He works through human instrumentalities, honoring the human agent by making him a laborer together with God, where the seen and the unseen and the human and the divine cooperate, and in this way His sacred work is carried forward to His glory. Those who lay plans for His work without His aid, adopting plans that look unobjectionable from the world's point of view while criticizing, cutting down, restricting and meeting in strife with an unchristlike, decided, defiant spirit against the plain declaration of truth and the work He has appointed, do not have Him presiding in their council, cannot be sustained by Him, and show minds and hearts not under the controlling influence of His Spirit. He sees such councils and will work against them, binding the arm of those who feel mighty in their own strength and bringing to nothing the counsels, decisions and plans of those who flatter themselves that they are prudent, and those who have so criticized need anointed eyes to see.