Day 225 (Jeremiah 23-25) - Year 8

“If you want to hear God speak, read your Bible out loud.” That line from today’s episode of The Bible Recap captures the central tension in Jeremiah 23–25: the difference between claiming to speak for God and actually knowing what God has said. Host Tara Lee Cobble walks through a dense stretch of prophecy where God rebukes Judah’s leaders, promises a future righteous king, and announces judgment through Babylon—all while wrestling with a question that runs through the entire book: who is responsible for scattering God’s people, and what does it mean to truly hear from God?

The paradox of God’s sovereignty and human agency

Cobble opens with a deliberate tension in Jeremiah 23. In verse 2, God says the leaders of Judah “have scattered my flock and have driven them away.” But then in verse 3, God says, “I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them.” So who did the scattering? Both, Cobble explains. The leaders were the active agents of evil, but God was using their wicked actions within his good and righteous overarching plan. “I’m so glad I serve a God who redeems the wicked things done to his kids,” she says. This isn’t a contradiction—it’s a picture of how God works through human sin to accomplish his purposes without being the author of that sin. The leaders are culpable, but God remains sovereign.