What does Jeremiah 29:11 mean?

Jeremiah 29:11 is God's promise to the Jewish exiles in Babylon that he had not abandoned them: his thoughts toward them were of peace and not of evil, to give them an expected end — a future and a hope. In context it is a promise to a whole people that would take seventy years to be fulfilled, not a guarantee of quick personal success. What it does establish is that God's intentions toward his people are good even when their circumstances are not.

A letter to people in exile

Jeremiah 29 is a letter. Jerusalem had been defeated and many of its people carried away captive to Babylon. Other prophets were telling them the exile would be over almost immediately; Jeremiah 28 records one of them putting it at two years. Jeremiah's letter says the opposite, and its first instructions are startling: build houses and dwell in them, plant gardens and eat the fruit, marry and raise children, and seek the peace of the city where you are captive and pray for it. They are told to settle into a place they never wanted to be, because they will be there a long time.

Seventy years, and then the promise

Verse 10 gives the timescale: after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon I will visit you. Verse 11 follows without a break. That means most of the adults who first heard the promise would die in Babylon; it would be kept to their children and grandchildren. In Hebrew the you in the verse is plural — it is addressed to a community. The Hebrew behind the KJV's expected end is literally a future and a hope, which is how most modern translations render it. So the verse is not a promise that a particular plan will work out soon. It is an assurance about the direction of God's intentions over a span longer than one life.

How to read it for yourself

It is still right to take comfort from the verse, with its context intact. It shows what God is like toward his people: his thoughts are of peace, and hardship is not evidence that he has stopped thinking them. Verses 12-13 show what the promise is for — then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart. The goal is relationship more than circumstance. Romans 8:28 makes a similar claim for the Christian: all things work together for good to them that love God, which is a statement about where things are heading, not about each thing being good in itself.

Passages referenced

¹⁰ For thus saith the Lord, That after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place. ¹¹ For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. ¹² Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. ¹³ And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart. ¹⁴ And I will be found of you, saith the Lord: and I will turn away your captivity, and I will gather you from all the nations, and from all the places whither I have driven you, saith the Lord; and I will bring you again into the place whence I caused you to be carried away captive.
Jeremiah 29:10-14 (KJV) →
⁵ Build ye houses, and dwell in them; and plant gardens, and eat the fruit of them; ⁶ Take ye wives, and beget sons and daughters; and take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters; that ye may be increased there, and not diminished. ⁷ And seek the peace of the city whither I have caused you to be carried away captives, and pray unto the Lord for it: for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace.
Jeremiah 29:5-7 (KJV) →
²⁸ And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
Romans 8:28 (KJV) →

Written by the Esther team. Scripture quoted from the King James Version, which is in the public domain.