11 Then it will happen on that day that the Lord
Will again recover the second time with His hand
The remnant of His people, who will remain,
From Assyria, Egypt, Pathros, Cush, Elam, Shinar, Hamath,
And from the [d]islands of the sea.
12 And He will lift up a standard for the nations
And assemble the banished ones of Israel,
And will gather the dispersed of Judah
From the four corners of the earth.
13 Then the jealousy of Ephraim will depart,
And those who harass Judah will be cut off;
Ephraim will not be jealous of Judah,
And Judah will not harass Ephraim.
14 They will swoop down on the slopes of the Philistines on the west;
Together they will plunder the sons of the east;
[e]They will possess Edom and Moab,
And the sons of Ammon will be [f]subject to them.
15 And the Lord will [g]utterly destroy
The tongue of the [h]Sea of Egypt;
And He will wave His hand over the [i]River
With His scorching wind;
And He will strike it into seven streams
And make men walk over [j]dry-shod.
16 And there will be a highway from Assyria
For the remnant of His people who will be left,
Just as there was for Israel
In the day that they came up out of the land of Egypt.
God had every justification to be done with Judah and all of Israel. They had turned away time after time, even before the time of the kings, “every man did what was right in his own sight…” Which was not very “right” at all, but filled with idol worship, child sacrifice, prostitution, and witchcraft. He already had plans to send multiple prophets to warn His people, and He knew they would not repent, but would be carried off to foreign lands (v. 11 gives us a nice list…).
Yet in the middle of these warnings, in the middle of all the doom and gloom, God was already promising to bring them home again once more. Why bother?! They were only going to kill his Son a few hundred years later, and many, if not most, would simply ignore the promised Messiah when He finally came. God had more than enough reasons to abandon this plan, but He didn’t.
God wasn’t done with Israel (v. 16), because He loved them, and because He loves us. God knew that all the heartache was necessary so that He could one day rescue you and I from the pit of our sin. And yes, even in Jesus day, many would repent. They would see their mistake and follow Him once more, despite the odds.
God isn’t afraid of (what looks to us like) poor odds, because He doesn’t have to play the odds. God knew the plan involved his Son dying, and He chose to do it anyway, because new life came from that death. New life for those He loves so much, you, me, and the whole world (John 3:16). That’s a whole lot of reasons to stick it out, and God values each one.
No matter what your life looks like right now, no matter how far you’ve run (maybe like Jonah, heading as far away as possible), God doesn’t give up, because He has a plan for each of us. Will we embrace that plan, or ignore it, the choice is still up to us. He wants us to help in this “rescue mission” also, and that’s a high calling, a tough calling. We can’t see the end results, but God knows what is next, and He calls us to follow Him.