Sublime

Remember these things, O Jacob, and Israel, for you are my servant; I formed you, you are my servant; O Israel, you will not be forgotten by me. 22 I have swept away your transgressions like a cloud, and your sins like mist; return to me, for I have redeemed you. 23 Sing, O heavens, for the LORD has done it; shout, O depths of the earth; break

It was about what was happening in Israel now, during their persecution by Antiochus. It was telling them that though they had been cast into the den of lions, if they stood fast God would save them.

Remember back in Genesis 49:8–12 when Jacob-Israel was dying and he prophesied a blessing over each of his sons? What we learn today about the size and preeminence of the tribe of Judah aligns perfectly with what Jacob-Israel said about Judah on that day over four hundred years ago.

20 Mordecai recorded these things, and sent letters to all the Jews who were in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus, both near and far, 21enjoining them that they should keep the fourteenth day of the month Adar and also the fifteenth day of the same month, year by year, 22as the days on which the Jews gained relief from their enemies, and as the

23 The members of the half-tribe of Manasseh lived in the land; they were very numerous from Bashan to Baal-hermon, Senir, and Mount Hermon. 24These were the heads of their clans: Epher,[26] Ishi, Eliel, Azriel, Jeremiah, Hodaviah, and Jahdiel, mighty warriors, famous men, heads of their clans. 25But they transgressed against the God of their

After all of Jerusalem’s failures, all the ways that it concentrates just as much of Israel’s rebellion and God’s judgment as God’s mercy and Israel’s faithfulness, the prophets are convinced that God has not abandoned his plan to sustain a redeeming nation, a nation through whom all the nations will be blessed.