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Many Nations Go to the City of Divine FavorParadise Restored to Mankind—By Theocracy!
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“For this is what Jehovah of armies has said, ‘Just as I had in mind to do what was calamitous to you people because of your forefathers’ making me indignant,’ Jehovah of armies has said, ‘and I felt no regret,
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Many Nations Go to the City of Divine FavorParadise Restored to Mankind—By Theocracy!
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24. Why was Jehovah’s having in mind to bring calamity upon their forefathers not a case of ill-temper on His part?
24 Jehovah here admits that he had had in mind to do what was calamitous to the nation of Israel because the forefathers of the faithful remnant had made him indignant. But this did not mean any sort of ill-temper and fuming vexation on His part. The calamity that he had in mind to bring upon the nation or to let come upon the nation was strictly in harmony with the calmly stated set of warnings against the curses that they would suffer for breaking their part of their national covenant with Him. In all fairness he had warned them long previously through the prophet Moses:
“Jehovah will raise up against you a nation far away, from the end of the earth, just as an eagle pounces, a nation whose tongue you will not understand, a nation fierce in countenance, who will not be partial to an old man or show favor to a young man.
“And it must occur that just as Jehovah exulted over you to do you good and to multiply you, so Jehovah will exult over you to destroy you and to annihilate you; and you will simply be torn away from off the soil to which you are going to take possession of it.
“And Jehovah will certainly scatter you among all the peoples from the one end of the earth to the other end of the earth, and there you will have to serve other gods whom you have not known.”—Deuteronomy 28:49, 50, 63, 64; see also Leviticus 26:27-43.
25. (a) Why was it no injustice when Jehovah let those curses take effect? (b) What divine change of mind was now in effect, and why?
25 It was therefore only a just enforcement of His part of the national covenant with Jehovah, when he let the lawbreaking Israelites be “torn away from off the soil” by the Assyrians and by the Babylonians and then let the land of Judah lie utterly desolate for seventy years.
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