All of the wealth was brought to Nineveh, the capital. God sent Jonah to call them to repentance, because of the iniquity that had come in through the luxury which was the fruit of the wealth, extent, and pride of empire which they had acquired. The empire of Assyria, to which of Jonah was sent, included Phenicia, Syria, all Mesopotamia, Armenia, and all the north country to the Caspian Sea. There is a definite message which was sent by God to the kings and peoples of those very small kingdoms. But the nations that bring their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and serve him, those will I let remain still in their own land, saith the Lord and they shall till it, and dwell therein.” Jeremiah 27:4-11. Therefore hearken not ye to your prophets, nor to your diviners, nor to your dreamers, nor to your enchanters, nor to your sorcerers which speak unto you, saying, Ye shall not serve the king of Babylon for they prophesy a lie unto you, to remove you far from your land and that I should drive you out, and ye should perish.

And it shall come to pass, that the nation and kingdom which will not serve the same Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, that nation will not put their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, that nation will I punish, saith the Lord, with the sword, and with the famine, and with the pestilence, until I have consumed them by his hand. And all nations shall serve him, and his son, and his son’s son, until the very time of his land come and then many nations and great kings shall serve themselves of him.

And now have I given all those lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, My servant and the beasts of the field have I given him also to serve him. There Jeremiah, the prophet of God, was commanded to make some wooden yokes and to put them upon his neck and, in the time of King Zedekiah, when ambassadors came up to the king of Jerusalem from Moab and Ammon, and Tyre, Sidon, and Arabia, Jeremiah was to take these yokes, from his neck and hand them to the ambassadors, and tell them to carry to their kings the yokes, with this message: “Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Thus shall ye say unto your masters: I have made the earth, the man and the beast that are upon the ground, by My great power and by My outstretched arm, and have given it unto whom it seemed meet unto Me. In the twenty-seventh chanter of Jeremiah there is an illustration of this truth, with respect to the nations of old.

Byword to the nations