Daily Devotional | Numbered Days

In 1937, 18 broken pieces of pottery from the time of Jeremiah were discovered during an excavation of Lachish. On one piece, a scribe had written that he was “watching the signal fires of Lachish because we cannot see Azekah,” perhaps suggesting the city had already fallen to the advancing Babylonians. When the Babylonian army besieged Jerusalem, the only other fortified cities in Judah still holding out were Lachish and Azekah (Jer. 34:7).

In Lamentations 4:17, we find a similarly anxious tone. The author is describing the vigil of those “looking in vain for help” and watching from towers “for a nation that could not save us.” As the signal lights dimmed out one by one, no help appeared. Meanwhile, hostile forces stalked the street. At that point, the city’s inhabitants realized: “Our end was near, our days were numbered, for our end had come” (v. 18).

In verses 19–20, Jeremiah describes the desperate flight of those who left the city. King Zedekiah and the army departed through a gate near the king’s garden and fled toward the Jordan Valley, but they were followed in swift pursuit by Nebuchadnezzar’s army. While on the plains of Jericho, the king separated from his scattering troops and was captured. The Baby- lonians placed shackles on him and carried him to the king of Babylon in Riblah (Jer. 52:4–11).

Jeremiah speaks more of the symbol of Zedekiah’s office than his character when he refers to the king as “our very life breath” and laments, “We thought that under his shadow we would live among the nations” (v. 20). To say that someone’s “days are numbered” implies a threat of death. In the New Testament, Jesus turns this phrase upside down by reminding us that even the hairs on our head are numbered by God (see Matt. 10:30; Luke 12:7).