“For I know the plans that I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans for shalom and not for evil to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you,’ declares the LORD, ‘and I will restore your fortunes and will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you,’ declares the LORD, ‘and I will bring you back to the place from where I sent you into exile.’ Jeremiah 29:11-14.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God says:
I am doing something new; do you not perceive it? But all that is new I announced of old. “Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things which have not been done, saying, ‘My purpose will be established, and I will accomplish all My good pleasure.’” Isaiah 46:10. And what is My good pleasure? “Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Luke 12:32. And how did I do that? In Jesus, My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased. “But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastisement for our shalom was upon Him, and by His stripes (bloody scourges) we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the LORD laid on (את) Him the iniquity of us all.” Isaiah 53:5-7. “Yet it pleased the LORD to crush Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in His hand. He shall see the labor of His soul and be satisfied. By His knowledge, My righteous Servant shall justify many, for He shall bear their iniquities.” Isaiah 53:10-11. My good pleasure prospered in the hands of Jesus.
Do not call to mind the former things or ponder things of the past. Behold, I will do something new, now it will spring forth; will you not be aware of it? Isaiah 43:18-19. Behold, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. 2 Corinthians 5:17.
Jesus is the fulfillment of My plans that I plan for you as foretold by My prophet Jeremiah. Jeremiah 29:11-14. In Him I have given you shalom and restored you, in fact, He is your shalom and restoration. I would like to have you explore this prophecy with Me now in a new light—not as addressed to the exiles living in Babylon at the time of Jeremiah, but to everyone from the beginning to the end of time. And where are you returning to? To the relationship and abundance of the Garden of Eden from which you were all exiled in adam.
Here is the prophecy: “For I know the אֶת plans (מַחֲשָׁבָה machashebeth: thought, device, design, plan) that I have planned (חָשַׁב chashab: to think, account, reckon) for you,” declares the LORD, “plans (מַחֲשָׁבָה machashebeth: thought, device, design, plan) for your shalom (שָׁלוֹם shalom: completeness, soundness, welfare, peace, wholeness in every area of your life) and not for evil (רַע ra: bad, unpleasant, giving pain, unhappiness, misery, evil) to give you a future (אַחֲרִית acharith: the after-part, end) and a hope (תִּקְוָה tiqvah: cord). Then you will call upon אֵת Me and come (הָלַךְ halak: to walk, to go, come) and pray (פָלַל palal: to intervene, interpose, intercede, make supplication) to Me, and I will listen to (שָׁמַע shama: to hear) you. You will seek אֵת Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you,’ declares the LORD, ‘and I will restore אֵת your fortunes (שְׁבוּת shebuth or shebith: captivity, captives) and will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven (נָדַח nadach: to impel, thrust, banish) you,’ declares the LORD, ‘and I will bring you back to the place (הַ֨מָּק֔וֹם maqom: a standing place, place, the place where I put My Name) from where I sent you into exile (גֶּלֶה galah: to uncover, remove) and put you there (שָׁם sham: there).’” Jeremiah 29:11-14.
First, I know the thoughts I think towards you, My plans, My designs, My devices for your life. You are My workmanship, My masterpiece, I fashioned with My own hands from the earth, in your mother’s womb, I saw you, I knit you together, and I did so in Christ Jesus. “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.” Colossians 1:15-17. And this prophecy of Jeremiah has the Aleph Tav in it in some strategic places to let you know that in advance. “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” Ephesians 2:10. And the same when I first created mankind (adam), “Then the LORD God formed אֶת man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” Genesis 1:7.
And My plans, My thoughts, My designs, for you are for your shalom. Gideon called Me, “Yahweh Shalom.” When I raised Jesus from the dead after His suffering and death, what did He tell the disciples in the upper room? “Shalom.” And then He showed them His hands and His feet establishing your sins were gone and your peace had come with Me. But more than just peace, you had been made whole for all that you had broken and lost. In Him you are made complete. Colossians 2:10. Complete and perfected in your heavenly bridegroom from whose side the church, His Body of which all believers are members, was pulled out, just as the bride was pulled out of the bridegroom in adam. And when you join with Him by faith in His Name and resurrection, you become one spirit with Him, and thus with Me. 1 Corinthians 6:17.
My plans are always to dwell among you and be your God and you be My people, My own special treasure, though all the earth is Mine, and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. Exodus 19:4-6, Revelation 1:5-6, 1 Peter 2:9-10. But you all turned your backs to Me and not your faces and went after other gods, even the devil himself, as the first man and woman did, but I had a plan for your shalom and not evil that would give you a future beyond all you could ask or imagine. I refused to leave you in the captivity in which you bound yourselves. I planned to redeem you from the slavery of sin and death. I created the Kingdom for you and I want you all to be there. It is for My own sake that I wipe out your sins by putting them on My Son so that you can again enjoy oneness of heart, mind, purpose, and place with Me. I am love and you are My creation, My family in My image and likeness, whom I love and make plans for. You are precious in My sight, and I honor and love you.
My plans are good plans, beautiful plans, for you and they are not evil– disaster, illness, pain, destruction or harm are not My Will, and, one day, if they do not repent and come to Jesus, I will punish severely those who have destroyed others and My earth by aligning themselves with evil. With the evil one they have chosen they will spend forever. But for you who honor Me and love My Name, I give a future and a hope that goes beyond the veil.
“For I know the plans that I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans for shalom and not for evil to give you a future and a hope.” The word translated “future,” is אַחֲרִית acharith: the after-part, end. It means bringing to the completion. In other words, I am giving you a desired end and a beautiful continuation after that. And what is it after? After you are freed from captivity.
And the word translated “hope” is תִּקְוָה tiqvah, which means “cord,” hope draws you forward to Me, I have drawn you with human cords and bands of love in Jesus’ humanity. But let Me show you the first mention of tiqvah in My Word. First mention is important. And in its first mention, it is translated as “cord.” Do you remember that a harlot of Jericho named Rahab hid the Israelite spies so they escaped death when they spied out her city, and, for her kindness to them done out of honor for Me, she made them promise that when the Israelites conquered Jericho they would spare her and her family? Do you remember what the Israelite spies told her? They told her to tie the cord of scarlet thread they gave her in the window of her house, the window by which she lowered them out of the city for her house was in the city wall, and for her and all her household to gather there when the Israelites took the city. The scarlet cord would be the sign of Salvation for her and her household. And she said, “According to your words, so be it.” So she sent them away, and they departed; and she tied the scarlet cord in the window. Joshua 2:1-21. Now in Hebrew I think you can guess what word I have before the word “tiqvah.” Yes, the aleph tav. The spies told her, “when we come into the land, you tie this אֶת cord of scarlet thread in the window through which you let us down, and gather to yourself into the house your father and your mother and your brothers and all your father’s household,” so they could be saved, Joshua 2:18, and then “So she sent them away, and they departed; and she tied the אֶת cord of scarlet in the window.” Joshua 2:21. Jesus is your hope, 1 Timothy 1:1, and you have washed your robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Revelation 7:14. He took your sins, red as scarlet, and made them white as snow. But His robes became covered in blood to take the blood off yours. “He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God.” Revelation 19:13. The scarlet cord has drawn you into the household of faith, the place of grace, into Salvation.
Every other instance where the word “tiqvah” is used in the Old Testament it is translated as the word “hope.” I think you will understand now, “This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil, where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us, having become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.” Hebrews 6:19-20.
And let’s go through the rest of the prophecy of Jeremiah: “Then you will call upon אֵת (אֹתִ֖י) and come (הָלַךְ halak: to walk, to go, come) and pray (פָלַל palal: to intervene, interpose, intercede, make supplication) to Me, and I will listen to (שָׁמַע shama: to hear) you. You will seek אֵת (אֹתִ֖י) and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you,’ declares the LORD, ‘and I will אֵת restore your fortunes (שְׁבוּת shebuth or shebith: captivity, captives) and will gather you from all the nations (הַגּוֹיִ֞ם goyim: the unbelieving nations) and from all the places where I have driven (נָדַח nadach: to impel, thrust, banish) you,’ declares the LORD, ‘and I will bring you back to the place from where I sent you into exile (גֶּלֶה galah: to uncover, remove) and put you there (שָׁם sham: there).’” Jeremiah 29:11-14.
You will note the One you call to and seek to find Me with you is Jesus (אֶת) as you search for Me, יהוה and you find Me with you. And through Him I hear and answer you. And in Him I restore you from your captivity, from the “god” of this world who took you captive to do his will, and restore your freedom and fortunes which you lost. Jesus, though He was rich, emptied Himself and became poor so that by His poverty you would become rich, and in Him I have enriched you with every spiritual blessing in Heaven, all you need and abundantly more for life and godliness. 2 Corinthians 8:9. And I will gather you from the places where I banished you (drove you to out of Garden of Eden) and from the unbelieving nations where you were scattered and return you to the place (ha maqom) from where I sent you into exile and put you there, in that place. “Sham” is the word “there” in Hebrew and the first time it is used in the Bible is in Genesis 2:8: “The LORD God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden; and there (sham) He placed the אֶת man (adam) whom He had formed.” Genesis 2:8. And after that it occurs many times, but you find it in Ezekiel’s vision of the new Jerusalem, “The city shall be 18,000 cubits round about; and the name of the city from that day shall be, ‘The LORD is there (Yahweh shammah).’” Ezekiel 48:35.
There is much contained in this prophecy. It is all about what I have done and do for you in Jesus, but actually the whole Bible is about that. The Holy Spirit testifies to Jesus and the entire Book is Spirit-breathed by Me. Everything is summed up in Jesus. Make sure your life is also.
I love you. I have provided you with a future and a hope. And you find both in Jesus, in whom I have made you complete. He is your hope. He is your Shalom. Prince of Peace. And He gave you His peace (shalom) the night before He died, John 14:27, and again the day I raised Him from the dead. John 20:19-21.