God is able to humble and also to keep. Dan 4:36,37
Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, had taken the remnant of Judah into captivity in Babylon. This pagan king had several significant dreams ‘from God’, the first was of the statue representing world kingdoms. ‘You are that head of gold’. Dan 2:38
Nebuchadnezzar had in effect become the custodian of God’s people and the treasures of the Temple until their seventy years of exile were completed. God had not punished him for the sacking of Judah and Jerusalem, but on the contrary had made him ‘king of kings’. Dan 2:36 God uses all sorts of people to mould and shape us into the people He’s destined us to be. The Jews wouldn’t listen to God in Judah, so He removed a remnant of them from their land and put them in exile under foreign rule. I’m sure many of the Jews were angry with the Babylonians but God didn’t tell His people to curse them(definitely not our job as Christians either). The opposite was true;
This is what the Lord almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Increase in number there; do not decrease. Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. PRAY TO THE LORD FOR IT, because if it prospers you too will prosper. Jer 29:4-7
God was saying this is home for you for the present, so settle down here and make the best of things. But He didn’t only tell them to live and increase(same as the garden of Eden), He told them to pray for Babylon. The place was full of astrology and all sorts of wickedness, but God told them to pray for it, because if it prospers you too will prosper. God was willing to answer prayer to bless a pagan empire so that His people too would be blessed! God tells us today, ‘to pray for all people and for those in authority… that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness’. 2 Tim 2:1-5 God tells us to pray blessing on the place where we live and work in order that we can receive blessing. A completely different attitude to natural reasoning, but God’s ways work and our hearts will not become bitter.
May God bless and keep you this day.