In The Light Of Events God Calls On His People To Remember Him Afresh, And To Remember Jerusalem, Revealing The State Of Confusion In Which His People Are (Jeremiah 51:50-51).
God now calls on His exiled people, in the light of the events which will take place, to ‘remember YHWH' (turn their thoughts towards Him in worship and obedience) even though they are far from the land and the Temple site (at which spasmodic worship still continued), and to let Jerusalem ‘go up on their hearts', i.e. affect their thinking spiritually, with the consequence that they will make their way back there. They are not to be content with their exile. For while God could be worshipped anywhere, as the prophets had made clear, the fulfilment of God's purposes required His people to return to their land.
The people, however, were not so sure. All that they could see was that strangers occupied what remained of Jerusalem, and that, to their reproach, the holy Temple mount, with all that remained of its holy buildings, was occupied by them. They were acknowledging that they bore a great burden of guilt.
“You who have escaped the sword,
Go you, stand not still,
Remember YHWH from afar,
And let Jerusalem come into your mind.”
The call goes out to those of Israel/Judah who had survived all that had happened and were still alive, not to stand still where they were, but to come back to their land despite the difficulties. This message would have gone out to exiled groups around the known world with whom Jeremiah was in contact. In their distant places they were to ‘remember YHWH', calling to mind Him, His promises and His covenant. Parallel to this they were to ‘let Jerusalem go up on their hearts', bringing it to mind and being filled with a desire to return there (compare Psalms 137:5-6). This in the end was why Babylon had had to be severely dealt with, for while Babylon ruled on, such a return to Jerusalem would be impossible.
“We are confounded,
Because we have heard reproach,
Confusion has covered our faces,
For strangers are come into the sanctuaries of YHWH's house.”
The reply of the worldwide exiles is that they are demoralised as they look at what the situation is. They see what remains of Jerusalem as occupied by foreigners, who even walk over the area where the holy places of YHWH's house had been without giving it any thought, perhaps even conducting their own false worship there. And the thought fills the exiles with reproach, causing them to be confounded and confused and ashamed. One answer to their situation lies in the next verse. The graven images which had been given the credit for the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple were themselves about to be humbled in the dust by YHWH. What had happened to His Temple He would be fully avenged for.
Furthermore, little did they realise that one day God would cause the greatest man in the world of that day to arrange for exiles to return from Babylon, giving them his support and permission, returning to them the Temple vessels, and promising funds for the rebuilding of the Temple. They would only be comparatively few to begin with, but gradually others would be galvanised to return from distant places, to become a part of the new Israel. The beginnings of the story are told in the Book of Ezra fortified by the prophecies of Haggai and Zechariah