here I am sending and I will take all the families of the north,” is the utterance of Jehovah, “even sending to Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and I will bring them against this land and against its inhabitants and against all these nations round about; and I will devote them to destruction and make them an object of astonishment and something to whistle at and places devastated to time indefinite.

“NEBUCHADREZZAR THE KING OF BABYLON, MY SERVANT”

7. Whose name deserves to be feared today like that of Nebuchadnezzar, and when will the nations fear it?

⁷ Today is the name of any man feared by all the nations just as the name Nebuchadnezzar was feared internationally back there, from and after the 23rd year of Jeremiah’s prophesying? (Jer. 25:3) No! No man of this 20th century will go down in modern history as being like ancient King Nebuchadnezzar. True, in Romans 13:1, 6, the apostle Paul says that law-abiding Christians pay their taxes to the “superior authorities” because these “are God’s public servants [Greek, leitourgoi] constantly serving this very purpose.” But no single politician today could be prophetically called by Jehovah God “my servant.” (Jer. 25:9; 27:6) The only person that can be called “servant” in fulfillment of this prophecy through Jeremiah is Jehovah’s greatest servant in all the universe. This one is his now highly exalted Son, Jesus Christ, to whom he has given a name higher than that of any other creature in heaven and on earth. (Isa. 42:1; Phil. 2:5-11) Although worldly rulers do not today fear him like Nebuchadnezzar, they will do so in the coming “war of the great day of God the Almighty” at Har–Magedon.​—Rev. 16:13-16.

8. Why did Jehovah call Nebuchadnezzar “my servant,” and what in connection with him is to be regarded as a type that concerns us today?

⁸ Why did Jehovah call King Nebuchadnezzar “my servant”? Because He used him to punish the people of Judah for their refusal to listen to His prophets. Punishment through this king of Babylon also extended to the neighboring countries that maliciously exploited Jehovah’s people out of contempt for Him. This does not mean, however, that Nebuchadnezzar was a type of Jesus Christ, who worshiped Jehovah alone as God. Rather, it is the executional work that Nebuchadnezzar performed for Jehovah upon the guilty nations that is typical. It prefigures the world-conquering work that Jesus Christ as Jehovah’s Chief Executional Officer carries out during the approaching “great tribulation,” in which all the enemy nations will be reduced to dust under the feet of Jehovah’s topmost Servant. Thus these nations (including those of Christendom) are the modern counterpart of those ancient nations that fell before the Babylonian World Power.