Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Jeremiah 3:12
Go and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith the LORD; [and] I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you: for I [am] merciful, saith the LORD, [and] I will not keep [anger] forever.
12. look in anger ] lit. as mg. cause my countenance to fall upon you. For the falling of the countenance in this sense, cp. Gen 4:5.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
The north – The ten tribes, settled by Salmanezer in the north of Assyria.
I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you – literally, I will not cause my face to fall upon you: i. e., I will not receive you with averted looks. The and before this clause should be omitted, as also before the next clause, I will not keep …
I will not keep – All Gods promises and threats are conditional upon mans conduct.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Jer 3:12-15
Return, thou backsliding Israel.
The backsliders return
I. The invitation to return.
1. From one who
(1) has been wronged (Jer 3:13);
(2) might therefore justly be angry;
(3) but is merciful (Jer 3:12).
2. To one who
(1) has been grossly disobedient;
(2) has been equally ungrateful;
(3) is reaping consequences of disobedience and ingratitude.
II. The condition of return. Confession is the condition of return, because–
1. Genuine confession of sin can proceed only from genuine contrition for sin, which is not unfrequently brought about (Luk 15:17) by a comparison of the lamentable consequences of backsliding, with happiness previously enjoyed.
2. Godly sorrow or genuine contrition worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of; i.e. it finds relief only in that confession which is the condition of return. True repentance involves–
(1) Contrition for sin against God.
(2) Confession of sin to God.
(3) Return from sin towards God (Act 20:21).
III. Results of the return.
1. Gods anger will be averted (Jer 3:12).
2. God will Himself escort the wanderer home.
3. A happy future. Comprising
(1) life under a rule which can commit no errors, legislative or judicial (Jer 3:15);
(2) a promise that the restored shall not walk any more after the imagination of their evil heart (Jer 3:17), the cause of their backsliding. (H. A. Hall, B. D.)
Return! Return!
1. It is a fearful thing that a believer should backslide.
(1) Such mercy has been shown to him.
(2) Such love has been enjoyed by him.
(3) Such prospects lie before him.
(4) Such comfort is sacrificed by his backsliding.
2. It is a wretched business for the man himself, since by it nothing is gained, and everything is endangered.
3. It is injurious to the whole church to which the backslider belongs.
4. It is mischievous to the outside world.
5. What is the immediate duty of the backslider? the immediate remedy for his backsliding?–Return.
I. Wonder awakened by the call.
1. The usual jealousy of love.
2. The abundance of the sin (Jer 3:2).
3. The obstinate continuance in evil, notwithstanding chastisements (Jer 3:3).
4. The refusal of tender persuasion (Jer 3:4).
5. The perversion of mercy (Jer 3:5).
6. The warnings which had been despised (Jer 3:6-11). It is a great increase of iniquity when we perceive the suffering which it causes others, and yet persevere m it ourselves.
II. Memories aroused by the call.
1. Does it not remind you of other days?
(1) When you first came to Jesus.
(2) When you were happy with other believers.
(3) When you could teach and warn others.
(4) When you began to go aside, a little.
(5) When you have sinned grievously through this backsliding.
2. Indulge these memories till they affect your heart.
III. Reasons urged for obeying the call.
1. It is God Himself who utters it.
2. Anger will be removed (Jer 3:12).
3. Love continues (Jer 3:14).
4. Healing will be given (Jer 3:22).
IV. Directions given to make obedience to the call easy.
1. Only acknowledge thine iniquity (Jer 3:13). What a simple matter!
2. Lament the evil (Jer 3:21).
3. Own the sad result (Jer 3:25).
4. Trust in God for restoration (Jer 3:23).
5. Heartily renew allegiance (Jer 3:22).
V. Promises made to those answering to the call.
1. Special guidance (Jer 3:14).
2. Suitable food (Jer 3:15).
3. Spiritual insight (Jer 3:16-17).
4. Childlike spirit (Jer 3:19). (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Backsliding
Let us have up the backsliders, and ask them why they slid back. Of course they have excuses. All wrongdoers have. You interview any defaulting bank officer, etc., and they will tell you a tale of sweet and childlike artlessness to account for their weakness, as they will call it.
1. I was deluded into being confirmed by the urgent solicitations of the rector, or my parents, or my Sunday school teacher. I was over-persuaded by my wife or my friends. I acted hastily. Now just put this into plain English and look at it. You were deluded into an attempt to rise to a higher plane. You were over-persuaded to strive to be a better: man or woman. You acted hastily in resolving to strive to get the better of evil passions and ugly habits. How does that sound?
2. My rector said that there would be a great comfort in being a communicant, that it would bring a peaceful conscience, and a joy in life, and a satisfaction of heart. Now I did not find it so. After I became a communicant, my old bad feelings returned, and I gave way often to evil thoughts, words, and deeds, and the world did not change, and I was not very different, and so I stopped the whole thing. Now, if you had a very sick friend, and the doctor should leave pills which if steadily taken would bring relief, what would you reply on hearing your friend say after taking two or three, I feel no better, I will take no more? You would reply: The doctor never said a dose or two would answer. He said that if persevered in the pills would bring relief. Would you blame the doctor or the medicine, if your friends bad symptoms still continued?
3. It was such hard work. Why, there was no end to the care we had to take. We had to watch our words all the time to see that we let out no scandalous or ugly or impure ones, and our steps that we went nowhere which would be likely to peril our Christian profession. We found that to be consistent we had to struggle, and to meet opposition, and to go contrary to our own wishes, and when we fell, it was so hard to get back, we got discouraged and gave up. Young men have told me that, whom I saw, just to keep their places in the store, working like very galley slaves, thinking no self-denial too great to hold on there, rising early, going without sleep, hurrying through their meals, restraining their tempers, bearing patiently with troublesome customers and overbearing employers. Do you not see the awful inconsistency, the poor futility, of this excuse? (C. Locke, D. D.)
Israel invited to renew her marriage by repentance
I. God sends messengers of mercy and not of judgment (Jer 3:12).
II. God requires that they humble themselves before Him (Jer 3:13).
III. God urges the most affecting considerations, in order to prevail upon them.
1. The merciful disposition He felt towards them.
2. The relation under which He still regarded them.
3. The benefits which He was still ready to confer upon them. (C. Simeon, M. A.)
A proclamation from the King of kings
Backsliders are very many. Departing from the living God is no strange thing. Many Christians are one while hot, and another lukewarm, and even cold. They are diligent and fervent today, but idle and indifferent tomorrow. Even the best of believers are not always at their best. Who among us has not had cause to make confession that he has not kept up to his first love at all times; neither has his lamp been always clearly burning?
I. The proclamation: Go and proclaim these words towards the north, and say, Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith the Lord.
1. It was to be a proclamation, for God is King; and if His subjects rebel He does not lose the rights of His sovereignty. He sends, therefore, to them a royal message with all the power which belongs to the word of a king. Go and proclaim.
2. This proclamation is sent to the worst of sinners, to the very basest of backsliders. They broke their marriage bonds to the one living and true God, and made themselves loathsome in His sight by the most detestable idolatries. It is sad that there should have been such a race of backsliders; but it is glorious to think that to such as these the message of Gods mercy was sent.
3. The Israelitish people were not only the worst kind of backsliders, but they had already reaped in a very large measure the result of their backslidings, for they had been carried away captive. They had suffered the loss of all things because they had departed from their God, and yet they had not learned the lesson which affliction was meant to teach It was still needful to call them to repentance, and God bade them return to Him: His proclamation was to them.
4. I see some mercy, and that of no little kind, in the messenger who was sent to deliver this message, for it was Jeremiah, that man of a broken spirit, who could say of himself, I am the man that hath seen affliction.
II. A precept. It is a very simple one, and as short as it is clear. It is given in the proclamation,–Return, thou backsliding Israel.
1. Return,–be as you were; come back: repent, and do your first works. Hearken this is the precept; return unto your Saviour; just as you are, come back to Him. Come back as you came at first, with your sin acknowledged, looking to His Cross for pardon. Did you grow too great, and think you could live without your Saviour? Return! Did you dream of being so perfect that you did not want His righteousness, for your own would suffice? Away with that glittering bauble, that idle notion of thy perfection, and come back, and beat upon thy breast, and say, God be merciful to me a sinner. Repent of thy pride, and return again to thy Lord Jesus Christ.
2. Return at once. Delays are always dangerous, but never so dangerous as when they are proposed by backsliders.
3. And come thou back with all thy heart. Let there be no mimic repentance; no pretended returning. Thou shalt find the Lord if thou seek Him with all thy heart, and all thy soul.
4. And mind that thou return practically; that is, that thy life shall be changed, thy idols broken, thy omitted duties fulfilled with eagerness, neglected means of grace pursued with fervour; that done which thou hast left undone, and that evil forsaken into which thou hast gone with such headlong folly.
III. The promise. I will not cause Mine anger to fall upon you. See that anger, like a black cloud, charged not with refreshing rain, but with fire flakes that shall bum as they fall: ay, burn their way into the very core of your being, as with the fires of hell. Not a flake of it shall burn you if you return unto your God. There is full, free, and immediate forgiveness to be had. I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins. Return unto Me. This is a grand motive for coming back: the sin that separates is put away. He will wash you thoroughly from your iniquity, and cleanse you from your sin, and whatsoever you need He will give to you, and He will not upbraid you. I find that the passage might be read, I will not cause My face to fall upon you, meaning this–that if the child of God comes back, God will not look angry at him any more. I will not cause My anger to fall upon you. I will not even cause My face to fall at the sight of you; but I will receive you graciously; I will in tender mercy put away your transgressions, and reveal My love to you.
IV. The argument.
1. Here is, first, Gods mercy. Nothing delights God more than to forgive sin: at this blessed work He is at home. He is happy at it; He finds pleasure in mans turning to Him, and finding life. Mercy as His last-born attribute. Until sin came there was no room for mercy–the mercy that forgives, and therefore mercy is Gods Benjamin, the son of His right hand, and He delights to give to it ten times as much as to His other attributes when they feast together. It is the heaven of His heaven to receive a hell-black sinner to His heart, and put away his sin. I am merciful, saith the Lord. Therefore come to Him, and believe in His mercy; and doubt no longer, but lovingly receive what He lovingly gives.
2. As for you who once knew Him, and loved Him, and rejoiced in Him, I want you just to dwell on that second argument, namely, marriage. Return, for I am married unto you, saith the Lord. It is done, and though you do not stand to it He does, the great transaction still stands on His part: though you believe not, He abideth faithful. He has bought you with His blood, and the price will never return into His veins. Wherefore, come back to Him.
V. The advice that He here gives as to how we are to return. He says, Only acknowledge thine iniquity. Alas, I have so wandered! Acknowledge it. But I have done it so many times! Acknowledge it. But I have wandered against light and knowledge! Acknowledge it. It is not a hard thing to do, to get thee to thy chamber, and before God confess thy faults. You have, first of all, to have a knowledge of it, and then to acknowledge it. Feel thy sin, and then confess it. Be convinced of it, and then plead guilty at the judgment seat. What am I to acknowledge?
1. Your breach of covenant–that you have transgressed against Jehovah your God.
2. Next acknowledge your greedy sin–that thou hast scattered thy ways to the strangers under every green tree.
3. Confess also your hardness of heart. God has spoken, and you would not hear; He has entreated, and you would not regard Him; He has come very near to you, and you have turned your back upon Him.
4. Confess also your ingratitude. His voice, which is your Fathers voice, you have not heard or obeyed. What unnaturalness! (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Love of the world
I. The ground of the appeal. I am married unto you. A man to have slidden back must at one time have been forward. He cannot have truly wandered from the Lord, unless he has personally known Him. To those, therefore, who are the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus is the appeal made, Turn, O backsliding children, etc.
II. To whom the appeal is addressed. The Christian who seeks first his worldly advantage, and fails to see that his chief end is to glorify God, is led step by step farther and farther from the Most High.
III. The appeal itself.
1. The context shows the spirit in which it is to be complied with (verse 13). First must come confession. As the old proverb has it, Sensibility to a fault is half-way to amendment.
2. In the text itself we have the appeal in one word–Turn.
3. The promise associated with this appeal (verse 23). This is a promise of Almighty power. I remember hearing a brother who, when asked who converted him, replied, God converted me, who else could do it? So may we say of the healing of the backslider, Who but God can do it? Blessed be the name of the Almighty, He promises to do it.
4. The language used by the backslider as setting forth the One to whom he returns (verse 22). (W. P. Lockhart.)
To backsliders
I. The nature of backsliding.
1. It is going back.
(1) Easily.
(2) Gradually.
(3) Silently.
2. It is generally preceded by–
(1) Pride (Pro 16:18).
(2) Vain confidence (Mat 26:33).
(3) Negligence (Mat 26:58).
3. A man may be–
(1) Enticed by sinful pleasures.
(2) Led back by sinful companions (1Ki 11:1-43).
(3) Driven back by sinful fears (Mat 26:69-74).
II. The misery of backsliding.
1. Heavy losses.
(1) Self-respect.
(2) Tender conscience.
(3) Sweetest enjoyments.
(4) Brightest hopes.
2. Severe disappointment. His holy expectations are lost, of what he might have been and done for Christ, and the after rewards.
3. Terrible disgrace.
(1) Before the world, as a hypocrite.
(2) Before the Church, as the thief (Jer 2:12).
(3) Before God (Psa 51:3-9).
III. The remedy for backsliding. Return, etc.
1. Immediately.
(1) Delay makes your case worse.
(2) God is willing to pardon.
(3) The Church is waiting to receive you.
2. Humbly.
(1) Confessing sin.
(2) Abhorring sin.
(3) Forsaking sin.
3. Believingly. Remember–
(1) The love of your espousals.
(2) The individuality of your relationship.
(3) The love of your husband.
(4) Your own duty. (The Study.)
The mercifulness of the Divine nature
When the Duke of Argyll was taken in rebellion in Scotland, and brought before James the Second, the King said to him, You know that it is in my power to pardon you? It is reported that the prisoner answered, It may be m your power, but it is not in your nature to forgive,–a speech which, whether true or not, cost him his life. He died like a stoic, executed at Temple Gate. What a contrast to the Divine. To err is human, to forgive is Divine.
I am married unto you.
The relationship of marriage
These be dainty words–a grateful anodyne for a troubled conscience. Such singular comfort is fitted to cheer up the soul, and put the brightest hue on all her prospects. The person to whom it is addressed hath an eminently happy position. God speaks to His Church in her most abject estate, and though He does not fail to rebuke her sin, to lament it, and to make her lament it too, yet still in such an estate He says to her, I am married unto you. Oh! it is grace that He should be married to any of us, but it is grace at its highest pitch, it is the ocean of grace at its flood tide, that He should speak thus of backsliding children.
I. Consider the relationship which is here spoken of.
1. The affinity of marriage, though exceedingly near of kin, is not one of birth. Marriage is not a relationship of natural birth but of voluntary contract or covenant. Such is the relationship which exists between the believer and his God. Whatever relation there was originally between God and man, it was extinguished by the fall. Now, Christian, just contemplate what you were, and the degraded family to which you belonged, that you may magnify the riches of His grace who espoused you in your low estate, and hath so bound Himself with all the pledges of a husband that He saith, I am married unto you.
2. Marriage union is the result of choice. The first choice is with God. That choice was made, we believe, before the foundation of the world. God never began to love His people. He saw them in the glass of His decrees; He foresaw them, with His eye of prescience, in the mass of creatureship, all fallen and ruined; but yet He beheld them, and pitied and loved them. They shall be Mine, saith the Lord. Here we are all agreed; and we ought to be all agreed upon the second point, namely, that we also have chosen our God.
3. Marriage is cemented by mutual love. Where there is not this mutual affection, it deserves not the name of marriage. Need I talk to you of the love of God? It is a theme we are scarcely competent to talk of.
4. This marriage necessitates certain mutual relations. I cannot say duties, for the word seems out of place on either side. How can I speak of the great God making pledges of faithfulness? and yet with reverence, let me word it so, for in my vocabulary I have hardly words to set it forth. When God becomes a husband, He undertakes to do a husbands part–to nourish, to cherish, to shield, to protect, to bless those with whom He condescends, in infinite mercy, to enter into union. And now, what upon our side? The wife has to reverence her husband, and to be subject unto him in all things. That is precisely our position towards Him who has married us. Let His will be our will. Let His wish be our law.
5. It also involves mutual confidences. In a true marriage, the husband and wife become one. Henceforth their joys and their cares, their hopes and their labours, their sorrows and their pleasures, rise and blend together in one stream. The Lord our God has said it. The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him, and He will show them His covenant. Now, Christian, just see: you stand in the relation of a spouse, and you must tell your very heart out to Christ.
6. This marriage implies fellowship in all its relations. Whatsoever a husband possesses becomes his wifes. She cannot be poor if he be rich; and what little she has, whatever it may be, comes to him. When Christ took His people, He gave them all He had. Now, it is saying but very little when I add, that, therefore, whatever we have, belongs to Him–oh! it is so little, so very little, but one wishes it were more.
7. The very crown of marriage is mutual delight and complacency. The wife of a Persian nobleman, having gone to a feast which was given by the great Darius, was asked by her husband whether she did not think that Darius was the finest man in the world. No, she said, she did not think so; she never saw any one in the world who was comparable to her husband. And doubtless that is just the opinion which a husband forms of his wife and a wife of her husband where the marriage is such as it should be. Now, certainly Christ sets a very high store upon us. He does not see us as we are, but in His infinite grace He sees us as we are to be. The sculptor says he can see a bust in a block of marble, and that all he has to do is to chip away the extra marble, and let the bust appear. So Christ can see a perfect being in every one of us, if we are His people; and what He is about with us day by day is taking off the excrescences, making us to be like Himself. And as for us, who are His people, I am sure we can say that there is no delight which can equal communion with Christ.
II. How far do you and I experimentally understand this? Oh! blind eyes, that cannot see beauty in the Saviour! Jesus! they are besotted, they are mad, who cannot love Thee! It is a strange infatuation of the sons of men to think that they can do without Thee, that they can see any light apart from Thee, Thou Son of Righteousness, or anything like beauty in all the gardens of the world apart from Thee, Thou Rose of Sharon, Thou Lily of the Valley! O that they knew Thee! But, Christian, I speak to you. Surely you know something about this, that God is married to you? If you do, can you not say with me, Yes, and He has been a very faithful husband to me? Well, then, speak well of Him, speak well of Him! Make this world hear His praise! As for you who do not know Him, I should like to ask you this question, and do you answer it for yourselves. Do you want to be married to Christ? Do you wish to have Him? Oh! then, there will be no difficulties in the way of the match. If thy heart goes after Christ, He will have thee. Whoever thou mayst be, He win not refuse thee. Oh! He seeks thee! And when thou seekest Him, that is a sure sign that He has found thee. Though thou mayst not have found Him, yet He has found thee already. The wedding ring is ready. Faith is the golden ring which is the token of the marriage bond. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
One of a city.–
One by one
The revelation of God to man is progressive. A revelation depends upon the power of the person revealing to give, and equally upon the power of the person receiving to receive. God could not, if He would, reveal the whole truth concerning Himself to the human race at the outset–not because He was unable to impart, but because the human race was unable to accept. The revelation of God in human history has therefore been a gradual and a progressive revelation. The wise men of all nations have always believed in one God. But there was one nation in which the wise men were wise enough to believe that the common people should also be taught that there is one God; and so, while in all the surrounding nations the doctrine of the unity of God was an esoteric doctrine–that is, a doctrine reserved for the few–in the Hebrew nation the prophets took this interior and secret doctrine, and, by many a trope and figure, and by many a direct affirmation, gave it to the common people. And thence they went on to learn and to teach that this God is a righteous God. The gods of the nations about were either unmoral or immoral; but the doctrine of the prophets, of the Old Testament was, God is a righteous God, deals righteously, expects righteousness. Connected with that was the teaching that God stands in relation, not to the whole human race, for that was too large a doctrine for them to accept at first, but in special relation to the Jewish race; and then that He did stand in relation to the other people also, but in the relation to the other people of a judge, and in the relation to the Jewish people of a Father. And so grew up, in the earlier period of Jewish history, the notion that God had chosen one nation, and was dealing with that nation–guiding, guarding, inspiring, redeeming it. Time passes on. This nation sins more and more, and the prophets see the gathering clouds–gathering for its destruction. They see the Assyrians and the Chaldeans on the north and east gathering against the nation, and they begin to say, Although you are Gods chosen people, God will punish you and carry you away captive; but still Israel is Gods nation, and God will save Israel; though He carries you away captive, He will so discipline you that He will bring you back as a nation, and as a nation you shall be saved and redeemed. Time went on another hundred years or so, and the prophesied disaster drew near, and Jeremiah came, and he brought another message. He said, No, this nation is not to be saved; but God will gather out of the nation here one and there another; He is married to the nation, but the nation as a nation He has given up as hopeless; nevertheless, He will take one out of a city, and two out of a family, and will bring them to Zion; He will deal with them one by one. When Christ came upon the earth, He met the old impression that Israel was to be treated as a nation, and it almost seems at first as though He shared that hope; but His later message was, God will take away the kingdom from Israel; and will give it to a new people that will bring forth the fruits thereof; this people He will gather one at a time from all the world, gathering them into the one great Israel of God.
I. God as a Creator and Ruler over nature deals in individual ways. Mr. Ruskin has called attention with great eloquence to the difference between the old-time workman and the new-time workman. The old-time workman worked individually, himself carved the whole piece, whatever it was, and so put himself into that carving; it was the product of his hand not only, but of his brain and his heart, and was the manifestation of himself. The modern industrial products are the products of machinery They are multiplied and cheapened, but they are no longer individual. Now, men think of God as one who puts a great machinery in operation, and that works out the product. But not so does the Bible represent Him, and not so does modern philosophy represent Him. God is not a first great cause. He is the perpetual, eternal, everlasting, and only cause, the cause that lies beneath all phenomena, so that every product of nature is a new and different manifestation of a God who is in every phenomenon. This is the reason for the infinite variation in phenomena. God never made two faces alike; never made two blades of grass alike; nothing that ever came from Gods hand, was exactly the repetition of anything else that ever came from Gods hand.
II. As in nature, so in His dealings with humanity.
1. He gives to each individual in the Church and each citizen in the nation His personal work. Humanity is not like a great army that is marching along in serried rank, and if one man drops out another man can take his place; nor like a factory in which a thousand men are working, and if one drops out some one else can come in and carry on his work. It is individual and personal work, and God comes to you, and says, I have something for you to do, and if you do not do it, it will be left undone; there will be one vacancy, one citizen left out of the assembly, one blank space in the page.
2. So He deals with each individual in all the discipline of life. He never sends a tear, a heartache, a failure, what men call a disaster, except as He sees the need for it. He knows what each soul wants, and to each one He adjusts the medicine according to the necessity.
3. So, in all the administration of His love, God deals with you one by one. We discuss the question of indiscriminate charity. The phrase is a contradiction in terms. Charity is discrimination. Love cannot be undiscriminating. God does not give His benefits by wholesale. God does not sound a trumpet when He does His alms, to gather the people to receive them. In all His benefactions, He deals with one at a time. My God shall supply all your need–that is Pauls declaration. Special providences! There are no other. All providences are special. God does not throw men out to the influence of certain great generic laws and then interfere to help them on special occasions. Gods loving kindness and tender mercies are over all His works. Every life is guided and directed by the hand of an infinite love, if we only will allow it to guide. (Lyman Abbott, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 12. Proclaim these words toward the north] The countries where the ten tribes were then in captivity, Mesopotamia, Assyria, Media, c., see 2Kg 17:6 these lay north of Judea. How tender and compassionate are the exhortations in this and the following verses! Could these people believe that God had sent the prophet and yet prefer the land of their bondage to the blessings of freedom in their own country, and the approbation of their God?
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Go: it may possibly be used here as an adverb of exciting, namely, to go, as is usual; or it notes speed, Go quickly, out of hand; not locally, but set thy face, Jer 2:2, or feet, that way, or by thy office address thyself to them, viz. by way of proclamation, crying aloud; possibly implying the distance of place: this voice may in time reach them, though a great way off. Or rather the deafness of Israel, or the obdurateness of Judah, that they might hear what God saith to Israel, conceive hope, and be reclaimed by their example, and be excited to emulation.
Toward the north, i.e. to Assyria and Media, and the regions thereabouts, that lay northward from Judea, whither the ten tribes were carried by Tiglath-pileser and Shulmaneser, 2Ki 15:29; 17:6.
And I will not cause mine anger; upon condition of returning to their former true worship of God, that thereby Judah might be awakened, he promiseth that he will not let his anger, or his face, as in the Hebrew, (because anger principally appears in the face,) his angry face, or countenance, to be upon them; so it is used Lev 17:10; Psa 34:16; and not be inexorable, viz.
for ever, which is to be supplied from the next words; for otherwise his anger lay heavy upon them at this time.
To fall a metaphor from things on high that drop down to the hurt of whatever is under them, and so Jer 23:34; compare Gen 19:24.
For I am merciful: here is the ground of this conditional promise, taken from the nature of God, that sinners may not despair, Psa 86:15; 103:8,9, &c.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
12. Gonot actually; but turnand proclaim towards the north (Media and Assyria, where the tentribes were located by Tiglath-pileser and Shalmaneser, 2Ki 15:29;2Ki 17:6; 2Ki 18:9;2Ki 18:11).
Return . . .backslidingHebrew, Shubah, Meshubah, a play on sounds.In order to excite Judah to godly jealousy (Ro11:14), Jehovah addresses the exiled ten tribes of Israel with aloving invitation.
cause . . . anger tofallliterally, “I will not let fall My countenance”(compare Gen 4:5; Gen 4:6;Job 29:3), that is, I will notcontinue to frown on you.
keep“anger”is to be supplied (see on Jer 3:5).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Go and proclaim these words towards the north,…. With his face thitherwards, towards Babylon, which lay north of Judea, and was the metropolis of Assyria, where the ten tribes were carried captive; and though they were dispersed in the cities of Media and Persia, which lay eastward, yet Babylon being the head of the empire, respect is had to that; not that the prophet was to go thither to them, or to prophesy in the land of the north, as the Targum paraphrases the words: for the word “go”, as Jarchi observes, is only expressive of a command on the part of God; and of readiness, as Kimchi says, on the part of the prophet to obey, but not of local motion; he was to read these words, as the latter of these suggests, in Jerusalem, before the elders of Judah, with a respect to Israel, as if they were before him; and the design of this was to show that the Lord was gracious and merciful, and ready to receive backsliders; and to stimulate Judah to repentance, and to turn unto the Lord:
and say, return, thou backsliding Israel, saith the Lord not return from the land of their captivity, though that they shall return in the last day Kimchi thinks is here intimated; and Jarchi says some of them did return, in the eighteenth year of Josiah; but return from their idols to the living God: and for their encouragement it is added,
and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you; or, “my face” d; by frowning upon them, expressing displicency with them, and anger towards them; the meaning is, that he would not continue his resentments, or cause his anger to fall upon them any more, or at least not for ever, as Kimchi interprets it; he had caused his anger to fall upon them like a mighty storm of rain, by carrying them captive; but now he intimates, should they repent and return, he would remove his anger from them, and not cause it to return any more:
for I am merciful, saith the Lord; so he proclaimed himself before Moses, Ex 34:6 and of this they had had often instances and proofs:
and I will not keep anger for ever; or, “thy sins”, as the Targum; I will not mark and observe them, or reserve them for punishment, but will mercifully forgive them; [See comments on Jer 3:5].
d “non faciam cadere facies meas super vos”, Schmidt.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
| Encouragements to Repentance. | B. C. 620. |
12 Go and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith the LORD; and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you: for I am merciful, saith the LORD, and I will not keep anger for ever. 13 Only acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against the LORD thy God, and hast scattered thy ways to the strangers under every green tree, and ye have not obeyed my voice, saith the LORD. 14 Turn, O backsliding children, saith the LORD; for I am married unto you: and I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion: 15 And I will give you pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding. 16 And it shall come to pass, when ye be multiplied and increased in the land, in those days, saith the LORD, they shall say no more, The ark of the covenant of the LORD: neither shall it come to mind: neither shall they remember it; neither shall they visit it; neither shall that be done any more. 17 At that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the LORD; and all the nations shall be gathered unto it, to the name of the LORD, to Jerusalem: neither shall they walk any more after the imagination of their evil heart. 18 In those days the house of Judah shall walk with the house of Israel, and they shall come together out of the land of the north to the land that I have given for an inheritance unto your fathers. 19 But I said, How shall I put thee among the children, and give thee a pleasant land, a goodly heritage of the hosts of nations? and I said, Thou shalt call me, My father; and shalt not turn away from me.
Here is a great deal of gospel in these verses, both that which was always gospel, God’s readiness to pardon sin and to receive and entertain returning repenting sinners, and those blessings which were in a special manner reserved for gospel times, the forming and founding of the gospel church by bringing into it the children of God that were scattered abroad, the superseding of the ceremonial law, and the uniting of Jews and Gentiles, typified by the uniting of Israel and Judah in their return out of captivity. The prophet is directed to proclaim these words towards the north, for they are a call to backsliding Israel, the ten tribes that were carried captive into Assyria, which lay north from Jerusalem. That way he must look, to show that God had not forgotten them, though their brethren had, and to upbraid the men of Judah with their obstinacy in refusing to answer the calls given them. One might as well call to those who lay many hundred miles off in the land of the north; they would as soon hear as these unbelieving and disobedient people; backsliding Israel will sooner accept of mercy, and have the benefit of it, than treacherous Judah. And perhaps the proclaiming of these words towards the north looks as far forward as the preaching of repentance and remission of sins unto all nations, beginning at Jerusalem, Luke xxiv. 47. A call to Israel in the land of the north is a call to others in that land, even as many as belong to the election of grace. When it was suspected that Christ would go to the dispersed Jews among the Gentiles, it was concluded that he would teach the Gentiles, John vii. 35. So here.
I. Here is an invitation given to backsliding Israel, and in them to the backsliding Gentiles, to return unto God, the God from whom they had revolted (v. 12): Return, thou backsliding Israel. And again (v. 14): “Turn, O backsliding children! repent of your backslidings, return to your allegiance, come back to that good way which you have missed and out of which you have turned aside.” Pursuant to this invitation, 1. They are encouraged to return. “Repent, and be converted, and your sins shall be blotted out, Acts iii. 19. You have incurred God’s displeasure, but return to me, and I will not cause my anger to fall upon you.” God’s anger is ready to fall upon sinners, as a lion falls on his prey, and there is none to deliver, as a mountain of lead falling on them, to sink them past recovery into the lowest hell. But if they repent it shall be turned away, Isa. xii. 1. I will not keep my anger for ever, but will be reconciled, for I am merciful. We that are sinful were for ever undone if God were not merciful; but the goodness of his nature encourages us to hope that, if we by repentance undo what we have done against him, he will by a pardon unsay what he has said against us. 2. They are directed how to return (v. 13): “Only acknowledge thy iniquity, own thyself in a fault and thereby take shame to thyself and give glory to God.” I will not keep my anger for ever (that is a previous promise); you shall be delivered form that anger of God which is everlasting, from the wrath to come; but upon what terms? Very easy and reasonable ones. Only acknowledge thy sins. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive them. This will aggravate the condemnation of sinners, that the terms of pardon and peace were brought so low, and yet they would not come up to them. If the prophet had told thee to do some great thing wouldst thou not have done it? How much more when he says, Only acknowledge thy iniquity? 2 Kings v. 13. In confessing sin, (1.) We must own the corruption of our nature: Acknowledge thy iniquity, the perverseness and irregularity of thy nature. (2.) We must own our actual sins: “That thou hast transgressed against the Lord thy God, hast affronted him and offended him.” (3.) We must own the multitude of our transgressions: “That thou hast scattered thy ways to the strangers, run hither and thither in pursuit of thy idols, under every green tree. Wherever thou hast rambled thou hast left behind thee the marks of thy folly.” (4.) We must aggravate our sin from the disobedience that there is in it to the divine law. The sinfulness of sin is the worst thing in it: “You have not obeyed my voice; acknowledge that, and let that humble you more than any thing else.”
II. Here are precious promises made to these backsliding children, if they do return, which were in part fulfilled in the return of the Jews out of their captivity, many that belonged to the ten tribes having perhaps joined themselves to those of the two tribes, in the prospect of their deliverance, and returning with them; but the prophecy is to have its full accomplishment in the gospel church, and the gathering together of the children of God that were scattered abroad to that: “Return, for, though you are backsliders, yet you are children; nay, though a treacherous wife, yet a wife, for I am married to you (v. 14) and will not disown the relation.” Thus God remembers his covenant with their fathers, that marriage covenant, and in consideration of that he remembers their land, Lev. xxvi. 42.
1. He promises to gather them together from all places whither they are dispersed and scattered abroad, John xi. 52, I will take you, one of a city, and two of a family, or clan; and I will bring you to Zion, v. 14. All those that by repentance return to their duty shall return to their former comfort. Observe, (1.) God will graciously receive those that return to him, nay, it is he that by his distinguishing grace takes them out from among the rest that persist in their backslidings; if he had left them, they would have been undone. (2.) Of the many that have backslidden from God there are but few, very few in comparison, that return to him, like the gleanings of the vintage–one of a city and two of a country; Christ’s flock is a little flock, and few there are that find the strait gate. (3.) Of those few, though dispersed, yet not one shall be lost. Though there be but one in a city, God will find out that one; he shall not be overlooked in a crowd, but shall be brought safely to Zion, safely to heaven. The scattered Jews shall be brought to Jerusalem, and those of the ten tribes shall be as welcome there as those of the two. God’s chosen, scattered all the world over, shall be brought to the gospel church, that Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, that holy hill on which Christ reigns.
2. He promises to set those over them that shall be every way blessings to them (v. 15): I will give you pastors after my heart, alluding to the character given of David when God pitched upon him to be king. 1 Sam. xiii. 14, The Lord hath sought him a man after his own heart. Observe, (1.) When a church is gathered it must be governed. “I will bring them to Zion, not to live as they list, but to be under discipline, not as wild beasts, that range at pleasure, but as sheep that are under the direction of a shepherd.” I will give them pastors, that is, both magistrates and ministers; both are God’s ordinance for the support of his kingdom. (2.) It is well with a people when their pastors are after God’s own heart, such as they should be, such as we would have them be, who shall make his will their rule in all their administrations, and such as endeavour in some measure to conform to his example, who rule for him, and, as they are capable, rule like him. (3.) Those are pastors after God’s own heart who make it their business to feed the flock, not to feed themselves and fleece the flocks, but to do all they can for the good of those that are under their charge, who feed them with wisdom and understanding (that is, wisely and understandingly), as David fed them, in the integrity of his heart and by the skilfulness of his hand, Ps. lxxviii. 72. Those who are not only pastors, but teachers, must feed them with the word of God, which is wisdom and understanding, which is able to make us wise to salvation.
3. He promises that there shall be no more occasion for the ark of the covenant, which had been so much the glory of the tabernacle first and afterwards of the temple, and was the token of God’s presence with them; that shall be set aside, and there shall be no more enquiry after, nor enquiring of, it (v. 16): When you shall be multiplied and increased in the land, when the kingdom of the Messiah shall be set up, which by the accession of the Gentiles will bring in to the church a vast increase (and the days of the Messiah the Jewish masters themselves acknowledge to be here intended), then they shall say no more, The ark of the covenant of the Lord, they shall have it no more among them to value, or value themselves upon, because they shall have a pure spiritual way of worship set up, in which there shall be no occasion for any of those external ordinances; with the ark of the covenant the whole ceremonial law shall be set aside, and all the institutions of it, for Christ, the truth of all those types, exhibited to us in the word and sacraments of the New Testament, will be to us instead of all. It is very likely (whatever the Jews suggest to the contrary) that the ark of the covenant was in the second temple, being restored by Cyrus with the other vessels of the house of the Lord, Ezra i. 7. But in the gospel temple Christ is the ark; he is the propitiatory, or mercy-seat; and it is the spiritual presence of God in his ordinances that we are now to expect. Many expressions are here used concerning the setting aside of the ark, that it shall not come to mind, that they shall not remember it, that they shall not visit it, that none of these things shall be any more done; for the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth, John iv. 24. But this variety of expressions is used to show that the ceremonies of the law of Moses should be totally and finally abolished, never to be used any more, but that it would be with difficulty that those who had been so long wedded to them should be weaned from them; and that they would not quite let them go till their holy city and holy house should both be levelled with the ground.
4. He promises that the gospel church, here called Jerusalem, shall become eminent and conspicuous, v. 17. Two things shall make it famous:– (1.) God’s special residence and dominion in it. It shall be called, The throne of the Lord–the throne of his glory, for that shines forth in the church–the throne of his government, for that also is erected there; there he rules his willing people by his word and Spirit, and brings every thought into obedience to himself. As the gospel got ground this throne of the Lord was set up even where Satan’s seat had been. It is especially the throne of his grace; for those that by faith come to this Jerusalem come to God the judge of all, and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, Heb. xii. 22-24. (2.) The accession of the Gentiles to it. All the nations shall be discipled, and so gathered to the church, and shall become subjects to that throne of the Lord which is there set up, and devoted to the honour of that name of the Lord which is there both manifested and called upon.
5. He promises that there shall be a wonderful reformation wrought in those that are gathered to the church: They shall not walk any more after the imagination of their evil hearts. They shall not live as they list, but live by rules, not do according to their own corrupt appetites, but according to the will of God. See what leads in sin–the imagination of our own evil hearts; and what sin is–it is walking after that imagination, being governed by fancy and humour; and what converting grace does–it takes us off from walking after our own inventions and brings us to be governed by religion and right reason.
6. That Judah and Israel shall be happily united in one body, v. 18. They were so in their return out of captivity and their settlement again in Canaan: The house of Judah shall walk with the house of Israel, as being perfectly agreed, and become one stick in the hand of the Lord, as Ezekiel also foretold, Jer 37:16; Jer 37:17. Both Assyria and Chaldea fell into the hands of Cyrus, and his proclamation extended to all the Jews in all his dominions. And therefore we have reason to think that many of the house of Israel came with those of Judah out of the land of the north; though at first there returned but 42,000 (whom we have an account of, Ezra ii.) yet Josephus says (Antiq. 11.68) that some few years after, under Darius, Zerubbabel went and fetched up above 4,000,000 of souls, to the land that was given for an inheritance to their fathers. And we never read of such animosities and enmities between Israel and Judah as had been formerly. This happy coalescence between Israel and Judah in Canaan was a type of the uniting of Jews and Gentiles in the gospel church, when, all enmities being slain, they should become one sheepfold under one shepherd.
III. Here is some difficulty started, that lies in the way of all this mercy; but an expedient is found to get over it.
1. God asks, How shall I do this for thee? Not as if God showed favour with reluctancy, as he punishes with a How shall I give thee up?Hos 11:8; Hos 11:9. No, though he is slow to anger, he is swift to show mercy. But it intimates that we are utterly unworthy of his favours, that we have no reason to expect them, that there is nothing in us to deserve them, that we can lay no claim to them, and that he contrives how to do it in such a way as may save the honour of his justice and holiness in the government of the world. Means must be devised that his banished be not for ever expelled from him, 2 Sam. xiv. 14. How shall I do it? (1.) Even backsliders, if they return and repent, shall be put among the children; and who could ever have expected that? Behold what manner of love is this! 1 John iii. 1. How should we who are so mean and weak, so worthless and unworthy, and so provoking, ever be put among the children. (2.) To those whom God puts among the children he will give the pleasant land, the land of Canaan, that glory of all lands, that goodly heritage of the hosts of nations, which nations and their hosts wish for and prefer to their own country, or which the hosts of the nations have now got possession of. It was a type of heaven, where there are pleasures for evermore. Now who could expect a place in that pleasant land that has so often despised it (Ps. cvi. 24) and is so unworthy of it and unfit for it? Is this the manner of men?
2. He does himself return answer to this question: But I said, Thou shalt call me, My Father. God does himself answer all the objections that are taken from our unworthiness, or they would never be got over. (1.) That he may put returning penitents among the children, he will give them the Spirit of adoption, teaching them to cry, Abba, Father, Gal. iv. 6. “Thou shalt call me, My Father; thou shalt return to me, and resign thyself to me as a father, and that shall recommend thee to my favour,” (2.) That he may give them the pleasant land, he will put his fear in their hearts, that they may never turn from him, but may persevere to the end.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
The Prophet, after having shewn that the tribe of Judah deserved a heavier punishment than the ten tribes, and having mentioned the cause, that they had seen their brethren severely chastised and were not moved, now turns his discourse to the Israelites themselves, or the ten tribes, and promises that God would be propitious to them. The kingdom of Israel had now been overthrown, and the people had been banished into Assyria, Persia, and Media. They had been scattered, and the name of the kingdom had been obliterated. The land had been often laid waste and the kingdom partly existed, as four tribes only were first driven to exile; but at, length the very name of a kingdom ceased to exist, and they were all, as I have said, led away into captivity. Hence the Prophet is bidden to address his words towards the north; for though the greater part of the people dwelt then in the east, yet as they had been banished by the Assyrians, God had a regard to the capital of the monarchy in bidding the Prophet to address those whom the enemies had led away to the north.
Cry, then, not so much on account of the distance of the place, but that the Jews, who were deaf, might hear him crying; for the Prophet was bidden to speak not only for the sake of the Israelites, but that through them he might set before the Jews the mercy of God, if only they returned to a sound mind. Now the import of the whole is, — that though the Israelites had been rebellious and had turned away from God, yet pardon was ready for them, if they returned. What the Prophet means by the word return, we have already in part explained, and we shall have to speak on the subject more fully elsewhere. He then requires repentance, and promises that God would be propitious to them in case they returned to him.
He afterwards adds, I will not make my face, or rather, my wrath, to fall upon you; for this latter meaning is the most appropriate. God had already severely punished their sins; for what can happen to a people more grievous than to be banished from their own country, and then to be oppressed by cruel tyranny? They yet suffered a heavier punishment; for the worship according to the Law had been taken away from them, they had been repudiated by God, they had lost that glory by which they thought that they excelled all other nations in having been chosen as God’s peculiar people. All these things had been entirely lost. In what sense then does God declare that he would not be angry with them? By this way of speaking the Prophet simply means, that God would not be irreconcilable, as though he had said, “My wrath shall not dwell, or shall not he upon you; but I will mitigate the punishment which I have inflicted.” Hence I do not disapprove of Jerome’s rendering, “I will not make steady,” ( firmabo;) though when he adds “face, “he does not sufficiently set forth the meaning of the Prophet. But this may be admitted, “I will not make steady my wrath upon you;” that is, “My wrath shall not lie or dwell on your heads, so as wholly to overwhelm you.” God’s wrath had already fallen upon them, but in such a way that there was still some hope of deliverance. God then denies, that the calamities, by which he had chastised their sins, would be fatal, for he would withdraw his hand and not pursue them to the last extremity.
The meaning then is, — that if the people returned to God they would obtain pardon, because God of his own free will invited them and promised that the punishment which he had inflicted on account of their sins, would be only for a time. (82)
God further confirms this truth by mentioning what his nature is, for merciful am I, and I will not retain wrath for ever The promise was special in case the people returned; God now adds a general truth by way of confirmation, — that he was disposed to shew mercy, and that he would readily forgive for his mercy’s sake. Since God then is such, and cannot deny himself, there is no reason why a sinner should despair and thus close up the way, that he should not in his penitence implore God’s mercy.
We may hence gather a profitable doctrine, — that whenever unbelief lays hold on our minds, so that we cannot apply to our benefit the promises of God, this should ever be remembered by us — that God is merciful. As God then is so gracious, that he reserves not wrath for ever, but that it is only for a time, we ought to entertain hope; and corresponding with this is what is said in the Psalms,
“
A moment is he in his wrath; and life is in his goodness and mercy,” (Psa 30:5😉
as though he had said, that God’s wrath soon passes away, provided we repent, but that he shews his mercy through all ages; for this is what is meant by the word “life.” He then goes on —
(82)
12. Go and proclaim these words towards the north, and say, — Return, apostate Israel, saith Jehovah; I will not cause my wrath to fall on you, For merciful am I, saith Jehovah; I will not reserve it for ever.
That פני, commonly rendered “face,” means sometimes wrath or anger, is evident, see Psa 21:9; Lam 4:16. God is said to have his face against the wicked, Psa 34:16, and to make his face to shine on his people, Psa 80:3. This accounts for the word being taken sometimes, as it were, in a bad sense: He has an angry as well as a smiling face.
The rendering of the Septuagint is, “I will not set firm ( στηριῶ) my face upon you,” of the Vulgate, “ I will not turn away my face from you,” of the Syriac and Arabic, “ I will not harden my face against you,” and of the Targum, “ I will not send my wrath upon you.” The last comes nearest to the Hebrew.
Blayney’s version is a paraphrase, —
I will not look down upon you with a lowering brow;
and so is his version of the last line, —
I will not keep displeasure in view for ever.
Our version in both instances is much to be preferred. — Ed.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(12) Toward the north.The prophet utters his message as towards the far land of Assyria and the cities of the Medes to which the ten tribes of Israel had been carried away captive (2Ki. 17:6; 2Ki. 17:23). He had a word of glad tidings for the far-off exiles.
Return, thou backsliding Israel.It is hard to reproduce the pathetic assonance of the original, Shubah, mashubah,turn back, thou that hast turned away; return, thou renegade.
I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you.Literally, my face; the face so awful in its wrath.
I will not keep anger for ever.With perhaps a latent reference to the hope held out in Hos. 3:5, and to the words which Judah had uttered in her hypocrisy (Jer. 3:5), but which were truer of Israel.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
12. Toward the north Hebrew, midnight; “the north” being so designated because it is in the opposite direction to the meridian sun. Here it means the provinces of Assyria, into which Shalmanezer had carried away the ten tribes.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
A Brief Glimpse Of The Future Establishment Of The Everlasting Kingdom ( Jer 3:12-19 ).
Having established that Judah was even more guilty than Israel YHWH now breaks into the message of gloom by demonstrating hope for the future for Israel. On the basis of His great mercy He called through Jeremiah for Israel’s return to the land. This was a flash-forward into the future. While at present she was in exile, if she would only admit her backsliding and repent He promises that He will bring her back and will once again be a husband to her (compare the inference in Jer 2:2, and Hosea 1-3). Then He will give to her shepherds according to His own heart who will feed her in knowledge and understanding. And in that day Israel will no more be dependent on the presence of the Ark of the Covenant of YHWH (which was seen by them as the throne of YHWH), nor will they even think of it or miss it, because the whole of Jerusalem will have become (will ‘be called’) ‘The Throne of YHWH’. Then all nations will gather to Jerusalem, and Israel will no longer walk in the stubbornness of their evil hearts, but will rather be one with Judah, something which will be made possible by their looking to YHWH as their Father and truly following Him.
In these words YHWH makes clear His future intentions for His people, and seeks to arouse Judah to jealousy. Initially His words were a call to return accompanied by glowing promises, but when that call failed to achieve its purpose it became a prophetic indication of what the future would hold.
Jer 3:12
“Go, and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, ‘Return, you backsliding Israel,’ says YHWH, ‘I will not look in anger on you, for I am merciful,’ says YHWH, ‘I will not keep my anger for ever.’ ”
Jeremiah is commanded to go and ‘proclaim words towards the north’ for it was to the north that Israel had been taken captive (2Ki 17:6; 2Ki 17:23). Such proclamations to a far off people are found regularly in the prophets, for the prophets were acting in the Name of YHWH, and could therefore be sure that their words would eventually be fulfilled because they were His word which went forth from His mouth and would prosper in the way to which He sent it (Isa 55:10-13). And this proclamation to Israel was to be that they should return from their backsliding with the assurance that if they did so YHWH would no longer look on them with anger (view their sin with antipathy), which would be as a consequence of His great compassion. As the Merciful One He would not retain His anger for ever.
‘Return you backsliding Israel.’ The Hebrew is emphatic and poignant. Shubah meshubah yisrael (return O turning away Israel’).
Jer 3:13
“Only acknowledge your iniquity, that you have transgressed against YHWH your God, and have scattered your ways to strangers under every green tree, and you have not obeyed my voice,” the word of YHWH.’
Nevertheless their return was conditional on their acknowledging their iniquity, and admitting that they had transgressed against YHWH, and had had sexual relationships with (‘scattered their ways to’) strangers under every green tree, thus failing to be obedient to His voice. There could be no return without repentance and a full admission of guilt. This again was ‘the word of YHWH’ (neum YHWH).
Jer 3:14-15
“Return, O backsliding children,” says YHWH, “for I am a husband to you, and I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion, and I will give you shepherds according to my heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding.”
So YHWH calls for the return of Israel, His backsliding children in exile, on the grounds that He is their ‘husband’, a word expressing His tender love and concern for them (compare Hos 1:3). They are not being called back to slavery, but to a loving family relationship. Yet He recognises that all will not return, and He informs them that He will therefore call from among them a remnant, one from a city, two from a family, and will bring them to Zion, and there He would give them shepherds after His own heart who would provide them with true knowledge and understanding. The idea would appear to be in order to arouse Judah to jealousy.
This prophecy was in fact initially fulfilled in that many Israelites would have made their way back to Palestine in ones and twos once Cyrus’s policies had made it possible, and would have united with the men of Judah in re-establishing the land. This is demonstrated by their presence there in the time of Jesus. Initially the shepherds after His own heart would be the later prophets and the later godly rulers like Zerubbabel, but finally they would be Jesus Christ and His Apostles. It was they who would provide true knowledge and understanding. But the final reference, as what follows makes clear, is to the heavenly Zion, for only there could the promises reach their final fulfilment. This is confirmed in Heb 11:10-14 where the land to be received by Abraham and his descendants is ‘a heavenly country’, and in the transference of the true Jerusalem from earth to Heaven (Gal 4:21-31; Heb 12:22; Revelation 21-22), something already made clear in Isaiah.
Jer 3:16
“And it will come about, when you are multiplied and increased in the land, in those days,” says YHWH, “they will no more say, ‘The ark of the covenant of YHWH’, nor will it come to mind, nor will they remember it, nor will they miss it, nor will it be made any more.”
As always with the prophets, Jeremiah spoke of the coming eternity in terms connected with this earth. God’s promises were to be seen as firmly rooted in reality, and not in some world of the gods beyond the skies. But when Israel/Judah did later multiply and increase in the land it was only once again to sink into failure. That is why in the end the multiplying and increasing will take place in the new Heaven and the new earth (Rev 7:9), and the land in which they will increase will be ‘the better country’ that Abraham was seeking (Heb 11:10-14).
This verse has within it the ring of eternity. In that future day earthly symbols will no longer be required, but will be gone for ever. And that would be true even of the holy ‘Ark of the Covenant of YHWH’ which was seen as YHWH’s earthly throne (and disappeared at the time of the Babylonian captivity). It would neither come to mind, or be remembered or be missed, or have reference made to it, because (as Jer 3:17 makes clear) they would be enjoying something even more glorious, the real presence of YHWH upon His throne in the new Jerusalem where they would walk in His light and see His face (Rev 21:22-23; Rev 22:3-5). ‘There will be no curse any more, and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it –’ (Rev 22:3), and His people will be there as His bride (compare Jer 3:14, and see Rev 19:7-10; Rev 21:2).
We must always remember that the prophets as they looked forward saw heavenly realities in terms of this earth. They had no concept of a Heaven beyond to which human beings could go. That was something that had not yet been revealed and was outside the range of their thinking, and it was well that it was so, for had they enunciated such an idea it would immediately have been mixed up in men’s minds with polytheistic ideas about the world of the gods, and have been seen as supporting Baalism. Thus their ideas were firmly rooted in terms of this earth, but would eventually develop into the idea of ‘the new Heaven and the new earth’ (Isa 65:17; Isaiah 2. Peter Jer 3:13; Rev 21:1). It was there that the promises to Abraham would be fulfilled (Heb 11:10-14). For the coming of an everlasting kingdom required an everlasting environment.
As we look back on history we can see how the promises made through the prophets were slowly being fulfilled. Initial fulfilment came in the return of the people of Israel/Judah back to Palestine and the re-establishment of the Davidic rule and of God’s Law. This was then followed, once that Israel had once again failed, by the establishment of the new Israel by Jesus Christ, the son of David (Joh 15:1-6; Mat 16:18; Mat 21:43; Gal 3:29; Gal 6:16; Eph 2:11-22; 1Pe 5:9; 1Pe 1:1; Jas 1:1) proclaiming truth and understanding. And that, as Jesus made clear, would achieve its final fulfilment in the new Heaven and the new earth. That is why we are to set our minds on things above and build up treasure in Heaven (Col 1:1-3; Mat 6:19).
Jer 3:17
“At that time they will call Jerusalem the throne of YHWH, and all the nations will be gathered to it, to the name of YHWH, to Jerusalem, nor will they walk any more after the stubbornness of their evil heart.”
And at that time there will be a new Jerusalem, a heavenly Jerusalem, which will be called ‘The Throne of YHWH’ (see Rev 22:3). This was something already clearly depicted by Isa 2:2-4; Isa 4:2-6; Isa 11:1-9; Isa 33:20-24; Isa 65:18-25, none of which could be literally fulfilled on this earth. And to this new Jerusalem will be gathered men and women of all nations, gathered to the Name of YHWH, and they will no longer walk after the stubbornness of their own hearts (see Rev 21:24; Rev 21:27).
Jer 3:18
“In those days the house of Judah will walk with the house of Israel, and they will come together out of the land of the north to the land that I gave for an inheritance to your fathers.”
In that day there will no longer be division and disunity. Israel and Judah will once again be united, and they will come again out of the land of the north to which they had been exiled (so Judah’s exile is already in mind) to the land given as an inheritance to their fathers. This certainly happened when, once Cyrus was on the throne, exiles were allowed to return to their own lands, and the Jews became one people, so much so that by the time of Jesus most could not be sure of their tribal connections, which were lost in antiquity (with the result that those who could make those connections saw themselves as superior to the others). But as previously YHWH’s deliverance would fail to achieve its purpose because of man’s rebellion, with the result that the promises were transferred to the new Heaven and the new earth, to the new land given to their fathers for an inheritance (Heb 11:10-14; Revelation 21).
Jer 3:19
“And I said, ‘How I will put you among the children, and give you a pleasant land, a goodly heritage of the hosts of the nations!’ and I said, ‘You will call me My Father, and will not turn away from following me.’ ”
YHWH’s intentions for them were good. They would be set among the people of the world (‘among the children’ connects with ‘my Father’ demonstrating that here ‘Father’ has in mind God as the Lord of creation) in a pleasant land, a goodly heritage, one which was either given to them by the hosts of the nations, or one that was outstanding among the hosts of the nations, depending on how we interpret the words.
One point being established here was that God as Creator was the Father of all the people in the world (they were His children), but that the nations as a whole had turned away from Him and had refused to follow Him. Israel were to be different. They were to call Him ‘my Father’, and were to follow Him and walk in obedience to Him (as children were expected to be obedient to their fathers).
And there, He said, ‘You will call Me ‘My Father’ and will not turn away from following Me.’ It is hardly necessary to point out that this was precisely the message that Jesus Christ came to bring, arriving in the land to which they had gathered and laying great emphasis on God as the heavenly Father of His believing people. And those who did respond did not turn away from following Him, even in the most adverse circumstances of severe persecution. But again its final fulfilment awaits the new Heaven and the new earth ‘wherein dwells righteousness’ (2Pe 3:13), for only there will sin be finally done away.
‘A goodly heritage of the hosts of the nations.’ This is literally ‘a heritage of the beauty of the beauties (tsebi tsibeoth) of the nations’. We could paraphrase as ‘the beautiful heritage outstanding among the beautiful heritages of the nations’, or as ‘the most beautiful heritage among those of the nations’ (Hebrew regularly expressed adjectival thought in genitival phrases. Thus seeing ‘heritage of the beauty’ as signifying ‘beautiful heritage’, and ‘beauty of the beauties’ as signifying ‘very beautiful’). The translation ‘host of the nations’ comes from repointing tsibeoth (beauties) as tsebaoth (hosts)).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Jer 3:12. Go, and proclaim, &c. The sin of the ten tribes being attended with more favourable circumstances than that of Judah, the prophet is here commanded to call them to repentance, with promises of pardon; and accordingly is ordered to direct his speech northward; that is to say toward Assyria and the country beyond the Euphrates, whither the ten tribes were carried away captive. Instead of, I will not cause, &c. Houbigant reads, I will not turn my face from you.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
DISCOURSE: 1033
GODS INVITATION TO HIS PEOPLE
Jer 3:12-15. Go, and proclaim these words toward the north; and say, Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith the Lord, and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you: for I am merciful, saith the Lord, and I will not keep anger for ever. Only acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against the Lord thy God, and hast scattered thy ways to the strangers under every green tree, and ye have not obeyed my voice, saith the Lord. Turn, O backsliding children, saith the Lord; for I am married unto you: and I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion: and I will give you pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding.
IF we would see the Divine character exhibited in the brightest possible colours, we need go no further than to the passage before us, with the preceding and following context. Let any one read the second and third chapters, with the two first verses of the fourth chapter, and he will be perfectly amazed at the condescension and kindness of God; who, having expostulated with the Jews on account of their multiplied transgressions, urges them, by every argument that can be devised, to give up themselves unto him: and when no consideration that he can offer appears to affect them, he determines to take to him his great power, and, by an act of sovereign and Almighty grace, to constrain them to return unto him: Thou shalt call me, My Father; and shalt not turn away from me [Note: ver. 19.]. In this way he prevails over them:
Behold, we come unto thee; for thou art the Lord our God [Note: ver. 22.]. No sooner does God behold this purpose formed in the minds of his rebellious people, than he says, If thou wilt return, O Israel, return unto me. But I shall confine myself to the passage which I have read; which is, in fact, an epitome of the whole: and I shall consider it,
I.
As addressed to Gods ancient people
They are here addressed as a backsliding people
[This is a metaphor taken from oxen, which refuse to draw in the yoke that is put upon them [Note: Hos 4:16.]. God had taken them to him as his people, and nourished them for his own; but they rebelled against him, and would never execute his commands [Note: Isa 1:2-3.].]
Yet he sends to them messages of mercy, and not of judgment
[Go, says he to his chosen servants, go, and proclaim to them these words; Return thou backsliding Israel, saith the Lord. Well might he have cast them off utterly. But he delighteth in mercy, and willeth not the death of any sinner, but rather that he turn from his wickedness and live. By many prophets did he thus invite them to return [Note: 2Ch 36:15.], whilst they even wearied him with their obstinacy [Note: Isa 43:24.].]
One thing only he requires; namely, that they shall humble themselves before him
[Only acknowledge thine iniquity. This was indispensable. God could not, consistently with his own honour, receive them, whilst they continued to harden themselves in their wickedness. They must call to mind their offences, which had been of such enormous magnitude: they must spread them before the Lord with penitential sorrow, and implore mercy at his hands. This was all that God expected of them. To compensate for their wickedness was impossible; but to confess it, and to humble themselves on account of it, was necessary, before they could hope for pardon from their God.]
To prevail upon them, he urges the most affecting considerations:
1.
The merciful disposition which, notwithstanding their iniquities, he felt towards them
[God is indeed slow to anger, and rich in mercy to all who call upon him. When he proclaimed his name to Moses, this was the attribute by which he was to be chiefly known; The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin [Note: Exo 34:6-7.]. Indeed this is the argument by which men are influenced, far more than by the terrors of Gods avenging wrath. These, though proper to be urged in their place, operate for the most part, like the storm which makes the traveller wrap his cloak the more closely round him; whereas mercy, like the sun, penetrates with a kindly and genial influence, and induces him willingly, and of his own accord, to cast it from him. By this, therefore, does God chiefly endeavour to reclaim his obstinately offending people.]
2.
The relation under which, notwithstanding their departure from him, he still regarded them
[He often calls himself the Husband of his ancient people [Note: Isa 54:5. Jer 31:32. Hos 2:19-20.]. And here he urges that relation as an inducement to them to comply with his merciful and gracious invitations. Amongst men, such transgressions as Gods people had committed must have issued in an irreversible divorce: but with God no such impediment existed: he could, consistently with his own honour, re-admit them to his embrace; and he declares himself willing and desirous to restore them to all the privileges and blessings of a most beloved spouse.]
3.
The benefits which he was still ready to confer upon them
[They, like sheep, had gone astray from him; and he sought them out with all diligence: and if the whole flock would return unto him, most gladly would he receive them all [Note: Eze 34:12-14.]. But if only a small remnant of them would return; if only one of a city, and two of a tribe, would come; he would not, on that account, reject them. On the contrary, he would appoint over them pastors, according to his heart, who should teed them with knowledge and understanding [Note: Jer 23:3-4.].
Now this, I conceive, marks particularly the aspect which this passage has on the future restoration of the Jews: for not only is Israel here united with Judah (which shews that the passage was not fully accomplished at their return from Babylon), but there were not, previous to our Lords advent, nor have there been at any time since, to the Jewish nation at large, any such stated pastors appointed as exist in the Christian Church: but, so far as they have returned to God through Christ, so far has this benefit been accorded to them: and so far as they shall yet be brought to Christ, they shall live in the enjoyment of it, and possess all the blessings that result from a stated and faithful ministry.]
Thus does God, by all these kind and affecting arguments, urge his ancient people to return unto him
But the passage may also be considered,
II.
As addressed to ourselves at this day
Blameable as it is to overlook Gods ancient people in their own prophecies, or to pass them over as not deserving our attention, it would be still more blameable so to limit the prophecies to former ages, as to overlook their aspect on the Christian Church, and the still fuller accomplishment which they shall receive in the latter-day. The passage before us may doubtless be properly applied to us as well as to the Jews: for to us pertain,
1.
The same duties
[We have been a backsliding people. Who amongst us is not conscious that he has not put forth his strength in the service of his God? Our Lord has told us, that his yoke is easy, and his burthen is light: yet who amongst us has delighted to fulfil his will, and execute his commands? Say, Brethren, whether, instead of devoting yourselves wholly to the Lord, and living altogether for him, ye have not in many things transgressed against him, and manifested an insuperable reluctance to that holy and heavenly course which he has prescribed?
To you, then, as Gods servant, I come; and, as commissioned by him, I proclaim, in his sacred name, Return, and yield up yourselves unfeignedly to him. Indeed ye must return, if ever ye would obtain mercy at his hands. Yes, ye must return in a way of penitential sorrow, confessing your sins, and humbling yourselves before him. Nor is it in a way of general humiliation only, but of particular confession. Many are the sins which all of us have committed; many which, though unknown to man, are known to God, and recorded against us in the book of his remembrance. He has seen us, when lying upon our bed: the darkness has been no darkness with him: he has seen the inmost recesses of our hearts, and has beheld our every thought and every desire. But, whether we have committed more flagrant transgressions or not, this is clear and undeniable, that we have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God. If we try ourselves by the requirements of his Law and of his Gospel, we shall see that, in instances without number, we have sinned, and come short of the glory of God: and, under a sense of our defects, we must abase ourselves before him, even as holy Job did, in dust and ashes ]
2.
The Same encouragements
To us does God send the same gracious invitations
[To us, as well as to his ancient people, is he rich in mercy, and ready to forgive. Not one of us would he reject, if only we would come to him in his Sons name [Note: Joh 6:37.]. No, Brethren, his anger should not fall upon you, even though your transgressions may have been ever so great, or ever so long continued in: on the contrary, he would act towards you the part of the father in the parable; and would, upon the very first approach of your hearts towards him, run to meet you, and fall on your neck and kiss you, and clothe you in the best robe and kill the fatted calf, and make merry with you
And does he not stand in the relation of a husband to you? Yes, he does; and will still recognise you as his spouse, notwithstanding all your past unfaithfulness. You remember that our blessed Lord is frequently called the Bridegroom of his Church [Note: Mat 9:15. Joh 3:29. Rev 21:2; Rev 21:9.]. St. Paul, when apparently setting forth the duties of husband and wife, declares that, in reality, he spake of Christ and his Church [Note: Eph 5:32.]. Now, under this relation, does he desire to receive you, notwithstanding all that you have done amiss. I wish that every one of you could realize this figure. Conceive of a woman who had departed from her husband, and greatly dishonoured him by the most licentious habits. Suppose a friend of her husband commissioned to seek for her, and to inform her, with all imaginable tenderness, that her husband was willing to receive her again; that he would freely pardon all her misconduct, and never upbraid her with it even to his dying hour. What would be the feelings of a woman under those circumstances, especially if she was not wholly abandoned to her evil ways? Now such I would wish to be the feelings of every one amongst you, and such the interest in the message now delivered to you. I pray you, Brethren, consider this as the very case with you; and let the advice which you yourselves would give to a woman so circumstanced, be that which you will carry into effect on the present occasion
With all needful benefits, too, shall you be loaded. What can a straying sheep need more, than to be brought in safety to the fold, and to be put under the care of a faithful shepherd that will supply its every want? Such are the benefits that shall be accorded to you. What, though there should be only one or two of you so disposed? Shall you, therefore, be disregarded by your God? No: your heavenly Shepherd will take you up in his arms, and carry you home on his shoulders, rejoicing: and he will appoint over you pastors, according to his heart, to feed you with knowledge and understanding, The benefit of a faithful ministry is by no means justly appreciated by the world at large. But to those who have been brought home to Zion, it is a mercy of inestimable value. Greatly does a stated ministry, where the pastor is really after Gods heart, tend to the edification and comfort of Gods faithful people; and you, Beloved, if you will truly return to God, shall find that the word preached to you from time to time shall accomplish in you all the good pleasure of his goodness; and prove the power of God to the salvation of your souls ]
Coming now back to the subject as first proposed, I would say unto you,
1.
Be like-minded with God, in reference to his ancient people
[See what tender regard God shewed towards them in the days of old: and the same anxiety does he still express for their welfare: for, as I have before observed, the message sent to them has respect to a period yet future, when they shall assuredly obey the call delivered to them. And if God, who has been so greatly offended by them, and whose only dear Son they slew, and hanged on a tree; if He, I say, yet regards them with such tender compassion, what ought ye to do, whom they have never offended, and who are in the same condemnation with them? In truth, the command of God is given to you, and to all who have access to them in their present dispersion; Go, and proclaim to them the mercy of their God: go, and invite them, by every tender consideration that is proposed to them in the inspired volume: and if ye say, I cannot hope to prevail upon them; let it suffice if you can prevail on one of a city, and two of a whole tribe. You are not taught at first to expect the conversion of the whole nation; you are told only to look for them as the gleanings of an olive-tree, two or three upon the top of the uppermost bough, four or five on the outmost fruitful branches thereof [Note: Isa 17:6.]. And if that satisfy God, shall it not satisfy you? Will ye not endeavour to get in the first-fruits, because ye are not yet privileged to reap the whole harvest? I say then, have compassion on them in their low estate: or, if ye have no pity for them, at least perform the office which is here assigned to you, of bringing back to Jehovah the wife that has forsaken him, and whom lie desires to restore to all her former honour and felicity If ye say, We cannot get access to them, to deliver these gracious tidings; let not that be any excuse for your indifference: for there are many who are at this moment employed in this very office; and if you exercise liberality to send them forth, there will be many others who will gladly go to them, and proclaim to them according to the message which is here put in their mouth. Too long have the Christian world neglected this duty: I pray you, arise to the discharge of it: and know, for your comfort, that the efforts already made, have prevailed to the full extent of the encouragement here afforded us ]
2.
Be examples to them of all that you require at their hands
[Do you bid them return? Let them see that you have returned, in deed and in truth, to the very bosom of your God. Do you bid them acknowledge their iniquity? Let them see you walking humbly with God; and sowing daily in tears, that you may be privileged at last to reap in joy. Above all, be ye as a wife that has returned to her husband. There is not an image in the world that so fitly marks the Christians state as this. It may be thought that the conduct of a loving and obedient wife, who lives only for her husband, is a proper pattern for a Christian towards his God and Saviour: but, lovely as that is, it comes far short of the Christians spirit: for, superadded to all the love and fidelity of a duteous wife, there must be in that a continual sense of all our past unfaithfulness. A wife so restored, would never for a moment forget what she had been, and what she had done, whilst separated from her husband: and every act of love on his part would only fill her with deeper self-lothing and self-abhorrence, for having ever so dishonoured one who deserved such different conduct at her hands. Now, get into this spirit; never exalting yourselves above the poor fallen Jew, or above the vilest of the human race. This is the walk that is most pleasing to God. This is the walk that will be ever accompanied with the most earnest efforts to honour God, and will lead to the highest possible attainments in every grace. So make your light to shine, before them, and they will see and know that God is with you of a truth.]
Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)
Jer 3:12 Go and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith the LORD; [and] I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you: for I [am] merciful, saith the LORD, [and] I will not keep [anger] for ever.
Ver. 12. Go and proclaim these words toward the north, ] i.e., Toward Assyria and Media, into which countries the ten tribes had been carried captive. And although they cannot hear thee, yet in time this prophecy may be brought to their hearing; and the men of Judah, meanwhile, may be wrought upon thereby.
And I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you.
I will not keep anger for ever.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
toward the north = toward the Northern Kingdom of Israel.
cause Mine anger to fall upon you. Hebrew cause My face, or countenance, to fall. Put by Figure of speech Metonymy (of Effect), for the anger manifested by it. Reference to Pentateuch (Gen 4:5, Gen 4:6).
merciful = gracious, favourable.
keep. See note on “reserve”, Jer 3:5.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Jer 3:12-14. Go and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith the LORD; and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you: for I am merciful, saith the LORD, and I will not keep anger for ever. Only acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against the LORD thy God, and hast scattered thy way to the strangers under every green tree, and ye have not obeyed my voice, saith the LORD. Turn, O backsliding children, saith the LORD; for I am married unto you:
There is a mixed figure here, but there is no mixed sense: children and yet married unto him. The bond was a double one, they were begotten and betrothed. God cares little about the rules of human oratory and formal eloquence. If his meaning can only be made perfectly plain, he freely breaks through all such rules and regulations as we properly make for our talk. O backsliding children I am married unto you.
Jer 3:14. And I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion:
That is, two of a tribe; for the word family was used in a very large sense in those times, and comprehended perhaps the whole of one of the twelve tribes.
Jer 3:15. And I will give you pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding.
The backsliders when they come back shall not be left outside the fold, but they shall have shepherds to watch over them, and they shall not be left to a lean pasture, but they shall be fed with knowledge and understanding. This is fine fare for the hungry soul! Knowledge is good, but understanding is better. To know may be of little service unless we have the inner and deeper knowledge with it, and understand what we know. These pastors shall feed you with knowledge and understanding. They shall not only teach, but teach so that you cannot fail to learn.
Jer 3:16. And it shall come to pass, when ye be multiplied and increased in the land, in those days, saith the LORD, they shall say no more, The ark of the covenant of the LORD; neither shall it come to mind: neither shall they remember it, neither shall they visit it; neither shall that be done any more.
Ceremonial retreats into the dim background when the spiritual is in full vigor. They have come to God for themselves, and they need not now that saved ark of gopher wood lined within and without with gold. In the present day those that walk near to God think but little of the eternal. That which God commands they obey; but their confidence lies in himself. True religion is not a form, but a life, and the soul. Living near to God, is the main, the really essential thing.
Jer 3:17. At that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the LORD; and all the nations shall be gathered unto it, to the name of the LORD, to Jerusalem: neither shall they walk any more after the imagination of their evil heart.
This is, I believe, yet to be literally fulfilled in Jerusalem itself; and spiritually also, to be fulfilled in the Church, when she shall not be behind the nations but become their head, and take the lead in all of blessing for mankind.
Jer 3:18-19. In those days the house of Judah shall walk with the house of Israel, and they shall come together out of the land of the north to the land that I have given for an inheritance unto your father. But I said, How shall I put thee among the children,
As if God himself were at a pass and brought to a nonplus. These people had sinned so much, and they had been driven consequently to the ends of the earth. I said, How shall I put thee among the children?
Jer 3:19. And give thee a pleasant land, a goodly heritage of the hosts of nations? and I said, Thou shalt call me, My father;
When God gives us the spirit of children then it becomes easy for him to put us among the children. Where the nature of children is given by divine regeneration, the rights of children may well be given by adoption. I said, Thou shalt call me, My Father.
Jer 3:19. And shalt not turn away from me.
I always look upon that second part of the blessing as being perhaps the richer of the two. The final perseverance of the saints forms the cluster of crown jewels that it found in the gasket of the covenant. Thou shalt not depart from me. Thou shalt not turn away from me. Oh
If ever it should come to pass
That sheep of Christ could fall away
My fickle, feeble soul, alas!
Would fall ten thousand times a day.
But he that has begun the good work has promised to carry it on. There is our safety and our rest. Thou shalt call me, My father; and shalt not turn away from me.
Jer 3:20-21. Surely as a wife treacherously departeth from her husband, so have ye dealt treacherously with me, O house of Israel, saith the LORD. A voice was heard upon the high place, weeping and supplications of the children of Israel: for they have perverted their way, and they have forgotten the LORD their God.
The worst of crimes that a wife should be false to her marriage vows, and turn aside from her husband whom she is bound to love, and very seldom is it that a husband calls a treacherous wife back again, but God in infinite mercy hateth putting away. He cannot bear divorce. He holds still to the object of his love, and therefore complains with a sweet fidelity of affection, of the treachery of Israel; and while he is doing it a voice is heard upon the high places, weeping and supplications of the children of Israel, for they have perverted their way, and have forgotten Jehovah their God; and therefore what was there for them but sorrow. They were on their high places offering sacrifice and incense to their new gods, and instead of joy and holy psalms and hymns of delight, they were crying like the priests of Baal, and cutting themselves and torturing themselves. God heard it, weeping and supplications, not to him, for they had perverted their way. Their sorrow did not come from him, for they had forgotten the Lord their God. But that sorrow had something hopeful about it. They found no joy in their new gods, and derived no comfort from their backslidings.
Jer 3:22. Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings.
Oh, the wonderful mercy of God! He treats sin as a disease. It was a grand thought, that, on Gods part, that he would not so much look upon sin as being a willful deed and crime, but would look upon it as a malady of the mind and soul. I will heal your backslidings. And see the sweet answer that Israel gives to this.
Jer 3:22. Behold, we come unto thee; for thou art the LORD our God.
Oh, that that answer might come from every backsliding heart that is here tonight that there might be a restoration of the wanderer to his God.
Jer 3:23. Truly in vain is salvation hoped for from the hills, and from the multitude of mountains:
See, they were trying to get it from their high places. They lifted up their voices to their gods, but they only learnt to mourn and weep. In vain is salvation hoped for from the hills and from the multitude of mountains.
Jer 3:23-25. Truly in the LORD our God is the salvation of Israel. For shame hath devoured the labour of our fathers from our youth; their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters. We lie down in our shame, and our confusion covereth us: for we have sinned against the LORD our God, we and our fathers, from our youth even unto this day, and have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God.
May such repentance as that fall to the lot of any wanderers who listen now to my words.
Fuente: Spurgeon’s Verse Expositions of the Bible
toward the north: Jer 3:18, Jer 23:8, Jer 31:8, 2Ki 15:29, 2Ki 17:6, 2Ki 17:23, 2Ki 18:1
Return: Jer 3:1, Jer 3:7, Jer 3:22, Jer 4:1, Isa 44:22, Eze 33:11, Hos 6:1, Hos 14:1-3
and I will not: Jer 30:11, Jer 33:26, Eze 39:25, Hos 11:8, Hos 11:9
for I am: Jer 31:20, Deu 4:29-31, 2Ch 30:9, Psa 86:5, Psa 86:15, Psa 103:8, Psa 103:17, Psa 145:8, Mic 7:18-20, Rom 5:20, Rom 5:21
I will: Jer 3:5, Psa 79:5
Reciprocal: Jos 7:19 – make 2Ch 6:24 – shall return 2Ch 6:37 – We have sinned Ezr 10:2 – yet now there is hope Pro 28:13 – whoso Son 6:13 – return Isa 1:19 – General Isa 17:7 – General Isa 55:7 – for Isa 64:9 – remember Jer 11:6 – Proclaim Jer 19:2 – and proclaim Jer 29:11 – thoughts Jer 31:22 – backsliding Eze 11:17 – General Hos 2:14 – and speak Hos 3:1 – according Zec 1:3 – Turn Zec 1:4 – Turn Mal 3:7 – Return unto me Rom 2:4 – goodness
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Jer 3:12. At the time of this writing, Israel (the 10-tribe kingdom) was in exile in the land of Assyria. The prophet is instructed to go and pro-claim some words to that people. This was done evidently to provoke Judah to Jealousy, for we know the Lord sometimes uses such methods to accomplish his purposes. (See Rom 11:14.) However, while the immediate purpose was to provoke such reaction from Judah, the predictions that will be made throughout the remainder of the chapter will have special reference to Judah. Mention is made of the norfh which might seem confusing in view of the actual direction of Assyria from Palestine, but this circumstance is explained in connection with the comments on Isa 14:31 in Voi. 3 of this Commentary. There is no deception in this passage, for what will be true of Judah will also be true of Israel when the time comes for the end of the captivity. At that time the 12 tribes will have been in practically the same territory, and all will share in the favors that appear to be promised especially to Judah.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Jer 3:12-13. Go, and proclaim these words toward the north The sin of the ten tribes being attended with more favourable circumstances than that of Judah, the prophet is commanded to call them to repentance with promises of pardon. In order to this he is bid to direct his speech northward, that is, toward Assyria and Media, whither the ten tribes had been carried away captive, which countries lay north of Judea. And say: Return, thou backsliding Israel Repent of thy backslidings, return to thy allegiance; come back to that good way out of which thou hast turned aside. And I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you Namely, more grievously than it has already fallen, or for ever; for otherwise his anger lay heavy upon them at this time. Observe, reader, Gods anger is ready to fall on sinners, as a lion falls on his prey, and there is none to deliver. But if they repent, it shall be turned away, for he is merciful, and will not keep anger for ever. Only acknowledge thine iniquity Own thyself in a fault, and thereby take shame to thyself, and give glory to God. Confess and forsake thy sins; for he that confesseth and forsaketh shall find mercy. This will aggravate the condemnation of sinners, that the terms of pardon and peace were brought so low, and yet they would not come up to them. Sinner, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldst thou not have done it? How much more when he saith, Only acknowledge thine iniquity. The Hebrew, , is properly, Know thine iniquity, that is, in order to thy acknowledging and forsaking it. We must call our sins to mind, consider the number, greatness, and inexcusableness of them, that we may conceive a proper hatred to them, and sorrow for them, and thereby, and through faith in the divine mercy and grace in Christ, may obtain pardon and deliverance from them. That thou hast transgressed against the Lord thy God Against the infinite and eternal Jehovah, who had taken thee to be his peculiar people, and was in covenant with thee as thy God. And hast scattered thy ways to the strangers To other gods, to idols, running hither and thither to worship them. The phrase is taken from the lewdness of common harlots, who promiscuously prostitute themselves to all comers: see Pro 30:20. The clause may be rendered, Thou hast wandered among strangers, or strange gods; that is, thou hast not repaired, or had recourse, to one strange god, but many; under every green tree Alluding to the heathen performing the ceremonies of their idolatrous worship in groves, or under large spreading trees. And ye have not obeyed my voice So that your sin is not a sin of ignorance, but of obstinacy, for you shut your ears against my counsels, sent by my prophets for reclaiming you.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
3:12 Go and proclaim these words toward {o} the north, and say, Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith the LORD; [and] I will not cause my anger to fall upon you: for I [am] merciful, saith the LORD, [and] I will not keep [anger] for ever.
(o) While the Israelites were now kept in captivity by the Assyrians, to whom he promises mercy, if they will repent.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Jeremiah was to preach to the remnant left in the Northern Kingdom, and to the exiles from that nation, that they should repent and return to the Lord (cf. Jer 31:2-6; Jer 31:15-22). Those who had turned away from the Lord should turn back to Him. This is a play on derivatives of the Hebrew root shub, "turn," many of which occur in this sermon. The Lord would not hold His anger against them "forever," but would be gracious to them, if they would genuinely repent.