Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Jeremiah 30:1
The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,
1 4. Introduction to the section. The standpoint (see above) is that of one writing after the final catastrophe (b.c. 586), but this fact is of course by no means inconsistent with Jeremiah’s authorship. Moreover, the words of comfort that follow harmonize with his commission “to build and to plant” (Jer 1:10).
The greater part of the ch. follows a regular three beat metre or is in the inah measure.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
In Jer. 3039, not all written at the same time, are gathered together whatsoever God had revealed to Jeremiah of happier import for the Jewish people. This subject is the New covenant. In contrast then with the rolls of Jehoiakim and Zedekiah, we here have one containing the nations hope. A considerable portion was written in the 10th year of Zedekiah, when famine and pestilence were busy in the city, its capture daily more imminent, and the prophet himself in prison. Yet in this sad pressure of earthly troubles Jeremiah could bid his countrymen look courageously onward to the fulfillment of those hopes, which had so constantly in his darkest hours comforted the heart and nerved the arm of the Jew. The scroll consists of three portions:
(1) a triumphal hymn of Israels salvation, Jer. 3031;
(2) Jer. 32; and
(3) Jer. 33.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
CHAPTER XXX
This and the following chapter must relate to a still future
restoration of the posterity of Jacob from their several
dispersions, as no deliverance hitherto afforded them comes up
to the terms of it; for, after the return from Babylon, they
were again enslaved by the Greeks and Romans, contrary to the
prediction in the eighth verse; in every papistical country
they have laboured under great civil disabilities, and in some
of them have been horribly persecuted; upon the ancient people
has this mystic Babylon very heavily laid her yoke; and in no
place in the world are they at present their own masters; so
that this prophecy remains to be fulfilled in the reign of
David, i.e., the Messiah; the type, according to the general
structure of the prophetical writings, being put for the
antitype. The prophecy opens by an easy transition from the
temporal deliverance spoken of before, and describes the mighty
revolutions that shall precede the restoration of the
descendants of Israel, 1-9,
who are encouraged to trust in the promises of God, 10, 11.
They are, however, to expect corrections; which shall have a
happy issue in future period, 12-17.
The great blessings of Messiah’s reign are enumerated, 18-22;
and the wicked and impenitent declared to have no share in
them, 23, 24.
NOTES ON CHAP. XXX
Verse 1. The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord] This prophecy was delivered about a year after the taking of Jerusalem; so Dahler. Dr. Blayney supposes it and the following chapter to refer to the future restoration of both Jews and Israelites in the times of the Gospel; though also touching at the restoration from the Babylonish captivity, at the end of seventy years. Supposing these two chapters to be penned after the taking of Jerusalem, which appears the most natural, they will refer to the same events, one captivity shadowing forth another, and one restoration being the type or pledge of the second.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
This title is thought to extend to all we have both in this and the next chapter, both which mostly consist of comfortable promises of the restoration of this people, and teacheth us what ought to be the matter of our sermons; we ought to speak nothing for substance but what we can justify to come from the Lord, which all doctrine doth that is bottomed on Scripture, though opened and made more plain and intelligible by words formed in our own minds.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord,…. The word of prophecy, us the Targum. Some make this to be the “thirteenth” sermon of the prophet’s; it is a consolatory one, as Kimchi observes:
saying; as follows:
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Introduction, and Statement of the Subject – Jer 30:1. “The word which came to Jeremiah from Jahveh, saying: Jer 30:2 . Thus hath Jahveh the God of Israel said: Write thee all the words that I have spoken unto thee in a book; Jer 30:3 . For, behold, days come, saith Jahveh, when I shall turn the captivity of my people Israel and Judah, saith Jahve, and I shall bring them back to the land which I gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it.” Jer 30:1 contains the heading not merely of Jer 30:2 and Jer 30:3, as Hitzig erroneously maintains, but of the whole prophecy, in Jer 30 and 31. Jer 30:2 and Jer 30:3 form the introduction. Jeremiah is to write the following word of God in a book, because it refers to times still future, – regards the deliverance of Israel and Judah from exile, which will not take place till afterwards. In assigning the reason for the command to write down the word of God that had been received, there is at the same time given the subject of the prophecy which follows. From this it is further evident that the expression “all the words which I have spoken to thee” cannot, like Jer 36:2, be referred, with J. D. Michaelis, to the whole of the prophecies which Jeremiah had up till that time received; it merely refers to the following prophecy of deliverance. The perfect is thus not a preterite, but only expresses that the address of God to the prophet precedes the writing down of the words he received. As to the expression , see on Jer 29:14.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| Promises of Mercy. | B. C. 594. |
1 The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying, 2 Thus speaketh the LORD God of Israel, saying, Write thee all the words that I have spoken unto thee in a book. 3 For, lo, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will bring again the captivity of my people Israel and Judah, saith the LORD: and I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it. 4 And these are the words that the LORD spake concerning Israel and concerning Judah. 5 For thus saith the LORD; We have heard a voice of trembling, of fear, and not of peace. 6 Ask ye now, and see whether a man doth travail with child? wherefore do I see every man with his hands on his loins, as a woman in travail, and all faces are turned into paleness? 7 Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble; but he shall be saved out of it. 8 For it shall come to pass in that day, saith the LORD of hosts, that I will break his yoke from off thy neck, and will burst thy bonds, and strangers shall no more serve themselves of him: 9 But they shall serve the LORD their God, and David their king, whom I will raise up unto them.
Here, I. Jeremiah is directed to write what God had spoken to him, which perhaps refers to all the foregoing prophecies. He must write them and publish them, in hopes that those who had not profited by what he said upon once hearing it might take more notice of it when in reading it they had leisure for a more considerate review. Or, rather, it refers to the promises of their enlargement, which had been often mixed with his other discourses. He must collect them and put them together, and God will now add unto them many like words. He must write them for the generations to come, who should see them accomplished, and thereby have their faith in the prophecy confirmed. He must write them not in a letter, as that in the chapter before to the captives, but in a book, to be carefully preserved in the archives, or among the public rolls or registers of the state. Daniel understood by these books when the captivity was about coming to an end, Dan. ix. 2. He must write them in a book, not in loose papers: “For the days come, and are yet at a great distance, when I will bring again the captivity of Israel and Judah, great numbers of the ten tribes, with those of the two,” v. 3. And this prophecy must be written, that it may be read then also, that so it may appear how exactly the accomplishment answers the prediction, which is one end of the writing of prophecies. It is intimated that they shall be beloved for their fathers’ sake (Rom. xi. 28); for therefore God will bring them again to Canaan, because it was the land that he gave to their fathers, which therefore they shall possess.
II. He is directed what to write. The very words are such as the Holy Ghost teaches, v. 4. These are the words which God ordered to be written; and those promises which are written by his order are as truly his word as the ten commandments which were written with his finger. 1. He must write a description of the fright and consternation which the people were now in, and were likely to be still in upon every attack that the Chaldeans made upon them, which will much magnify both the wonder and the welcomeness of their deliverance (v. 5): We have heard a voice of trembling–the shrieks of terror echoing to the alarms of danger. The false prophets told them that they should have peace, but there is fear and not peace, so the margin reads it. No marvel that when without are fightings within are fears. The men, even the men of war, shall be quite overwhelmed with the calamities of their nation, shall sink under them, and yield to them, and shall look like women in labour, whose pains come upon them in great extremity and they know that they cannot escape them, v. 6. You never heard of a man travailing with child, and yet here you find not here and there a timorous man, but every man with his hands on his loins, in the utmost anguish and agony, as women in travail, when they see their cities burnt and their countries laid waste. But this pain is compared to that of a woman in travail, not to that of a death-bed, because it shall end in joy at last, and the pain, like that of a travailing woman, shall be forgotten. All faces shall be turned into paleness. The word signifies not only such paleness as arises from a sudden fright, but that which is the effect of a bad habit of body, the jaundice, or the green sickness. The prophet laments the calamity upon the foresight of it (v. 7): Alas! for that day is great, a day of judgment, which is called the great day, the great and terrible day of the Lord (Joe 2:31; Jud 1:6), great, so that there has been none like it. The last destruction of Jerusalem is thus spoken of by our Saviour as unparalleled, Matt. xxiv. 21. It is even the time of Jacob’s trouble, a sad time, when God’s professing people shall be in distress above other people. The whole time of the captivity was a time of Jacob’s trouble; and such times ought to be greatly lamented by all that are concerned for the welfare of Jacob and the honour of the God of Jacob. 2. He must write the assurances which God had given that a happy end should at length be put to these calamities. (1.) Jacob’s troubles shall cease: He shall be saved out of them. Though the afflictions of the church may last long, they shall not last always. Salvation belongs to the Lord, and shall be wrought for his church. (2.) Jacob’s troublers shall be disabled from doing him any further mischief, and shall be reckoned with for the mischief they have done him, v. 8. The Lord of hosts, who has all power in his hand, undertakes to do it: “I will break his yoke from off thy neck, which has long lain so heavy, and has so sorely galled thee. I will burst thy bonds and restore thee to liberty and ease, and thou shalt no more be at the beck and command of strangers, shalt no more serve them, nor shall they any more serve themselves of thee; they shall no more enrich themselves either by thy possessions or by thy labours.” And, (3.) That which crowns and completes the mercy is that they shall be restored to the free exercise of their religion again, v. 9. They shall be delivered from serving their enemies, not that they may live at large and do what they please, but that they may serve the Lord their God and David their king, that they may come again into order, under the established government both in church and state. Therefore they were brought into trouble and made to serve their enemies because they had not served the Lord their God as they ought to have done, with joyfulness and gladness of heart, Deut. xxviii. 47. But, when the time shall come that they should be saved out of their trouble, God will prepare and qualify them for it by giving them a heart to serve him, and will make it doubly comfortable by giving them opportunity to serve him. Therefore we are delivered out of the hands of our enemies, that we may serve God,Luk 1:74; Luk 1:75. And then deliverances out of temporal calamities are mercies indeed to us when by them we find ourselves engaged to and enlarged in the service of God. They shall serve their own God, and neither be inclined, as they had been of old in the day of their apostasy, nor compelled, as they had been of late in the day of their captivity, to serve other gods. They shall serve David their king, such governors as God should from time to time set over them, of the line of David (as Zerubbabel), or at least sitting on the thrones of judgment, the thrones of the house of David, as Nehemiah. But certainly this has a further meaning. The Chaldee paraphrase reads it, They shall obey (or hearken to) the Messiah (or Christ), the Son of David, their king. To him the Jewish interpreters apply it. That dispensation which commenced at their return out of captivity brought them to the Messiah. He is called David their King because he was the Son of David (Matt. xxii. 42) and he answered to the name, Mat 20:31; Mat 20:32. David was an illustrious type of him both in his humiliation and in his exaltation. The covenant of royalty made with David had principal reference to him, and in him the promises of that covenant had their full accomplishment. God gave him the throne of his father David; he raised him up unto them, set him upon the holy hill of Zion. God is often in the New Testament said to have raised up Jesus, raised him up as a King, Act 3:26; Act 13:23; Act 13:33. Observe, [1.] Those that serve the Lord as their God must also serve David their King, must give up themselves to Jesus Christ, to be ruled by him. For all men must honour the Son as they honour the Father, and come into the service and worship of God by him as Mediator. [2.] Those that are delivered out of spiritual bondage must make it appear that they are so by giving up themselves to the service of Christ. Those to whom he gives rest must take his yoke upon them.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
JEREMIAH – CHAPTER 30
A SONG OF DELIVERANCE
The keynote of the following four chapters is a contrast to most of Jeremiah’s prophecies; they set forth the hope of restoration. One might almost summarize chapters 30-31 as a hymn of deliverance and triumph for the people of God. Chapters 32-33 are set in the tenth year of Zedekiah’s reign. They deal with matters that transpired while Jeremiah was imprisoned for his very fidelity to his people and to his God. One is reminded of the exuberant joyfulness of the apostle Paul in the four letters that he wrote and sent forth from his imprisonment in Rome.
The days were dark and dreary. Jerusalem was surrounded by the armies of Babylon. Though every passing day proved more clearly the validity of Jeremiah’s warning of impending judgment, and call for repentance, he was still imprisoned because of the stubborn rebellion of a proud and sin-bent nation! Though the circumstances might have dictated “despair,” Jeremiah refused to succumb. Out of this hour of darkness and gloom came this marvelous song: of hope, deliverance, restoration and redemption!
Vs. 1-3: INTRODUCTORY: A COMMAND TO WRITE
1. Jeremiah is commanded, by the Lord, to write in a book the things that the Lord has spoken to him, (vs. 1-2; comp. Jer 25:13; Jer 36:4; Jer 36:27 -28, 32; Hab 2:2).
2. This is with a coming day of redemption and restoration in view, (vs. 3; comp. Jer 29:10).
a. There is definitely coming a day when the Lord will set His people free from the oppression of their captors, (vs. 3a, 18; Jer 29:14; Zep 3:19-20; Psa 53:6).
b. Israel and Judah will return to the land that the Lord gave to their fathers – possessing it in perpetuity, (vs. 3b; Jer 3:18; Jer 16:15; Jer 23:7-8; Eze 20:42; Eze 36:24).
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
This and the next chapter contain, as we shall see, a most profitable truth; and that the people might be the more attentive, God introduced these prophecies by a preface. Jeremiah spoke many things which afterwards, as it has elsewhere appeared, had been collected and inserted in one volume by the priests and Levites; but God reminds us in these words, that the prophecies which are to follow respecting the liberation of the people, were especially to be remembered.
There is, however, another circumstance to be noticed. We have seen that such was the stubbornness of the people, that Jeremiah spent his labor among them in vain, for he addressed the deaf, or rather stocks and stones, for they were so possessed by stupor that they understood nothing, for God had even blinded them, a judgment which they fully deserved. Such was the condition of the people. We must further bear in mind the comparison between the doctrine of Jeremiah and the fables of those who fed the miserable people with flatteries, by giving them the hope of a return after two years. God knew what would be the event; but the people ceased not to entertain hope and to boast of a return at the end of two years. Thus they despised God’s favor, for seventy years was a long period: “What! God indeed promises a return, but after seventy years who of us will be alive? Hardly one of us will be found then remaining, therefore so cold a promise is nothing to us.” They, at the same time, as I have said, were filled with a false confidence, as with wind, and behaved insolently towards God and his prophets, as though they were to return sound and safe in a short time.
But profane men always run to extremes; at one time they are inflated with pride, that is, when things go on prosperously, or when a hope of prosperity appears, and they carry themselves proudly against God, as though nothing adverse could happen to them; then when hope and false conceit disappoint them, they are wholly disheartened, so that they will receive no comfort, but plunge into the abyss of despair. God saw that this would be the case with the people, except he came to their aid. Hence he proposes here the best and the fittest remedy — that the Prophet, as he had effected nothing by speaking, should write and convert as it were into deeds or acts what he had spoken, (1) so that after the lapse of two years they might gather courage, and afterwards acknowledge that they had been deceived by unprincipled men, and thus justly suffered for their levity, so that they might at length begin to look to God and embrace the promised liberation, and not wholly despond. This, then, is the reason why the Prophet was commanded to write the words which he had before declared with his mouth.
Now, as we understand the design of God, let us learn that when it happens that we go astray and wander after false imaginations, we are not on that account to cast away the hope of salvation; for we see that God here stretches forth his hand to those who had erred, and who had even wilfully cast themselves into ruin, for they had been more than enough admonished and warned by true and faithful prophets; their ears they had stopped; their hearts they had hardened; and yet when they had sought as it were designedly to ruin themselves, we see how God still recalled them to himself.
(1) “In a book:” the אל before “book” is in some copies על, as in other places when preceded by “write.” It may be more literally rendered, “on a roll;” but if אל be retained, the rendering may be, “for a record,” or memorial. Venema thinks that these two chapters were written after the destruction of Jerusalem, and that as there were no people to be addressed, Jeremiah was bidden to commit to writing what he had often previously delivered by word of mouth. — Ed.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES.Chronology of the Chapter.Though without a date, yet the probability is that it was written in a book (see Jer. 30:2) in the tenth year of Zedekiah; and that this date [given at the head of chap. 32] applies to the four chapters, 30 to 33 inclusive. But it is open to dispute whether the prophecies contained in chapters 30 and 31 were not delivered at a considerably earlier date. Naegelsbach dates these two chapters as the oldest part of the whole book of Jeremiah; and, carefully comparing their subject-matter with the prophecies of chapters 36, declares that their correspondence, both in general and in particular, fixes them as belonging to the same period; specially pointing out that the absence of all mention of the Chaldeans, and the use of the early indefinite phrase, the north country (Jer. 31:8). is a sure sign of its composition before the fourth year of Jehoiakim. Vide Chronological Notes on chaps. 3 and 7. Also same references for Contemporary Scriptures, National Affairs, and Contemporary History.
Literary Criticisms.Jer. 30:5. For thus saith the Lord; rather, Surely thus, &c. Of fear and not of peace; of fear and no peace.
Jer. 30:10-11. Therefore fear thou not, to end of Jer. 30:11, are omitted by the LXX., Hitzig, Movers, and Kuenen, and regarded as an interpolation from chap. Jer. 46:27-28.
Jer. 30:11. Correct thee in measure: in justice, vide Jer. 10:24.
Jer. 30:13. Bound up: healing medicines. The verse, more correctly punctuated and rendered, may read thus: None undertakes thy case to heal thee; for binding thy wounds, healing-plaister thou hast none.
Jer. 30:15. Thine affliction: thy breach. For the multitude, &c.; rather, Because of the greatness of thine iniquity, because thy sins are innumerable, &c.
Jer. 30:18. Her own heap: , elevation, mound, specially of ruins; it may refer to the city, heap of ruins. And the palace shall remain: rather, be inhabited. After the manner thereof; i.e., with suitable splendour.
Jer. 30:21. And their nobles shall be of themselves. An important alteration necessary. Both and refer to one person, and is here described as their Glorious One and their Ruler. Further, He is to draw near and approach unto Me; a phrase distinctively used of one in the priestly office (Exo. 19:22; Lev. 21:21). Yet more, it is asked as in wonder, Who is this that engaged his heart to approach unto Me? and should read, Who is He that hath pledged His heart, &c.; i.e., that hath risked His life in the daring approach; for death sealed that action (Num. 8:19). The combination of these qualitiesGlorious One and Ruler, priestly approach to God; and exposure of His very life in His zeal for His people;all this points to none other than the Person and ministry of THE MESSIAH.
SURVEY OF CHAPTERS 30 AND 31
THE GLORIOUS FUTURE OF THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL AT THE END OF DAYS
I.
GENERAL THEME, Jer. 31:3.
II.
THE DELIVERANCE OF ENTIRE ISRAEL, Jer. 30:4-22.
1.
The great day of judgment for the world and deliverance of Israel, Jer. 30:4-11.
2.
The turn of affairs: Jevovah for the chastised against the chastisers, Jer. 30:12-17.
3.
The consummation of salvation, Jer. 30:18-22.
III.
THE SPECIAL DISTRIBUTION OF SALVATION TO THE TWO DIVISIONS OF THE NATION, Jer. 31:1-22.
A.
Ephraims share
1.
The decree of restoration, Jer. 31:1-6.
2.
The execution, Jer. 31:7-14.
3.
The threefold turn, Jer. 31:15-22.
B.
Judahs share
The blessing of the sanctuary, Jer. 31:23-26.
IV.
THE ENTIRE-RENEWAL, Jer. 31:27-40.
1.
The new life, Jer. 31:27-30.
2.
The new covenant, Jer. 31:31-40.
Naegelsbach in Lange.
HOMILIES AND OUTLINES ON CHAPTER 30
Jer. 30:2. Theme: GODS MESSAGE IN WRITING. Write thee all the words which I have spoken to thee in a book. This was in distinction from messages in speechoral prophecy.
I. Written words travel farther than spoken. Absent onesIsrael scattered abroadwere to receive it; as well as Judah, who was within the hearing of Jeremiahs voice. The prophecy could not reach them unless copies were distributed in the different countries wherein they were dispersed.
II. Written words are preserved better than spoken.
1. In their exactness. Not a jot or tittle falls. But memory might let some items fail if left unwritten.
2. In their entirety. Hearers only gather half, or fractions, of a message.
3. In their significance. Words of vast meaning require to be studied to see all their suggestiveness; and for this the book is best.
III. Written words fulfil a more enduring ministry than spoken. These words were
1. For every nation and age: having a spiritual purport and universal value.
2. And they would, if written, prove a monument to prophetic veracity. This would strengthen the faith and assure the hearts of Gods people in every emergency.
IV. Written words fill a sphere which spoken cannot reach.
1. They go into privacy, for meditation.
2. Into scenes of banishment and affliction and sorrow, for comfort.
3. Into despised and neglected scenes, where none would expect to find interested hearers, carrying light and hope to the abandoned and despairing.
As the people went into exile, they could carry these words of Jeremiah with them to be their consolation and strength amid coming distress and trial.
Jer. 30:3. Theme: EXILES RESTORED. Comp. on chap. Jer. 16:15, &c., and Jer. 24:6. Specially see Sectional Treatment of chap. 3. pp. 58 to 60 supra. Also see on Jer. 4:31.
Jer. 30:5-6 : Theme: CONSTERNATION OF THE GUILTY. Comp. Sectional Homily on Jer. 6:18-26, pp. 120, 121, and on Jer. 6:22-26, p. 133. Also Homily on chap. Jer. 22:20-23, Hastening Desolations.
Jer. 30:7. Theme: THE GREAT DAY. Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it. The day of judgment for the world: none like it. For it will be
I. A day of anxiety and terror for all the world.
II. A day of deliverance from distress for the children of God.
III. A day of realisation of all the happiness set in prospect before us.Naegelsbach.
Jer. 30:7. Theme: DELIVERANCE FROM TROUBLE. It is even the time of Jacobs trouble; but he shall be saved out of it.
Bacon has magnificently remarked of some of the PROPHECIES of Scripture that they have springing and germinant accomplishment, throughout many ages, though the height or fulness of them may refer to some one age. This is true of many of the prophecies concerning the Jews; for though many of them were fulfilled in their ancient captivities, they still continue to be fulfilled in their present dispersion.
But what is true of the prophecies is eminently true of the PROMISES of Scripturethey have a springing and germinant accomplishment. They are framed with such an exquisite knowledge of human nature, and so accurately accord with the principles of the Divine government, which are the same in every age, that they are adapted to all the circumstances in which Christians can be placed, and receive a distinct fulfilment in the history of each individual believer. Thus, instead of the fathers are the children. As the troubles of Gods people are similar, so the supports they enjoy are similarthey are identicaland the deliverances of one age form the hope and consolation of all. It is even the time, &c.
I. It is a part of Gods merciful dispensations that they endure trouble.
II. It is equally so that they should be supported in and delivered from it.
I. It is a part of Gods merciful dispensations that they should be called to endure trial. Like their Lord, they must expect to be made acquainted with grief; and like Jacob, in the text, they must expect to have their time of trouble.
It is a part of Gods dispensation; for trouble does not spring from the dust. Is there evil in the city and the Lord hath not done it? And it is a part of Gods merciful dispensation, however oppositely it may appear to us; for He doth not afflict willingly.
Every season of life, and every period of the Christians life, has its trouble.
1. The time of conversion is a time of Jacobs trouble. He goes forth weeping. Sorrow for sin is real sorrow; doubts of his acceptance and fears of his rejection often fill him with dejection and alarm, and he says, Oh, that I knew, &c. But there is a balm for his sorrow, there is a remedy for his grief: He shall be saved out of it, by looking to the cross. Yea, he wept; he found Him in Bethel.
2. The time of spiritual dejection, and darkness, and disconsolation, is a time of Jacobs trouble. This is sometimes produced by consciousness of sin, without sufficient apprehension of the power and willingness of Christ to save, sometimes by distrust, sometimes by neglect of duties, sometimes by a constitutional tendency to gloom and despondency; but, from whatever cause arising, it is often difficult to bear. David found it so when he said, Hath God forgotten? &c.; and Hezekiah when he said, I shall go softly all my years; and Daniel when he ate no pleasant bread; and Jonah when he said, I am cast out. yet, he shall be saved out of it; I have seen his ways and will heal; He that walketh in darkness, &c.
3. The time of worldly perplexities and disappointmentscares, anxieties, vexations, reproaches, are the Christians lot here; losses in business, domestic grievances, straitened circumstances, actual poverty, are the means which God employs to teach the Christian this is not his rest, to draw off his mind from the vanity of life, and to teach him that his final hope must be in God. What was true of Israel is true of us: God led them by the right way. We know it was not the shortest way, nor the smoothest, but it was the right way. And God leads His people still in those paths best adapted to try character, to develop principle, to promote sanctity of spirit and spirituality of mind. By these things, says Hezekiah, men live, and in all these things are the life. Every one has his trial fitted to his state of mind.
(a.) Some have a resolute, independent, self-willed spirit. God suffers them to be wounded with reproach, to suffer with the scourge of tongues, and chastens them with the rod of men; or they are wasted with disease and visited with strong pain.
(b.) Some are ambitious, and aspiring, and sanguine, and given to enterprise; but as they climb, so they fall. God unravels their schemes, breaks up their plots and purposes, advances them to poverty, and feeds them with the bread of tears. Why all this? Was it to ruin them? No; but to save them from ruin.
(c.) Others fix their affections too deeply upon the creature, upon the smile of friends, the love of parents, the endearments of family connections. God removes these to bring them nearer to Himself. They are afflicted in the creature, and the time of their trouble is the time in which they witness the sorrows of those they love.
4. The time of death is the time of Jacobs trouble.
II. Whatever their calamity, they shall be supported in it, carried through it, delivered from it. They have always a Resource; the Arm that upholds the universe upholds them; the Wisdom that ordains the trial guides and guards them through it. The irreligious has no refuge, no tower, but the name of the Lord is, &c. Every creature hath a retiring-place: the conies the rocks, the lion his den; the foxes have holes and the birds nests, but the wicked no hiding-place.
God is your friend. His character is your hope; His promises your security; His heaviest chastisements are your encouragements.
1. What He has said to others He says to you: Fear not, Abram; I am God all-sufficient; I will not leave.
2. What He has done for others He will do for you.
3. What He has already done for you and yours should warrant hope: delivered in six troubles.Rev. S. Thodey, A.D. 1824.
On Jer. 30:7. For similar themes, see on chap. Jer. 17:17, The Souls Hope in the Time of Terror; and chap. Jer. 23:6, A Bright Era for Mankind.
Comments
The partial deliverance at the downfall of Babylon prefigures the final and complete deliverance of Israel, literal and spiritual, at the downfall of mystical Babylon (Rev. 18:19).Jamieson.
The day of restoration is contrasted with the day of destruction. In that day the yoke of Babylon, which Jeremiah had symbolised by his own act, at Gods command (Jer. 28:2-12), will be broken from the neck of Judah; and this phrase, that day, doubtless, is to be extended, in a larger sense, to the day of Christs coming, when all Israel would be delivered from a worse yoke than that of Babylon. Comp. Isa. 10:27; Eze. 34:27.Wordsworth.
Jer. 30:8-9. Theme: SLAVERY EXCHANGED FOR SERVICE. Strangers shall no more hold him in servitude (Hendersons rendering), but they shall serve the Lord their God and David their king, whom I will raise up unto them.
I. Tyranny rules over men with grievous severity. Yoke and bonds are symbols of despotic oppression.
1. National and political despotism; its iron-handed and iron-hearted government.
2. Ecclesiastical and spiritual despotism; its usurpation of all natural relationships, social ties, and religious liberties.
Note.The shameful selfishness which prompts despotism, serve themselves of him; for greed of power, delight in securing abject submission, spoliation of possessions, &c., are the lust of all tyrants over the lives or souls of men.
II. Liberty unbridled will prove no special advantage even to its possessor. If all yokes are gone and bonds broken from men, without any healthful control being substituted, men would become furious, victims of their own passions and self-will.
1. Liberty from tyranny is an advantage only when the control of God is substituted and accepted in its stead, e.g., They shall serve the Lord their God, &c.
2. This subjection to God is better and safer than all human government and rule. It is a guarantee of good when God becomes our Governor, to rule us and care for our safety.
III. Divine rule is exercised through the kingship of Christ. Serve the Lord their God and David their king.
1. God will not govern otherwise than by His Son. Rejecting Him as king,Him whom God has set over us, and by whom God would have us governedwe shall be rejected by God. It is not Gods intention to rule us directly, without the mediation of His Son. We must therefore obey Christ, and thus serve God.
2. It is in the sway of Jesus that this promise is fulfilled. David was dead when Jeremiah wrote, he never lived again to rule, yet God promised to perpetuate Davids throne; but no king ever rose subsequent to this prophecy to rule the nation. Zerubbabel only held a fleeting and precarious dignity; and only Christ has realised and fulfilled this promise. But Jesus does rulethe King of saintsand blessed are they that serve Him.
IV. All our gracious liberty in Christ must be traced to God. Whom I will raise up unto them.
1. We must rejoice in Christs kingship as Gods gift of grace to us.
2. Christ, and all blessings which flow to us in Him, must be viewed as the outflow of Gods great goodness to us. God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son.
Jer. 30:10. Theme: RECOVERY OF LOST ISRAEL. See Homilies indicated under Jer. 30:3 of this chapter; also see Topic, Recovery of the Lost Ten Tribes, chap. Jer. 33:8, on pp. 458, 459.
On He shall return, and be in rest, and be quiet, see Homily on chap. Jer. 23:1-4.
Jer. 30:11. Theme: NATIONS OBLITERATED; ISRAEL PRESRVED. A full end of all nations, yet not a full end of thee.
We have here ocular proof of prophecy accomplished in an instance without parallel. It was repeatedly foretold, both in the Old and New Testaments, that, for the rejection and murder of their Messiah, the Jews should be dispersed into all the countries; yet that they should not be lost and swallowed up among their conquerors, but should still subsist, to latest times, a distinct people. By Jeremiah God declared He would make an end of all nations, their oppressors, but He would not make an end of them. It cannot be said this prediction was written since the event; and certainly an occurrence more singular, or improbable, could not have been predicted. In the course of human affairs, who hath heard such a thing? Yet so it is. The mighty monarchies of Assyria, Persia, Greece, and Rome are vanished like the shadows of the evening, or the phantoms of the night. Their places know them no more. Nothing remains of them but their names. Whilst this little despised people, strangely secure, without a friend or protector, amidst the wreck of empires, oppressed, persecuted, harassed always, by edict and executioners, by murders and massacres, have outlived the very ruins of them all. Except ye see signs and wonders ye will not believe. Behold, then, a sign and wonder: the accomplishment of prophecy is a standing miracle. Contemplate the sight as it deserves, and be not faithless but believing.Bishop Horne.
NOT MAKE A FULL END OF THEE. See on chap. Jer. 4:27; Jer. 5:18.
Also for Theme: LENIENT CORRECTION: I will correct thee in measure, &c. See chap. Jer. 10:24.
Jer. 30:12-15. Theme: FAITHLESS HEALERS AND VAIN REMEDIES. On
Bruise incurable, see Jer. 8:22; also Jer. 17:9.
Wound is grievous, see Jer. 10:19; Jer. 14:17; Jer. 15:18.
No healing, see Jer. 6:14; Jer. 8:11; Jer. 15:18.
All thy lovers have forgotten thee, see Jer. 3:1; Jer. 4:30; Jer. 22:20; Jer. 22:22; Jer. 27:3.
Thy sins are increased, see Jer. 5:6. I. Helpless: Incurable; wounds grievous, Jer. 30:12.
II. Hopeless: None to plead; no healing medicines, Jer. 30:13.
III. Deserted by man: Lovers have forgotten thee; seek thee not, Jer. 30:14.
IV. Smitten by God: Wounded thee; chastised thee, Jer. 30:14.
V. Justly suffering: For the multitude of thine iniquity; because thy sins are increased, Jer. 30:14.
VI. Rejected outcries: Why criest thou, &c., Jer. 30:15.
VII. Sins woes: Because sinsI have done these things unto thee.
VIII. Remedy implied: Cease sins and escape their doom.
Jer. 30:13. Theme: HEALING MEDICINES. Thou hast no healing medicines. Doctors abound who undertake the cure of souls; but they heal not their maladies. Ye are physicians of no value.
I. There are healing medicines adapted to heal all the maladies of the sin-stricken soul. Though thou hast them not, yet such there are!
1. They are found in Christ. Wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.
2. There are none besides. Though professed spiritual healers offer other remedies, they have no healing medicines, if they offer aught else but what the Gospel offers.
II. There are cruel delusions practised. By priests and ministers of the sanctuary, who flatter themselves that they have effected a cure, and deceive their patients. They have healed the hurt of the daughter of My people slightly, saying, Peace, peace, when there is no peace. Who are these?
1. Teachers of the confessional abominations.
2. Teachers of the baptismal regeneration fallacies.
3. Those who administer the Lords Supper to the dying as a means of peace with God.
4. Preachers of self-reliance and self-righteousness for salvation.
It is one thing to deaden a pain, another to heal a wound!
III. For mourners over sin there is efficient healing. On no other truth can there be explained
1. The angels joy over penitent sinners.
2. The Saviours gladness in reclaiming the guilty.
3. The remonstrances of Scripture over the unhealed (chap. Jer. 8:22).
4. The assurance of the blessedness following true sorrow. Blessed are they that weep, for they shall be comforted.
Jer. 30:16. Theme: IF GODS PEOPLE SUFFER, SHALL HIS FOES ESCAPE? Therefore all that devour thee shall be devoured; and all thine adversaries, every one of them, shall go into captivity, &c.
I. Though evil men seem now to prevail against Israel, their day of woe is coming.
II. Though God may use our adversaries for our chastisement because we sin, they shall bear the iniquity and punishment of their deeds.
III. Though for a while the judgment of God spares the wicked while afflicting the righteous, yet the very afflictions of His people are a prophecy and guarantee that the heavier woes pronounced against the guilty will in due time fall on them.
IV. Though mercy rules the afflictions of Gods people, softening their sorrows, and working all for their good, judgment without mercy shall sweep down on every one of Gods and His peoples adversaries.
V. Though from the devourer, the captivity, and the spoil, there will be sure escape for banished Israel, yet from the doom coming upon the foes of God and Israel there shall be no alleviation or escape.
Jer. 30:19. Theme: How GOD REGARDS THE TREATMENT SHOWN TO THE JEWS. This is Zion, whom no man seeketh after.
Was man justified in despising them, because they were under chastisements from an offended God? Though the Jews were the authors of their own misery, the contempt poured upon them by their adversaries He will punish.
I. What is the treatment almost universally shown to the Jewish people? The historic view of the conduct of different nations specially since their dispersion by the Romans.
Cruelties inflicted upon them by different potentates of Europe, not excepting those of our own country. Cite, in example, the clamour raised throughout our land against the Act for removing Jewish disabilities. Nor is this civic intolerance all: their religious interests are disregarded and neglected.
The serious fact is, not that we persecute them, or even neglect them, but thisthe self-vindication which we cherish in the midst of this neglect, and the eagerness with which we catch at anything by which we may justify that neglect.
II. The light in which such conduct is viewed by God. This contempt of others leads Him here to declare, by way of recompense, that He would restore to His favour the people so contemned.
1. Mark the inhumanity of it. Jews, no less than ourselves, have immortal souls; yet we make no effort for their salvation! Note Deu. 23:3-4. Yet we hold from them the Bread of Life, &c.
2. The injustice of it. Gospel to be preached to every creature, beginning at Jerusalem (see Rom. 11:30-31). We are debtors to them (Rom. 15:26-27).
3. The ingratitude of it. Jewsthe Apostleslaboured for Gentiles; should not we, in return, for them? (Php. 2:17-18.)
4. The impiety of it. Christ became a curse for us; surely it is our reasonable service to do all we can for His glory. Alas! Eze. 34:6.
III. The explanation of this sinful negligence towards the Jews.
1. Ignorance of the prophetic writings which so generally prevails.
2. Indifference to all spiritual interests which prevailseven about your own souls. Too many of us have never sought salvation for ourselves; how, then, be concerned for others?Rev. C. Simeon, M.A.
See Comments, &c., on chap. Jer. 15:4-5.
Theme: HEALING PROMISED.
i. Statement of our case: The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint; there is no soundness in us, &c. (Isa. 1:5).
ii. Prayer of the consciously sick: Lord, be merciful unto me, heal my soul, for I have sinned against Thee (Psa. 41:4).
iii. Promise from God: I will restore health unto thee, and I will heal thee of thy wounds (Jer. 30:17).
Believe in your sickness. Believe in the Divine Physician. Believe in His promise, and pray.
Jer. 30:18-20. ZION REPEOPLED. See on chap. Jer. 17:25-26.
Jer. 30:21. Theme: ISRAELS OWN GLORIOUS KING. See Lit. Crit. on verse.
The words should read: And his Glorious One shall spring from himself [Israel]; and his Ruler shall go forth from his midst; and I will cause Him to draw near, and He shall approach unto ME; for Who is this that hath pledged His heart to draw near unto Me?
1. This verse emphatically repudiates a foreign and alien kingship; for, after the return from exile, Israels Glorious Ruler is to be a native Prince springing from the midst of the people themselves.
2. Next, Jehovah will cause Him to draw near, i.e., to Himself; in like sacred access to that exclusively permitted to consecrated priests in the fulfilment of their solemn office. So that He is to fulfil a Sacred Office as well as to possess personal Royalty.
3. Then, He pledges His very life in approaching God, i.e., He will carry His life, His heart, into the effort of mediation with God. And Messiah alone has made His life responsible as a Surety (Heb. 7:22; Heb. 9:11-15), in order to gain access, not only for Himself, but for us to God. Heart is here put for life, in order to express the courage, the intense purpose required, to undertake so tremendous a suretyship. This question therefore implies admiration, astonishment at One being found ready and competent for the task.
I. In origin: Messiahs humanity, and His affiliation with us.
He springs from our midst; is a native, born of us and amongst us.
II. In Person: Messiahs dignity, and His superiority over us.
He is indeed of Israel, but far transcends man in His own natural majesty. He is Israels Glorious One. Standing alone in His dignity; the Crown of humanity; the One who is Glorious.
III. In office: Messiahs royalty, and His priesthood for us.
He is our Ruler; and He draws near God as a priest.
IV. In suretyship: Messiahs self-devotion; His approach to God for us.
And who but He; who, in nature Divine, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, yet made Himself of no reputation, could possess the heartof courage, consecration, and loveto approach God as mans Representative and Redeemer?
Comments
Lowth says: The Hebrew word is in the singular number, and literally signifies their Mighty One, a title given to God Himself (Psa. 93:4), and to a mighty Angel (Isa. 10:34), probably the WORD, or Son of God. He shall have near attendance upon Me (I will cause Him to draw near); for I will make Him a Priest to Me as well as a King, according to the prophecy concerning the Messiah (Psa. 110:4). For who is this, &c.,who is there but the Messiah that is so entirely devoted to My service? See Psa. 40:8; Joh. 4:34; Joh. 14:31.
Henderson remarks: Who this illustrious Governor is, has been disputed. Michaelis and Scholz think it may have been John Hyrcanus; Grotius and others, Zerubbabel. But with neither of these will the predicates properly agree. That the person spoken of was to be a priest is generally allowed; but though Hyrcanus was hereditarily high-priest and ruler, yet there was nothing so peculiar about him or his office to call for the declaration that he should approach unto Jehovah; for this all his predecessors had done in the way which he did; or to warrant the pointed and emphatic interrogatory, But who is he? &c. The question is put as something altogether unique. Such an approach had never been made before.
Diedrich (in Lange): This Church of God will own a Prince from its midstJesus, of our flesh and blood through the Virgin Mary. And He approaches God as no other can; for He is Gods image, Gods Son; and at the same time the perfect, holy in all His sufferings, the only obedient Son of man. This King is Mediator and Reconciler with God; He is also High-Priest, and fulfilled all righteousness, as was necessary for our propitiation. What glory to have such a King, who brings us nigh to God! And this is our glory.
Jer. 30:21. Theme: ENGAGING THE HEART IN RELIGIOUS SERVICE. For who is this that engaged his heart to approach unto Me, saith the Lord?
The promises of God in times past become the encouragement of the Church in times to come.
Because these promises are ratified in Christ. Yea, and Amen.
Because the dispensations of God proceed upon fixed and settled principles.
The promises here respect recovery from Babylon.
The immediate reference of the text may be to NEHEMIAH.
I. The nature of religion described.
II. The motives that it suggested.
I. The nature and requisites of religion described.
Engaging the heart towards God. Without this all profession is false and all worship vain.
It supposes the free choice of Gods service, and a full and heartfelt consecration to it. Gods service chosen
i. Deliberately, without rashness. If the Lord be God, serve Him; As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord; CHOOSE ye this day.
God will not accept a blind faith. Aaron was to light the lamps before he offered incense. Solomon first prescribes, Know thou the God of thy fathers, and then adds, Serve Him. God made the heart that He might dwell in it.
ii. Sincerely, without hypocrisy. Serve Him with a perfect heart; because you choose such a Master as is at once the Heart-Maker and the Heart-Searcher. Now therefore, as Joshua tells Israel, Fear the Lord, and serve Him in sincerity and truth. As if he had said, If you intend to serve Him, you must serve Him in uprightness, or you do not serve Him at all. God requires good aims as well as good actions; and He abhors that service, though ever so costly, if the aim of him who serves Him be not good. This is the difference between the service of God and of man. Man can but see the outside, and can only punish outward disobedience and defects; but God unveils motive. God is a spirit.
iii. Cheerfully, without constraint. Serve the Lord with gladness. A bad omen when the victim struggled at the altar. God loves a cheerful giver and a cheerful worshipper (2Ch. 15:14).
iv. Constantly, without end. In all things, in all places; in private as in public; in all times, prosperity and adversity, life and death; and with all faculties. As the Dutch minister said to colampadius, Let God speak, and though we had six hundred necks, yet we will make them all stoop in obedience to Him.
II. Motives to induce this choice of Gods service.
i. From Gods rightful claim to it. God made man to serve Him and to seek his own happiness in Gods service; his own honour in Gods glory. We are His workmanship, and it becomes us to improve our gifts and capacities to Him from whom we receive them, as all rivers return to the ocean whence they come. As Aulius Fulvius said to his son, when he found him in conspiracy with Catiline, You were not born for Catiline, but for your country (Non ego te Catilin genui, sed patri).
So God says, I did not give thee soul and body to serve the world and sin, but to serve Me withal.
Consider the infinite excellences which reside in God, as a motive to His service. The lustre of His perfections fills heaven and earth.
Consider the rich mercies you receive. So many mercies, so many motives. In creation, in providence, in redemption. We are therefore delivered out of the hand of our enemies, that we should serve Him without fear. God makes the deliverance from Egypt a motive for keeping the ten commandments: I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, therefore thou shalt keep holy the Sabbath. Much more may we argue from redemption: Ye are not your own.
Render to Csar the things that are Csars, and to God the things that are Gods. If service be not due, do not give it Him; but if it be, it is sacrilege to withhold it.
ii. From His gracious acceptance of it. Who is willing? He speaks with wonder and delight, shewing that God notices all hearts. There is no service any man does or desires to do, but God marks and registers it. God noticed Abrahams willingness to offer Isaac. Christ noticed every circumstance connected with Marys anointing His head and washing His feet. God holds up the obedience of Job to Satan: Hast thou considered?
iii. From happiness consequent upon it. His service perfect freedom. A day in Thy courts. Ethiopian went his way, &c. Gods service is a type of heaven. We have communion with the God of all consolationwith the Spirit, the Comforter.
God alone can fill the heart. In His service you have encouraging promises, examples, providences, experiences, prospects.
iv. From consequences of not serving Him (Jer. 30:23-24).
III. Hints of direction.
i. To those who have engaged their hearts to God. Walk worthy.
Study to attain a temper of mind more and more spiritual.
Strictly guard the avenues of the inward man.
Bear yourself as the inhabitant of a better country.
Comprehend the entire frame of that holy rectitude in which the image of God consists.
Converse with the Word of God. Occupy your thoughts with God.
Delight thyself in Him.
ii. To those who have not. Take care you do not carry the controversy into another world.
By how much nature revolts, by so much seek grace.
Jer. 30:22. Ye shall be My people, and I will be your God. Comp. chap. Jer. 24:7.
Jer. 30:23-24. The whirlwind of the Lord. Comp. chap. Jer. 23:19; Jer. 23:29, and Jer. 25:32.
Jer. 30:24. Theme: CONSIDERATION. In the latter days ye shall consider it.
After denouncing the Lords judgments upon a people laden with iniquity, and looking beyond to a time of restoration and peace, Jeremiah rebukes their present carelessness and indifference by assuring them that, in that better time to come, they will look back with very different feelings upon their present conduct as a nation.
I. There comes a closing period of a course of action or conduct, when it can all be looked back upon, and the effects are seen and the results experienced.
The great practical point is to urge upon us
1. The necessity of closely examining our own heart and life, with especial reference to the light in which they will appear even to ourselves hereafter. For
2. The crisis will arrive when we shall reap that which we have sown; or, above all, when we shall come to cast one long look behind, as our feet totter on the borders of the grave.
II. It may seem difficult thus, by due consideration, to realise at one time of life, or at one station in the course of action, the point of view which seems to belong to another. But the attainment is not difficult.
1. It is, in fact, easy to those who wish for it and strive for it. It is simply the true point of view.
2. Our case would be hard if the Lord had not provided for our guidance into all truth, not only of doctrine, but of life and conduct, at every period of our course.
3. We have in the Scriptures a sure and certain light unto our path; and he who has been careful to store his mind with its holy teachings, will never be at a loss to decide upon his conduct, or upon any course of conduct he contemplates.
4. If a man hears these words, whether, at the time, he heeds them or not, receives them or not, they fail not to judge him in his own consciousness (Joh. 12:48), not only at the last day, but in his latter daysthose great days of decision.
III. Such a standard of invincible truth should be erected in the mind, constraining man to become his own judge, and enabling him to decide between the accusings and excusings of his conscience.
1. Therefore, minds should be filled with a knowledge of Scripture, even though, at the time, those minds entertain no adequate impression of its saving power.
2. The mind, earnestly desirous of realising this most true latter-end view of things, may obtain them through the gentle teachings of the Divine Spirit, who has never yet denied them to any who sought them in singleness of heart.
IV. With these essential and sure guides to wise consideration, we are without excuse if we neglect the duty, and brutal if we despise the privilege.
1. Who is there, looking back, but can discern grievous stains, fearful short-comings, distressing faithlessnessdishonouring to Christ, defiling to his own soul, and burdensome to his conscienceand compelled to exclaim, Oh, that I had considered, that I had given one thought to God and the latter end, before I took this burden on my soul!
2. The longer this habit of consideration is postponed, the more burdensome it becomes. There is much in a heart-searching retrospect, over the earliest and most innocent period of life, to awaken compunction and regret; but if the wholesome check, which the habit of considering the latter end imposes, be not found in good time, the blackening horror of the later and more advanced period makes that early time seem bright in the comparison, and gives birth to feelings which have found expression in such words as these
Lost days of youth! Oh, holy days,
When joy was blest with prayer and praise
When this sad heart, now deeply dyed
With many a thought unsanctified,
Trembled at every venial stain,
And shrunk from sin as now from pain.
Oh, not that even in that hour
Of early reasons dawning power,
My soul was pure from thoughts of sin;
But now so dark the past has been,
That those first stains from young offence
Bear the bright hue of innocence.
Kitto.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
JEREMIAHS FAITH IN THE FUTURE
Jer. 30:1 to Jer. 33:26
Chapters 3033, the so-called Book of Consolation, is the only consistently hopeful section of the Book of Jeremiah. It is likely that these chapters date to the tenth year of Zedekiah (588 B.C.). At least that is the date assigned to chapters 32 and 33.[243] These were dark days for Judah and for Jeremiah. The Chaldean army was at the gates of Jerusalem. The city was experiencing the famine, pestilence and misery connected with siege operations. Jeremiah himself had been imprisoned in the court of the guard as a suspected traitor. Even though events had proved him to be speaking truth with regard to the fate of Jerusalem, still the people refused to acknowledge Jeremiah as the man of God that he was. They rather suspected that he was collaborating with the enemy. These dark and dire days gave birth to one of the most beautiful passages in the entire Bible. Here is the positive aspect of the prophets ministry. He is now beginning to build and to plant (Jer. 1:10). At times during his ministry Jeremiah had been permitted to have a glimpse of the events which were beyond the judgment. But this section of the book is unique in that here the focus is upon hope and salvation. Here the prophet treats the great themes of the destruction of Babylon; the return of Gods people; the reunification of Israel and Judah; the coming of Messiah and the establishment of His kingdom.
[243] Chapters 30 and 31 have been assigned to periods all the way from the time of Josiah to the governorship of Gedaliah. While one cannot be absolutely certain about the dating of these two chapters, it is reasonable to assume that they were written at the same time as chapters 32 and 33.
From the literary standpoint this section contains the following elements: an introduction (Jer. 30:1-3); a collection of poetic oracles (Jer. 30:4 to Jer. 31:22); two collections of prose sermons (Jer. 31:23-40; Jer. 32:26 to Jer. 33:26); a narrative account of a symbolic act (Jer. 32:1-15); a prayer for enlightenment (Jer. 32:16-25). A topical analysis of the material in these chapters suggests the following outline: (1) the promise of restoration (Jer. 30:4-24); (2) the blessings of restoration (Jer. 31:1-40); and (3) confidence in restoration (Jer. 32:1 to Jer. 33:26).
INTRODUCTION Jer. 30:1-3
TRANSLATION
(1) The word which came unto Jeremiah from the LORD saying, Thus says the LORD God of Israel: Write for yourself all the words which I have spoken unto you in a book. (3) For behold, the days are coming (oracle of the LORD) when I will reverse the fortunes of MY people Israel and Judah, says the LORD, and I will cause them to return unto the land which I gave unto their fathers and they shall repossess it.
COMMENTS
The first three verses of chapter 30 serve to introduce the Book of Consolation. Here Jeremiah is commanded by the Lord to record in a book[244] the words which God had spoken to him concerning the future of the nation. Unlike the collection of prophecies referred to in chapter Jer. 36:1-6, this book does not seem to be intended for public proclamation but rather for the personal comfort of the prophet. This is suggested by the words write for your own sake (Jer. 30:2). The Hebrew word member (book) can refer to any size document from a single page to an extensive treatise.
[244] While some scholars think that the book mentioned here comprises only chapters 30.31, it is probably best to include chapters 3233 as well.
Chapters 3033 have been described as a little green oasis in the midst of a dry and barren desert.[245] Verse three sets the tone of the whole section. The reason Jeremiah is to compile another book is because there are glorious things for the covenant people. Behold! days are coming is an expression which points to a certain, but indefinite, time in the future. Three wonderful things are stipulated as part of those future days. (1) God will turn again the captivity i.e., reverse the fortunes of His people. (2) Israel and Judah will once again be reunited. (3) Gods people will return to the land which He had given to their fathers.
[245] F. Cawley, Jeremiah, The New Bible Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964), p. 626.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
INTRODUCTORY THE THEME, 1-3.
The section of this book upon which we now enter stands in pleasing contrast with the body of the volume. For the most part Jeremiah is occupied with the sins and sorrows of the people, the calamities in the midst of which he lived, and by which God was chastening them into a deeper spirituality and a higher purity. But in these four chapters he goes below the present adverse fortunes of God’s people, and dwells joyfully on the nation’s relation to a covenant-keeping God, by whom they will be made to triumph. And it is a most interesting fact, and one which illustrates impressively the victorious faith of this”man of sorrows,” that a portion of this passage was written in the tenth year of Zedekiah, when the despair and misery of the people were approaching their culmination. Just as the old Romans actually mapped out and sold the very ground on which their confident enemies were encamped, so Jeremiah calmly reckons on the possession of this land by his people in spite of their long captivity; and, as symbolical of their possession, buys the field at Anathoth.
These four chapters have been divided by Hengstenburg into three portions. 1) Chaps. 30 and 31, “a triumphal hymn of Israel’s salvation.” 2) Chap. 32 gives an account of the symbolical act of the buying a piece of hereditary property in Anathoth, and the message of God’s explanation thereof. 3) Chap. 33 dwells in prophetic language on the re-establishment of the Levitical priesthood and the Davidic throne. The whole passage is thus devoted to God’s changeless, invincible covenant with his people, assuring them of mercy and salvation.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
1. The word, etc. The heading of the entire prophecy to the end of chap. 31.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Because Of The Certainty Of Future Restoration Jeremiah Is To Record All His Words In A Book ( Jer 30:1-3 )
The importance of the words spoken here for recognising the true authorship of the bulk of Jeremiah can hardly be overstated, although we do know that he was assisted in his work by Baruch. For, unless Jeremiah was totally disobedient, we learn here that he added to the ‘book’ (scroll) that he had previously authored (Jer 36:31; Jer 45:1), subsequent prophecies, at least up to the date of the siege of Jerusalem (at least part of the account below appears to be given at a time when there was no reigning Davidic monarch). He would certainly have had plenty of time for writing while he was in the royal guard room, and assuming that he had disciples in Judah, would surely have communicated his prophecies to them. He could then have completed it in Egypt, from where it would be sent to exiles in all parts. Thus apart from minor editing we may see from this that most of the book came directly from Jeremiah. And it is YHWH Who here stresses the necessity for this precisely because of the coming anticipated restoration to the land of both Israel and Judah. Jeremiah’s prophecies were therefore to be an essential part of the restoration, for along with the older prophets, they explained why Judah and Israel had had to go through their sufferings, and yet could still be offered hope.
Jer 30:1
‘The word that came to Jeremiah from YHWH, saying,’
This is the usual formula with which Jeremiah opens a subsection of his work. and emphasises that what he is writing here consists of a new word of YHWH.
Jer 30:2
‘Thus speaks YHWH, the God of Israel, saying, “Write you all the words that I have spoken to you in a book.”
With YHWH’s most imposing title being applied, Jeremiah is now called on to write down all the words that YHWH has spoken to him, in a book or scroll. This need for Jeremiah to write down his prophecies has in fact constantly been emphasised (Jer 36:2; Jer 36:28; Jer 45:1), and suggests that he felt under a divine urge to record his prophecies.
Jer 30:3
“For, lo, the days come, the word of YHWH, that I will turn again the captivity of my people Israel and Judah, the word of YHWH, and I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they will possess it.”
And the reason for writing down his words is in readiness for the fact that ‘according to the assured word of YHWH’ (twice stressed) the days were coming when YHWH would ‘turn again’ the captivity of His people, both Israel and Judah, and cause them to return to the land of their fathers and possess it. It would be at that stage that they would need Jeremiah’s prophecies of hope. This ‘turning again’ would begin with the return of exiles from Babylon (Ezr 1:1 ff.), but it would continue on through the undocumented period following Malachi to such an extent that, by the time of Jesus Christ, Palestine (Galilee and Judaea) was well populated with people connected with the ‘twelve tribes’ in one way or another (see e.g. Luk 2:36).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
SECTION 2 ( Jer 26:1 to Jer 45:5 ).
Whilst the first twenty five chapters of Jeremiah have mainly been a record of his general prophecies, mostly given during the reigns of Josiah and Jehoiakim, and have been in the first person, this second section of Jeremiah (Jer 26:1 to Jer 45:5) is in the third person, includes a great deal of material about the problems that Jeremiah faced during his ministry and provides information about the opposition that he continually encountered. This use of the third person was a device regularly used by prophets so that it does not necessarily indicate that it was not directly the work of Jeremiah, although in his case we actually have good reason to think that much of it was recorded under his guidance by his amanuensis and friend, Baruch (Jer 36:4).
It can be divided up as follows:
1. Commencing With A Speech In The Temple Jeremiah Warns Of What Is Coming And Repudiates The Promises Of The False Prophets (Jer 26:1 to Jer 29:32).
2. Promises Are Given Of Eventual Restoration And Of A New Covenant Written In The Heart (Jer 30:1 to Jer 33:26).
3. YHWH’s Continuing Word of Judgment Is Given Through Jeremiah And Its Repercussions Leading Up To The Fall Of Jerusalem Are Revealed (Jer 34:1 to Jer 39:18).
4. Events Subsequent To The Fall Of Jerusalem (Jer 40:1 to Jer 45:5).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Part 1). Anguish And Restoration ( Jer 30:1 to Jer 31:40 ).
Part 1 is divided up into two Sub-parts (A and B) by the introductory words, ‘thus says YHWH (of hosts), the God of Israel’ (Jer 30:2; Jer 31:23). Sub-part A describes the coming restoration, but with continued flashbacks to the present miserable state of Judah/Israel, while Sub-part B emphasises the absolute certainty of the fulfilment of God’s final purpose for His people, including a glorious spiritual renewal.
Sub-part A). ‘Thus says YHWH the God of Israel.’ Commencing with a promise of coming restoration, Jeremiah, in a series of three brilliant contrasts moving from one extreme to the other (Jer 30:8-11; Jer 30:12-17; Jer 31:15-20), seeks to draw out in chapter 30 the miseries of the present in contrast with the hopes of the future, bringing out in the process the great necessity for the chastisement of the people prior to restoration. Jer 31:1-22 then follows with expanded descriptions of that restoration, intermingled with a pathetic description of ‘Rachel’ (Jacob’s wife as representing Judah/Israel) weeping over the loss of her children (Jer 31:15), a reminder that the joy of the future will arise out of the misery of the present.
Using Jeremiah’s own markers we may divide up this sub-part as follows:
Analysis.
An initial promise of restoration (Jer 30:3).
‘Thus says YHWH.’ The period of ‘Jacob’s trouble’ is coming on them, a time of trembling and fear, a day so great that there will be none like it (Jer 30:4-7). This will be followed by deliverance from the yoke of bondage and establishment ‘under YHWH their God and David their King’, for YHWH will act to bring them back to the land, finally dealing severely with their enemies, but sparing Judah/Israel, although this will only be once they have suffered necessary chastening (Jer 30:8-11).
‘Thus says YHWH.’ Meanwhile Judah/Israel’s current state is like that of a fatally wounded warrior because of the greatness of their sins (Jer 30:12-15). But in the end their enemy will be devoured and become a prey, and will themselves go into captivity, while Judah/Israel will be restored and healed in consequence of the derision of the nations at their seeming total rejection (Jer 30:16-17).
‘Thus says YHWH.’ Full restoration is now described, with cities being rebuilt and joy and thanksgiving arising, as they are established under their own appointed rulers who will respond to YHWH, and they will be His people and He will be their God (Jer 30:18-22), and all this will be due to the tempest of YHWH as He goes forth in wrath, not turning back until He has accomplished His will (Jer 30:23-24). In consequence it is repeated that He will be their God and they will be His people (Jer 31:1). (It will be emphasised again in Jer 31:33).
‘Thus says YHWH.’ The survivors are seen as like Israel in the wilderness, beloved of YHWH and having escaped from the Egyptian/Babylonian sword, whom YHWH will now restore to great rejoicing and fruitfulness, so that once more they will go up to Zion, to YHWH their God (Jer 31:2-5).
‘Thus says YHWH.’ A paean of praise arises over the glory of YHWH’s deliverance of His people as they return with weeping to YHWH their Father, and are delivered in a similar way to that in which Israel were delivered as they had once marched through the wilderness (Jer 31:6-9). Let the nations witness how YHWH has restored His people so that the land blossoms and His people rejoice and make merry, and the firstfruits and tithes abound (Jer 31:10-14). Note the continued emphasis on joy and merriment (Jer 30:19; Jer 31:13) in stark contrast with what now follows.
‘Thus says YHWH.’ A voice is heard in Ramah, Rachel weeping for her children (Judah/Israel) because they are no more (Jer 31:15). The future is sure but it must develop by God’s grace out of the present misery.
‘Thus says YHWH.’ But weeping may now cease because there is hope for the future. Ephraim, having confessed to their sinfulness, have turned back to YHWH in repentance, pleading to be brought back and restored. And YHWH will receive them back as a father his child because He loves them and will be merciful towards them (Jer 31:16-20). They must thus set up the road signs that will bring them back to the land, and not hesitate because YHWH is doing a new thing (Jer 31:21-22).
Sub-part B) is also introduced by the words, ‘Thus says YHWH of hosts, the God of Israel,’ and a feature of this sub-part is the phrase ‘the days are coming, says YHWH, when –’ (Jer 31:27; Jer 31:31; Jer 31:38), with its emphasis on the glorious future for God’s people. It may be analysed as follows:
The fortunes of Judah and its cities will be restored and they will rejoice in YHWH’s holy habitation. Both town and country will rejoice together, for YHWH will satisfy all hearts (Jer 31:23-26).
‘The days are coming, says YHWH, when’, rather than being broken down and destroyed, both the house of Israel and the house of Judah will be watched over by YHWH and built up and planted, with individuals responsible for their own sins. In other words they will no longer be a nation with joint responsibility for the covenant and suffering accordingly, but individuals each accountable for themselves (Jer 31:27-30).
‘The days are coming, says YHWH, when’ He will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not one like the old covenant which they broke, but one written in their hearts so that He will be their God and they will be His people. And all will know YHWH and enjoy total forgiveness (Jer 31:31-34).
‘Thus says YHWH.’ The continuation of Israel is as certain as the arrival of the sun by day and of the moon and stars by night and as YHWH’s control of the seas (Jer 31:35-36).
‘Thus says YHWH.’ The fact that Israel will not be cast off for what they have done is as certain as the fact that the heavens cannot be measured, and the foundations of the earth explored (Jer 31:37).
The days are coming, says YHWH, when’ the city will be rebuilt for YHWH, and the whole area, even the unclean valley of Hinnom, will be sacred to Him. They will be established for ever (Jer 31:38-40). Something only possible in the eternal kingdom.
One question that will arise as we consider these passages is as to if and when YHWH is speaking of the northern kingdom only, under the name of Ephraim, or when reference is being made to the whole of Israel/Judah as ‘Ephraim’ in order to bring out their fallen state, with Ephraim being intended to be symbolic of a fallen people. It is not quite as simple a question as might at first be thought.
If, as some claim, this prophecy was written in the days of Josiah, the question would not arise. During his reign there were no exiles from Judah, and therefore the exiles of northern Israel alone would be in mind, and ‘Ephraim’ would simply indicate them. This would certainly be a good explanation for the four references to Ephraim in Jer 31:9-20. But there are good reasons for in fact seeing that what is written here was written later than the reign of Josiah. For example, in Jer 30:3 reference is made to ‘the captivity (exile) of My people Israel and Judah’ which is clearly referring to a period later than Josiah when there were also Judean exiles resulting at least from the activities of Nebuchadrezzar in 605 BC and 598 BC. Furthermore this ties in with the fact that there are other verses which must be seen as undoubtedly all-inclusive. Jer 30:4, for example, introduces what YHWH spoke ‘concerning Israel and concerning Judah’ and refers to both under the joint title ‘Jacob’ (e.g. in Jer 30:7; Jer 30:10; Jer 30:18). Jer 30:21 refers to the setting up of a new authority, honouring to YHWH, which in the context suggests one connected with the house of David (see Jer 30:9), and that must include Judah. Jer 30:22 is most naturally seen as referring to Israel/Judah as one people. That would suggest that Jer 31:1 must therefore also be using ‘all the families of Israel’ in an all-inclusive way (it is underlining what has been said in Jer 30:22). Up to Jer 31:1 then there are good reasons for seeing both Israel and Judah as in mind as becoming one people.
In Jer 31:2; Jer 31:4 ‘Israel’ and ‘the virgin of Israel’ are then spoken of as comparable with what happened in the wilderness at the Exodus. This again suggests all-inclusiveness because in the wilderness ‘Israel’ included Judah. The fact that they will once more plant vineyards ‘on the mountains of Samaria’, while certainly demonstrating that the exiles of the northern kingdom are included, must not necessarily be seen as exclusive of seeing the deliverance as applying to all. It is simply indicating that Israel will once more be part of the whole. The use of ‘Ephraim’ in Jer 30:6 is merely speaking of an area known as ‘the hills of Ephraim’, and is seemingly indicating the reconciliation of Israel and Judah as joint worshippers of YHWH at the Temple. Meanwhile ‘Israel’ and ‘Jacob’ are used indiscriminately (Jer 31:2; Jer 31:4; Jer 31:7; Jer 31:9-11) as those who will sing in the height of Zion. Furthermore ‘Rachel’ (Jer 31:15) combines Ephraim, Benjamin and Manasseh (compare Psa 80:2 where these three represent the whole of Israel) and thus includes both kingdoms. All this points to both kingdoms being in mind throughout, seen as one people.
We are therefore left with three references to consider which might be seen as suggesting otherwise:
The reference in Jer 31:9 to ‘Ephraim is my firstborn’, seemingly as a part of Israel, or more likely paralleling ‘Israel’.
The reference to Ephraim as repenting in Jer 31:18.
The reference to Ephraim as YHWH’s ‘dear son’ in Jer 31:19.
It is certainly obvious from these references that Jeremiah wants it clearly recognised that the northern kingdom is included in the coming restoration, and as being equally precious to YHWH, but the question is, are we therefore to see Judah/Benjamin as not in mind in them? On the contrary, we have seen that the reference to ‘Rachel’ (mother of both Joseph and Benjamin) would appear to emphasise that the southern kingdom are also in mind.
The first problem requiring solution is as to what ‘Ephraim is my firstborn’ signifies. Can this be seen as referring only to the northern kingdom, or is there good reason for seeing it as applying to both? For the fact is that Ephraim was neither the firstborn of Jacob/Israel, nor of Joseph. The only way in which he could have been seen as YHWH’s firstborn, unless ‘Ephraim’ was a synonym for ‘Israel’, would be because YHWH had chosen him to be above his brother (Gen 48:10-12), i.e. had declared him to be His firstborn in status. But if that was in mind here it would mean that here Ephraim was being seen as distinguished from the rest of Israel, which would appear to be unlikely. The alternative is either to see ‘Ephraim is My firstborn’ as paralleling the wider ‘Israel is My son, My firstborn’ which is found in Exo 4:22, which included all the tribes, with ‘Ephraim’ thereby indicating all the tribes, including Judah and Benjamin, or to see it as signifying that ‘Ephraim is an essential part of my firstborn’ with ‘firstborn’ indicating Israel/Judah’s status as ‘chief among the nations’ (Jer 31:7). Either way we must see ‘my firstborn’ as all-inclusive. But it may be asked, if that is so, why then alter ‘Israel’ to ‘Ephraim’? We may well see as the answer to that question that YHWH was by ‘Ephraim’ seeking to signify an ‘all-inclusive Israel in its fallen state as illustrated by Ephraim’. Everything then would seem to point to Ephraim here as, in one way or another, signifying all-inclusive Israel.
This interpretation would appear to be supported by the fact that it is extremely unlikely that YHWH could have been intending to give Ephraim as the northern kingdom a superior position to Judah, for it was from Judah that the supreme ruler was to come. And the same can be seen as applying to His reference to Ephraim as His dear son (Jer 31:19). Again He was certainly not intending thereby to exclude Judah. Rather He was emphasising that the northern kingdom were included along with Judah as His son, and will share the same ruler (and the same Temple). Note also how the virgin Israel’s cities in Jer 31:21 become the cities of Judah in Jer 31:23-24. Thus we may see both Israel and Judah as being equally in mind in all references although with different emphases being made at different points.
If then we take the whole passage as a united prophecy (which Jer 30:2 suggests) then it would appear to have been made after the monarchy had ceased in Judah, for reference is made in it to the restoration of the Davidic king (Jer 30:9; Jer 30:21). An alternative possibility is that the prophecies occurred towards the end of the reign of Zedekiah, with troubles pressing upon them and the coming destruction now certain, and with Zedekiah being looked on as only really a regent, and as Nebuchadnezzar’s appointee. The idea would then be that Jehoiachin in Babylon was still seen as king and as the true Davidic representative chosen by the people, who needed to be restored (an idea, however, that Jeremiah has previously rejected – Jer 22:30).
Note. Attempts to relate these prophecies to the current position in Palestine totally ignore the fact that modern self-named Israel did not return in repentance but in belligerence, are not ruled by a son of David, and are in fact the unbelieving part of Israel which was ‘cut off from Israel’ because of their rejection of the Messiah and their continuing unbelief (Mat 21:43; Rom 11:17-28). In God’s purposes they are thus no longer Israel, although any who wish can become Israel by truly responding to the Lord, Jesus Christ (Rom 11:23), for ‘there is no other Name under Heaven given among men by which we can be saved’ (Act 4:12).
The passage here is therefore rather describing the building up of the land after the return from exile, resulting in the true combined Israel, which is finally summed up in Jesus Christ (and came out of Egypt in Him – Mat 2:15), and in the true Jewish remnant which responded to the Messiah when He came. It is those who responded to the Lord Jesus Christ who were the true Israel, ‘the Israel within Israel’, the repentant remnant. They were then supplemented by believing proselytes from among the Gentiles who united with them in Christ, and are together called the ‘Israel of God’ (Gal 6:16), and the ‘Israel within Israel’ (Rom 9:6). This new Israel in which Jews and Gentiles have been made one is established on Jesus Christ and His Apostles and Prophets (Eph 2:11-22; Rev 21:10-27). In other words it is the ‘true congregation of Israel’ referred to in Mat 16:18, the ‘true Vine’ of Joh 15:1-6, which was being established by Jesus Christ as making up the true remnant of Israel. It is the olive tree, named as such by God (Jer 11:16), and with amplifying details described in Rom 11:17-28, which is now the true Israel..
End of note.
A). We will now consider sub-part A. verse by verse.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
SECTION 2 ( Jer 26:1 to Jer 45:5 ). (continued).
As we have seen this Section of Jeremiah from Jer 26:1 to Jer 45:5 divides up into four main subsections, which are as follows:
1. Commencing With A Speech In The Temple Jeremiah Warns Of What Is Coming And Repudiates The Promises Of The False Prophets (Jer 26:1 to Jer 29:32).
2. Following The Anguish To Come Promises Are Given Of Eventual Restoration, Central To Which is A New Covenant Written In The Heart (Jer 30:1 to Jer 33:26).
3. YHWH’s Continuing Word of Judgment Is Given Through Jeremiah, And Its Repercussions Leading Up To The Fall Of Jerusalem Are Revealed (Jer 34:1 to Jer 39:18).
4. Events Subsequent To The Fall Of Jerusalem Are Described (Jer 40:1 to Jer 45:5).
We have already commented on Subsection 1). in Jeremiah 4. We must now therefore consider subsection 2). This subsection, with its emphatic promises of hope for the future, is the most positive subsection from a long term view in his prophecy.
Subsection 2 ( Jer 30:1 to Jer 33:26 ). Following The Anguish To Come Promises Are Given Of Eventual Restoration, Central To Which Is A New Covenant Written By YHWH In The Hearts Of His People, Together With The Establishment Of The New Jerusalem As The Eternal City ( Jer 30:1 to Jer 33:26 ).
This Subsection places a great emphasis, not only on the coming anguish, but even more on the glorious restoration that will follow. It presents a final picture of a wholly restored nation which has been spiritually transformed.
It may be seen as divided up into two parts on the basis of the phrase ‘The word that came to Jeremiah from YHWH –’ (Jer 30:1; Jer 32:1). (Jer 33:1; Jer 33:19, on the other hand, open with ‘and’ (waw), signifying continuation rather than a new part). The first part deals with promises of glorious restoration and spiritual renewal ending up with the establishment of a new Jerusalem as the eternal city (compare Rev 21:1 to Rev 22:5). The second part contains an acted out prophecy in which Jeremiah purchases a piece of hereditary land in order to demonstrate his confidence in the final future of Judah, and gives further assurances of restoration.
Part 1). ‘The word that came to Jeremiah from YHWH –’ (Jer 30:1). Out of the anguish of Israel/Judah is to come restoration, when YHWH will bring His people from all the places of exile to which He has scattered them, and will replant them and build them up in the land, establishing with them a new covenant, written not on stone but in their hearts. All will know Him and all will be made holy, and God’s holy city will be established for ever (Jer 30:1 to Jer 31:40).
We will now consider this part in detail.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
The Promise of Deliverance
v. 1. The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, v. 2. Thus speaketh the Lord God of Israel, v. 3. For, lo, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will bring again the captivity of My people Israel and Judah, saith the Lord, v. 4. And these are the words that the Lord spake concerning Israel and concerning Judah, v. 5. v. 6. Ask ye now and see whether a man doth travail with child, v. 7. Alas! for that day, v. 8. For it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord of hosts, that I will break his yoke from off thy neck, v. 9. but they shall serve the Lord, their God, and David, their King, v. 10. Therefore fear not thou, O my servant Jacob, saith the Lord, neither be dismayed, v. 11. For I am with thee, saith the Lord, to save thee,
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
EXPOSITION
This and the three next chapters form a kind of book in themselves, which contrasts admirably with Jermiah 27-29. In the latter Jeremiah aimed at casting down the delusive hope that the time of trial would soon be over and the captives restored; here he assumes that all are aware of the sad reality, and concentrates himself on the happier topics of comfort and encouragement. Jer 30:1-24; Jer 31:1-40. shine out among all Jeremiah’s prophecies; there is a combination of softness and vigour which, even from a purely literary point of view, is most attractive. Strictly speaking, they ought to form but one chapter; they represent (as verse 4 states) the revelation from Jehovah “concerning Israel and concerning Judah.” It is, indeed, most touching, this yearning of the inspired prophet for the reunion of the two branches of the nation (comp. Je 3:1-4:2). A “union in spirit” was not enough for him; there must be a visible drawing together, to prove to all men that, as God is one, so his people is one. God’s love is imperishable, and, his election of Israel cannot be reversed. The very extent of Israel’s misery is a pledge that her God will not leave her to herself too long. And how is the restoration of Israel to be conceived? Surely nothing less than a new covenant will satisfy the conditions of the problema new covenant written in the heart. Something akin to this encouraging prophecy may be traced here and there in earlier chapters (see Jer 3:14-19; Jer 16:14, Jer 16:15; Jer 23:3-8; but here the prophet is entirely absorbed in that glorious future which could alone save him from utter despondency.
Jer 30:2
Write thee all the words in a book. The form of expression leaves it doubtful whether a summary of all Jeremiah’s previous discourses is intended, or merely of the promises concerning Israel and Judah which he had just received. There are, no doubt, numerous allusions to preceding chapters, but verse 5 seems rather to favour the latter view. The word rendered “book” will equally suit a short discourse like the present (comp. Jer 51:60) and a large collection of prophecies as in Jer 36:2. Observe, the discourse was to be written down at once, without having been delivered orally; it was to be laid up as a pledge that God would interpose for his people (comp. Isa 30:8; Hab 2:2, Hab 2:3).
Jer 30:5-11
The great judgment of Israel’s deliverance. It is nothing less than the “day of Jehovah” which the prophet sees in spirita day which is “great” (Jer 30:7; comp. Joe 2:11; Zep 1:14) and terrible (Jer 30:5, Jer 30:6; comp. Amo 5:18, Amo 5:20; Isa 13:6; Joe 2:1, Joe 2:11) for Israel, a day of “trouble” (Jer 30:7), but for his enemies of destruction.
Jer 30:5
A voice of trembling; rather, a sound of trembling, a sound causing men to tremble; doubtless it is “the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war” (Jer 4:19). Of fear, and not of peace; rather, there is fear, and no peace. “Peace,” as usual, means the harmony of a well ordered, secure, and peaceful community. Literally, it is wholeness; its opposite is “breaking,” i.e. outward ruin and inward anguish.
Jer 30:6
Whether a man doth travail with child. Great, indeed, must be the terror when no adequate figure suggests itself but that of a woman in her pangs (comp. Jer 6:24; Jer 13:21; Jer 22:23; Isa 13:8). All faces are turned into paleness. So Joel (Joe 2:6) and Nahum (Nah 2:10), “All faces withdraw their colour.” For “paleness” the Septuagint has “jaundice”a possible meaning of the Hebrew; comp. , “pale, bilious looking” in medical writings, but properly “greenish-yellow,” like the Hebrew noun.
Jer 30:7
That day; i.e. “the day of Jehovah,” the day of the great judgment upon the world, of which the fall of Babylon is regarded as the opening scene. It is even the time of Jacob’s trouble; rather, and a time of distress shall it be (even) to Jacob.
Jer 30:8
His yoke. Not that imposed by the enemy (as Isa 10:22 and Isa 14:25 might suggest), but that suffered by Jacob. This is clear from the last clause of the verse.
Jer 30:9
David their king; viz. the “righteous Branch” or “Plant” of Jer 23:5.
Jer 30:10, Jer 30:11
Therefore fear thou not, O my servant Jacob, etc. These two verses, omitted in the Septuagint, are among the passages which Hitzig (carrying out an idea of Movers) attributes to the editorial hand of the author (a pious Jew of the Captivity, according to him) of Isaiah 40-66; and it cannot be denied that the tone and phraseolegy of Isa 66:10 is more akin to that of Isa 40:1-31 :66, than to those of the greater part of Jeremiah. Graf, in controverting Hitzig’s view, points out, however, that the expressions referred to by Hitzig as “Deutero-Isaianic,” are also found in other books besides the latter part of Isaiah, and that, on the other hand, “the expressions of verse 11 are all as foreign to Isaiah 40-66, as they are current in Jeremiah.” As for the expression, “my servant Jacob.” (which. only occurs again in Jeremiah in the duplicate of this passage, Jer 46:27, Jer 46:28, and which is specially characteristic of the second part of Isaiah), it is worth noticing that it is found once in the Book of Ezekiel (Eze 37:25), which, on Hitzig’s theory, was written before the so called Second Isaiah. It still remains for the student to consider whether these two verses are not an insertion by some later hand (without attempting to discover whose that hand was). That the prophetic writings have received additions from editors and scribes is a fact which cannot reasonably be gainsaid, supported as it is by the phenomena of the historical books. It would be very natural for a pious Jew in the Captivity, not wholly devoid himself of the spirit of prophecy, to encourage his people, in the Name of the Lord, with this glowing word of promise.
Jer 30:11
In measure; rather, according to what is just; i.e. not capriciously, to satisfy a feeling of revenge such as the untaught mind is apt to ascribe to God (see on Jer 10:24). And will not, etc.; rather, for I cannot.
Jer 30:12-17
Miserable indeed is the condition of Israel! No wonder; for its sins were great. And yet, just because it is so forlorn, Jehovah will interpose for its relief.
Jer 30:12
For thus saith, etc. If the two preceding verses are a later insertion, we must render, But surely (more strictly, surely, but particles of asseveration easily acquire an adversative force from the context). Bright, indeed, is the prospect for Judah, “but surely” his present condition is very much the reverse; comp. Isa 9:1 (Authorized Version,” nevertheless”). Thy bruise is incurable, etc. One of Jeremiah’s characteristic repetitions (see Jer 10:19; Jer 14:17; Jer 15:18). That thou mayest be bound up. This rendering follows the accents. But the mixture of figures is very incongruous. It is much better to connect the words a little differently and to render, for thy sore thou hast no medicines (nor any) plaster.
Jer 30:14
All thy lovers; i.e. the peoples confederate with thee (as Jer 22:20).
Jer 30:16
Therefore; i.e. because of the extremity of thy need. Comp. Isa 10:23, Isa 10:24, “The Lord Jehovah Sabaoth shall make a consumption Therefore be not afraid of Assyria;” and Isa 30:17, Isa 30:18, “At the rebuke of five shall ye flee . And therefore will Jehovah wait, that he may be gracious unto you.”
Jer 30:17
Restore health; rather, apply a bandage. They called thee an Outcast. Jehovah, speaking after the manner of men. cannot bear to hear his enemies, as they pass along, scornfully denominating the holy city an Outcast.
Jer 30:18-22
A picture of the regenerate commonwealth of Israel.
Jer 30:18
Upon her own heap; rather, upon her own mound, the tell or eminence on which an Eastern town was built (comp. Jos 11:13, where “in their strength” should rather be “on their own mound”). Shall remain; rather, shall be inhabited.
Jer 30:19
(Comp. this verse with Jer 33:11.) Out of them; i.e. out of city and palace. They shall not be few; rather, not be diminished. They shall not be small; rather, not be lightly regarded.
Jer 30:20
Their children; rather, his children; i.e. the “children of Israel.”
Jer 30:21
The future rulers of Israel shall be of the native stock, not foreign tyrants. Their nobles; rather, his noble one, a synonym for “his ruler,” i.e. the (earthly) king of Israel. It is remarkable that no reference is made here to the Messiah, who, in fact, is not as conspicuous a figure in the prophecies of Jeremiah as in those of Isaiah. And yet even in Isaiah there is one striking prophecy in which the inspired seer uses language not (in the hands of a literalist) reconcilable with the prospect of the personal Messiah. The Messiah appears, as it were, in a lightning flash, and then disappears for a time. The prophecy of Isaiah referred to is Isa 32:1, Isa 32:2 (comp. Jer 33:17), in which the prospect of a truly God-fearing king, with princes of the same high character, entirely occupies the mind of the writer. “Nothing indicates that the Messiah is intended; king and princes are placed quite on a level, in accordance with the actual state of things under the so called monarchy.” And I will cause him to draw near. It is doubtful whether Israel or Israel’s ruler is referred to. A priestly relation (such as “drawing near” implies, see Num 16:5) might be predicated of either, at any rate in the regenerate form of the Israelitish commonwealth; but it is more natural to suppose the ruler to be here indicated, for it is scarcely descriptive enough to say that he shall belong to the chosen people. Who is this that engaged his heart; rather, that pledgeth his heart (or, courage); i.e. that ventureth. The rejection of thee old line of Davidic kings might well raise the thought that the intimate relation between Jehovah and his earthly representative for Israel, promised of old to David (2Sa 7:1-29.), could no longer be hoped for. But with this renewed promise the kings of the new Davidic line may venture to “draw near;” otherwisewho is he that ventureth?
Jer 30:22
This verse is omitted in the Septuagint, and (unless the existence of later insertions is denied altogether) is all but certainly due to a later hand (comp. Jer 7:23). Comp. on Jer 30:10,Jer 30:11.
Jer 30:23, Jer 30:24
These verses occur in a form evidently more original in Jer 23:19, Jer 23:20. In all probability they were first inserted from memory in the margin, and then incorporated into the text at a time subsequent (how long subsequent we cannot say) to Jeremiah.
HOMILETICS
Jer 30:2
Scripture-the written Word of God.
Jeremiah was required to write his prophecy in a book. Israel had received the Law first by a voice of thunder, but the voice was followed by the writing on the tables of stone (Exo 34:1). St. John was commanded to write his vision in a book (Rev 1:11). Without definite commands of this character, prophets and apostles, historians and evangelists, have committed to writing what they knew and taught. Thus we have a written revelation, a Bible. We may see the great value of this without becoming guilty of bibliolatry, or lowering our spiritual conceptions to slavish subservience to the “letter that killeth.”
I. CONSIDER THE VALUE OF SCRIPTURE, AS CONTAINING THE WORD OF GOD IN WRITING.
1. Accuracy. Words may be spoken in haste, under excitement; a book is presumably considered and reconsidered, its words weighed and measured. “Writing makes an exact man” (Bacon).
2. Permanence. The spoken word may soon be forgotten, or it may be recollected imperfectly with unconscious embellishments and deficiencies. The written word can be studied carefully and at leisure.
3. Publicity. The spoken word is heard only by one audience, present in one place, at one time. The written word is capable of being spread over a wider area. If but one copy is written, this can be sent about and frequently reread to various hearers, like the circular letters of the New Testament. But the book can be copied, and thus the area of its influence enlarged. Since the invention of printing, and with the facilities for multiplying and cheapening the production of books, this extensive influence of literature beyond that of speech has been immensely increased.
4. Transmission to the future. The spoken word dies with the breath that utters it; the written word can be treasured for ages, and transmitted to distant generations. The orator is peculiarly a man of his own age; the literary genius belongs to all time. If the Divine Word had been handed down only by tradition we know how terribly it must have been corrupted. We in these later days can enjoy its fresh power because it is crystallized in literature, because prophecy has become Scripture.
II. CONSIDER THE WAY IN WHICH WE SHOULD DEAL WITH SCRIPTURE THAT CONTAINS THE WORD OF GOD. Several duties and wise courses of action are suggested by the fact that the Word of God is written in a book, viz.:
1. Care to preserve the purity of the text. Correct readings and accurate renderings of this are of first importance, since they guard the thoughts of God from perversion.
2. Reverence for the authority of Scripture. If we believe that it embodies the words and ideas of God, we shall feel that, even when it teaches spiritual principles which we cannot as yet see well established, it has a claim to be listened to with the reverence of the ignorant pupil for his wiser master. As far as it brings before us God’s thoughts, it must be read and examined and estimated by quite a different standard from that by which we decide questions of purely human literature.
3. Diligence in searching the Scriptures. The Bible is to be used. It is not to be treated as many men treat the classics, “without which no gentleman’s library can be complete,” but as a text book, a book of daily reference. It must also be inquired into. There are mines of spiritual wealth to dig, things new as well as things old that a well furnished scribe can bring out of it. There is in it “milk for babes, and meat for strong men,” and the latter needs to be “read, marked, learned, and inwardly digested,” if we would profit by it.
4. Care to extract the spiritual thought from the visible letter. The letter is human, the form of speech is human. It is the spiritual idea that is Divine, and this is the most important thing to us. This is the real and eternal truth, the Word of life and power. We need an inspiration ourselves to help us to peel off the husk of speech, and find the precious kernel of Divine thought beneath.
Jer 30:10, Jer 30:11
Fear not.
I. WHY ISRAEL MIGHT FEAR. For various reasons, viz.:
1. Present trouble. Already some had been led into exile. What was thus experienced seemed to presage future and worse distress. Grief tends to despondency. In disappointment we are ready to think that all things must grow worse and worse.
2. The anticipation of necessary punishment. This is confirmed in the prophetic message” for I cannot leave thee altogether unpunished.” Guilt is the parent of fear. “Conscience makes cowards of us all.”
3. Incurable wretchedness. (Jer 30:12.) Left to themselves, the people were in a hopeless condition.
(1) They could not cure their moral disease; Josiah’s abortive reformation was a proof of this.
(2) They could not cure their external distress; it was vain to attempt to break the yoke of great Babylon.
4. Solitude. “All thy lovers have forgotten thee” (Jer 30:14). In the hour of trial boon companions fall away and leave their wretched comrade forlorn and helpless. The soul must face its darkest trouble alone. While society dispels fear, the silence and desertion of loneliness provoke it. It is not surprising, therefore, that with so many concurrent incentives to fear Israel should be overwhelmed with it, nor is it surprising that similar causes should produce a similar effect among us. Yet it is not the less deplorable. Fear is an evil. It is distressing beyond measure. The vague and threatening spectres of horror that haunt the imagination of the soul when it is a slave to fear may be far more painful than the real evils of which they are the magnified shadows.. But fear is injurious as well as painful. It paralyzes effort, dissuades from dangerous tasks of duty, drives to rash and foolish resorts for escape. It is important to see if so sad and injurious a condition can be avoided.
II. WHY ISRAEL SHOULD NOT FEAR. For various reasons, viz.:
1. The security of God’s service. Israel was God’s servant. It is reasonable to suppose that God will protect and save those whom he honours with his name and calls to his work.
2. The promise of ultimate deliverance. “Lo, I will save thee from afar,” etc. Fear may threaten now, but rest and quietude will come in the future. Fear must be overcome by hope, the darkness of the near future triumphed over by the exceeding brightness of the greater future. We shall not fear what the world can do against us when we live in the hope of what eternity will do for us. Looking at ourselves, we see our wounds incurable, and we despair; looking at the good Physician, we see the promise of health, and we hope.
3. The assurance of the presence of God. “For I am with thee.” Thus Abraham was not to fear because God was his “Shield, and exceeding great Reward’ (Gen 15:1); and David could say, “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me” (Psa 23:4). When hope fails faith may yet be strong. Better than the vision of the future haven far over the waves are the strong hand and sure eye of the pilot with us in the storm. When the hope of heaven fails faith in God may still sustain us.
4. A knowledge of the limitation and good purpose of suffering. This is
(1) given to correct, either as chastisement for sin, or as pruning to make the fruit bearing branch more fruitful; and
(2) given only in just measure, not beyond desert, requirement, or endurance. If we have these reasonable thoughts about our troubles they will not be able to conjure up the terrors of illimitable distress which they naturally inspire when we do not see that they are controlled by purposes of Divine goodness.
Jer 30:17
Divine healing.
I. GOD IS THE GREAT HEALER OF HIS PEOPLE.
1. God is not satisfied to leave his people unhelped in sin and wretchedness. We may grow accustomed to the evil of the world till we pass it unheeded. But it is not so with the Father of us all. He cannot endure the perpetual continuance of the wretchedness we accept (for others) with so little concern.
2. God designs to restore his people. It would seem easier to destroy the old weary world and create a new world, than to redeem and restore that which is so abandoned. But it is the glory of the gospel that it seeks and saves the lost.
3. The restoration of God’s people can only be effected through the healing of them. Israel cannot be restored to the Holy Land until the people are healed of their unholiness, and restored to God spiritually. Men are too ready to regard redemption externally as a change of state, a deliverance from distress and ruin, a gift of blessings, heaven, etc. It is all this, but not primarily. In the first and chief place redemption is healing, is not a change of circumstances, but a change in the soul itself. The richest possessions are of little use to the sick man. The sick body needs health, not wealth; and the sick soul needs healing before all external changes of condition.
4. It is a great thing to see the source of this healing in God. No soul can cure itself. No man can heal his fellow. The disease is naturally incurable (Jer 30:12). It is healed only by God and through a miracle. The miracles of Christ are thus visible parables of his great work of redemption. The good Physician saves men’s souls by working miracles of spiritual healing upon them.
II. THE GREATNESS OF HIS PEOPLE‘S DISTRESS INCLINES GOD TO HEAL THEM. Because Israel is called “an Outcast,” God interferes to save him. David prays that God will pardon his iniquity, “for it is great” (Psa 25:11). We feel that our sin is so great that we dare not ask for forgiveness, our wretchedness so abject that it is useless to seek for deliverance. But we may reverse the argument. The greater the sin the more does it need forgiveness, the deeper the misery the more loudly does it call for help. As claims of merit we have nothing. But when we look for pleas for mercy we find that the very bitterness of distress creates them. As the Judge, God cannot be invoked to help the sinner; as the Healer, he is most ready to come in the deepest need. The reasons for this are apparent.
1. The love of God. Love is moved by need rather than by desert. If God loves his children he will be most ready to help in their sorest distress.
2. The honour of God. The people who were called by the Name of God were also called “outcasts.” Here was a reproach on the great Name of their God. For his Name’s sake God saves.
3. The special design of redemption. The physician finds his vocation in the healing art. Sickness is a call for the exercise of special functions. The worse the patient is, the more may he expect of the physician’s care and attention. “They that are whole need not the physician.” He is the helper of the sick. Therefore the very greatness of a man’s sin and wretchedness, instead of discouraging his faith, should encourage him to seek Christ. They who are in such circumstances may know that they are the very persons Christ chiefly seeks to help.
Jer 30:18-21
Joys of redemption.
The joys of the restoration of Israel are suggestive of the joys of redemption which belong to those who have been healed of their sins and recovered to the favour of God. Let us consider some of the elements of these joys.
I. A RESTORATION TO LOST RIGHTS AND POSSESSIONS. The city is to be built again “upon her own mound.” The people not only find the vines they grow in Chaldea fruitful; they are restored to their own land. The prodigal would not have been satisfied if his comrades had helped him to affluence and pleasure again; he must return to the old home. There is something imperfect in the return of prosperity to Job in the fact that though he has greater riches and as many sons and daughters as before his calamities, his dead children are not raised from the grave, and the loss of them cannot be really compensated by the gift of a new family. So is it with earthly losses. The greatest are irretrievable. But the glory of God’s ultimate salvation is that it restores old lost blessings as well as gives new blessings, beth comforting memory and satisfying hope.
II. AN ENJOYMENT OF INWARD GLADNESS AND THANKSGIVING. The true life is the inner life. Outward sunshine may find this black as midnight, and leave it so. It is much, therefore, to know that redemption from sin brings real gladness. We might have thought that it would have been haunted with dark memories. But God’s deliverance is so complete that it dispels the gloom of a guilty conscience. The Christian should, therefore, be a man of inward joys and thankfulness.
III. AN EXTENSION OF POWER AND GLORY. The exiles were scattered and their wealth and influence lost; the return at first promised little satisfaction to the poor and feeble band of patriots that attempted to rebuild the ruins of the ancient nation. But great promises encouraged the faithful to believe that ultimately their numbers would be multiplied, that they should have glory, and not “be lightly regarded,” and should be ruled by men of their own people of noble and royal orders. The Christian Church began, like restored Israel, in a small and humble sphere. But she has grown marvellously, and is destined to grow in numbers, in power, and in glory. Redemption is a work worthy of God; no meagre saving of a few as “by the skin of their teeth,” but a work of right royal magnificence, calling multitudes to its blessings, and giving them liberty and honour for their old shame and bondage. The Christian receives more than salvation; he is an heir of glory.
HOMILIES BY A.F. MUIR
Jer 30:1-3
Written in a book; or, words held over.
The portion of these prophecies here referred to (probably Jer 30:1-24; Jer 31:1-40.) contains the most tender expressions of the Divine love. It is full of revelations of the deep unalterable affection and gracious purpose of God for his people, even when they were as yet unrepentant. They are regarded in it as sorrowing for their sin, and returning spiritually to him who restored them to their land. Now, many of these statements it would have been inexpedient for the exiles to hear, whilst as yet they showed no sign of contrition. The prophet is therefore bidden to write them in a book, that they may be read at the fitting season. The words of Christ, “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now,” are strikingly parallel. This command impresses us with
I. THE FULNESS OF THE DIVINE WORD. It is not one communication but many, and under circumstances of the utmost conceivable variety. Not in one book but manya library, representing every stage of human history and spiritual progress. No age or exigency of human nature has found God silent. How great is the multitude of his messages! How many words have been spoken and acted that have not been recorded (cf. Joh 21:25)! The written book is like a vessel let down into the great ocean of the unwritten words and deeds of the Eternal.
II. GOD‘S CARE AND ADAPTATION WITH RESPECT TO IT. This prophecy was to be preserved in a book, that no portion of it should be allowed to perish until its fitting time should arrive. The words it contained were all precious, and of pregnant significance in the future of the Church and the world. The adaptation of the prophecy is not less striking. It would not bear public announcement at the time of its communication to the prophet, and it might have imperilled his life; but it occurred then in the natural order of God’s thought and purpose; by and by the people would be in a better mood and frame to consider it; therefore it was held over. It is written in a book that it may present a faithful transcript of the Divine thought. The progress of revelation has been slow; but that is not the fault of the Revealer, but the necessity imposed by the conditions of human progress. “In the fulness of the time God sent forth his Son” (Gal 4:4; cf. 1Pe 1:20).
III. THE REASONS THERE MAY BE FOR THE DARK DISPENSATIONS OF PROVIDENCE. Who in these stem times could tell the depth of the tenderness of God? It is necessary on such occasions to appeal to the fears of transgressors. The most awful calamities that befall the Church and the individual Christian are inflicted in love; but that love cannot express itself until the requirements of righteousness have been satisfied. The soul that is afflicted ought, therefore, to submit itself to the mighty hand of God, and wait patiently for light. The best wine is kept to the last; the gospel interprets all antecedent revelations.
IV. THE INFINITE RICHES OF REVELATION THAT AWAIT THE SPIRITUAL MATURITY OF THE SAINTS. There are educative, wayfaring truths; and there are truths at which we are to arrive in the end of our growth and pilgrimage. Truth is not only prospective but reflective; not only directive to the feet of the Christian, but revealing the mind and heart of God. How much is held over until these earthly days are ended (cf. 1Co 13:12)?M.
Jer 30:16
The twofold wonder ,of Israel’s salvation.
I. THE PUNISHMENT OF ITS ENEMIES.
1. Because of their strength. The enemies of Israel, especially Babylon, were very strong. But they contained within themselves the elements of their own destruction. It is a property of the world, in all its aspects, to appear strong and real and stable. This illusion must be dissipated in order to the free spiritual development of God’s children; therefore Christ has said, “Be not afraid; I have overcome the world.” How many and how great have been the foes of the Church, and the individual saint! yet has God reduced them to nothingness.
2. Because of the manner of their punishment. Evidently more than one nation is referred to here, and they are dealt with in sovereign authority. “The nations are but as a drop in a bucket.”
(1) Their guilt towards Israel determines the measure of their requital. The Church is the centre and pivot of the world’s destiny. In it and for its sake the world is judged (cf. Mat 25:40, Mat 25:45).
(2) The degrees of punishment will correspond to the guilt. Even in vast concerns and through long time God observes an exact and equitable rule of award.
II. ITS OWN RECOVERY. This was to be not only partial but complete, and was to be a terror to the onlooking nations.
1. Nothing could be more unlikely at the time this was spoken. This was a part of the wonder of God’s saving power, and a vindication of his agency.
2. That which men despised and neglected God raised up. He thereby proved the freedom of his grace, and demonstrated the impossibility of salvation by works. The matchless condescension and infinite love of God were proved in this, that Zion deservedly rejected is nevertheless restored. The power was of God. Nothing is so abject as a spiritual organism without the Spirit of God; nothing is so glorious or sufficient when the Spirit of God is present.
3. The historic accomplishment of this was to be outdone by the spiritual. Evidently the reference is through the immediately impending event to the spiritual future of the Messiah. God’s goodness has ever some higher possibility sheathed in its first expressions. The imperfect efforts of Nehemiah and his colleagues but shadow forth the achievements of the cross. The new Israel will be incomparably more holy, powerful, and blessed than the old. Daily are the miracles of his saving mercy being performed; “the chief of sinners,” the fallen, the outcast, are being welcomed into the company of the redeemed and regenerate.M.
Jer 30:18-22
The multitude of God’s mercies.
A rapid and brilliant enumeration of the characteristics of national glory and human happiness and well being. Representative and suggestive, but not exhaustive.
I. SEVERALLY SPECIFIED. Set forth with great distinctness, as one might in a legal document; and yet a complete and comprehensive view of a nation’s restoration.
1. Return of the people to their own land. (Jer 30:18.) The representatives of those who had been exiled would be brought back. The shifty and uncertain character of their sojourning (“tents”) in a strange land would be exchanged for a settled, civic life. As an outward symbol of this Jerusalem would be rebuilt upon its ruins. “He that made of the city a heap (Isa 25:1) can when he pleaseth make of a heap a city again” (Henry). The habits and customs, the public order and life of God’s people, are important as being sacred even as their specially religious observances, and are therefore cared for. True religion is not merely to sojourn in the world, but to dwell there, and influence permanently the conditions and usages of human life. Nothing less than the reconstitution of human society is herein sought (cf. Joh 17:15).
2. Restoration of religious institutions. (Jer 30:18-20.) Of these the chief, centre, and condition of all the restthe temple, or “palace”is first referred to. From its conspicuous and characteristic position amongst the public buildings of the city, it is mentioned in connection with its rebuilding. Because of its presence therein the latter is also sacred; and so it is said, “Out of them shall proceed,” etc. The great festivals are to be restored. Worship, in its most imposing and joyous forms, will be celebrated; and this supposes for its possibility the presence in Israel of a religious, self-governing community. The spiritual training of the people will be resumed (Jer 30:20). Much attention was always devoted by pious Jews to the upbringing of their children, who are here promised to be “as aforetime,” i.e. as Jewish children were wont to be according to the covenant, strictly and piously brought up. In this a fresh security is afforded of the religions and social prosperity of God’s people. The Church can never afford to ignore the upbringing of the children. As it is a positive injunction (“Feed my lambs”), so is it a gracious privilege and favour granted to his servants that they should discharge it. The sunniest and most hopeful department of religious effort is that which relates to the young. “How is it your flowers are so grandly developed?” was asked of a gardener. “Chiefly,” he replied, “because I take care of my seedlings.” The sacred community of Israel will also thereby be increased and established. New, trained members will be supplied for the spiritual offices, and the ordinary membership of the congregation. It is observable that the chief increase of the Church is thus implied to be from within itself. And so it must be today.
3. National prosperity. This appears in the first place as social well being. The family life will be greatly blessed, and the population multiplied. It is a result of moral order, etc; and also a means of securing and extending the influence of righteousness. In the next place is political freedom. Tyranny will be abolished (Jer 30:20); and their ruler shall be one of themselves, representing their aims and aspirations, and not imposed upon them by a foreign conqueror. Lastly, political influence will extend abroad (Jer 30:19).
4. Covenant relations will be renewed. (Jer 30:22.) This is the culminating and all-comprehensive blessing. Whilst the preceding suppose this, they are really but as antecedents to its complete realization. God will then recognize his people, and regard them with complacency. Neither will be ashamed of the other.
II. MUTUALLY RELATED. How essential is it that human life, in its interests and activities, should be regarded as a whole, the secular with the religious, the duty with the right, the responsibility with the privilege! It is a distinct loss when one portion of it is taken apart from the others and concentrates attention upon itself. Here we have a grand ideal for the individual and the community: the life of man, to be complete and healthy in its development, must extend indefinitely outwards and upwards. The deepest reverence for truth, righteousness, and God is consistent with the truest liberty. The blessings and good things of life, to be truly enjoyed, must be received as sacramental; as the outcome and expression of communion between man and God.M.
Jer 30:21
The ideal ruler.
The immediate reference is to Zerubbabel and the elders who returned from the Captivity; but there is a larger significance than any merely human personage could exhaust or satisfactorily correspond to. There can be no doubt as to the Messianic character of this promise. But it is precisely the vagueness of the reference, the primary uncertainty as to who it was to be in whom all the hope of Israel was to be realized, that constituted the moral force of the prediction. In Israel was the secular government to be identified with and crowned by the moral and spiritual; but to the very last was it kept in reserve as to whether or not the kingdom thus foretold was to be of this world. Jesus Christ had himself to declare the real essence and nature of his kingdom. He constituted the ideal Ruler of Israel
I. IN HIS RELATION TO HIS SUBJECTS.
1. He was to be of the same kindred. A stronger guarantee of the Divine favour could not be given. No foreigner was to hold permanent sway over the Israel of God. In one of themselves the holy people would find a legitimate centre for loyal attachment and patriotic devotion. That from their own midst their Prince should spring was proof that their independence, liberty, and national individuality should be preserved. He would therefore represent its honour, and secure for himself the strongest personal attachment. The hopes of the race would be embodied in such a personage, who would vitally perpetuate its glory.
2. He was to be allied to them in their experience and sympathies. As their fellow countryman he will understand their aims and aspirations, By the vicissitudes of their fortune his sympathies will be drawn forth, and he will share the enthusiasm of their future. In Jesus Christ these conditions were fulfilled.
II. IN HIS MEDIATORIAL INFLUENCE. “To draw near” is used in a priestly or mediatorial sense. Israel as a people, or as represented in its ruler, was to have this privilege conferred upon it. A Divine as well as a human qualification is therefore requisite for the perfect governor; he must not only belong to the people but he must please God.
1. The grace of God will rest upon him and work within him. Of Zerubbabel in the first instance, but much more of Christ, is this statement true. He was “full of grace and truth,” He is the great Temple builder and Restorer of the kingdom; and he is the Accepted of God: “Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased” (Luk 3:22).
2. His own nature will respond to the Divine influence. He is to be one who “engages his heart to approach unto” God. Responsibility drives him to no rash or illegitimate expedients, but to a Divine trust and a desire to please his God. In all this there is evinced the utmost freedom (cf. Mat 4:1; Mat 16:22; Luk 12:50; Joh 12:27; Mat 27:42).
3. The admiration and delight of God are to be called forth by him. “Who is this” etc.? is no inquiry for the sake of information, but an expression of complacency and satisfaction. This feeling finds frequent expression in the prophets, and is noticed in the Gospels. It is for the subjects of such a King to yield themselves to his rule, and identify themselves with his priestly intercession. It should be their great desire to be in him, “who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption” (1Co 2:1-16 :30).M.
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
Jer 30:2. Write thee all the words, &c. See ch. Jer 36:1-2.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
10. The Book of Consolation
A. The Tenth Discourse
Jeremiah 30, 31
The close of the prophetic discourses referring to the entire Theocracy is formed by two prophecies of exclusively consolatory purport, of which, at least, the first (chh. 30 and 31) was intended to be preserved as a special writing (and only as such. Comp. rems. on Jer 30:1). It is quite natural that these consolatory prophecies should form the close of the discourses; for salvation and peace will in reality be the end of Gods ways.
The first of these consolatory prophecies is also the earlier in date. It is indeed one of the oldest parts of the whole book. The absence of any mention of the Chaldeans (the general north country occurs in Jer 31:8) is a sure sign of its composition before the fourth year of Jehoiakim. This discourse moreover is so closely related in its subject-matter to the second discourse (chh. 36), or to its consolatory part (Jer 3:11-25), that we cannot but attribute it to the same period. We may indeed say that it is only a further development of the consolatory section mentioned. The relationship is seen both in general and in particulars. With respect to the first it may be remarked that Israel and Judah, here as there, form the ground of the division of the discourse, for as in Jer 3:6-10 a comparison is instituted between Judah and Israel in reference to the past, and in Jer 3:11-17 to the future, first of Israel, then (with a gradual transition) of Judah, and in Jer 3:18-25 the future return of both is described, so in Jeremiah 30 the prophet directs his attention first to entire Israel, in Jer 31:1-22 to Ephraim alone, in Jer 31:23-26 to Judah, in Jer 31:27-40 again to both. Though Jeremiah elsewhere also (Comp. rems. on Jer 30:4) in single intimations views the nation according to its two divisions, yet he does this nowhere in so marked a manner as in chh. 3 and 3031Further, as in Jer 3:14-20 the return of the two halves of the nation into the holy land is the basis of all further prosperity, so also in chh. 30 and 31. Compare Jer 30:3; Jer 30:10; Jer 30:18; Jer 31:2; Jer 31:8; Jer 31:12; Jer 31:16; Jer 31:21; Jer 31:23.As further in Jer 3:21 sqq. the return is represented as the consequence of an honest inward turning, so also in Jer 31:18 the sincere penitence of the people is the reason of the return graciously permitted them. It should here be especially observed that in the section Jer 30:16-22 the prophet gives variations of the idea of in the same way as he did in Jeremiah 3. Comp. Exeg. rems. on Jer 31:22. The way also in which the penitential return is described in Jer 31:9; Jer 31:18-19 reminds us at many points of Jer 3:21. A series of expressions further may be specified which occur only in chh. 30, 31 and 34: only in Jer 30:11 and Jer 4:27; Jer 5:10; Jer 5:18, and besides in Jer 46:28, as a quotation from Jer 30:11. only in Jer 31:4 and Jer 4:30. only in Jer 31:9 and Jer 3:21. used of Jehovah in reference to Israel only in Jer 31:9 and Jer 3:19.- only in Jer 31:20 and Jer 4:19. in the sense of to be sweet only in Jer 31:26 and Jer 6:20. of sins only in Jer 30:14-15 and Jer 5:6. only in Jer 31:15 and Jer 6:26. to rule only in Jer 31:32 and Jer 3:14. We meet besides with expressions and utterances which are taken from chh. 1 and 2, which also belong to that initial period. Thus above all Jer 31:28 coll. Jer 1:10; Jer 1:12; Jer 31:3 coll. Jer 2:2; Jer 31:10 coll. Jer 2:10 (the plural is found only in these two clauses)- only in Jer 31:16 and Jer 2:25.There are further many points of contact with chh. 22 and 23, which are, however, to be explained by the use of this chapter there. For as the prophet had occasion in Jer 23:3-8 to deliver a glorious Messianic prophecy, it was natural that he should be thus reminded of the earlier one of similar purport. In the main point, indeed, the words referring to the person of the Messiah (Jer 30:9-10; Jer 30:21 coll. Jer 23:5-6), the similarity is only topical. With respect to expression, both prophecies retain their own individuality. Still in the less important points there is an agreement in expression: Jer 30:13 coll. Jer 22:16; Jer 30:14 coll. Jer 22:20; Jer 22:22; Jer 30:16 coll. Jer 22:22; Jer 30:5-6 coll. Jer 22:23.With respect to the verses Jer 30:23-24, consult the Exposition.
On account of the undeniable specific relationship, which exists between the present chapters and the second discourse (chh. 34), especially the consolatory portion (Jeremiah 3), I am convinced that chh. 30 and 31 owe their origin to the same time, the reign of Josiah (comp. Jer 3:6).
With the exception of Jer 30:22-24, I cannot discover any spurious elements in these chapters. Movers and Hitzig have thought they could repeatedly recognize the hand of the assumed Isaiah II., but have been so satisfactorily refuted by Graf, that I now only refer to him. Graf himself regards Jer 31:35-40 as a latter addition. I think, however, that I have shown in the Exposition that these verses fit into the connection as integral parts, and that therefore, as the diction betrays no foreign traces, they are to be recognized as genuine and original.
The articulation of the discourse is as follows:
The glorious Future of the People Israel at the end of days.
I. The Theme, Jer 30:1-3.
II. The Deliverance of Entire Israel, Jer 30:4-22.
1. The great day of judgment of the world and deliverance of Israel, Jer 30:4-11.
2. The turn of affairs: The Lord for the chastised, against the chastiser, Jer 30:12-17.
3. The consummation of salvation, Jer 30:18-22.
III. The Special Distribution of Salvation to the two Halves of the Nation, Jer 31:1-26.
a. Ephraims share, Jer 31:1-22.
1. The decree of restoration, Jer 31:1-6.
2. Its execution, Jer 31:7-14.
3. The threefold turn, Jer 31:15-22.
b. Judahs share.
The blessing of the sanctuary, Jer 31:23-26.
IV. The Entire Renewal, Jer 31:27-40.
1. The new life, Jer 31:27-30.
2. The new covenant, Jer 31:31-40.
_________
The Glorious Future of the People Israel at the End of Days
I. The Theme
Jer 30:1-3
1, 2The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord [Jehovah] saying, Thus speaketh the Lord [Jehovah] God of Israel, saying, Write thee all the words that I 3have spoken unto thee in a book. For [Namely] lo, the days come, saith the Lord [Jehovah], that I will bring again the captivity of my people Israel, and Judah, saith the Lord [Jehovah]; and will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
The superscription is one of the greater sort. It pertains to chh. 30 and 31, a similar one not recurring till Jer 32:1. Jeremiah had certainly received this prophecy before, as follows from the words that I have spoken in Jer 30:2. Nevertheless Jer 30:1 is not merely the announcement of what is said in Jer 30:2-3, as Hitzig supposes, but the superscription of the oracle, for such superscriptions always stand as the introduction to the larger sections. As it here introduces the command to write and what is to be written directly follows (Jer 30:4 sqq.), the superscription refers to both. J. D. Michaelis is of opinion that we have here the expression mandatum to collect the prophecies into a book, and that this is the first book, which closes with Jeremiah 32. The Paralipomena, collected after the death of Jeremiah, form the second book. It is plain, however, that this view is altogether untenable, for this, apart from other reasons, that in Jer 30:2-4 the command to write is referred to the next following prophecy, as Schnurrer has already proved against Michaelis. These chapters also cannot be parts of that book which Jeremiah was caused to write in the fourth year of Jehoiakim (Jer 36:2). For this book, according to Jer 36:6 sqq., was intended to be read to the people, that they might hear all the evil which the Lord purposed to do with them, that they might return every man from his evil way and the Lord might forgive them, so that it appears merely to have contained an exhortation and threatening. This also explains the great displeasure occasioned by it. It was cut into pieces from the first to the last leaf and cast into the fire (Jer 36:23), which was certainly not the case with these chapters. Even Rosenmueller calls attention to the circumstance that Jeremiah here (Jer 30:2) receives the command, non, ut ante concionem habere et qu ab eo sint annuntianda ad populum per sermonem deferre, sed libro inscribere. This prophecy was not to be delivered orally, but merely committed to writing, just as the prophecy against Babylon (Jer 51:60 sqq.). The people were not then in the mood to hear these great beaming predictions of salvation. These were to be bequeathed as written documents, that on the one hand they might serve to encourage the people in their deepest distress, and on the other hand it might be evident that the Lord and no other had brought about this favorable turn in their affairs (Isa 48:5), but also, that the Lord had not afterwards altered His purpose, but already in the times of the deepest decline, when the people were receiving only threatening words from the mouth of the prophet, He had conceived and made known the plan of salvation. Comp. Isa 30:8; Job 2:2. The prophecy was thus preserved separately and only afterwards incorporated into the entire collection. It does not seem probable to me, as Graf thinks, that it was included in the second enlarged book (Jer 36:32). The words in Jer 36:27 sqq. make throughout the impression that the second book in relation to the first contained only a heightened repetition. Nor can we see why, if these chapters are portions of a large book, they alone should bear at their head the special command to write them down. This command must either be found before all the single portions or only where the origin of the whole is mentioned. The special command to commit to writing which we find here (Jer 30:2) shows that here also we have to do with a special independent writing.
Jer 30:3. For lo. The construction seems to require to be taken in a causal sense, for it would be somewhat harsh to take it in the sense of that, or namely, on account of the following and , which seems rather to require before it. On the other hand, the causal rendering also has its difficulties. For then in Jer 30:3 the main point is not expressed in the statement of the reason, viz.: the Lord wishes that when the good days come He may be able to point to the documentary evidence of His purpose of salvation, as a proof of His being the author of the present prosperity. This thought would have still to be supplied, while the words as they stand evidently state only the purport of the words, Jer 30:2. It will therefore be correct here to take =that or namely, in the sense in which saying, occurs elsewhere. This latter word would not be suitable after in a book, because it would have meant that the purport of what was to be written in the book was to be stated, whereas it is the tenor of the words already spoken which is to be quoted summarily. This was necessary in order to define the general phrase all the words, which was liable to be misunderstood. Hence I think that is to be taken here as introducing the direct statement, which radically also is used only for the more common . Comp. Naegelsb. Gr., 109, 1 a. The original act of speaking itself is certainly not related here, but the purport of a discourse already delivered is quoted, by which the obtains the somewhat modified (explicative) meaning of namely. The words from to are therefore to be regarded as a quotation. Hence and . They are not found verbatim as a whole in the following chapters or anywhere in Jeremiah; but they are an accurate synopsis of the words and thoughts which form the heads of the following promise of prosperity. For in Jer 30:18 sqq.; Jer 31:27-32, the return of the whole people of Israel to their home is represented as the close of the mournful past and the basis of a new and glorious future. Comp. Jer 3:14-18.On bring again the captivity comp. Comm. on Jer 29:14.[The four following chapters display a beautiful contrast to the three foregoing ones. The former denunciations of judgment and captivity for sin are here succeeded by promises of mercy and restoration to Jerusalempromises to be fulfilled in the bringing back of all true Israelites to God by the Divine Deliverer and Redeemer, Jesus Christ. The joyful transition is marked by a sudden change from grave and mournful accents in solemn prose, to a jubilant outburst of poetic ecstasy. Wordsworth.S. R. A.]
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. Joh. Conr. Schaller, pastor at Cautendorf, says in his Gospel Sermons, (Hof. 1742, S. 628), These chapters are like a sky in which sparkle many brilliant stars of strong and consolatory declarations, a paradise and pleasure-garden in which a believing soul is refreshed with delightsome flowers of instruction, and solaced with sweetly flavored apples of gracious promise.
2. On Jer 30:1-3. The people of Israel were not then capable of bearing such a prophecy, brimming over with happiness and glory. They would have misused it, hearing to the end what was promised them, and then only the more certainly postponing what was the only thing then necessarysincere repentance. Hence they are not yet to hear this gloriously consolatory address. It is to be written, that it may in due time be perceived that the Lord, even at the time when He was obliged to threaten most severely, had thoughts of peace concerning the people, and that thus the period of prosperity has not come by chance, nor in consequence of a change of mind, but in consequence of a plan conceived from the beginning and executed accordingly.
3. On Jer 30:7. The great and terrible day of the Lord (Joe 3:4) has not the dimensions of a human day. It has long sent out its heralds in advance. Yea, it has itself already dawned. For since by the total destruction of the external theocracy judgment is begun at the house of God (1Pe 4:17), we stand in the midst of the day of God in the midst of the judgment of the world. Then the time of trouble for Jacob has begun (Jer 30:7), from which he is to be delivered, when the fulness of the Gentiles is come in (Romans 11.)
4. On Jer 30:9. Christ is David in his highest potency, and He is also still more. For if we represent all the typical points in Davids life as a circle, and draw a line from each of these points, the great circle thus formed would comprise only a part of the given in Christ. Nevertheless Christ is the true David, who was not chosen like Saul for his bodily stature, but only for his inward relation to God (comp. Psa 2:7), whose kingdom also does not cease after a short period of glory, but endures forever; who will not like Saul succumb to his enemies, but will conquer them all, and will give to his kingdom the widest extent promised; all this however not without, like David, having gone through the bitterest trials.
5. On Jer 30:11. Modus patern castigationis accommodatus et quasi appensus ad stateram judicii Dei adeoque non immensus sed dimensus. Christus ecclesiam crucis su hredem constituit. Gregor. M. Frster.
6. On Jer 30:14. Cum virlutem patienti nostr flagella transeunt, valde metuendum est, ne peccatis nostris exigentibus non jam quasi filii a patre, sed quasi hostes a Domino feriamur. Gregor. M. Moral. XIV. 20, on Job 19:11. Ghisler.
7. On Jer 30:17. Providentia Dei mortalibus salutifera, antequam percutiat, pharmaca medendi grati componit, et gladium ir su acuit. Evagr. Hist. Ecc 4:6.Quando incidis in tentationem, crede, quod nisi cognovisset te posse illam evadere, non permisisset te in illam incidere. Theophyl. in cap. 18 Joh. Frster.Feriam prius et sanabo melius. Theophyl. in Hosea 11. Ghisler.
8. On Jer 30:21. This church of God will own a, Prince from its midstJesus, of our flesh and blood through the virgin Mary, and He approaches God, as no other can, for He is Gods image, Gods Son, and at the same time the perfect, holy in all His sufferings, only obedient son of man. This king is mediator and reconciler with God; He is also high-priest and fulfilled all righteousness, as was necessary for our propitiation. What glory to have such a king, who brings us nigh unto God, and this is our glory! Diedrich.
9. On Jer 31:1. There is no greater promise than this: I will be thy God. For if He is our God we are His creatures, His redeemed, His sanctified, according to all the three articles of the Christian faith. Cramer.
10. On Jer 31:2. The rough heap had to be sifted by the sword, but those who survived, though afflicted in the desert of this life, found favor with God, and these, the true Israel, God leads into His rest. Diedrich.
11. On Jer 31:3. The love of God towards us comes from love and has no other cause above or beside itself, but, is in God and remains in God, so that Christ who is in God is its centre. For herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us (1Jn 4:10). Cramer. Totum grati imputatur, non nostris meritis. Augustine in Psalms 31. Frster. Before I had done anything good Thou hadst already moved towards me. Let these words be written on your hearts with the pen of the living God, that they may light you like flames of fire on the day of the marriage. It is your certificate of birth, your testimonial. Let me never lose sight of how much it has cost Thee to redeem me. Zinzendorf. God says: My chastisement even was pure love, though then you did not understand it; you shall learn it afterwards. Diedrich. [I incline to the construction given in the English version, both because the suffix to the verb is more naturally, I have drawn thee, than I have drawn out toward thee, and because there seems to be a tacit allusion to Hos 11:4, With loving kindness have I drawn thee.-A great moral truth lies in this passage so construed, viz., that the main power which humbles mans pride, softens his hard heart and makes him recoil in shame and sorrow from sinning, comes through his apprehension of Gods love as manifested in Christ and His cross. It is love that, draws the fearful or stubborn soul to the feet of divine mercy. Cowles.S. R. A.]
12. On Jer 31:6. It is well: the watchmen on Mount Ephraim had to go to Zion. They received however another visit from the Jewish priests, which they could not have expected at the great reformation, introduced by John, and which had its seat among other places on Mount Ephraim. The Samaritans were not far distant, and Mount Ephraim had even this honor that when the Lord came to His temple He took His Seat as a teacher there. Zinzendorf. [Gods grace loves to triumph over the most inveterate prejudices No words could represent a greater and more benign change in national feeling than these: Samaria saying through her spiritual watchmen, Let us go up to Zion to worship, for our God is there. Cowles. Ascendamus in Sion, hoc est in Ecclesiam says S. Jerome. According to this view, the watchmen here mentioned are the Preachers of the Gospel. Wordsworth.S. R. A.]
13. On Jer 31:9. I will lead them. It is an old sighing couplet, but full of wisdom and solid truth:
Lord Jesus, while I live on earth, O guide me,
Let me not, self-led, wander from beside Thee.
Zinzendorf.
14. On Jer 31:10. He who has scattered Israel will also collect it. Why? lie is the Shepherd. It is no wolf-scattering. He interposes His hand, then they go asunder, and directly come together again more orderly. Zinzendorf.
15. On Jer 31:12-14. Gaudebunt electi, quando videbunt supra se, intra se, juxta se, infra se. Augustine.Prmia clestia erunt tam magna, ut non possint mensurari, tam multa, ut non possint numerari, tam copiosa, ut non possint terminari, tam pretiosa, ut non possint stimari. Bernhard. Frster.
16. On Jer 31:15. Because at all times there is a similar state of things in the church of God, the lament of Rachel is a common one. For as this lament is over the carrying away captive and oppressions of Babylon, so is it also a lament over the tyranny of Herod in slaughtering the innocent children (Mat 2:1-7.)Cramer. Premuntur justi in ecclesia ut clament, clamantes exaudiuntur, exauditi glorificent Deum. Augustin. Frster.With respect to this, that Rachels lament may be regarded as a type of maternal lamentation over lost children, Frster quotes this sentence of Cyprian: non amisimus, sed prmisimus (2Sa 12:23). [On the application of this verse to the murder of the innocents consult W. L. Alexander, Connexion of the Old and New. Testament, p. 54, and W. H. Mill in Wordsworths Note in loc.S. R. A.]
17. On Jer 31:18. The conversion of man must always be a product of two factors. A conversion which man alone should bring about, without God, would be an empty pretence of conversion; a conversion, which God should produce, without man, would be a compulsory, manufactured affair, without any moral value. The merit and the praise is, however, always on Gods side. He gives the will and the execution. Did He not discipline us, we should never learn discipline. Did He not lead back our thoughts to our Fathers house which we have left (Luke 15) we should never think of returning.
18. On Jer 31:19. The children of God are ashamed their life long, they cannot raise their heads for humiliation. For their sins always seem great to them, and the grace of God always remains something incomprehensible to them.Zinzendorf. The farther the Christian advances in his consciousness of sonship and in sanctification, the more brilliantly rises the light of grace, the more distinctly does he perceive in this light, how black is the night of his sins from which God has delivered him. [It is the ripest and fullest ears of grain which hang their heads the lowest.S. R. A.]
19. On Jer 31:19. The use of the dear cross is to make us blush (Dan 9:8) and not regard ourselves as innocent (Jer 30:11). And as it pleases a father when a child soon blushes, so also is this tincture a flower of virtue well-pleasing to God. Cramer. Deus oleum miserationis su non nisi in vas contritum et contribulatum infundit. Bernhard.Frster.
20. On Jer 31:19. The reproach of my youth. The sins of youth are not easily to be forgotten (Psa 25:7; Job 31:18). Therefore we ought to be careful so to act in our youth as not to have to chew the cud of bitter reflection in our old age. It is a comfort that past sins of youth will not injure the truly penitent. Non nocent peccata prterita, cum non placent prsentia. Augustine. To transgress no more is the best sign of repentance. Cramer.
21. On Jer 31:20. Comforting and weighty words, which each one should lay to heart. God loves and caresses us as a mother her good child. He remembers His promise. His heart yearns and breaks, and it is His pleasure to do us good. Cramer. lpsius proprium est, misereri semper et parcere. Augustine.Major est Dei misericordia quam omnium hominum miseria. Idem.
22. On Jer 31:23. The Lord bless thee, thou dwelling-place of righteousness, thou holy mountain. Certainly no greater honor was ever done to the Jewish mountains than that the womans seed prayed and wept on them, was transfigured, killed and ascended above all heaven. Zinzendorf. It cannot be denied that a church sanctifies a whole place . Members of Jesus are real guardian angels, who do not exist in the imagination, but are founded on Gods promise (Mat 25:40). Idem.
23. On Jer 31:29-30. The so-called family curse has no influence on the servants of God; one may sleep calmly nevertheless. This does not mean that we should continue in the track of our predecessors, ex. gr., when our ancestors have gained much wealth by sinful trade, that we should continue this trade with this wealth with the hope of the divine blessing. If this or that property, house, right, condition be afflicted with a curse, the children of God may soon by prudent separation deliver themselves from these unsafe circumstances. For nothing attaches to their persons, when they have been baptized with the blood of Jesus and are blessed by Him. Zinzendorf.
24. On Jer 31:29-30. In testamento novo per sarguinem mediatoris deleto paterno chirographo incipit homo paternis debitis non esse obnoxius renascendo, quibus nascendo fuerat obligatus, ipso Mediatore di cente: Ne vobis patrem dicis in terra (Mat 23:9). Secundum hoc utique, quod alios natales, quibus non patri succederemus, sed cum patre semper viveremus, invenimus. Augustine, contra Julian, VI. 12, in Ghisler.
25. On Jer 31:31. In veteribus libris aut nusquam aut difficile prter hunc propheticum locum legitur facta commemoratio testamenti novi, ut omnino ipso nomine appellaretur. Nam multis locis hoc significalur et prnuntiatur futurum, sed non ita ut etiam nomen lega ur expressum. Augustine, de Spir. et Lit. ad Marcellin, Cap. 19 (where to Cap. 29 there is a detailed discussion of this passage) in Ghisler.In the whole of the Old Testament there is no passage, in which the view is so clearly and distinctly expressed as here that the law is only . And though some commentators have supposed that the passage contains only a censure of the Israelites and not of the Old Covenant, they only show thus that they have not understood the simple meaning of the words. Ebrard. Comm. zum Hebrerbr. S. 275.
26. On Jer 31:31, sqq. Propter veteris hominis noxam, qu per literam jubentem et minantem minime sanabatur, dicitur illud testamentum vetus; hoc antem novum propter novitatem spiritus, qu hominem novum sanat a vitio vetustatis. Augustine, c. Lit. Cap. 19.
27. On Jer 31:33. Quid sunt ergo leges Dei ab ipso Deo script in cordibus, nisi ipsa prsentia Spiritus sancti, qui est digitus Dei, quo prsente diffunditur charitas in cordibus nostrio, qu plenitudo legis est et prcepti finis? Augustine, l. c. Cap. 20.
28. On Jer 31:34. Quomodo tempus est novi testamenti, de quo propheta dixit: et non docebit unusquisque civem suum, etc. nisi quia rjusdem testamenti novi ternam mercedem, id est ipsius Dei beatissimam contemplationem promittendo conjunxit? Augustine, l. c. Cap. 24.
29. On Jer 31:33-34. This is the blessed difference between law and Gospel, between form and substance. Therefore are the great and small alike, and the youths like the elders, the pupils more learned than their teachers, and the young wiser than the ancients (1Jn 2:20 sqq.). Here is the cause:For I will forgive their iniquities. This is the occasion of the above; no one can effect this without it. Forgiveness of sins makes the scales fall from peoples eyes, and gives them a cheerful temper, clear conceptions, a clear head.Zinzendorf.
30. On Jer 31:35-37. Etsi particulares ecclesi intotum deficere possunt, ecclesia tamen catholica nunquam defecit aut deficiet. Obstant enim Dei amplissim promissiones, inter quas non ultimum locum sibi vindicut qu hic habetur Jer 31:37. Frster.
31. On Jer 31:38-40. Jerusalem will one day be much greater than it has ever been. This is not to be understood literally but spiritually. Jerusalem will be wherever there are believing souls, its circle will be without end and comprise all that has been hitherto impure and lost. This it is of which the prophet is teaching, and which he presents in figures, which were intelligible to the people in his time. The hill Gareb, probably the residence of the lepers, the emblem of the sinner unmasked and smitten by God, and the cursed valley of Ben-Hinnom will be taken up into the holy city. Gods grace will one day effect all this, and Israel will thus be manifested as much more glorious than ever before. Diedrich.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
1. On Jer 30:5-9. Sermon on one of the last Sundays after Trinity or the second in Advent. The day of the judgment of the world a great day. For it is, (1) a day of anxiety and terror for all the world; (2) a day of deliverance from all distress for the church of the Lord; (3) a day of realization of all the happiness set in prospect before it.
2. On Jer 30:10-12. Consolation of the church in great trial. 1. It has well deserved the trial (Jer 30:12); 2. it is therefore chastised, but with moderation; 3. it will not perish but again enjoy peace.
3. On Jer 30:17. [The Restorer of mankind. 1. Faith in the Christian Sacrament and its attendant revelation of divine character alone answer the demand of the heart and reason of man for a higher state of moral perfection. 2. Christianity offers to maintain a communication between this world and that eternal world of holiness and truth. 3. It commends itself to our wants in the confirmation and direction of that principle of hope, which even in our daily and worldly life, we are perpetually forced to substitute for happiness, and 4. By the adorable object, which it presents to our affections. Archer ButlerS. R. A.]
4. On Jer 31:1-2. Gesetz and Zeugniss (Law and Testimony) 1864, Heft. 1. Funeral sermon of Ahlfeld.
5. On Jer 31:2-4. lb. 1865. Heft 1. Funeral sermon of Besser, S. 32 ff.
6. On Jer 31:3. C. Fr. Hartmann (Wedding, School, Catechism and Birth-day sermons, ed. C. Chr. Eberh. Ehemann. Tb. 1865). Wedding sermon. 1. A grateful revival in the love of God already received. 2. Earnest endeavor after a daily enjoyment of this love. 3. Daily nourishment of hope.
7. On Jer 31:3. Florey. Comfort and warning at graves. I. Bndchen, S. 253. On the attractions of Gods love towards His own children. They are, 1. innumerable and yet so frequently overlooked; 2. powerful and yet so frequently resisted; 3. rich in blessing and yet so frequently; unemployed. [For practical remarks on this text see also Tholuck, Stunden der Andacht, No. 11.S. R. A.]
8. On Jer 31:9. Confessional sermon by Dekan V. Biarowsky in Erlangen (in Palmers Evang. Casual-Reden, 2 te Folge, 1 Band. Stuttgart, 1850.) Every partaking of the Lords supper is a return to the Lord in the promised land, and every one who is a guest at the supper rises and comes. 1. How are we to come? (weeping and praying). 2. What shall we find? (Salvation and blessing, power and life, grace and help).
9. On Jer 31:18-20. Comparison of conversion with the course of the earth and the sun. 1. The man who has fallen away is like the planet in its distance from the sun; he flees from God as far as he Song of Solomon 2. Love however does not release him: a. he is chastened (winter, cold, long nights, short days); b. he accepts the chastening and returns to proximity to the sun (summer, warmth, light, life). Comp. Brandt, Altes und Neues in i extemporirbaren Entwrfen. Nremberg, 1829, II. 5. [The stubborn sinner submitting himself to God. I. A description of the feelings and conduct of an obstinate, impenitent sinner, while smarting under the rod of affliction: He is rebellioustill subdued. II. The new views and feelings produced by affliction through divine grace: (a) convinced of guilt and sinfulness; (b) praying; (c) reflecting on the effects of divine grace in his conversion. III. A correcting but compassionate God, watching the result, etc., (a) as a tender father mindful of his penitent child; (b) listening to his complaints, confessions and petitions; (c) declaring His determination to pardon. Payson.S. R. A.]
10. On Jer 31:31-34. Sermon on 1 Sunday in Advent by Pastor Diechert in Grningen, S. Stern aus Jakob. I. Stuttg. 1867.
11. On Jer 31:33-34. Do we belong to the people of God? 1. Have we holiness? 2. Have we knowledge? 3. Have we the peace promised to this people? (Caspari in Predigtbuch von Dittmar, Erlangen, 1845).
12. On Jer 31:33-34. By the new covenant in the bath of holy baptism all becomes new. 1. What was dead becomes alive 2. What was obscure becomes clear. 3. What was cold becomes warm. 4. What was bound becomes free (Florey, 1862).
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
CONTENTS
We have in this Chapter and the following, the Prophet comforting his people with comfortable words indeed. Both the Chapters are full of gospel, and of gospel promises, from beginning to end.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Reader! it is your mercy and mine, as well as the Church at large, that the Lord commanded his servant, not simply to preach these glorious things here delivered, but to commit them to writing. And every word is indeed most precious. And do not fail to observe, how the Lord speaks of them: my people Israel and Judah, saith the Lord. Oh! precious Jesus! what a sweet thought is it, that thy people in thee are indeed a people, the Lord hath chosen for himself, and who shall show forth his praise, Isa 63:19 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Correction In Measure
Jer 30:11
This is a wonderful chapter. The Lord here takes the case of Zion into his own hand. He states both sides of it in a most distinct and pathetic manner. He determined to bring again the captivity of Israel and Judah, and to give to his offending people the land which they had forfeited. The element of changefulness is seen to operate with amazing activity in the mind and rule of the Most High where human sin and human repentance are concerned. He will do certain things surely, and then he will not do them; the covenant is to be for ever, and in a few days it lies in fragments like a torn scroll; the light is never to go out, the whole sky is to be a perpetual glory, and lo! in one hour the sky is all night and the stars are like eyes that are closed in fear. Then the covenant is to be a new one; he will write it all out again from the very beginning; the old things shall be forgotten, the offence of yesterday shall not be so much as named; there shall be a new love, a new start, a new day in man’s broken life. He who wrought the first miracle, which he called “Beginning” for only God could conceive that word he who never began continues to repeat that most hopeful wonder, and puts many beginnings in our life, many new hours. Every morning is new, every spring is new, every year is new; all the four seasons of the year are in every day we live the morning spring, the noontide summer, the afternoon autumn, the evening winter. So he who makes all things new who is always making new things says he will make a new covenant, a new writing and bond, as if a thousand covenants had not been dishonoured and his signature contemned by a thousand generations. This is the mystery of love. Life is full of new chances. The door that shut to so heavily seemed to rebound by the very violence of the closing, and it is still ajar. Life let us say again and again, for it is a tender gospel in itself is full of new chances, new beginnings. This is one of them: even now the morning light is like a door swinging right back into heaven to let us go in. Let us go. The door is now open it may be shut to-morrow let us enter and make our peace with God. “Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation.”
The text gives us God’s law of correction; and remember, first of all, that it is a law. It is not a passion; it is not a surprise on the part of the Ruler himself: it is part of his very goodness; it is quiet, solemn, inexorable, everlasting. The steadfast law of the universe is, that though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not go unpunished. Could we have heard the solemn music of the voice which pronounced those words, the voice would have had what seems to be wanting in a violence so tremendous, the pathos which would have shown that the law was uttered in a gospel-tone. There may be a universe in which wickedness has no effect upon happiness and peace, but such a universe is inconceivable by minds which have been trained as ours have been. We know that vice punishes itself. We have tried to break the force of that law, yet it comes upon us with the certainty of the tide, with the regularity of the seasons, and claims to be one of those forces which lie beyond the hand of man. If, even for a time, we think we have evaded the law and have got clean off without a puncture from the sword, we are surprised after a while to find that the law is still unrepealed, and that our blind craftiness has but given it the opportunity of inflicting a fuller vengeance. Put it down as a law, write it among your facts, that vice means loss, pain, death. If you have been secreting that statement amongst your theories, sentiments, hypotheses, pluck it out and set it among your facts. If witnesses are called, rise yourselves. You need not write for witnesses or send for them from the ends of the earth; stand up and say, “I bear witness that never yet was wrong done, but the earth opened to swallow up the wrongdoer.” This is a law, it is not a caprice; it is a necessity of goodness, and not a burst of passion. All things fight for God; they are very loyal to him. The stars in their courses utter his testimony; the winds as they fly are vocal with his name; the earth will open her mouth with eager gladness to swallow up the populations that lift their hands against him. Call it poetry if you will, but all true poetry is the highest philosophy there could be no poetry without philosophy. Scorn not the poetic representation of severest realities, for that representation may be the sublimest truth. There are those who have divided books, thinkings, and all the mystery of human mental imagination into “history” and “fiction.” That is a rude and vulgar division. Things are not either historic or fictitious; there is a middle quantity which combines both and lifts both up to the right level the parabolical, the religiously imaginative; and when we say, “The earth opens her mouth and swallows up all who rebel against God,” we are not speaking that which is fictitious, but that which is higher than history dare speak, for history has but a narrow language, a small and contracted throat, and cannot utter but whining and piping sounds. The great music of things, the infinite apocalypse and trembling revelation, you can only find in the parables, which alone could set forth the kingdom of heaven. Unless we recognise those facts, we shall not be able to go into the inner meaning of things hidden in God’s great Book. If we cannot follow the indication which ends in the generalisation that sin means death, we cannot enter into the inner and deeper Bible which deals with secret essences and spiritual mysteries, with transcendental truth and the very philosophy of things divine and immeasurable. If your child cannot understand your words, how can he grasp your thoughts? We must be accustomed to the right reading of the outward and visible before we can comprehend the inward and the unseen. We must know something of law before we can grasp the mystery of grace. If we deny the Bible of facts, it will be easy to deny the Bible of doctrines. Let us begin with things known, with the patent ana indisputable facts of life, and amongst those facts you will find the hell which follows broken law, the earth that casts out the soul that is not holy, and thence proceed step by step into the holy place where the altar is, and the speaking blood, and the Father, and the strange light of Eternity. There is but one true line of progress: it begins with Moses, it ends with the Lamb Moses and the Lamb: Law and Grace; and in the last eternal song we shall find in one grand line, “Moses and the Lamb,” a marvellous harmonisation, the up-gathering and reconciliation of all things; the old ark built again; the law within, the mercy lid covering it. Law and Mercy Moses and the Lamb these combine the whole purpose of the movement of the divine mind and love.
So far we have looked at the stern fact of law: we now come to what is said about it. It is a law of measured correction: “I will correct thee in measure.” The depth of the meaning is beyond all human sounding. This is the sublime mystery of mercy. At this point grace gets hold of law and keeps it back. Law can never stop of itself. Fire cannot give in. Would God we could realise that fact! Law must grind the sinner to powder. Law never loses a battle. The strength of sin gives in, but law gets no bigger for its smiting. The law is the same at the end as at the beginning. It cannot palter, it cannot compromise, it cannot make terms; it grinds, bruises, destroys. If a sinful world were left absolutely to the operation of law, it would be crushed out of existence. But the law is under mercy. We are spared by grace, by grace we are saved. The law saves no man: it shuts us all up in one condemnation; within its purpose of righteous avengement it holds us all. At this point is the Christ born, is the whole scheme of things attached to a new centre, and Bethlehem takes the place of lost Eden.
The great mystery of grace regulating law has happily found a place in Christian jurisprudence, so we need not climb to the very highest sanctuary for our first illustrations. Civilised, Christianised man has fixed the punishment before the crime has been committed. There is no other way of making society secure. The measure of punishment has been fixed, and has been waiting for the crime to come that way to fasten itself upon it in righteous retribution. We bind the magistrate beforehand. Society, in Parliament assembled, says, “Such and such crimes shall be visited by such and such penalties, and by no more.” Extemporised justice would rend society in twain. Justice must not be extemporised: it must be deliberate; it must be arranged before crime has been perpetrated to excite the passions and inflame the sensibilities. Were we to extemporise justice, we should really commit outrages upon equity and reason. This is also the mystery of grace. The grace was accomplished before the sinner was created. The Atonement is not the device of an afterthought: the Lamb was slain from before the foundation of the world. Have we penetrated the gracious meaning of that astounding mystery? Before we can understand anything of the Atonement, we must destroy the very basis and the relations of understanding, as it is too narrowly interpreted; we must think ourselves back of time, of space, of foundations, worlds, sinners. Great is the mystery of godliness God manifest in the flesh. So now God has written the penalty before the sin has been committed in its incidental form. We are not referring to sin, the great moral transgression, but of sin the incident, sin the passing phase of life; and all our sins have been anticipated as to the penalty which should be awarded to each. This seems to be so in society. Take the case of a great bank fraud. False balance-sheets have been issued and false representations of all kinds have been made. The law deals strictly and only with those facts, and fixes its penalty accordingly. The law does not follow out all the social consequences of those facts, nor does it give the magistrate authority to follow them out: it draws distinct lines, and within those lines fixes its penalties. Suppose no such lines were drawn, and that the magistrate were open to sentimental appeals; let him hear that by those frauds thousands of innocent people have been ruined; widows and orphans have been left penniless; trustees who have done acts of kindness have been reduced to absolute beggary; ancient and beautiful estates have been taken away from honourable families; and a whole land been darkened and degraded and paralysed, people who have only seen poverty at a distance have now to make it a companion and a bed-fellow; generous hands that gave gifts to God and man are now stretched out in mute and piteous appeal; dainty women and little children have now to beg their bread: what magistrate could be trusted to extemporise a penalty to the prisoners at the bar? No living man could be trusted to administer sentimental justice; under such circumstances he turns with relief to the law which was settled before the circumstances became known, and he deals with the facts which can be measured, and not with the consequences which overflow all calculation, and baffle every attempt to subdue them. So the penalty is fixed.
“Correction in measure” is God’s law now. May the time not come when the measure will be withdrawn and the correction will take its unlimited course? That will be hell, that will be destruction. Correction without measure as between man and man is violence, and not justice; and it is a sing of weakness, and never of equable and holy strength. The tendency of excited weakness is toward exaggeration. Some men have no measure in their punishments: they punish the same for an unfortunate word as for a malicious deed; they strike as heavily for an error of judgment as for a wilful crime; they will be as severe with a child for an accident as for some piece of mischief done of set purpose against strict orders. Will the measure ever be withdrawn? “My Spirit shall not always strive with man.” Is there not a hint there of the measure being withdrawn and law allowed to fight its own battle out? In their calamity they will call upon me, but I will not hear, because the call is uttered too late. Is there an appointed time? Is there an end of my probation? Does the shadow lengthen, and tell me in its lengthening that my opportunities of repentance, confession, and restoration are getting fewer and narrower? The year opens upon me now will it close upon my life or upon my death? Is this my last year? Has the voice gone forth, “This year thou shalt die”? Does God ever turn away from his creatures and leave them to the law that they dishonoured, insulted, and contemned and defied? Such turning will be hell.
We are all under correction. Find the evidence in your consciences, in your sufferings, in your fears, in your family lives: pain means correction, so does poverty, so does disappointment, so does every shadow that suddenly arrests the light that was spreading over your life. But the correction is in measure. Thank God that he does not plead against us with his great power. He does not hurl all his thunder upon our ear. “As a man chasteneth his son, so the Lord thy God chasteneth thee.” “Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth: therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty.” “If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?” Our wisdom is to look at the Lord who chastens, and not at the chastening which is inflicted. You may look at the wound until you despair; you should look at the Smiter until you are healed.
What is the meaning of this “measure”? It is the gospel. There is a higher law than the law of death. The law of life is not changed: it is enlarged over all the sins and shortcomings and crimes of life. “Where sin abounds, grace doth much more abound.” Grace says, “There has been great sin: now for my enlargement” And she enlarges her offers of mercy, and her signs of pity, and her opportunities of return, until the sin flee away that which is great becomes little. Life is more than death, as the heaven is high above the earth. Death is only a partial law; the universal law is life, and it is for God to set that infinite law in motion. The law of destruction any sinner can move; but the law of life only God can bring into operation. Here we enter upon the mysteries of Deity; here we touch the altar of the Atonement. I will accept my chastening; I deserve it. This is my sweet, great faith that no punishment ever overtakes me that is not a sign of God’s watchfulness, and of God’s care over my life. I think I will run away from this sin and evade God, but I run upon the point of a sword unsheathed. Is it vengeance? Is it not unkindness? No; that sword is God’s, as certainly as is that Cross. When the sword of the Lord falls upon me, I will say, “What have I done?” I will inquire into my life and find out the sin. I have never suffered loss, social dishonour, inward compunction, without being able to say, “This is the Lord’s doing, and not man’s. The man did not know what he was doing to me; he was seized by God and set to do this work for my punishment my education.” Taking that view of all life, I have nothing to do with enemies, opponents, antagonists. They know not what they do; they are blind instruments in the hands of the seeing God, and they cannot go beyond their tether. Let us have no whining, no complaining, no retaliation. The man that smote you was sent to smite you. Avenge yourself by deeper confession, by larger, loftier prayer.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
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THE PROPHECY OF JEREMIAH ON THE RESTORATION
Jeremiah 30-33
This prophecy may be called Jeremiah’s messianic prophecy, or the prophecy of the blessed age, the messianic age, that glorious age that was to come. Most of the teaching of Jeremiah up to this point is permeated with the note of sadness and of doom, the theme of which is destruction. From this Jeremiah might be called a thorough-going pessimist, but here we shall see that he was anything but a pessimist. He was one of the greatest optimists. When his nation seemed so determined to go on in sin and rebellion against God and hence to destruction, Jeremiah could be nothing but a pessimist, so far as the immediate future of his country was concerned. There is such a thing as a sane and sensible pessimism. The man who is a pessimist when he sees that sin is unbridled in its sway over the people, is the only man who takes a sane view of the situation. But in this passage we will see that Jeremiah was one of the greatest optimists that the world ever saw.
Blessed is the man who can mediate between the pessimist and the optimist. All the prophecies concerning the messianic age, and the restoration from the exile to Palestine were optimistic. Amos was a pre-exilic prophet, and he prophesied a return of the Jews and a glorious age; so did Hosea, Isaiah, Joel, Micah, and Zephaniah. All of these pictured the return to Jerusalem and the worship in Mount Zion. Isaiah puts it in the form of a reign of David’s son over a true and righteous Israel, at the time of the restoration from the Exile in Babylon. Joel pictures the messianic age and we are told in Act 2 when it was fulfilled. Peter there declares that Joel’s prophecy was fulfilled in what was enacted at that time. Ezekiel pictures it also as a restored nation and a restored theocracy in Jeremiah 40-48.
Now, let us consider what Jeremiah has to say concerning the Jews and their glorious restoration. In these four chapters (Jeremiah 30-33) we have three great subjects:
1. The triumphal hymn of Israel’s salvation (Jeremiah 30-31)
2. The story of the purchase of a field by Jeremiah during his imprisonment, and the explanation (Jer 32Jer 32Jer 32 )
3. The promise of the restoration with the renewed glory of the house of David and the Levitical priesthood (Jer 33Jer 33Jer 33 )
Observe that this prophecy is not dated. It merely says, “The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah.” It is altogether likely that it came in the latter part of the reign of Zedekiah, possibly during the imprisonment in the court of the guard, or it may have occurred a little earlier than that.
In the introduction the prophet is commanded to write these things (Jer 30:1-3 ). The fact that God commanded Jeremiah to write this messianic prophecy shows that he put considerable value upon it and that he intended it to be preserved for his people, Israel. He said, “The days will come, saith Jehovah, that I will turn again the captivity of my people Israel and Judah; and I will cause them to return to the land that I gave their fathers, and they shall possess it.” This is the essence of the prophecy contained in Jeremiah 30-31.
The prophecy relative to Judah in Jer 30:4-11 is that there shall be an end of Judah’s troubles, for the foreign domination shall cease. Judah is pictured here as sorely troubled. Notice verse Jer 30:5 : “We have heard a voice of trembling, of fear, and not of peace.” Then he pictures the nation in that figure, which is so many times used in the Scriptures, as in the pain of travail. Verse Jer 30:7 : “For that day is great, so that none is like unto it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble.” Then he adds, “But he shall be saved out of it.” In verse Jer 30:8 : he describes how the foreign domination of Babylon shall be broken off. Verse Jer 30:9 : “They shall serve Jehovah their God, and David their king, whom I will raise up unto them.”
Of course, this is not David himself, in a literal sense, that shall be raised up. It means that one of David’s royal posterity shall reign over Israel. Israel shall have her kingdom restored and on the throne a king of the old royal line. In a large measure that promise was fulfilled in David’s greater son, Jesus Christ. In Jer 30:10 he calls Israel by the name of “Servant,” the word used so often in Isaiah 40-66, and promises return and rest. Jer 30:11 : “I will make a full end of all the nations whither I have scattered thee, but I will not make a full end of thee; but I will correct thee in judgment, and will in no wise leave thee unpunished.”
Judah is pictured in Jer 30:12-17 as incurably wounded. The hurt of the cities of Judah is incurably deep but she shall be restored to health. Verse Jer 30:12 : “Thy hurt is incurable, and thy wound grievous,” therefore punishment must come to Judah. Then he pictures her as being despised among the nations, forgotten by her lovers, i.e., all those nations whom she followed after strange gods. He adds that their chastisement was a cruel one, but that it was because of the greatness of their iniquity; because their sins were so increased. Jer 30:15 adds: “Why criest thou for thy hurt?” There is no use crying. Why do you cry unto me? “Thy pain is incurable.” It was all because of the greatness of their iniquity. Verse Jer 30:16 : “They that devour thee shall be devoured; and all thine adversaries, every one of them, shall go into captivity.” Verse Jer 30:17 : “I will restore health unto thee, and I will heal thee of thy wounds.”
There is a promise respecting Jerusalem and other cities of Judah in Jer 30:18-22 . The city shall be rebuilt and shall be prosperous. Verse Jer 30:18 : “And the city shall be builded upon its own hill, and the palace shall be inhabited after its own manner.” Now, that was particularly fulfilled under Ezra and Nehemiah, in their later history. Jer 30:19 describes the happiness and merriment of the people. Jer 30:20 says, “Their children also shall be as aforetime, and their congregation shall be established before me.” Verse Jer 30:21 : “Their princes shall be of themselves and their ruler shall proceed from the midst of them.” He shall be of the royal line; shall be of themselves. Their rulers shall proceed from their own blood. They shall be relieved from the domination of Assyria, Egypt, and Babylon.
The prophecy of Jer 30:23-24 is that there shall be a sweeping tempest upon her enemies: “Behold, the tempest of Jehovah, even his wrath, is gone forth, a sweeping tempest: it shall burst upon the head of the wicked.” This undoubtedly refers to the nations that have harassed Judah so long.
The picture found in Jer 31:1-6 is that Israel shall be restored to the worship of their own God, Jehovah. Verse I: “I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be my people.” This was true when God brought them forth from Chaldea and from Egypt after the exile. The great motive expressed is that God might be their God and they his people. In the glory of the restoration he says, “I will be the God of all the families of Israel.” In Jer 31:3 we come to a great and glorious passage, “I have loved thee with an everlasting love.” That is a great text. We have here a vision of the fidelity and love of Jehovah for his people. He loves forever. “With lovingkindness have I drawn thee.” That was true in Egypt. He drew them to himself. It will be true again when he shall draw them from among the nations. Jehovah loves the people of Israel now with the same jealous love as of old, and he is drawing them. The time is coming when he will draw them together to him with this everlasting love. This same truth applies to all Christians of the world, both Jew and Gentile.
Samaria shall be resettled and repeopled: “Again shalt thou plant vineyards upon the mountains of Samaria. . . . For there shall be a day that the watchman upon the hills of Ephraim shall cry, Arise ye, and let us go up to Zion unto Jehovah our God.” Which means that there will be watchmen who will watch for the rising of the new moon and the time of the feasts, and then the word will go from mouth to mouth and the people will all observe the feasts together. Now, that prophecy has never been literally fulfilled.
Samaria was peopled by aliens from Babylon and Assyria mixed with Jews and when the Jews returned from the exile, these people wanted to help them in the work of rebuilding, but they were spurned. This made the Samaritans the bitter enemies of the Jews and of their leaders. In Jesus’ time “the Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans,” but many of them were converted in Christ’s ministry and through the apostles after Pentecost. The future will determine the glories of this prophecy.
There is a great promise in Jer 31:7-9 . A great company shall return from the north. Verse Jer 31:8 : “Behold, I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the uttermost parts of the earth, and with them the blind and the lame, and the woman with child.” Verse Jer 9 : “I will cause them to walk by rivers of water, in a straight way wherein they shall not stumble; for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my first born.”
The announcement in Jer 31:10-14 is that this return shall be proclaimed to the nations. This passage reminds us very much of Isa 40 . The expressions are almost identical. Note the clause in Jer 31:10 which is almost the same in both books, “As a shepherd doth his flock.” Then in verse Jer 31:12 : “They shall come and sing in the height of Zion, and shall flow unto the goodness of Jehovah, to the grain, and to the new wine, and to the oil, and to the young of the flock and of the herd: and their soul shall be as a watered garden.” That is a beautiful picture; the people coming shall be like that of a flowing stream hurrying on to an experience of the goodness of Jehovah. All the nations shall see it.
And mourning Ephraim shall be comforted and restored (Jer 31:15-20 ). Rachel is heard weeping for her children. She refuses to be comforted. Rachel was the mother of Joseph and he was the father of Ephraim, the leading tribe of the Northern Kingdom, which finally absorbed all the rest of the tribes of that division of the kingdom west of the Jordan. Hosea calls Israel Ephraim. Rachel weeping over her children is a pathetic picture of the destruction of the Northern Kingdom, but there is hope for it. She shall not weep forever. Verse Jer 31:16 : “Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears; for thy work shall be rewarded, saith Jehovah: and they shall come again from the land of the enemy.” Then he goes on to describe the repentance of Ephraim. Jer 31:20 sounds much like Hosea in his great prophecy. Here Jeremiah says, “Is Ephraim my dear son? is he a darling child?”
In the exhortation in Jer 31:21-22 the wanderer is asked to return. Speaking to Israel, he says, “Set thee up waymarks, make thee guide-posts; set thy heart toward the highway, even the way thou wentest.” Jer 31:22 is a remarkable prophecy: “How long wilt thou go hither and thither, O thou backsliding daughter? For Jehovah hath created a new thing in the earth: A woman shall encompass a man.” In Jeremiah’s time the man must encompass the woman. But this prophecy predicts that there is going to be a new state of things: “A woman shall encompass a man,” shall surround him, that is, she shall win him and also be his protector and safeguard. The Spiritual application of that seems to be that the time will come when Israel, this backsliding and wandering woman, shall be changed; shall be different; she shall have a new disposition. Instead of God having to go after her and surround her and induce her to keep herself true to him, she will take the initiative; she will surround the Lord and shall be true to him; shall go after him, and meet him more than half way. That was true to some extent when they came back from the exile. They were true to God and protected his cause, but the larger fulfilment is doubtless yet to come.
The prophecy as to the life of Israel after the restoration (Jer 31:23-26 ) shows that the life of restored Israel shall be happy and blessed. Note verse Jer 31:23 : “Jehovah bless thee, O habitation of righteousness, O mountain of holiness.” What a magnificent description of the city is that. That prophecy was fulfilled only to a very slight degree after the return from exile. Its true fulfilment is spiritual. Jeremiah was much pleased with the vision.
There shall be great material prosperity for the renewed people and there shall be individual responsibility. Great prosperity is shown in the verse Jer 31:27 : “I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man and with the seed of beast.” The idea there is that it is going to be so thickly populated that it will be literally sown with men and with beasts, like a field. Then in Jer 31:29 , “In those days they shall say no more, The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children’s teeth are set on edge.” That was a proverb based upon the fact that because of the father’s sins the children suffered. They kept saying that in the exile, because a multitude of those who were in exile never sinned as their fathers did, and had to suffer for the wickedness and sins of their fathers. Hence they kept saying, “The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children’s teeth are set on edge.” They were suffering for the iniquities of their fathers, not their own. There was a note of bitterness and complaint in it. They regarded the law as unjust. The great law of individual responsibility is here asserted. That doctrine is worked out with great clearness in Eze 18 .
In the blessings of the new covenant (Jer 31:31-34 ) we have the climax, the greatest of all Jeremiah’s prophecies. This is indeed the high-water mark of all the Old Testament prophecy. Jeremiah had come to the conclusion that the heart of the man was deceitful and above all things desperately wicked and that he could no more change it of himself than the leopard can change his spots, or the Ethiopian his skin; that the people who are accustomed to do evil, cannot do good. They must be changed. There must be a new order of things, a new covenant. What is this new covenant? Jer 31:33 lays down a new condition: “I will put my law in their inward parts.” Moses wrote it on tablets of stone but the law to be effective must be written in the inward parts. It must be written on the tablets of the heart. On that condition “I will be their God, and they shall be my people,” saith Jehovah.
Then the prophet asserted the doctrine of individual, or personal experience of the knowledge of God, verse Jer 31:34 : “And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know Jehovah; for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, saith Jehovah: for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin will I remember no more.” He does not mean by that that there shall be no more teaching but he does mean that each individual shall have a personal experience for himself. His parents cannot give it to him; each individual shall have a personal knowledge of God for himself. As regards their sins God provides a sacrifice so that he will remember their sins no more forever, consequently there shall be no more need for the sacrifices of atonement.
Now, that wonderful prophecy was not fulfilled in that restoration. When Nehemiah had completed the walls of Jerusalem, Ezra brought forth the book of the Law and read it before them and they made another covenant to keep the Law. That was 150 years after Jehovah had said, “I will make a new covenant.” Ezra brought forth this same old covenant and the people adopted it again. That was not a new covenant, and in no sense a fulfilment of the prophecy here. The people asked Ezra to read it, which showed that it was in no sense in their hearts. This covenant is fulfilled in Christianity. Jesus preached the new birth and the principle of personal knowledge of God. It is the fundamental element of the gospel, that God’s law must be in the heart, not in mere ceremony.
It is said of the new people in Jer 31:35-37 that they shall be perpetual. They shall abide forever. This is expressed by a comparison of the material universe with God’s eternal purpose concerning his people. The prophecy concerning Jerusalem in Jer 31:38-40 is that the holy city shall be rebuilt. Jerusalem shall be holy unto Jehovah. Now, that was to some extent fulfilled in the restoration under Nehemiah and Ezra, but for 1900 years it has been trodden under foot. For the larger fulfilment we look to Christianity in the millennium.
The prophecy of Jer 32 occurred in the tenth year of the reign of Zedekiah, during the siege, when Jeremiah was shut up in the court of the guard. In that condition, when the city was thus surrounded and seemed doomed to pass into the hands of the enemy and be destroyed, Jeremiah utters this prophecy. The following are the main points of it:
1. The announcement of the Oracle of Jeremiah (Jer 32:15 ). This section simply contains the record of the fact that the oracle came from God to Jeremiah at this time and the fate of the city is announced.
2. The purchase of an ancestral field (Jer 32:6-15 ). Jeremiah received word from Jehovah that a certain man was coming to ask him to buy a field at Anathoth which belonged to Jeremiah’s family and was within his right. God told him to buy it. He tells us that he did so, and paid seventeen shekels for it. Doubtless property was cheap at that particular time, for all the land was overrun by the Chaldeans. The deed was signed and two copies made; then they were subscribed to before witnesses. They were then deposited in an earthen vessel to be kept, because seventy years or more was to pass before they could be used. Such is the story. It reminds us of the incident that occurred in the wars of Hannibal. When he was encamped before the gates of Rome, the very ground upon which he was encamped was bought by men in the city, for they believed in the future of Rome. They paid for it and believed that they would make use of it. So it was with Jeremiah; he believed in the future of Jerusalem and. Judah more truly than those men believed in the future of Rome.
3. His misgiving, with his retrospection of Jehovah’s’ power, justice, and lovingkindness, manifested in Israel’s history (Jer 32:16-25 ). He closes that retrospection by summing up the situation. We find it in Jer 32:24-25 . The city is in a state of siege, and is going to be destroyed very soon.
4. Jehovah’s reply to Jeremiah’s misgivings (Jer 32:26-35 ). The reply is this: “Because of the people’s sins Jerusalem shall be destroyed by the Chaldeans.”
5. Jehovah gives an emphatic promise of future favor (Jer 32:36-44 ). Again and again Jehovah says, “I will gather them out of all countries; I will give them one heart and one way; I will make an everlasting covenant with them.” Men shall buy fields, shall subscribe deeds, seal them and call witnesses, etc.
Jeremiah gives the date of its deliverance, about the year 586 B.C., while the Chaldeans were besieging the city and Jeremiah was shut up in the court of the guard. The items of this chapter are as follows:
1. The call for a larger faith (Jer 32:2-3 ). Jehovah will show them difficult things.
2. The city shall be reinhabited and shall be joyful (Jer 32:4-9 ). [I am simply giving the substance of these portions. They are largely repetitions and details are not necessary.]
3. The land of Judah shall be repopulated (Jer 32:10-13 ). Jer 32:12 says, “Yet again there shall be in this place, which is waste, without man and without beast, and in all the cities thereof, a habitation of shepherds causing their flocks to lie down.” In the cities of the lowland, the hill country, the South, Benjamin, and Judah, shall the flocks again pass under the hands of the shepherd.
4. David shall have a righteous successor upon the throne (Jer 32:14-18 ). Jer 32:15 contains the substance, a glorious messianic picture, like Isa 11:1-2 .
5. The royal line of David and of the Levitical priesthood shall certainly be perpetuated, Jer 32:19-22 .
6. The Davidic Dynasty shall certainly be re-established (Jer 32:23-26 ). The seed of David shall sit upon the throne.
The fulfilment of this prophecy occurred partly in the restoration, partly in Christianity, and shall be completely fulfilled in the glorious reign of Christ when Christianity shall be triumphant throughout the world. In this we have a remarkable perspective of prophecy, a prophecy with several fulfilments stretching over a long period of time.
QUESTIONS
1. What is the nature of this section of Jeremiah?
2. How does it compare with his former prophecies?
3. How does it compare with the prophets before him?
4. What is the outline of these four chapters?
5. What is the date of this prophecy?
6. What is the nature of Jer 30:1-3 ?
7. How is the importance of this section here indicated and what the reason assigned?
8. What the prophecy relative to Judah in Jer 30:4-11 ?
9. How is Judah pictured in Jer 30:12-17 and yet what hope is held out to Judah?
10. What is the promise respecting Jerusalem and the other cities of Judah in Jer 30:18-22 ?
11. What is the prophecy of Jer 30:23-24 and what is the fulfilment?
12. What is the picture found in Jer 31:1-6 and when realized?
13. What is the great promise in Jer 31:7-9 ?
14. What is the announcement in Jer 31:10-14 and other Old Testament passage similar to it?
15. What is the prophecy here concerning Ephraim (Jer 31:15-20 )?
16. What is the exhortation in Jer 31:21-22 and what the meaning of the “new thing” here?
17. What is the prophecy as to the life of Israel after the restoration (Jer 31:23-26 ) and how did this prospect affect Jeremiah?
18. What are the material blessings for the renewed people and how is their individual responsibility set forth? (Jer 31:27-30 .)
19. What are the blessings of the new covenant? (Jer 31:31-34 .)
20. What is said of the new people in Jer 31:35-37 and how is it expressed?
21. What is the prophecy concerning Jerusalem in Jer 31:38-40 and when fulfilled?
22. What is the date of the prophecy of Jer 32 ?
23. What are the main points of this prophecy?
24. What is the date and contents of Jer 33 ?
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
Jer 30:1 The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,
Ver. 1. The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord. ] This chapter and the next are Jeremiah’s thirteenth sermon, as some reckon them, and it is wholly consolatory. The author of it he showeth to be the “God of all consolation”; and this the prophet inculcateth six different times in the five first verses, pro maiori efficacia, that it may take the better.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Jeremiah Chapter 30
The next communication from Jehovah pledges that He will bring back His people to the land He gave their fathers. (Ver. 1-3.) Has this been accomplished? No more than an earnest of it. It is His work and shall not fail when fulfilled in power. One of the peculiarities of it is that it is the day of their greatest trouble, yet it is immediately their complete and, as we shall see, final deliverance. The return from Babylon in no way meets such a description; for their return from that captivity was preceded by the day of the lord on the proud city of the Chaldeans, and in no sense the time of Jacob’s trouble. Again, the siege of Titus, however severe a time of trouble to the Jew, cannot possibly be regarded as the time; for Jacob was led captive and scattered more than ever, instead of being then delivered. But these are the only notable epochs that can be pretended since. It remains then that the hour of unparalleled trouble preceding their great deliverance is future and will surely be fulfilled. “And these are the words that the Lord spake concerning Israel and concerning Judah. For thus saith the Lord; We have heard a voice of trembling, of fear, and not of peace. Ask ye now, and see whether a man doth travail with child? wherefore do I see every man with his hands on his loins, as a woman in travail, and all faces are turned into paleness? Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble; but he shall be saved out of it. For it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord of hosts, that I will break his yoke from off thy neck, and will burst thy bonds, and strangers shall no more serve themselves of him: but they shall serve the Lord their God, and David their king, whom I will raise up unto them.” Ver. 4-9.) Who will deny that the yoke is not broken, that bonds still restrain, that strangers yet serve themselves of Israel? Who will affirm that they are serving Jehovah their God, and David their king? Can this be any other than their true Beloved, their Messiah, the promised Son of that line? He is come no doubt, but as yet refused by them; but the time hastens when Him too they shall serve. it follows however their salvation out of their last time of trouble.
“Therefore fear thou not, O my servant Jacob, saith the Lord; neither be dismayed, O Israel: for, lo, I will save thee from afar, and thy seed from the land of their captivity; and Jacob shall return, and shall be in rest, and be quiet, and none shall make him afraid. For I am with thee, saith the Lord, to save thee: though I make a full end of all nations whither I have scattered thee, yet will I not make a full end of thee: but I will correct thee in measure, and will not leave thee altogether unpunished. For thus saith the Lord, Thy bruise is incurable, and thy wound is grievous. There is none to plead thy cause, that thou mayest be bound up: thou hast no healing medicines. All thy lovers have forgotten thee; they seek thee not, for I have wounded thee with the wound of an enemy, with the chastisement of a cruel one, for the multitude of thine iniquity; because thy sins were increased. Why criest thou for thine affliction? thy sorrow is incurable for the multitude of thine iniquity; because thy sins are increased, I have done these things unto thee. Therefore all they that devour thee shall be devoured; and all thine adversaries, every one of them, shall go into captivity; and they that spoil thee shall be a spoil, and all that prey upon thee will 1 give for a prey. For I will restore health unto thee, and 1 will heal thee of thy wounds, saith the lord; because they called thee an Outcast, saying, This is Zion whom no man seeketh after.” (Ver. 10-17.) Here Jehovah renews His assurance not of saving Israel only, but of their return and rest from the land of their captivity. This is not the gospel. Christianity presents other and higher hopes – grace gathering to Christ on high; and not deliverance by the execution of divine judgments on their Gentile adversaries as here.
From verse 18 there is a third repetition of Jehovah’s mercy to His ancient people. “Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will bring again the captivity of Jacob’s tents, and have mercy on his dwelling-places; and the city shall be builded upon her own heap, and the palace shall remain after the manner thereof. And out of them shall proceed thanksgiving and the voice of them that make merry: and I will multiply them, and they shall not be few; I will also glorify them, and they shall not be small. Their children also shall be as aforetime, and their congregation shall be established before me, and I will punish all that oppress them. And their nobles shall be of themselves, and their governor shall proceed from the midst of them; and I will cause him to draw near, and he shall approach unto me: for who is this that engaged his heart to approach unto me? saith the Lord. And ye shall be my people, and I will be your God. Behold, the whirlwind of the Lord goeth forth with fury, a continuing whirlwind: it shall fall with pain upon the head of the wicked. The fierce anger of the Lord shall not return until he have done it, and until he have performed the intents of his heart: in the latter days ye shall consider it.” (Ver. 18-24.) Here their national restoration is yet more minutely portrayed, and with increasing disproofs of any adequate application to the past or present. From the return out of Babylon till the Romans sacked Jerusalem there was no more than “a little reviving in their bondage.” They were but servants in their own land under the great empires, with which is contrasted the promise that “their nobles shall be of themselves, and their governor shall proceed from the midst of them.” But there is a far transcendent change. Lo-ammi is no longer to be inscribed on Israel; but “ye shall be my people, and I will be your God.” A divine all-searching judgment of men most clearly and expressly characterizes this intervention of Jehovah: “In the latter days ye shall consider it.” Alas! the Jews have not considered it yet.
Fuente: William Kelly Major Works (New Testament)
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Jer 30:1-3
1The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying, 2Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, ‘Write all the words which I have spoken to you in a book. 3For behold, days are coming,’ declares the LORD, ‘when I will restore the fortunes of My people Israel and Judah.’ The LORD says, ‘I will also bring them back to the land that I gave to their forefathers and they shall possess it.’
Jer 30:2 Write all the words I have spoken to you in a book Jer 30:1-3 forms an introduction to the entire literary unit of Jeremiah 30-33. They deal with hope amidst judgment.
in a book This refers to a scroll (BDB 706, #3). Obviously Jeremiah was involved in writing down YHWH’s words, as well as speaking them. However, does this refer to
1. the book of Jeremiah as we know it today
2. the book that the king burned
3. the book that Jeremiah dictated to Baruch after the destruction of the first scroll
These are the kinds of modern questions that cannot be answered. We do not know
1. when the OT was compiled
2. how/by what criteria
3. by whom
4. when
The main truth is God has revealed Himself! By faith we believe the Spirit authored and preserved the essential message! See Special Topic: Inspiration and Special Topic: Illumination .
Jer 30:3 days are coming This could refer to
1. the end of the 70 year Babylon exile (i.e., Ezra, Nehemiah, cf. Jer 16:14; Jer 29:10)
2. an eschatological setting (cf. Jer 3:16; Jer 23:5; Jer 31:27; Jer 31:31-34; Zec 12:10 to Zec 13:1)
The question arises, How do these promises to national Israel relate to the NT? Please look carefully at the Special Topic below.
SPECIAL TOPIC: WHY ARE THE END-TIME EVENTS SO CONTROVERSIAL?
Israel and Judah Israel was taken captive by Assyria in 722 B.C. Judah was taken captive by Babylon in 605, 597, 586, 582 B.C. This speaks of their reunification that is based on their repentance and God’s restoration of the covenant. The normal VERB used of repentance (BDB 996, KB 1427, see Special Topic at Jer 2:22) is used in two senses in this verse.
1. I will restore (i.e., turn back, Qal PERFECT), Jer 30:18
2. I will bring them back (Hiphil PERFECT), Jer 30:10
When His people turn back to Him, He will restore them.
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
Jeremiah’s Twentieth Prophecy (see book comments for Jeremiah).
the LORD. Hebrew. Jehovah. App-4.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Chapter 30
Now as we get into chapter 30, we enter into the future in these next four chapters. And this is now writing of the Great Tribulation period which is yet future. This is writing about this period of time, the final seven years in which God is going to be dealing with the nation Israel. For seventy sevens were determined upon the nation Israel, of which sixty-nine were fulfilled when Christ the Messiah came, leaving one seven-year cycle yet to be fulfilled which is yet future, which Jesus spoke to His disciples as being fulfilled during the time when the antichrist will be upon the earth. Now here in Jeremiah he speaks of this final seven-year period of God’s dealing when He draws the Jews back into the land and He begins to deal with them. And thus, we are in this in yet future events of this final seven years. It is called here in Jeremiah the time of Jacob’s trouble.
The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying, Thus speaks the LORD God of Israel, saying, Write thee all the words that I have spoken unto thee in a book. For, lo, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will bring again the captivity of my people Israel and Judah, saith the LORD: and I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it ( Jer 30:1-3 ).
And he’s talking about the present re-gathering that you see in the nation of Israel, not the re-gathering from the Babylonian captivity. And if you notice the very last verse of chapter 30, in the very end of the verse it said, “In the latter days you will understand it or you’ll consider it.” You’ll be able to understand this in the last days. So write it in the book. In the last days this will be understood. So as we see the nation Israel being re-gathered into the land, we can begin to understand now the words of this particular prophecy.
And these are the words that the LORD spake concerning Israel and concerning Judah. For thus saith the LORD; We have heard a voice of trembling, of fear, and not of peace ( Jer 30:4-5 ).
Of course, the land hasn’t really experienced peace since they’ve been re-gathered. And the people are beginning to live in fear. Quite an article in the paper the other day concerning the children from Kiryat Shemonah and the fear that they have of these Russian Katyusha rockets that are raining down upon them.
Ask ye now, and see whether a man doth travail with child? ( Jer 30:6 )
Does a man travail? Does a man go through labor?
why do I see every man with his hands on his loins, like a woman in travail, and all of their faces are turned into paleness? ( Jer 30:6 )
And so he sees, really, the anguish that is upon the men of Israel.
Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble; but he shall be saved out of it ( Jer 30:7 ).
So God promises that He is going to save the people out of it.
For it shall come to pass in that day, saith the LORD of hosts, that I will break his yoke from off thy neck, and will burst thy bonds, and strangers shall no more serve themselves of him: But they shall serve the LORD their God, and David their king, whom I will raise up unto them ( Jer 30:8-9 ).
So God is going to break up the yoke of the antichrist and of the oppression as Jesus comes again. And they will serve the Lord their God, and David. Christ, after the seed of David, Branch out of the stem of Jesse, will be the king out of the “throne of David, to order it, and to establish it in righteousness and in judgment” ( Isa 9:7 ). “Whom I will raise up,” God said, “unto them.”
Therefore fear thou not, O my servant Jacob, saith the LORD; neither be dismayed, O Israel: for, lo, I will save thee from afar, and thy seed from the land of their captivity; and Jacob shall return, and shall be in rest, and be quiet, and none shall make him afraid ( Jer 30:10 ).
This is when Jesus comes again. “Then shall He gather together His elect from the four corners of the world” ( Isa 11:12 ). And Israel would be brought back and recognize Jesus and acknowledge Him and serve Him.
For I am with thee, saith the LORD, to save thee ( Jer 30:11 ):
For all of Israel shall be saved, as saith the scripture, for a deliverer shall come out of Zion to turn the hearts of the children to their fathers when Jesus comes again.
though I make a full end of all of the nations where I have scattered thee, yet will I not make a full end of thee; but I will correct thee in measure, and will not leave thee altogether unpunished ( Jer 30:11 ).
You’re going to be punished, but you’re not going to be destroyed.
For thus saith the LORD, Thy bruise is incurable, and thy wound is grievous. There is none to plead thy cause, that you may be bound up: you have no healing medicines. All of your lovers have forgotten thee; they do not seek you; for I have wounded thee with the wound of an enemy, with the chastisement of a cruel one, for the multitude of thine iniquity; because thy sins were increased. Why do you cry for your affliction? your sorrow is incurable for the multitude of your iniquity: because your sins were increased, I have done this unto you. Therefore all of they that devour thee shall be devoured; and all of your adversaries, every one of them, shall go into captivity; and all of they that spoil thee shall be a spoil, and all they that prey upon thee will I give for a prey ( Jer 30:12-16 ).
You remember Jesus said in Matthew’s gospel when He returns again, when the Son of man comes in His kingdom, then shall He gather together the nations for judgment. And He will separate them as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And He will say to those on His right hand, “Come, ye blessed of the Father. Inherit the kingdom that was prepared from the foundations of the earth. Enter into the joy of your Lord. For I was hungry and you fed Me; thirsty and you gave Me to drink; naked and you clothed Me; in prison, and sick, and you visited Me.” And to those on His left He’ll say, “Depart from Me, ye workers of iniquity into everlasting judgment or into Gehenna which was prepared for Satan and his angels. For I was hungry and you did not feed Me; thirsty and you did not give Me to drink; naked you did not clothe Me.” “Lord, when did we see You hungry? When did we see You naked? When did we see You in these conditions?” And He said, “Inasmuch as you did it not unto My brethren, the least of My brethren, you did it not to Me” ( Mat 25:31-36 , Mat 25:41-45 ).
And Jesus is talking about the Jews and the treatment of the nations of the Jews. And the nations will be brought in judgment before God for their treatment of the Jewish race. That is why it is so important for us to maintain a strong pro-Israel position as a nation. God is going to judge the nations for their treatment of His brothers, Jesus’ brothers, that is the Jewish nation. So here God is saying the same thing through Jeremiah that He will bring… “Those that devour you will be devoured. All of your adversaries, every one of them, shall go into captivity, and those that spoiled you will be spoiled.”
For I will restore health unto thee, and I will heal thee of thy wounds, saith the LORD; because they called thee an Outcast, saying, This is Zion, whom no man seeks after. Thus saith the LORD; Behold, I will bring again the captivity of Jacob’s tents, and have mercy on his dwelling places; and the city shall be built upon her own heap ( Jer 30:17-18 ),
And the city of Jerusalem has been built over the heaps of the past ruins.
and the palace shall remain after the manner thereof. And out of them shall proceed thanksgiving and the voice of them that make merry: and I will multiply them, and they shall not be few; I will also glorify them, and they shall not be small. Their children also shall be as they were before, and their congregation shall be established before me, and I will punish all that oppress them ( Jer 30:18-20 ).
The glorious restoration of the nation Israel. Now there are Bible teachers today who deny this aspect of biblical truth. It is unfortunate, but there are many ministers who have been deceived into an anti-Semitic position. And I get tracts and all, letters from people with these tracts on anti-Semitism because they know my pro-Israel position. And they say, “God is through with the nation Israel. The church is now spiritual Israel. All of the promises that God gave to Israel now apply to the church and the church is now spiritual Israel, and God is through and forever finished with the nation Israel. As a people they are over. They had their chance. They ruined their chance. God has cast them out forever. They’re gone, that’s the end of it and all.” Not so. These people are not scholars of the Old Testament. If they will read the Old Testament they would realize that God is making these promises to the nation Israel, to the seed of Jacob, and they do not and cannot apply to the church even in a spiritual way.
Now because these people misinterpret the scriptures and have such a lack of understanding of the Old Testament prophecies, they then make the second error and say that the church is going to go through the Great Tribulation. Because in the Great Tribulation God speaks of the saints. God speaks of the elect. And thus, if there are saints and elect in the Great Tribulation, they must be the church, because God is through with Israel and those promises, and all that apply to Israel are now all applicable to the church. Therefore, the other things that were applicable to Israel would also be applicable to the church, and thus, they see the church in the Great Tribulation. But it’s only because of the spiritualizing of the church to become spiritual Israel and declaring that God is through once and forever with the nation Israel, the seed of Jacob. That is contrary to all of the prophecies.
As Peter spoke how that God spoke in all of the scriptures, he said, of the final restitution. Peter makes reference to how God in all of the scriptures spoke of that day when the final restitution of the nation Israel, of all things to the nation Israel. But these men either willfully or ignorantly overlook this fact and thus they fall into that tragic error of saying, “Well, the church is in the Great Tribulation because, look, here it speaks about the saints.” What does it say about the saints? It says, “And the beast will make war against the saints, and overcome them” ( Rev 11:7 ). Good luck, saints. You’re going to be overcome by the antichrist. Doesn’t that encourage you? In Daniel it speaks about the little horn, the antichrist, who makes war against the saints and prevails against them. Congratulations, saints, the antichrist is going to wipe you out. No, no, no, don’t you believe that. Jesus said, “I will build My church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” ( Mat 16:18 ). Then who are the saints who the antichrist prevails against? Israel.
In this final seven-year period the time of Jacob’s trouble, and that’s why Jacob is in trouble, because he has made a covenant with the antichrist. So anxious are they to rebuild their temple, that when the European leader comes along and says, “Look, we’ll help you to rebuild your temple. After all, you’ve eliminated Russia and given us now this great rise to power, and so we like to show you a favor and we’ll just put a wall along here and we’ll separate the Dome of the Rock mosque from this area here and go ahead and build your temple right here.” And they will begin to worship this man as the Messiah. But after three-and-a-half years he’ll come to this temple and he’s going to stand in the holy of holies and he’s going to say, “All right, that’s enough. Stop the prayers, the sacrifices. I am God; you must now worship me as God.” And the people are going to flee down to the area of Jordan, Trans-Jordan, into the area of Petra where God is going to preserve them. The antichrist is going to send out an army after them. The earth is going to open up and swallow the army of the antichrist. And then he is going to just make war against the remnant of the Jews that is still in the land, eradicating them. Time of Jacob’s trouble. But then deliverance is coming.
For as the antichrist then begins to move with his European forces to conquer Africa, and he passes through Egypt, comes to the borders of Ethiopia, and he’s moving down in a conquest of Africa, he’ll hear the news that the forces of China and Russia have combined together and are moving across the Euphrates in a mass invasion of Europe. And he will return from his invasion of Africa, and he’ll meet these combined forces of China and Russia in the valley of Megiddo there in Israel. And there the final great conflict will be fought. And while these armies of the world, the vast millions of people pour into this area where this holocaust and the blood is running to the horses’ bridle through the space of the whole valley, then the Deliverer shall come out of Zion. Behold, He comes with ten thousands of His saints and He sets His foot upon the Mount of Olives which perpetrates an earthquake that splits the Mount of Olives in two. One part towards the north, one part towards the south, forming a new valley down to the Dead Sea area. And underground springs will be opened up and a river will come gushing out from Jerusalem and flow on down towards the Dead Sea. A part of it will branch off and go to the Mediterranean and when the waters come in to the Dead Sea, the Dead Sea will no longer become a Dead Sea, but will become alive and active. And they’ll begin to have a fishing industry in the area of the Dead Sea and Engedi will be a place of drying fishers’ nets.
And all of this God has predicted and told in advance. And when Jesus returns, by the brightness of His coming and by the word that goes forth out of His mouth, He’s going to destroy this man of sin, the antichrist, this false Messiah. And He is going to sit upon the throne of David. He’s going to establish the kingdom of God upon the earth and He will rule over the nation with the rod of iron. And He has said to those who overcome that they shall rule and reign with Him over the nations. And we shall reign with Him as kings and priests as He establishes God’s kingdom here on the earth. And our prayer, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven” will be consummated as we see the glorious day of God’s kingdom here on earth. “And they will beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: and they will study war no more” ( Isa 2:4 ). “And the lion will eat grass with the oxen and the wolf and the lamb will lie down together and a little child will lead a lion around by its mane” ( Isa 11:6-7 ). For there will be no more wars. There will be no more violence in God’s kingdom. It will be a kingdom of righteousness and joy and peace. And that’s the kingdom where we share because of God’s grace and love to us through Jesus Christ.
So Jeremiah is now moving ahead to this Kingdom Age in his prophecy. He’s going out beyond the darkness. There’s going to be a period of darkness, period of captivity. But then, there will come foRuth (in verse Jer 30:19 ) the “thanksgivings and the voices of those that make merry: and I will multiply them, and they will not be few; I will also glorify them, and they will not be small. Their children also shall be as aforetime, and their congregation shall be established before Me, and I will punish all that oppress them.”
And their nobles shall be of themselves, and their governor shall proceed from the midst of them; and I will cause him to draw near, and he shall approach unto me: for who is this that engaged his heart to approach unto me? saith the LORD. And ye shall be my people, and I will be your God. Behold, the whirlwind of the LORD goeth forth with fury, a continuing whirlwind: it shall fall with pain upon the head of the wicked. The fierce anger of the LORD shall not return, until he have done it, and until he have performed the intents of his heart: in the latter days [you’ll see it come to pass] ye shall consider it ( Jer 30:21-24 ).
You’ll understand it. As in this tribulation like a whirlwind from God until it has accomplished God’s purposes. And then the kingdom shall be established. The book of Revelation closes with the words, “And the Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come.’ And let him who is athirst come. And drink of the water of life freely” ( Rev 22:17 ). And Jesus said, “Behold I come quickly.” And John responded, “Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus” ( Rev 22:20 ).
Oh, how I long for that day when Jesus shall come and establish His righteous reign over the earth. How I long for that day when we will see the world that God intended and God wanted from the beginning. A world that is cleaned up of its pollution, physical and spiritual. Where we live together in His love, in His righteousness, in His peace, in His glory. I’m so thankful that God has ordained that I should have a place and a part in that kingdom. Even if it is just picking up coconut on the beaches in Hawaii to keep them clean. Great! Love it. Keep my section of the beach clean.
May the Lord cause His Word to be established in each of your hearts and lives. And may you grow in grace and in knowledge of Him. And may He with His cords of loving-kindness just draw you unto Himself that you may ever experience a richer, fuller, deeper comprehension of that love that God has for you, His child. In Jesus’ name. “
Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary
Jer 30:1-2. The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying, Thus speaketh the LORD God of Israel, saying, Write thee all the words that I have spoken unto thee in a book.
Too good to be lost. The prophets said much when they did not write, and this particular chapter and the next were to be carefully written down. God here begins to deal with his guilty people in a way of love and mercy. It is a very strange chapter, one of the richest, one of the most cheering in the whole of Gods Word. Therefore, write it in a book.
Jer 30:3. For, lo, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will bring again the captivity of my people Israel and Judah, saith the LORD: and I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it.
Souls get into captivity. God has ways of restoring them. Tonight I expect, and believe, that many captives will be restored by the grace of God to rest and comfort. Will you be one of them? Poor mourner, pray now that you may be. Ask of God that tonight God may bring again your captivity.
Jer 30:4-5. And these are the words that the LORD spake concerning Israel and concerning Judah. For thus saith the LORD: We have heard a voice of trembling, of fear, and not of peace.
Why say you, I thought you began to read words of comfort. Now there is a drop. Yes, there always is. Whenever God is going to comfort a man, he first makes him see his need of comfort. There is always stripping before there is clothing; there is always emptying before there is filling on Gods part.
Jer 30:6. Ask ye now, and see whether a man doth travail with child? wherefore do I see every man with his hands on his loins, as a woman in travail, and all faces are turned into paleness?
Everywhere, when the time of mercy came, it was a bad time, a dark time, a time of inward throbs, and throes, and travail.
Jer 30:7. Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacobs trouble: but he shall be saved out of it.
But he shall be saved out of it. What a flash of lightning across the black face of the cloud. He shall be saved out of it.
Jer 30:8-9. For it shall come to pass in that day, saith the LORD of hosts, that I will break his yoke from off thy neck, and will burst thy bonds, and strangers shall no more serve themselves of him. But they shall serve the LORD their God and David their king, whom I will raise up unto them.
See how the chapter has got back to the comforting strain again. After the bass notes, we run up the scale. We have come to comfort again. I should not wonder if we have to go back, however, for so it is, Gods mercy is chequer work, black and white, sorrow and salvation.
Jer 30:10-11. Therefore fear thou not, O my servant Jacob, saith the LORD; neither be dismayed, O Israel: for, lo, I will save thee from afar and thy seed from the land of their captivity; and Jacob shall return, and shall be in rest, and be quiet, and none shall make him afraid.
What a beautiful collection of words for a troubled heart! And they are not beautiful words only, but there is a deep, true meaning in them: Shall be in rest and be quiet, and none shall make him afraid. I pray God that many here who are much afraid, and cannot be quiet, but are like the troubled sea, which cannot rest, may get into this blissful state tonight.
Jer 30:11. For I am with thee, saith the LORD, to save thee:
God may destroy the wicked, and he will, but not his people, his own beloved, His heart goes after them. I will not make a full end of thee.
Jer 30:11. Though I make a full end of all nations whither I have scattered thee, yet will I not make a full end of thee: but I will correct thee in measure, and will not leave thee altogether unpunished.
You will have to smart for it. If you are Gods child, you will have to be brought home with many a tear and many a sigh. Your sorrow tonight is a part of a heavenly discipline, by which you shall be saved.
This exposition consisted of readings from Isaiah 55.; Jer 30:1-11.
Fuente: Spurgeon’s Verse Expositions of the Bible
Jer 30:1-3
Jer 30:1-3
The word that came to Jeremiah from Jehovah, saying, Thus speaketh Jehovah, the God of Israel, saying, Write thee all the words that I have spoken unto thee in a book. For, lo, the days come, saith Jehovah, that I will turn again the captivity of my people Israel and Judah, saith Jehovah; and I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it.
Write all the words that I have spoken unto thee in a book…
(Jer 30:2). We can find no grounds whatever for agreement with the usual scholarly proposition that this commandment regarding the placing of Jeremiah’s prophecies in a book applied only to this chapter and perhaps two or three other chapters additionally. Do those chapters include all the words that God spoke to Jeremiah? No matter what men say, the answer to that is negative.
What we have here is exactly the same commandment found again in Jer 36:2, where God said to Jeremiah: “In the fourth year of Jehoiachim … the word came from Jehovah to Jeremiah, saying, Take thee a roll of a book, and write therein all the words that I have spoken unto thee against Israel, and against Judah, and against all the nations, from the day I spake unto thee, from the days of Josiah, even unto this day.”
This passage, along with what is written here, indicates that all of Jeremiah’s prophecies were carefully written down and preserved by him in a book. How else, do the scholars suppose we now possess his book, after so many centuries have fled away? The very existence of the book of Jeremiah in the sacred Hebrew Canon is the only proof needed that Jeremiah did what God commanded him to do. Of course, this glimpse of the truth plays havoc with all the speculative editors, redactors, and interpolators used in the imaginative guesses of Bible critics.
Keil mentioned a Dr. J. D. Michaelis who took the same view of these passages as the one taken here; and although Keil disagreed with him, he gave no reason whatever for doing so.
The days are coming…
(Jer 30:3). These words look toward eschatological times. Jeremiah is contemplating the distant, not the near, future of the nation; and these words strike the keynote for the entire group of four chapters beginning here.
Yes, there is a definite promise here of the return of Israel to “the land” which God gave to their fathers; but the real fulfillment of this came, not in the return of a few Jews to Jerusalem, but in the ingathering of Jews and Gentiles alike into the kingdom of heaven under the preaching of the Gospel of Christ.
I will turn again the captivity of my people…
(Jer 30:3). This expression in the Bible is sometimes used where no captivity of any kind is in view (Job 42:10; Eze 16:53). In many passages, therefore, where this expression occurs, the meaning is, I will reverse or restore the fortunes. It was the captivity of Israel in their sins that was the principal concern of the Lord, as indicated by Jesus’ use of similar words in Luk 4:18.
My people Israel and Judah…
(Jer 30:3). Thompson was impressed with the use of both these designations here and thought that, It indicates that both the southern and northern kingdoms of Israel were included in God’s plans for the future. However, the unification of all Israel in this passage has no reference whatever to the two kingdoms. It is the New Israel which will accomplish the fulfillment of God’s will in the future; and that Israel will not only include all of racial Israel, including both the northern tribes and the southern kingdom, but also the Gentiles as well.
JEREMIAHS FAITH IN THE FUTURE
Jer 30:1 to Jer 33:26
Chapters 30-33, the so-called Book of Consolation, is the only consistently hopeful section of the Book of Jeremiah. It is likely that these chapters date to the tenth year of Zedekiah (588 B.C.). At least that is the date assigned to chapters 32 and 33. Chapters 30 and 31 have been assigned to periods all the way from the time of Josiah to the governorship of Gedaliah. While one cannot be absolutely certain about the dating of these two chapters, it is reasonable to assume that they were written at the same time as chapters 32 and 33. These were dark days for Judah and for Jeremiah. The Chaldean army was at the gates of Jerusalem. The city was experiencing the famine, pestilence and misery connected with siege operations. Jeremiah himself had been imprisoned in the court of the guard as a suspected traitor. Even though events had proved him to be speaking truth with regard to the fate of Jerusalem, still the people refused to acknowledge Jeremiah as the man of God that he was. They rather suspected that he was collaborating with the enemy. These dark and dire days gave birth to one of the most beautiful passages in the entire Bible. Here is the positive aspect of the prophets ministry. He is now beginning to build and to plant (Jer 1:10). At times during his ministry Jeremiah had been permitted to have a glimpse of the events which were beyond the judgment. But this section of the book is unique in that here the focus is upon hope and salvation. Here the prophet treats the great themes of the destruction of Babylon; the return of Gods people; the reunification of Israel and Judah; the coming of Messiah and the establishment of His kingdom.
From the literary standpoint this section contains the following elements: an introduction (Jer 30:1-3); a collection of poetic oracles (Jer 30:4 to Jer 31:22); two collections of prose sermons (Jer 31:23-40; Jer 32:26 to Jer 33:26); a narrative account of a symbolic act (Jer 32:1-15); a prayer for enlightenment (Jer 32:16-25). A topical analysis of the material in these chapters suggests the following outline: (1) the promise of restoration (Jer 30:4-24); (2) the blessings of restoration (Jer 31:1-40); and (3) confidence in restoration (Jer 32:1 to Jer 33:26).
INTRODUCTION Jer 30:1-3
The first three verses of chapter 30 serve to introduce the Book of Consolation. Here Jeremiah is commanded by the Lord to record in a book the words which God had spoken to him concerning the future of the nation. While some scholars think that the book mentioned here comprises only chapters 30.31, it is probably best to include chapters 32-33 as well. Unlike the collection of prophecies referred to in chapter Jer 36:1-6, this book does not seem to be intended for public proclamation but rather for the personal comfort of the prophet. This is suggested by the words write for your own sake (Jer 30:2). The Hebrew word member (book) can refer to any size document from a single page to an extensive treatise.
Chapters 30-33 have been described as a little green oasis in the midst of a dry and barren desert.” Jer 30:3 sets the tone of the whole section. The reason Jeremiah is to compile another book is because there are glorious things for the covenant people. Behold! days are coming is an expression which points to a certain, but indefinite, time in the future. Three wonderful things are stipulated as part of those future days. (1) God will turn again the captivity i.e., reverse the fortunes of His people. (2) Israel and Judah will once again be reunited. (3) Gods people will return to the land which He had given to their fathers.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Following this action of the prophet a word of Jehovah came to him which he was especially commanded to write in a book. In a remarkable way it first set forth two things side by side. The first and fundamental was the ultimate determination of God to accomplish His purpose, and restore His people. The second was the appalling condition of the people, so that there was no hope for them except this determination of God.
In setting forth the love that will not let His people go, in spite of all their waywardness and folly, this first movement stands without a rival in all the words of the prophets.
Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible
Ungrateful Forgetfulness
Jer 2:1-8; Jer 26:1-24; Jer 27:1-22; Jer 28:1-17; Jer 29:1-32; Jer 30:1-24; Jer 31:1-40; Jer 32:1-44
God regarded Israel as His bride, who had responded to His love, or as a vineyard and cornfield which were expected to yield their first fruits in response to the careful cultivation of the owner. Why had they failed to respond? For the answer let us question our own hearts. What marvels of perversity and disappointment we are! Who can understand or fathom the reason of our poor response to the yearning love of Christ! The heathen, in their punctilious devotion and lavish sacrifices at their idol-shrines, may well shame us. The root of the evil is disclosed in Jer 2:31. We like to be lords, to assume and hold the mastery of our lives. But God has been anything but a wilderness to us. He has given us ornaments, and we owe to His grace the garments of righteousness which He has put on us. In return we have forgotten Him days without number, Jer 2:32. Let us ask Him to call us back-nay more, to draw us by the chains of love.
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
JACOB’S TROUBLE AND THE FINAL RESTORATION
(Chaps. 30, 31)
Nowhere in Scripture, so far as I am aware, have we clearer instruction as to the final, literal restoration of Israel, preceded by the great tribulation, than in the section which now claims our attention. If read in connection with Matthew 24, 25; Romans 11; and the books of Daniel and Revelation, it will help much to give a clear outline of what GOD has in store for His earthly people. Because of its supreme importance in this regard, we shall look at it verse by verse, in place of making as hasty a survey as of some previous portions.
“The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying, Thus speaketh the Lord God of Israel, saying, Write thee all the words that I have spoken unto thee in a book” (Jer 30:1-2).
It is necessary that we have clearly before our souls the fact that here, as in all Scripture, GOD Himself is speaking. “The Lord God will do nothing unless He reveal it to His servants the prophets.” (Amo 3:7) Having been pleased thus to announce His purposes for Israel, we can be assured that it is for our profit and blessing to seek to become acquainted with what is so manifestly near to His heart.
“For, lo, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will bring again the captivity of My people Israel and Judah, * saith the Lord: and I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it” (Jer 30:3).
* Having divided into two kingdoms after Solomon, the ten tribes (forming the bulk of the nation) are distinguished as “Israel;” while the tribes of Judah and Benjamin formed the kingdom of “Judah.”
Distinctly we are told that both Israel and Judah – not the latter only – are to be returned to their land.
Nor does the temporary restoration at the expiration of the seventy years fulfil the terms of this prophecy; for, when brought back to the home of their fathers, they are to “possess it,” (Jer 30:3) which was manifestly not the case with those who returned under Zerubbabel, as their descendants were scattered again among the nations, and remain so to this day.
At that time also, though a few from the ten tribes went back with the remnant of Judah, there was no regathering of Israel, as such. When the Lord’s set time to remember Zion has come, twelve thousand from each of the twelve tribes will be delivered out of the hand of the Gentiles. (See Revelation 7). The number may be figurative, we admit, but it at least implies a goodly company out of each tribe.
“And these are the words the Lord spake concerning Israel and concerning Judah” (Jer 30:4).
Here note again how clearly the northern and the southern kingdoms are referred to. Both have been scattered. Both are included in GOD’s counsels of judgment and grace.
“For thus saith the Lord: We have heard a voice of trembling, of fear, and not of peace” (Jer 30:5).
Before there can be the fulfilment of the promises of blessing, there must be the tasting to the full of the cup of the Lord’s indignation. The subject therefore to which these words introduce us is that of “the great tribulation.” (See Mat 24:21 and Rev 7:14). Before the appearing of Israel’s once rejected Messiah and the establishment of the kingdom, the favored nation will be exposed as never before to the power of the oppressor and to the malice of Satan. It is their special punishment for having crucified and slain the Anointed of the Lord.
“Ask ye now, and see whether a man doth travail with child? wherefore do I see every man with his hands on his loins, as a woman in travail, and all faces are turned into paleness?” (Jer 30:6).
So terrible will be that time of trial, but so sure is the joy to follow, that it is likened to the travail-pains that precede the birth of a child. Strong men will be in anguish as of a woman in her pangs.
“Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble; but he shall be saved out of it” (Jer 30:7).
To the Church the promise is: “Because thou hast kept the word of My patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall Come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth” (Rev 3:10).
The saints of this dispensation shall be kept from the hour of travail. Those of the next period will be saved out of it: they will pass through it, but find deliverance at last when the Lord returns in glory. This short but dreadful time of sorrow is emphatically the time of Jacob’s trouble. Necessarily others will be involved in it.
All “earth-dwellers,” (Rev 3:10) in fact, will have to suffer while it continues; but it is the special season of Israel’s sifting, when GOD will repay them double for all their sins. Scripture gives no hint of the Church passing through this unparalleled tribulation. It is not for the testing of the members of the Body of CHRIST, but for the chastisement of Israel.
“For it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord of hosts, that I will break his yoke from off thy neck, and will burst thy bonds, and strangers shall no more serve themselves of him: but they shall serve the Lord their God, and David their king, whom I will raise up unto them” (Jer 30:8-9).
The yoke referred to is that of the last great Gentile power, the ten-horned beast of Revelation 13 – the Roman empire revived in its last and awful form. The power of the beast will be destroyed by the appearing in flaming fire of the Lord JESUS CHRIST with all the armies of heaven (Revelation 17); after which Israel, restored to their land, shall enter into rest under Messiah’s beneficent rule. “David their king” (Jer 30:9) refers, doubtless, not to the first son of Jesse who wore the royal diadem, but to the fact that the reign of the Lord is the fulfilment of the Lord’s promise to raise up, of David’s line, One to rebuild his fallen tabernacle and to sit upon his throne.
“The Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of His father David: and He shall reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of His kingdom there shall be no end” (Luk 1:32-33).
This declaration, communicated by Gabriel, has never been fulfilled in the present dispensation. Not for one moment has the Lord JESUS sat upon David’s throne. He now sits upon His Father’s throne (Rev 3:21; Heb 1:3). At the end of this age He will rise from that throne, when His enemies are made His footstool (Heb 1:13; Psa 110:1). Then He will descend to earth to fulfil the promise spoken of by Gabriel and all the prophets.
“Therefore fear thou not, O My servant Jacob, saith the Lord; neither be dismayed, O Israel: for, lo, I will save thee from afar, and thy seed from the land of their captivity; and Jacob shall return, and shall be in rest, and be quiet, and none shall make him afraid” (Jer 30:10).
Was this the case when Judah returned by permission of Cyrus? Were they in rest? Did none make them afraid? The book of Nehemiah and the apocryphal records of the Maccabees give the answer, as also the Gospels themselves. From their return to the destruction of Jerusalem under Titus, we have one long record of unrest and warfare. To the near future we must look for the carrying out of this word.
“For I am with thee, saith the Lord, to save thee: though I make a full end of all the nations whither I have scattered thee, yet will I not make a full end of thee; but I will correct thee in measure, and will not leave thee altogether unpunished” (Jer 30:11).
Their long sojourn among the Gentiles is but the fulfilment of this. The legend of the Wandering Jew, deathless, yet ever moving on, has its foundation here. Impossible to destroy the people of the Lord’s choice! Empires may rise and fall, nations may be blotted out as the meteors of the heavens, but Israel shall abide, and at last will triumph and bear rule over all the earth.
“For thus saith the Lord, Thy bruise is incurable, and thy wound is grievous. There is none to plead thy cause, that thou mayest be bound up: thou hast no healing medicines. All thy lovers have forgotten thee; they seek thee not; for I have wounded thee with the wound of an enemy, with the chastisement of a cruel one, for the multitude of thine iniquity; because thy sins were increased” (Jer 30:12-14).
Prophets and seers had sought in vain to apply the healing word. Disaster and captivity even had not resulted in recovery. That the wound was utterly incurable so far as human power was concerned, the Cross would soon bring out. GOD in CHRIST walked among them in lowly grace. They nailed Him to a gibbet. Disowned by the Lord, for a time, they must be.
Antichrist, the false shepherd, shall bear rule over them in the day of their deepest tribulation. Their “lovers” (Jer 30:14) – that is, the idols in which they had trusted – shall avail them naught. They must know to the full that “it is a fearful thing to fall into the hand of the living God.” (Heb 10:31)
The Gentile nations, however, who shall be the means of their affliction, shall in their turn know the rod of the Lord’s wrath.
“Therefore all they that devour thee shall be devoured; and all thine adversaries, everyone of them, shall go into captivity; and they that spoil thee shall be a spoil, and all that prey upon thee will I give for a prey” (Jer 30:16).
All down through the centuries the nations have been made to know the truth of this verse.
None have prospered long who oppressed Israel. Babylon and Assyria exist not; while Persia and Greece are still preserved. So among modern nations. There should be no question that one source, at least, of the strength of Britain and the United states is found in this, that they have, as a rule, befriended the Jews. On the other hand, the history of the powers who have stretched out their hands against the Lord’s people, records disaster after disaster. Spain is witness to this; as, markedly, Russia is also – that great dominion of Gog.
“For I will restore health unto thee, and I will heal thee of thy wounds, saith the Lord; because they called thee an Outcast, saying, This is Zion, whom no man seeketh after” (Jer 30:17).
Through the wounded One the wounds of Israel shall yet be healed, when, no longer outcast, they shall be called “Sought out, A city not forsaken” (Isa 62:12).
“Thus saith the Lord: Behold, I will bring again the captivity of Jacob’s tents, and have mercy on his dwelling-places; and the city shall be builded upon her own heap, and the palace shall remain after the manner thereof. And out of them shall proceed thanksgiving and the voice of them that make merry; and I will multiply them, and they shall not be few; I will also glorify them, and they shall not be small. Their children also shall be as aforetime, and their congregation shall be established before Me, and I will punish all that oppress them” (Jer 30:18-20).
Temporal blessings await repentant Israel as of old, “when there was no strange god with him.” (Deu 32:12)
The city, rebuilt upon the ancient site, shall be filled with joy and gladness; young and old shall alike be blessed, as Zechariah also prophesies:
“There shall yet old men and old women dwell in the streets of Jerusalem, and every man with his staff in his hand for very age. And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in the streets thereof” (Zec 8:4-5).
No longer oppressed by the haughty stranger, “their nobles shall be of themselves, and their governor shall proceed from the midst of them; and I will cause him to draw near, and he shall approach unto Me: for who is this that engaged his heart to approach unto Me? saith the Lord. And ye shall be My people, and I will be your God” (Jer 30:21-22).
There seems to be good reason to believe that the “governor” (Jer 30:21) here spoken of is the same as the prince referred to so frequently in the last five chapters of Ezekiel. (See Eze 44:3; Eze 45:7; Eze 46:2, etc). He will, we gather, be a direct lineal descendant of David, and will be the earthly ruler, subject in all things to the glorified Immanuel. In this day of “the restitution of all things spoken of by the prophets,” (Act 3:21) the hearts of the people will have been fully turned to the Lord – that is, the spared remnant, for the apostate part of the nation will be destroyed in the great tribulation which is brought to our notice once more in the closing verses of this chapter.
“Behold, the whirlwind of the Lord goeth forth with fury, a continuing whirlwind: it shall fall with pain upon the head of the wicked. The fierce anger of the Lord shall not return, until He have done it, and until He have performed the intents of His heart: in the latter days ye shall consider it” (Jer 30:23-24).
The expression “the latter days” is evidently synonymous with “the time of the end” of Daniel 12, when “many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand” (Dan 12:10).
The fury of the Lord will fall with awful power upon the ungodly part of the nation who own Antichrist’s impious sway; but those who refuse “the mark of the beast” (Revelation 13), and who honor the Lord’s Word, will then come into blessing.
~ end of chapter 16 ~
” NOT WRATH BUT RAPTURE “
by Henry Allen Ironside…
What Is Meant by the Term “The Great Tribulation”?
The careful student of the prophetic scriptures cannot fail to observe that in both the Old and New Testaments the Spirit of God speaks of a trial involving the pouring out of divine wrath on men.
This is known as…
….”the great tribulation,”
….”the time of Jacob’s trouble,”
….”the coming hour of temptation,”
….”the day of the Lord,” and other terms.
This specific period of judgement is clearly distinguished from the ordinary trials and tribulations to which the people of God have been subjected in all dispensations, and which are promised to the church of God at the present time. “In the world,” said our Blessed Lord, O”ye shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer. I have overcome the world.” “We must,” declared the apostle Paul, “through much tribulation enter the kingdom of God.” Speaking for all saints, Paul could say, “We glory in tribulation.” So long as Satan is the god of this world and believers are on this earth. there will be trial and tribulation to face. This arises from the very nature of things. The world is opposed to everything that is of the Spirit of God. The Christian’s trials arise from the adverse circumstances through which he is passing, like Israel of old journeying through the wilderness. More than this, there is the direct opposition of the enemy: “All they that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.” But there is one character of tribulation that God’s children in this age will never have to know, and that is exposure to divine wrath.
“God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
We look for His return as our deliverer from the coming wrath. This is a principle of great importance when it comes to defining the church’s relationship to the great tribulation, when the vials of wrath will be poured out on guilty Christendom and apostate Judaism.
Many have taught in the past, and some still teach, that the Old Testament passages referring to the great tribulation were all fulfilled in the days of Israel’s sufferings under the nations, after the fall of Jerusalem, particularly in the era of Antiochus Epiphanes, who is sometimes called the Old Testament antichrist. But a careful examination of the scriptures of the prophets having to do with this time of trial, and a comparison of these with New Testament declarations, make this position absolutely untenable. Others have supposed that the great tribulation referred either to the days of persecution under pagan emperors of Rome for two bloody centuries, following the death of the apostle Paul, or perhaps the even more fearful persecutions under the papacy during the dark ages. But there are very definite statements made by our Lord Jesus Christ Himself that positively negate any such view and make it evident that this solemn period of judgement is still in the future. Will the church of God or any part of it go into or pass through this day of grief and sorrow? In order to answer this question correctly, it will be necessary first of all to consider carefully a number of scriptures indicating the nature of and the time for the great tribulation.
The first scripture that definitely speaks of this era is Deu 4:26-31. This is part of the message that Moses gave to Israel on the plains of Moab before they entered the land of Canaan, shortly before their great leader resigned his responsibility and went up into Mount Nebo to be put to sleep by God until the day of the Lord’s coming. He said to the people, as he warned them of the folly of departure from God:
I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that ye shall soon utterly perish from off the land whereunto ye go over Jordan to possess it;ye shall not prolong your days upon it, but shall utterly be destroyed. And the Lord shall scatter you among the nations, and ye shall be left few in number among the heathen, whither the Lord shall lead you.
These words have been literally fulfilled. For many centuries Israel has been scattered among the nations, and even though many of them have recently returned to Palestine, the day of their dispersion is not yet ended. This scattering was because of their sin and their violation of God’s holy law. In verses 28 and 29 Moses continued, saying:
And there ye shall serve gods, the work of men’s hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell. But if from thence thou shalt seek the Lord thy God, thou shalt find him, if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul.
This last verse has not yet been fulfilled. Evidently it does not refer to the return from Babylon. It has to do with the final repentance of the nation when they will be brought back from among all the nations on the earth. The scattering referred to was not simply that which took place in the days of Nebuchadnezzar, but rather the worldwide dispersion following the destruction of Jerusalem forty years after the crucifixion of our Lord Jesus Christ. Never since that day have the people of Israel turned whole-heartedly to God. Consequently they have not yet been restored to their land. The present movement is not a return to God but simply a natural awakening, leading many to go back to Palestine while still in unbelief. Such a return is elsewhere predicted in scripture, but is not what is referred to here. The circumstances that will result in the repentance of the nation are indicated in the verses that follow:
When thou art in tribulation, and all these things are come upon thee, even in the latter days, if thou turn to the Lord thy God, and shalt be obedient unto his voice: (For the Lord thy God is a merciful God:) he will not forsake thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget the covenant of thy fathers, which he sware unto them (4:30-31).
We have here the first definite mention of the coming tribulation. Certainly verse 30 does not refer to the age-long sorrows through which the people of Israel have passed, but to a definite set period of tribulation in “the latter days.” This term, as any student of prophecy knows, refers to the closing days of God’s dealings with this nation before they will be restored to Himself.
There are no other clear references to this same period until we come to the book of Psalms. Many of these psalms give us experiences that Israel will be called to pass through in that time of distress and show us what the glorious outcome will be. Space does not permit dwelling on the testimony of the Psalms. Let us pass on to the prophets.
There are many passages that we might quote from the book of the prophet Isaiah. Let us consider two. In Isa 13:6-13 we have a graphic description of the day of the Lord’s indignation.
Howl ye: for the day of the Lord is at hand; it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty. Therefore shall all hands be faint, and every man’s heart shall melt: and they shall be afraid: pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them: they shall be in pain as a woman that travaileth: they shall be amazed one at another: their faces shall be as flames. Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and He shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it. For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine. And it will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity: and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to case, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible. I will make a man more precious than fine gold: even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir. Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her place, in the wrath of the Lord of hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger.
The phrase “the land” means, as it does throughout all the prophets, the land of Palestine or the home of God’s earthly people. “He shall destroy the sinners out of it”: this will be one result of the tribulation the nation will go through. The apostates will be destroyed but a remnant will turn to the Lord. Notice that there are certain supernatural events which must take place at that time, affecting, as our Lord himself later indicated, the stars of heaven and the constellations. The darkening of the sun and the shrouding of the moon are here definitely predicted. Keep these things in mind as we shall come across them again. Not only will the people of Israel be punished in that day, but the judgements will fall on the world because of pride and arrogance. These verses provide a most vivid description of the end of our boasted civilization, when God is left out. They show us what this present evil world is hastening toward. They tell us what apostate Israel will have to endure and what unbelieving gentiles will be obliged to go through.
We may get a little idea of at least part of the meaning of this prophecy if we remember what happened to the great empire of Russia. How little there was of God for many years, and how corrupt and false the professing church. Evangelicals were terrible persecuted. Pride and arrogance prevailed, until God overthrew the ancient regime and permitted the awful conditions that have succeeded it, as if in answer to the sin and corruption of those who professed to own his name. His people have suffered dreadfully in that tribulation. But the wrath of God has not been poured out, nor have the saints known divine indignation.
Turn now to Isa 17:4-11:
And in that day it shall come to pass, that the glory of Jacob shall be made thin, and the fatness of his flesh shall wax lean….that day shall a man look to his Maker, and his eyes shall have respect to the Holy One of Israel. And he shall not look to the altars, the work of his hands, neither shall respect that which his fingers have made, either the groves, or the images. In that day shall his strong cities be as a forsaken bough, and an uppermost branch which they left because of the children of Israel: and there shall be desolation. Because thou hast forgotten the God of thy salvation,and hast not been mindful of the rock of thy strength, therefore shalt thou plant pleasant plants, and shalt set it with strange slips, In the day shalt thou make thy plants to grow, and in the morning shalt thou make thy seed to flourish: but the harvest shall be a heap in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow.
In verses 4-7 we see the remnant of Israel in the latter days, and in verses 8-10 we see the conditions that will prevail in the land of Palestine. Already we see everything working up towards this. Notice the striking prophecy of verse 10, where God told the people that because of their long years of rebellion against him, their land shall be denuded of tress, that just prior to the day of their great tribulation they shall plant that land with pleasant plants and shall set it with strange slips. It is a remarkable fact that in recent years many millions of plants and slips have been imported into and planted in the soil of Palestine. At the present moment the Jewish leaders are congratulating themselves that the day of their long trial is almost ended, and that their ancient patrimony will soon be again a land flowing with milk and honey.
God has said,
“In the day shalt thou make thy plant to grow, and in the morning shalt thou make thy seed to flourish: but the harvest shall be a heap in the day of grief and desperate sorrow.”
Whose grief and whose desperate sorrow will this be? The answer to this question will settle the problem that is before us. In this passage God was speaking of Israel’s apostasy and His dealings with them. When our blessed Lord was on the earth, Palestine was one of the most fruitful of lands. Josephus’s account of the conditions prevailing in Galilee before the siege of Jerusalem is almost unbelievable, so productive was that land and so thickly populated. But they did not know the time of their visitation, and when the Saviour was rejected as Messiah and His authority refused, God rejected the people and cast them out and blasted their land. Since then Palestine has been like a great desert, with here and there an oasis, unable to support a large population. The climate of that country has also been changed, chiefly because of the fact the large forests on the Lebanon mountains have been destroyed. The Turkish government has only helped the desolation. The Turk never planted a tree where he cut one down, and in the last hundred years of his rule he put a tax on trees, which was so exorbitant that the people found it cheaper to cut down their orchards and groves than to pay this tax. But ever since World War I they have been busy planting the land with pleasant plants and setting it with strange slips. If we did not have the word of prophecy we might take it for granted that the new day of Israel’s final blessing is dawning. But as we study what God has revealed, our hearts might well bleed as we realize, what these poor Jews are going back to. How little they understand that this, their hour of tribulation, is still in the future. How little they realize that they must pass through it before they recognize the Messiah their fathers rejected.
Now let us turn to the prophet Jeremiah:
And these are the words that the Lord spake concerning Israel and concerning Judah. For thus saith the Lord: We have heard a voice of trembling, of fear, and not of peace. Ask ye now, and see whether a man doth travail with child? wherefore do I see every man with his hands on his loins, as a woman in travail, and all faces are turned into paleness? Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it;it is even the time of JACOB’S TROUBLE: but he shall be saved out of it. For it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord of hosts, that I will break his yoke from off thy neck, and will burst thy bonds, and strangers shall no more serve themselves of him: But they shall serve the Lord their God, and David their king, whom I will raise up unto them (30:4-9).
Reading this chapter carefully and the one that follows will give us many more particulars in regard to the subject that is before us. What I particularly wish to stress here is the different name now given to the era of tribulation. It is called specifically “the time of Jacob’s Trouble,” and it is important that we have this clearly in mind. IT IS NOT THE TIME OF THE CHURCH’S TROUBLE. As we have seen, we are having our time of trouble now. We have been enduring tribulation ever since the beginning ofthe church’s testimony here on earth. But the passage before us refers to something very different,a time of unprecedented distress that is called “Jacob’s Trouble.” If Christian students of the scriptures would always distinguish carefully what prophecy has to say concerning the Jew, the gentile, and the church of God, it would not be difficult to clear up this entire subject. It is by confusing these three distinct classes that many unscriptural theories are foisted on the people of God.
Observe that the time of Jacob’s trouble is to be immediately followed by the repentance of the remnant and their deliverance from gentile oppression, when once more they will serve the Lord their God. The true Son of David will be recognized as their Messiah and will be seated on David’s throne: David means “beloved.” and God the Father has already designated the Lord Jesus Christ as His beloved Son in whom He is well pleased. He was refused as the Son of David when He came in grace the first time. He will be received in that very character when He returns in power and glory.
There are many passages that we might quote from the book of Ezekiel. Let us consider Eze 20:33-38:
As I live, saith the Lord God, surely with a mighty hand, and with a stretched out arm, and with fury poured out, will I rule over you: and I will bring you out from the people, and will gather you out of the countries wherein ye are scattered, with a mighty hand, and with a stretched out arm, and with fury poured out. And I will bring you into the wilderness of the people, and there will I plead with you face to face. Like as I pleaded with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so will I plead with you, saith the Lord God. And I will cause you to pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant: And I will purge out from among you the rebels, and them that transgress against me: I will bring them forth out of the country where they sojourn, and they shall not enter into the land of Israel: and ye shall know that I am the Lord.
Note carefully that here too this time of divine fury poured out on the people is to be Israel’s culminating experience immediately preceding their restoration to the Lord, when He will purge from among them the rebels and those that transgress, and will bring the redeemed remnant out of the lands of the gentiles into their own country, revealing Himself to them as the Shepherd of Israel. By no possible system of sound exegesis can these experiences be made to refer to the church of God. The Lord tells us why He will permit this time of trouble. It is to be a judgement on those in Israel who rebel against Him. It will be the time when he will separate the remnant from the rebels. He will cause that remnant to pass under the Shepherd’s rod and will acknowledge them as His own flock.
The book of Daniel is the great prophecy of the times of the gentiles and gives us Israel’s experiences under the domination of the nations. One could pause over many passages, but we draw attention particularly to Dan 12:1-4:
And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book. And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament: and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever. But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.
In Daniel 11 God gave us a remarkable picture of his dealings with the nations, from the overthrow of the Persian empire right on to the time of the end immediately preceding the Messiah’s second coming. In that day Israel will be passing through a time of trouble such as never was. But what will the result be? God said,
“Thy people, [that is, Daniel’s people, the Jews] shall be delivered,
every one that shall be found written in the book.”
or those who are regenerated. For centuries they have been sleeping in the dust of the earth. Some take this literally, but it actually refers to their present condition as scattered among the gentiles. But in this time of trouble some, referring to the remnant, shall awake to everlasting life, and some, referring to the apostate, shall awake to shame and everlasting contempt. This era of trouble is to prevail until the endtime. Evidently the Spirit of God has in view that particular period spoken of by Moses as the tribulation of the latter days.
The minor prophets abound with awesome descriptions of this same day of distress, but we must content ourselves with two more Old Testament quotations. Notice Joe 3:9-11:
Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles: Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up: Beat your plowshares to swords, and your pruninghooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong. Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen, and gather yourselves together round about: thither cause thy mighty ones to come down, O Lord.
This is the call of God to the heathen to come up into the land of Palestine for the great conflict of the latter days when Israel will be back in the land in unbelief. The fearful wars of that time will go on until the Lord Himself descends with a host, designated here as “thy mighty ones,” Who are these mighty ones? If we had nothing else to guide us, we might think of them as angels. Undoubtedly angels will be in His train, as many scriptures show. But we shall see as we go on that these mighty ones are the saints of the past and present dispensations, who shall have been caught up to be with the Lord and glorified before the great tribulation begins.
Zechariah in his last chapter described the great Armageddon gathering, and told of the last siege of Jerusalem immediately preceding the Lord’s return:
Behold, the day of the Lord cometh….Then shall the Lord go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle. And His feet shall stand that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the … north, and half of it toward the south (14:1-4).
Here we have a wonderful description of the appearing of our Lord. This proves that the great tribulation does not refer to any past experiences which the Jews have gone through, not yet to any experiences the church has suffered, but to that time of Jacob’s trouble which immediately precedes the revelation of Jesus Christ from heaven to set up his kingdom and reign over all the earth in righteousness.
From the Old Testament, we have learned that the tribulation will take place in the latter days of Israel’s history. The people who will feel it most will be the Jews, but all the apostate nations of the gentiles will also share the afflictions. It will not be a time of mere providential judgements but a time when there will be terrific and startling signs in the heavens and on earth, and men will be obliged to acknowledge that God Himself is dealing with them in His wrath and great indignation. All past tribulations have been merely natural and providential.
But this time of trouble will be characterized by supernatural events that will add to the horrors under which men will live, so that they will desire to die, and death shall flee from them. We have also seen that this tribulation goes right on to the return of the Lord Jesus Christ with His mighty ones to rule with the rod of iron. During the trial, a remnant of Israel will be separated from the apostate part of the nation and will turn in repentance to the Lord and be led to recognize Him when He comes. This remnant He will own as the true Israel and in them “all Israel shall be saved.” They will be the handful of corn on the top of the mountains, the gleanings of the olives on the topmost bought, that will eventually “blossom and bud and fill the place of the whole earth with fruit.”
Now let us turn to the New Testament and see if we can get any further light on this day of grief and desperate sorrow. Look first at Matthew 24. In this portion of the kingdom gospel, our Lord portrayed the conditions that will prevail on earth right up to his second coming. He did not, however, speak definitely of the church, which is His body, or of any testimony such as we now know. This great prophecy was given before the revelation of the mystery and it is in keeping with the older predictions. Our Lord revealed to us the conditions that will prevail in the land of Palestine where there will be a remnant who cleave to him and love His name immediately preceding His second coming. In verse 15 He indicated the beginning of a time of special trial “when ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place.” This carries us back to Daniel 12, and is clearly the starting point of the great tribulation, which He described in Mat 24:16-29:
Then let them which be in Judea flee into the mountains: Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take anything out of his house: Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes. And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day: For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened. Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there, believe it not. For there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders: insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. Behold, I have told you before. Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert: go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers: believe it not. For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west: so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For wheresoever the carcase is, there will be eagles be gathered together. Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken.
Note particularly that all of this is Jewish, and all refers to the land of Palestine, except as the gentile nations are linked with the conflict of that day. Here we have the definite name given by the Lord Himself to this period of trial, 0″the great tribulation.” That it is exactly the same period spoken of by the prophets from Moses to Malachi is clear in the verses that follow, taken from Mat 24:30-32, where we read:
And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
This makes it plain that the great tribulation has never taken place in the past, either in connection with Israel’s experiences or those of the church. It could not refer to Israel’s sufferings under Antiochus Epiphanes, for our Lord spoke of it as in the future. It cannot refer to their sufferings in the days of Titus and Vespasian, for those experiences did not culminate in the return of the Son of God. Neither can it by any possibility be fitted into the experiences of the church, either in the days of the pagan emperors or the papal persecution, for both of these are long since in the past and the Son of man has not yet returned. His coming will definitely put an end to the great tribulation. We can only conclude therefore that it is still in the future and the scriptures we have considered show that it has to do with the future of Israel, not of the church.
Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets
Jer 30:17
If there is any character more especially marked in the Scripture accounts of Christ’s advent among men, it is that of a Restorer. He comes to purify some presupposed corruption, to repair some antecedent ruin, to satisfy some preexisting wants. It is the feeling of these wants which in the minds of men perpetuates the corresponding feeling of the necessity of remedy which supports the character and claims of Christianity in the world; while, at the same time, it is the slowness of men to embrace with sincerity and practical earnestness the proffered remedy thus felt to be required, and felt to be real, which renders the faith in the crucified Saviour inoperative and unfruitful.
I. The faith in the Christian sacrifice and its attendant revelation of the Divine character alone answer the demands of the heart and reason of man for a higher state of moral perfection. Men do weary of the wickedness of the world as really, though not indeed so frequently, as of its disappointments. The pre-eminent character of our faith is to reveal before our eyes a kingdom wherein immortally dwelleth righteousness. Is not its great sacrifice the corner-stone of the equity of the whole moral universe, the sacrifice that enables God to be at once just and the Justifier of Him that believeth in Jesus?
II. Christianity offers to maintain a communication between this world and that eternal world of holiness and truth. Here is another want satisfied; the inspiration of weakness made not merely a privilege but a duty. We for ever seek a happiness beyond the reach of chance; Christian prayer beseeches. We seek repose from incessant troubles; Christian prayer is the stillest exercise of soul. We ask even by blind impulses of nature for pardon in the wretched consciousness of depravity. Christian prayer encourages our timidity into confidence.
III. Another particular in which this blessed faith commends itself to our wants, is in its confirmation and direction of that principle of hope which even in our daily and worldly life we are perpetually forced to substitute for happiness. It leaves the tendency, but it alters the object.
IV. But above all its recommendations to the wants and solicitudes of man, the Gospel commends itself by the adorable object which it presents to our affections. The devotion with which we are encouraged to regard the great God and Saviour of the New Testament, the affection with which He has contemplated us, create a new and holy and eternal bond of love, such as in its fulness indeed our fallen humanity could never have anticipated, yet such as becomes an answer to many of the profoundest wants of the soul.
W. Archer Butler, Sermons Doctrinal and Practical, 2nd series, p. 133.
Reference: Jer 30:17.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxix., No. 1753.
Jer 30:21
The word Advent means “approach.” And after all, what is everything this side of the grave but “approaches?” We approach to hope, we approach to love, we approach to serve, we approach to being-all life is an approach, and perhaps heaven itself will be a never-ending, but an ever-satisfying, approach to the Father.
I. But the first thought with which I have to deal, is the marvel that there should be the possibility of any approach at all between two things so alienated, so separate, so very wide asunder, as a pure holy God, who dwells in light, and that dark, vile thing, a human heart. To show how that possibility was brought about, and then how the capability was to 5e used and turned into fact, that is the aim and the substance of all revelation.
II. Christ’s first advent to the earth made other advents possible. (1) There is an advent, when some providence, importunate in its strength, knocks at the door of a man’s heart, and a still whisper in his soul tells a presence, and a cord of love draws his affections. (2) There is an advent when God fulfils His own promise, and comes and dwells in a man and takes up His abode in him. (3) There is an advent, when every object we look at in nature and every mercy we taste in providence everywhere, brings God nearer and nearer to a man’s mind. (4) There is an advent when Christ shall come in His glory, and bring with Him all His saints. But not one of these advents-of Him to us, or of us to Him-could have been if Christ had not come first to this earth to roll away the barrier. Flesh was the veil that shut the sanctuary, till His pierced body became the veil rent, and the Shechinah shone beyond the circumference of its limits, and it was free to every man to go in and out.
J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 7th series, p. 219.
References: Jer 30:21.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxviii., No. 1673. Jer 31:1.-J. G. Rogers, Christian World Pulpit, vol. ix., p. 211.
Fuente: The Sermon Bible
The Glorious Future of the Nation (30-31)
CHAPTER 30
1. The time of Jacobs trouble (Jer 30:1-11)
2. Zions desperate condition and the promise of deliverance (Jer 30:12-17)
3. Restoration and glory (Jer 30:18-24)
Jer 30:1-11. The critics have made havoc with this great prophecy. De Wette, Hitzig, and other rationalists, claim to have discovered that this chapter, and those which follow, are the work of the spurious second Isaiah. The critics, with their present day echoes in different colleges, reject these chapters as not being Jeremianic. They are totally wrong. This great prophecy, which begins with the thirtieth chapter, is quite in order after all these judgment messages, announcing the doom of Jerusalem and of the nation. What then about the future, that future which all their fathers had cherished, the promises which rested upon the covenant Jehovah made with David? Was now everything to be blotted out and no national hope left? The last siege of Jerusalem was in progress; soon all the threatened judgments would pass fully into history. How perfectly in order is it that now should be given a message of the glorious future of the nation.
Jeremiah is commanded to write in a book all the words Jehovah had spoken; quite sufficient evidence that Jeremiah is the author and that this book is not a patchwork of different supplementers, redactors and compilers.
The first promise in verse three (Jer 30:3) is concerning the coming days in which the people Israel and Judah will return to their God-given land to possess it. Has this promise been fulfilled? Expositors generally say that it was fulfilled in the return from the captivity. But this is not so. Here is a promised return not only of the house of Judah, but a return of the ten tribes also. This has never taken place. In spite of the British-Israel hallucination, every sane Bible reader realizes that the house of Israel is still scattered among the nations. This restoration promise will be accomplished in the future. Then we hear what will precede that restoration. It will be a time of great trouble, even the time of Jacobs trouble Mat 24:1-51; Mar 13:1-37, the great tribulation revealed in other portions of the prophetic Word, notably in Daniel and Revelation. When that time comes Jacob will be saved out of it. The yoke of the last Gentile world-power (the revived Roman Empire, the ten-horned Beast of Dan 7:1-28 and Rev 13:1-18 will then be broken (Jer 30:8) and they will serve the true David, Davids Lord and Davids Son, our Lord (Jer 30:9). Then follows the message of comfort. How well history has confirmed this one sentence of Jer 30:11 : Though I make a full end of all nations whither I have scattered thee, yet will I not make a full end of thee.
Jer 30:12-17. Here is a reminder of Zions desperate condition and shameful history and how He had to chastise His people and wound them with the wound of an enemy. Such is still their lot and will be down to the end of this age, a people scattered and afflicted, devoured and spoiled by the nations. But when the time comes, the time of mercy for Zion, her enemies will be dealt with. In arrogant unbelief, these nations, so called Christian nations, said Zion is an Outcast–whom no man seeketh after (Jer 30:17); but the Lord says, I will restore health unto thee, and I will heal thee of thy wounds.
Jer 30:18-24. The city then will be built again. The voices of praise and joy will be heard once more. He will glorify and increase them. He will be their God and they shall be His people. The whirlwind will strike the head of the wicked, the wicked false king, the false Messiah, Antichrist. The next chapter is the continuation of this great prophecy.
Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)
The word
The writings of Jeremiah in chapters 30 to 36, cannot with certainty be arranged in consecutive order. Certain dates are mentioned (e.g. Jer 32:1; Jer 33:1; Jer 34:1; Jer 34:8; Jer 35:1 but retrospectively. The narrative, so far as Jeremiah gives a narrative, is resumed at Jer 37:1. These chapters constitute a kind of summary of prophecy concerning Israel as a nation, looking on especially to the last days, the day of the Lord, and the kingdom-age to follow. If the marginal references are carefully followed the order will become clear. But these prophecies are interspersed with much historical matter concerning Jeremiah and his time.
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
Cir, am 3417, bc 587, Jer 1:1, Jer 1:2, Jer 26:15
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Jer 30:1. This verse pertains to a direct word from the Lord to Jeremiah concerning instructions about to be given him.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Jer 30:1. The word that came to Jeremiah, &c. There is no particular date annexed to this prophecy, whereby to ascertain the precise time of its delivery, but it may not unreasonably be presumed to have followed immediately after the preceding one, in which the restoration of the people from their Babylonish captivity is in direct terms foretold. From hence the transition was natural and easy to the more glorious and general restoration that was to take place in a more distant period, and was designed for the ultimate object of the national hopes and expectations. Both events are frequently thus connected together in the prophetic writings, and perhaps with this design, that when that which was nearest at hand should be accomplished, it might afford the strongest and most satisfactory evidence that the latter, how remote soever its period, would in like manner, be brought about by the interposition of Providence, in its due season. Blaney.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Jer 30:6. Ask ye nowwhether a man doth travail with child. The anguish of a people once lords in Judea, now servants in Babylon, was great. But they were happier weeping there than worshipping Ashtaroth in Jerusalem. The captives hope, while those they had left had nothing but grief and fear.
Jer 30:8. It shall come to pass in that daythat I will break his yoke from off thy neck. They shall not return to the Messiah in a state of servitude. Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely. He shall preach deliverance to the captives. Isa 61:1. His throne shall be glorious in Jerusalem, the mother of us all; and the mountain of his house shall be high above all mountains.
Jer 30:9. They shall serve the Lord their God, and David their king. The Chaldaic reads, Christ the Son of David. The elder rabbins were all christians, ignorant of the malice of the Mazorites. See on Hosea 3. Eze 34:23, repeats this sweet promise, that they should at last come under the easy yoke of Christ, the good shepherd, who laid down his life for the sheep. Grotius, the notorious Arian, understands here Zerubbabel, who was a servant only, and not a king, and who never at any time liberated the Hebrews! The sole aim of the unitarians is to degrade the Messiah, and make void the scriptures. See below, on Jer 30:21.
Jer 30:12. Thy bruise is incurable. Though thou shalt be restored, yet not so as to have a king of Davids line on the throne: thy hope is in Christ alone.
Jer 30:18. I will bring again the captivity of Jacobs tents, and have mercy on his dwellingplaces. Jerusalem and her temple shall be rebuilt, to prepare the way for the true and living temple. Here is double comfort, felicity in Jerusalem, and the plenitude of hope in Messiah their king. The glory of Zion was to be lost in the glory of the church.
Jer 30:21. Their governor shall proceed from the midst of them. In these sceptical times, when we are told with a bold front, that the Hebrew copy is altogether corrupt, and that every tenth word is mis-written, or some letter lost, and that no text in the old testament has any regard to the Deity of Christ, we are obliged to take down our musty folios, and go to the fountain head. Adiroo, his Duke, or his Mighty, as it is rendered in Isa 10:34. Others read, his Excellent One. This title designates Christ, it being the way of the Holy Spirit to make temporal mercies an introduction to those which are spiritual. Then the great Adiroo of the text, is the identical David, named above, who shall himself feed his sheep in the latter day.
The elder rabbins have thus invariably understood this promise. From Adiroo they deduce the Messiahs name. Vide Talmud in Chelek. The Chaldaic reads, And the King shall feed them himself, and their Messiah shall be revealed in the midst of them. The sense is plain, that Christ should be born of the stock of Israel, and be a branch of Davids house.
I will cause him to draw near, and he shall approach unto me. The style here is sacerdotal, equivalent to the declaration in the hundred and tenth Psalm: Thou art a priest for ever, after the order of Melchizedek. Moses also said, Let the priests who come near to the Lord, sanctify themselves. Exo 19:22. And of Aaron he says, The Lord will cause him to come near unto him. Num 16:5. The socinians who contend here for Zerubbabel, who was no priest, cut a figure in open court like a batch of perjured witnesses. All Gods three classes of witnesses, the Jews, the Greeks, and the Latin fathers, put them out of countenance.
Jer 30:24. In the latter days. In the prophetic writings, this phrase, almost without exception, signifies the time of the Messiah.
REFLECTIONS.
Jeremiahs letter to the Jews in Babylon is full of consolation, and equally demonstrates the care of providence, and the truth of prophecy. The parchment, the handwriting, the ink, the peculiarity of certain phrases to certain times, with the change which age will induce on a manuscript, render forgeries sure of detection. And who could imitate the hand and style of Jeremiah? The evidence, of prophecy was designed of God to confound infidelity, and to comfort the church.
The sword of the Chaldees fell with a heavy hand on Judah; they had no pity on the young man, on the maiden, on the sucking child, or on him that stooped for age; and the Lord was deaf to all their cries, because the temple was profaned with idols, the priests committed adultery with the women, and hypocrisy was the character of their fasts. Sins like these must be purged with a besom of destruction. But now, when he saw the people scattered in the cities of the Babylonian empire, calling the things that are not as though they were, when he saw the men crying as a woman in travail, all his bowels were moved, and mercy declared her purposes of grace.
When the Lord mixes a cup of comfort for his afflicted people, it is so precious as to cheer the most disspirited, and even to revive the dead. I will bring again the captivity of my people. I will give them the immortal David for their king. Therefore fear not, oh my servant Jacob. Now, in this promise, Israel had not only a hope in Cyrus and Zerubbabel, who were figures of Christ; but we have hope of deliverance from sin, from Satan, from death, and from all the usurpation of antichrist in the church. Thus the streams of comfort throughout all ages flowed from Christ the rock, and in torrents of life and salvation.
The Lord comforted the Jews by the promise of national existence. Here providence is an ample comment on prophecy. When Babylon was taken, the city and empire ceased to exist. The Romans also had their glory and their fall. God made a full end of the oppressors, but not of Israel. Thus he can heal the wound deemed incurable, and thus the spoilers were spoiled. He has preserved a remnant for the purposes of his glory in the latter day.
Consequently in the dark and cloudy day of national visitation we must hold our peace, and wait the end. Why criest thou in thine affliction? Have patience till the wheels of providence have fully completed their course. It has always been well with the righteous in the issue. I will bring again thy tents, oh Jacob. I will multiply thy children, and give them glory surpassing all that their fathers ever knew. Yea, and the dregs of my vengeance, the whirlwind of my fierce anger, shall fall on the antichristian foe. Ezekiel 38, 39. Revelation 19.
Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Jeremiah 30-31. The Future of Israel and Judah.These two chapters of prophecy, dealing with the future restoration of Israel and Judah, appear to be a later editorial insertion in the narrative scheme of Jeremiah 26-45, placed here perhaps because Jeremiah 32 and Jeremiah 33 contain narratives and prophecies dealing with the same subject (cf. also Jer 29:10 ff.). In Jeremiah 30 and Jeremiah 31, there are numerous points of contact with Deutero-Isaiah, a fact which, with other features, has suggested to many scholars an exilic or post-exilic date for much that these chapters contain. The contrast with the general pessimism of earlier chapters is very noticeable. On the other hand, the internal evidence for Jer 31:2-6, Jer 31:15-22, Jer 31:31-34 entitles us to regard these sections as Jeremianic.
Jer 30:1-4. The prophet is commanded to write down his prophecies (i.e. those of Jeremiah 30, 31, in view of Jer 30:4), because of their approaching fulfilment. Note the difference of this (editorial) introduction from the account of the circumstances leading to the writing of the roll in 604 (Jer 36:2 ff.).
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
The superscription 30:1-3
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
The Lord instructed Jeremiah to write all the messages that He had given the prophet in a book.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
CHAPTER XXXI
RESTORATION II
THE NEW ISRAEL
Jer 23:3-8; Jer 24:6-7; Jer 30:1-24; Jer 31:1-40; Jer 33:1-26
“In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell safely: and this is the name whereby she shall be called.”- Jer 33:16
THE Divine utterances in chapter 33, were given to Jeremiah when he was shut up in the “court of the guard” during the last days of the siege. They may, however, have been committed to writing at a later date, possibly in connection with Chapters 30 and 31, when the destruction of Jerusalem was already past. It is in accordance with all analogy that the final record of a “word of Jehovah” should include any further light which had come to the prophet through his inspired meditations on the original message. Chapters 30, 31, and 33 mostly expound and enforce leading ideas contained in Jer 32:37-44 and in earlier utterances of Jeremiah. They have much in common with 2 Isaiah. The ruin of Judah and the captivity of the people were accomplished facts to both writers, and they were both looking forward to the return of the exiles and the restoration of the kingdom of Jehovah. We shall have occasion to notice individual points of resemblance later on.
In Jer 30:2 Jeremiah is commanded to write in a book all that Jehovah has spoken to him; and according to the present context the “all,” in this case, refers merely to the following four chapters. These prophecies of restoration would be specially precious to the exiles; and now that the Jews were scattered through many distant lands, they could only be transmitted and preserved in writing. After the command “to write in a book” there follows, by way of title, a repetition of the statement that Jehovah would bring back His people to their fatherland. Here, in the very forefront of the Book of Promise, Israel and Judah are named as being recalled together from exile. As we read twice {Jer 16:14-15; Jer 23:7-8} elsewhere in Jeremiah, the promised deliverance from Assyria and Babylon was to surpass all other manifestations of the Divine power and mercy. The Exodus would not be named in the same breath with it: “Behold, the days come, saith Jehovah, that it shall no more be said, As Jehovah liveth, that brought up the Israelites out of the land of Egypt: but, As Jehovah liveth, that brought up the Israelites from the land of the north, and from all the countries whither He had driven them.” This prediction has waited for fulfilment to our own times: hitherto the Exodus has occupied mens minds much more than the Return; we are now coming to estimate the supreme religious importance of the latter event.
Elsewhere again Jeremiah connects his promise with the clause in his original commission “to build and to plant”: {Jer 1:10} “I will set My eyes upon them” (the captives) “for good, and I will bring them again to this land; and I will build them, and not pull them down; and I will plant them, and not pluck them up.” {Jer 24:7} As in Jer 32:28-35, the picture of restoration is rendered more vivid by contrast with Judahs present state of wretchedness; the marvellousness of Jehovahs mercy is made apparent by reminding Israel of the multitude of its iniquities. The agony of Jacob is like that of a woman in travail. But travail shall be followed by deliverance and triumph. In the second Psalm the subject nations took counsel against Jehovah and against His Anointed:-
“Let us break their bands asunder,
And cast away their cords from us”;
but now this is the counsel of Jehovah concerning His people and their Babylonian conqueror:-
“I will break his yoke from off thy neck,
And break thy bands asunder.”
Judahs lovers, her foreign allies, Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, and all the other states with whom she had intrigued, had betrayed her; they had cruelly chastised her, so that her wounds were grievous and her bruises incurable. She was left without a champion to plead her cause, without a friend to bind up her wounds, without balm to allay the pain of her bruises. “Because thy sins were increased, I have done these things unto thee, saith Jehovah.” Jerusalem was an outcast, of whom men said contemptuously: “This is Zion, whom no man seeketh after.” But mans extremity is Gods opportunity; because Judah was helpless and despised, therefore Jehovah said, “I will restore health unto thee, and I will heal thee of thy wounds.”
While Jeremiah was still watching from his prison the progress of the siege, he had seen the houses and palaces beyond the walls destroyed by the Chaldeans to be used for their mounds; and had known that every sally of the besieged was but another opportunity for the enemy to satiate themselves with slaughter, as they executed Jehovahs judgments upon the guilty city. Even at this extremity He announced solemnly and emphatically the restoration and pardon of His people.
“Thus saith Jehovah, who established the earth, when He made and fashioned it-Jehovah is His name:
Call upon Me, and I will answer thee, and will show thee great mysteries, which thou knowest not.”
“I will bring to this city healing and cure, and will cause them to know all the fulness of steadfast peace . . .
I will cleanse them from all their iniquities, and will pardon all their iniquities, whereby they have sinned and transgressed against Me.”
The healing of Zion naturally involved the punishment of her cruel and treacherous lovers. The Return, like other revolutions, was not wrought by rose water; the yokes were broken and the bands rent asunder by main force. Jehovah would make a full end of all the nations whither He had scattered them. Their devourers should be devoured, all their adversaries should go into captivity, those who had spoiled and preyed upon them should become a spoil and a prey. Jeremiah had been commissioned from the beginning to pull down foreign nations and kingdoms as well as his native Judah. {Jer 1:10} Judah was only one of Israels evil neighbours who were to be plucked up out of their land. And at the Return, as at the Exodus, the waves at one and the same time opened a path of safety for Israel and overwhelmed her oppressors.
Israel, pardoned and restored, would again be governed by legitimate kings of the House of David. In the dying days of the monarchy Israel and Judah had received their rulers from the hands of foreigners. Menahem and Hoshea bought the confirmation of their usurped authority from Assyria. Jehoiakim was appointed by Pharaoh Necho, and Zedekiah by Nebuchadnezzar. We cannot doubt that the kings of Egypt and Babylon were also careful to surround their nominees with ministers who were devoted to the interests of their suzerains. But now “their nobles were to be of themselves, and their ruler was to proceed out of their midst,” {Jer 30:21} i.e., nobles and rulers were to hold their offices according to national custom and tradition.
Jeremiah was fond of speaking of the leaders of Judah as shepherds. We have had occasion already (Cf. chapter 8) to consider his controversy with the “shepherds” of his own time. In his picture of the New Israel he uses the same figure. In denouncing the evil shepherds he predicts that, when the remnant of Jehovahs flock is brought again to their folds, He will set up shepherds over them which shall feed them, {Jer 23:3-4} shepherds. according to Jehovahs own heart, who should feed them with knowledge and understanding. {Jer 3:15}
Over them Jehovah would establish as Chief Shepherd a Prince of the House of David. Isaiah had already included in his picture of Messianic times the fertility of Palestine; its vegetation, by the blessing of Jehovah, should be beautiful and glorious: he had also described the Messianic King as a fruitful Branch out of the root of Jesse. Jeremiah takes the idea of the latter passage, but uses the language of the former. For him the King of the New Israel is, as it were, a Growth (cemah) out of the sacred soil, or perhaps more definitely from the roots of the House of David, that ancient tree whose trunk had been hewn down and burnt. Both the Growth (cemah) and the Branch (necer) had the same vital connection with the soil of Palestine and the root of David. Our English versions exercised a wise discretion when they sacrificed literal accuracy and indicated the identity of idea by translating both “cemah” and “necer” by “Branch.”
“Behold, the days come, saith Jehovah, that I will raise up unto David a righteous Branch; and He shall be a wise and prudent King, and He shall execute justice and maintain the right. In His days Judah shall be saved and Israel shall dwell securely, and his name shall be Jehovah Cidqenu, Jehovah is our righteousness.” Jehovah Cidqenu might very well be the personal name of a Jewish king, though the form would be unusual; but what is chiefly intended is that His character shall be such as the “name” describes. The “name” is a brief and pointed censure upon a king whose character was the opposite of that described in these verses, yet who bore a name of almost identical meaning-Zedekiah, Jehovah is my righteousness. The name of the last reigning Prince of the House of David had been a standing condemnation of his unworthy life, but the King of the New Israel, Jehovahs true Messiah, would realise in His administration all that such a name promised. Sovereigns delight to accumulate sonorous epithets in their official designations-Highness, High and Mighty, Majesty, Serene, Gracious. The glaring contrast between character and titles often only serves to advertise the worthlessness of those who are labelled with such epithets: the Majesty of James I, the Graciousness of Richard III. Yet these titles point to a standard of true royalty, whether the sovereign be an individual or a class or the people; they describe that Divine Sovereignty which will be realised in the Kingdom of God.
The material prosperity of the restored community is set forth with wealth of glowing imagery. Cities and palaces are to be rebuilt on their former sites with more than their ancient splendour. “Out of them shall proceed thanksgiving, and the voice of them that make merry: and I will multiply them, and they shall not be few; I will also glorify them, and they shall not be small. And the children of Jacob shall be as of old, and their assembly shall be established before Me.” {Jer 30:18-20} The figure often used of the utter desolation of the deserted country is now used to illustrate its complete restoration: “Yet again shall there be heard in this place the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride.” Throughout all the land “which is waste, without man and without beast, and in all the cities thereof,” shepherds shall dwell and pasture and fold their flocks; and in the cities of all the districts of the Southern Kingdom enumerated as exhaustively as in Jer 32:44 shall the flocks again pass under the shepherds hands to be told. {Jer 33:10-13}
Jehovahs own peculiar flock, His Chosen People, shall be fruitful and multiply according to the primeval blessing; under their new shepherds they shall no more fear nor be dismayed, neither shall any be lacking. {Jer 23:3-4} Jeremiah recurs again and again to the quiet, the restfulness, the freedom from fear and dismay of the restored Israel. In this, as in all else, the New Dispensation was to be an entire contrast to those long weary years of alternate suspense and panic, when mens hearts were shaken by the sound of the trumpet and the alarm of war. {Jer 4:19} Israel is to dwell securely at rest from fear of harm. {Jer 23:6} When Jacob returns he “shall be quiet and at ease, and none shall make him afraid.” {Jer 30:10} Egyptian, Assyrian, and Chaldean shall all cease from troubling; the memory of past misery shall become dim and shadowy.
The finest expansion of this idea is a passage which always fills the soul with a sense of utter rest.
“He shall dwell on high: his refuge shall be the inaccessible rocks: his bread shall be given him; his waters shall be sure. Thine eyes shall see the king in his beauty: they shall behold a far-stretching land. Thine heart shall muse on the terror: where is he that counted, where is he that weighed the tribute? where is he that counted the towers? Thou shalt not see the fierce people, a people of a deep speech that thou canst not perceive; of a strange tongue that thou canst not understand. Look upon Zion, the city of our solemnities: thine eyes shall see Jerusalem a quiet habitation, a tent that shall not be removed, the stakes whereof shall never be plucked up, neither shall any of the cords thereof be broken. There Jehovah will be with us in majesty, a place of broad rivers and streams; wherein shall go no galley with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass thereby.” (Isa 33:16-21; Isa 32:15-18.)
For Jeremiah too the presence of Jehovah in majesty was the only possible guarantee of the peace and prosperity of Israel. The voices of joy and gladness in the New Jerusalem were not only those of bride and bridegroom, but also of those that said, “Give thanks to Jehovah Sabaoth, for Jehovah is good, for His mercy endureth forever,” and of those that “came to offer sacrifices of thanksgiving in the house of Jehovah.” {Jer 33:11} This new David, as the Messianic King is called, {Jer 30:9} is to have the priestly right of immediate access to God: “I will cause Him to draw near, and He shall approach unto Me: for else who would risk his life by daring to approach Me?” {Jer 30:21, as Kautzsch.} Israel is liberated from foreign conquerors to serve Jehovah their God and David their King; and the Lord Himself rejoices in His restored and ransomed people.
The city that was once a desolation, an astonishment, a hissing, and a curse among all nations shall now be to Jehovah “a name of joy, a praise and a glory, before all the nations of the earth, which shall hear all the good that I do unto them, and shall tremble with fear for all the good and all the peace that I procure unto it.” {Jer 33:9}