Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Jeremiah 30:24
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.
Verse 24. In the latter days ye shall consider it.] By the latter days the Gospel dispensation is generally meant; and that restoration which is the principal topic in this and the succeeding chapter refers to this time. Had the Jews properly considered this subject, they would long ere this have been brought into the liberty of the Gospel, and saved from the maledictions under which they now groan. Why do not the Jews read their own prophets more conscientiously?
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
He expoundeth in these words the continuing whirlwind, spoken of Jer 30:23, and withal lets them know that what the false prophets said of a speedy return out of Babylon of those already there, or of the not going of those which as yet were in Judea, was all but falsehood; for the Lord was angry, and was resolved to fulfil the purpose of his heart in punishing them. And though at present they would not consider nor believe it, yet afterward, when they should see things come to pass according as he had said, then they should consider what he had told them.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
The fierce anger of the Lord shall not return,…. This explains what is meant by the continuing whirlwind in Jer 30:23;
until he hath done [it]; his whole will and pleasure; brought Babylon to ruin, and destroyed all the antichristian powers:
and until he hath performed the intents of his heart; in a way of grace and mercy to his people, and in a way of wrath and vengeance on their enemies:
in the latter day ye shall consider it; this prophecy, and understand it; and see it wholly and fully accomplished.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
He confirms the last sentence, and compares the wrath or the vengeance of God to a messenger or a minister, who is sent to carry a message, or to perform what has been commanded him. Of God’s word, that is, of his threatenings as well as of his promises, Isaiah speaks thus,
“
My word shall not return to me void.” (Isa 55:11)
The meaning is, that whatever God promises or threatens, is never without its effect. But they wrongly understand the passage who say that the word of God returns not void, because it brings forth fruit; for he speaks of the effect of the word, whether for salvation or for perdition. So now also God declares that his vengeance, when gone forth, shall not return until it fulfils what has been commanded.
He then adds, and until he shall have confirmed, etc.; for so the verb הקימו ekimu, properly means: until God then shall have confirmed or established the thoughts of his heart The thoughts of his heart he calls the decrees or purposes of God; but it is a mode of speaking taken from men, and therefore metaphorical; for it is not consistent with what God is, either to think or to deliberate. But, as to the subject itself, there is nothing ambiguous; for the Prophet means, that when God sends forth his vengeance, all the wicked must perish, for so has God decreed, and his purposes can never be frustrated. Then he shews that God’s vengeance will be accomplished, because God has so determined. For God does not dissemble when he promises salvation to men, or denounces on them the punishment which they have deserved; but he executes the decrees or purposes of his heart. (20)
Then the Prophet here condemns the stupidity of all those who thought that they could escape, though they had often heard that their guilt was so great that they must at last be visited with judgment. Though they had often heard this, yet they were deaf to all warnings; and it was for this reason that the Prophet spoke of the thoughts of God’s heart.
At last he adds, At the extremity of days ye shall understand this This may be applied to the faithful no less than to the wicked. For though the faithful embraced God’s promises, and relied on them, yet, as they had to contend constantly with the heaviest trials, it was necessary to stimulate and animate them to patience. It might then be suitably said to them, “Ye shall understand this in the last days;” it being a kind of exhortation, as though he had said, “Ye indeed think the wicked happy, because God does not immediately punish them, because his vengeance does not instantly break forth in thunders against them; but patiently bear your miseries, and ye shall at length find that their destruction has not been in vain predicted; and ye shall also receive a reward for your faith and patience, if ye continue resigned to the last.” But the sentence may also be suitably applied to the wicked, because they were wont to form their judgment according to the present aspect of things. Hence the Prophet exposes the false opinion by which they deceived themselves, and says, that too late they would understand what they were then unwilling to perceive.
If then we explain this sentence of the children of God, it is an exhortation to bear patiently their evils until God appeared as their defender: but if we apply it to the unbelieving, it is a derision of their insensibility, because they regarded as fables all threatenings; but the Prophet exclaims, “Ye shall at last become wise, but it will be too late.” Even experience becomes a teacher when there is no more opportunity to repent.
(20) The verse is literally as follows, —
Turn not away shall the burning of Jehovah’s wrath, Until his execution and until his completion Of the purposes of his heart: In the latter days ye shall understand it.
A verb in the infinitive mood in Hebrew is used often as a noun, “his execution.” A similar form exists in Welsh, (lang. cy) nes gwneuthur ohono “Until he hath confirmed,” or “performed,” according to our version, is better rendered in the Vulg., “until he hath completed.” Here is the execution and the completion. — Ed.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
Jer 30:24. In the latter days ye shall consider it Ye shall consider and understood it. This and the preceding verse are found in chap. Jer 23:19-20. The latter days may signify the time to come; but they commonly imply the times under the gospel, as being the last dispensation, and what should continue to the end of the world. In this sense the words import, “When all these evils are come upon you, which God hath threatened for your disobedience, and particularly for your heinous crime in rejecting the Messiah, and you have found the denunciations verified in the several captivities that you have undergone, then you will understand the import of this and several other prophesies, and the event will perfectly instruct you in their meaning.” See Lowth and Houbigant.
REFLECTIONS.1st, To perpetuate the memory of the great and gracious promises, God commands the prophet to write in a book all the words that he had spoken to him; either all the preceding prophesies, or those which he had now spoken to him, relative to the enlargement of the Jews from their captivity, and the coming of the Messiah; and this to support the faith and hope of the people of God, both of Israel and Judah.
1. They are represented as under the greatest terror and distress. It was a strange sight, but descriptive of the acuteness of their pains, to behold the men of war, like women in travail, with their hands on their loins, trembling, pallid, and crying out in their pangs, Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it, so terrible and afflictive; and this may refer to the destruction of the Jews by the Chaldeans, or to their more terrible desolations by the Romans: and some suppose, that it has a farther respect even to the reign of Antichrist, when the witnesses should be slain, and the church of Christ reduced to great distress.
2. The prophet must write a word of comfort for that gloomy and dark day. Though it is the time of Jacob’s trouble, he shall be saved out of it; God will stand by his suffering people, and rescue them from the hands of their enemies. He will break their yoke, deliver them from the Babylonish chains, or rather from their present state of bondage, when strangers in all nations whither they are dispersed shall no more serve themselves of them, oppress and harass them no more; or, best of all, from the bondage of sin and Satan, their unbelief and impenitence, when they shall be turned unto the Lord, and serve the Lord their God, and David their king; which has certainly a farther view than to the restoration of the temple-service, and to the governors who presided over them after the captivity in Babyloneven to the adored Messiah, David’s son, raised up to sit on his throne; and David’s Lord, whose divine character they should acknowledge, submit to his government, and join with his church in his worship; whom I will raise up unto them; God, according to his promises, having constituted him to be a prince and saviour, to whom every knee must bow, and whom every tongue must confess. Note; They who take Christ for their king are bound to prove their professions by their fidelity. Loyalty consists not in words but deeds.
2nd, When God visits his people, he still in wrath remembers mercy.
1. Their state appears very deplorable; yea, to human view, utterly desperate; their bruise incurable, their wound grievous, so that all restoration was despaired of; God himself seemed to be their enemy, their cruel enemy. So severe, so long continued were the strokes of his judgments upon them; they had not a friend in their troubles to plead for them, either with God or man; or so much as a kind hand stretched out to bind up their gaping wounds, or administer the healing medicine of consolation or advice. Their lovers, the neighbouring nations who courted them in their prosperity, deserted them in the day of their distress, and looked upon their case as desperate, regarding Zion as an outcast, whom no man seeketh after, abandoned to destruction; all which extorted from them bitter complaints; not that they had any cause to charge God as severe; for, because of the multitude of their iniquities and their aggravated sins, had these visitations been sent upon them, and their sufferings were less than they deserved; for, heavy as the visitation seemed to them, God corrected them in measure, and for their good, that he might not leave them altogether unpunished; as a father chastising them, that they might be reformed, and not ruined. Note; (1.) In our sufferings we are too apt to call the rod of a father the chastisement of a cruel one. (2.) Sin has a mortal sting; and none but God can heal the guilty soul. (3.) Whatever burden God lays upon us, we are bound to acknowledge it less than our iniquity has deserved. (4.) When the sinner is reduced to the depths of self-despair, then is the time when God magnifies the riches of his grace in his salvation.
2. The Lord declares his purpose of mercy towards them. Desperate as their case seemed, both from their sins and sufferings, God bids them not fear, nor be dismayed; he owns them still as his servants, and engages to save them, if they will return to him. Though far dispersed in distant lands, he will bring them back, and give them, for all the wars and tumults with which they had been harassed, peace and quiet in their own land; which seems more applicable to their last recovery, when they shall be gathered into the gospel church, than to their return from Babylon, when their settlement met with many obstructions. As for their enemies, God threatens to destroy them utterly; but adds, Though I will make a full end of all nations whither I have scattered thee, yet will I not make a full end of thee: the mightiest monarchies have been long since utterly subverted, and all other nations, among whom they had been captives, devoured, destroyed, and incorporated with their conquerors; but to this hour we see the people of the Jews as much a distinct and separate people, as if they had been still shut up from all other nations in their own land, preserved for the promised mercy: and, notwithstanding all their sins and dire calamities, God promises, in a national view, to pardon the one and heal the other; to restore their health, and heal their wounds; bringing them into a state of temporal prosperity, and saving those who will accept of the offers of his gospel from the power of corruption; converting their souls, and causing them to partake of all the blessings of his spiritual kingdom in Christ Jesus. Note; (1.) No sinner’s case is so far gone, as to be past the divine physician’s ability to cure. (2.) They who believe God’s promises, will be delivered from distressing fears. (3.) The present state of the Jewish people is a great and constant evidence of the inspiration of the prophetic word.
3rdly, The same subject is pursued, and the promises delivered have a twofold respect:
1. To the return of the Jews from Babylon. Then their city should be rebuilt on the same spot, the temple raised from its ashes, the sacred festivals be restored, their numbers be multiplied, their nation be respected, their children be playing in the streets in peace, their congregation at the temple undisturbed, their oppressors punished; their rulers, of themselves, not strangers; their governor one of their own nation, appointed of God, accepted of him, a pattern of devotion and piety to his subjects. The covenant of national peculiarity shall be re-established, God again the God of Judah, and they his peculiar people as a nation; whilst all the wicked, who had persecuted them, shall be swept away as with a whirlwind, through the fierce anger of the Lord, which shall not return until he have done it, fully established his people in their own land, and destroyed their foes.
2. To their return to the church of God from their present dispersion; and this seems chiefly intended.
[1.] They shall be recovered from their captivity. Some suppose, literally, that they shall be collected in Judaea (which is my own opinion), and that the city of Jerusalem shall be rebuilt in all its former magnificence; however, they shall come into the church of Christ, the city of the living God, the spiritual Jerusalem, and the voice of thanksgiving for gospel-grace shall sound louder than the songs which accompanied the sacred festivals.
[2.] Their numbers will be great in the day of their conversion, and a most glorious appearance will they make, when they shall be rapidly brought to the faith of the Gospel, and a nation be born in a day. At that day the children of the church shall be multiplied in a more astonishing manner than at the first preaching of the Gospel, and no more persecuting powers remain to disturb the congregation of the saints.
[3.] They will then be brought to know and acknowledge the true Messiah. His noble one, his glorious, or mighty one, as the word may be rendered, shall be of themselves; and their governor, the Prince of Peace, able to save and to destroy, shall proceed from the midst of them, rise up from the stock of Israel; I will cause him to draw near, and he shall approach unto me as Mediator between God and man, appointed to be the friend and advocate of his faithful people, and ever living in heaven to make intercession for them, in consequence of his having engaged his heart to God, to draw near to him by an obedience to death, even the death of the cross. And this may well deserve a note of admiration, Who is this! This is Jesus, by whom lost souls are restored to the favour of the justly-offended Jehovah, and he becomes their God, and they his people, which will be the case with the Jews at the latter day.
[4.] All the wicked will be cut off; they who will not submit to the Messiah’s government, must perish under his wrath terrible and irresistible, which sinners will be made to feel, if not before, at least at the great day of his appearing and glory; and then it will be too late to consider, when wrath comes upon them to the uttermost: or, in the latter days ye shall. consider it, shall see this prophesy accomplished, all the purposes of God’s love to his faithful people, and of wrath to his enemies, fully performed.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
REFLECTIONS
READER! amidst very many beauties in this Chapter, let you and I fix our meditation, and pray that God the Holy Ghost will make it profitable to us both, in beholding Him, concerning whom God the Father here speaks of being the Governor from among his people. And while we regard the gracious promise, and behold the Lord Jesus at the call of his Father, coming forth as the Great Head and Surety of his people; let us behold him in every possible point of view, and see how suited he is in that high character, and how suited to us for all the purposes of salvation.
Doth our God and Father demand who this is that engaged his heart to approach unto the Lord for his people? And may we not humbly, yet joyfully answer, it is the Lord our Righteousness. One, and the only one, able to make up the dreadful breach which sin had made, between God and us, and restore perfect order among all the works of God. One who is, and was, and ever will be, mighty to save: one with the Father, over all God blessed forever: and one with us bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh. One who is called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of peace!
Oh precious Lord Jesus! help us to be engaged to thee, as thou hast engaged thyself to God and thy Father for us! Say dearest Lord! how should any of Adam’s fallen, ruined, helpless race have ever stood before God, hadst not thou stood up at the call of God for us, and answered in our law room and place, both by doing and by dying. Oh! for grace from henceforth to give up all engagements, to sacrifice all human covenants, all hopes of creature strength, and creature attainments, to be found wholly engaged to Christ, and to follow him in the regeneration. Do thou Lord, who hast undertaken and accomplished salvation for us, accomplish salvation in us, and be in us the hope of glory. Let every faculty, every wish, every thought; be brought into subjection unto thee; that henceforth, we may no longer live to ourselves, but to him that died for us, and rose again. Make us thine, and be thou ours, that being bought with a price, we may glorify thee, both in our bodies and in our spirit, which are thine forever. Amen.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Jer 30:24 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. 24. The fierce anger of the Lord. ] See Jer 23:20 .
In the latter days ye shall consider it.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
the latter days = the end of the days. Reference to Pentateuch (Gen 49:1). Compare Jer 23:20. App-92. consider = understand. Compare Jer 23:20.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
fierce: Jer 4:28, 1Sa 3:12, Job 23:13, Job 23:14, Isa 14:24, Isa 14:26, Isa 14:27, Isa 46:11, Eze 20:47, Eze 20:48, Eze 21:5-7
in: Jer 23:20, Jer 48:47, Jer 49:39, Gen 49:1, Num 24:14, Deu 4:30, Deu 31:29, Eze 38:16, Dan 2:28, Dan 10:14, Hos 3:5, Mic 4:1
Reciprocal: Isa 2:2 – in the last Isa 28:17 – and the hail Jer 4:11 – A Jer 5:6 – because Jer 22:22 – wind Jer 31:1 – same Heb 1:2 – these
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
30:24 The fierce anger of the LORD shall not return, until he hath done [it], and until he hath performed the intents of his heart: in the {r} latter days ye shall consider it.
(r) When this Messiah and deliverer is sent.