Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Jeremiah 31:16
Thus saith the LORD; Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears: for thy work shall be rewarded, saith the LORD; and they shall come again from the land of the enemy.
16. thy work shall be rewarded ] As children have been in thy life and thy death a subject of pain and grief to thee, and as these thy descendants again have grievously perished, so the recompense for all this trouble now arrives, and thou shalt witness the return of the captives.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Jer 31:16-17
Refrain thy voice from weeping.
Bereaved parents comforted
I. It is not sinful for parents to be grieved and sorrowful for the death of their children. If we do not grieve when we are thus stricken of God, it is an evidence that we do not feel the heavy calamity which His providence hath inflicted, and how can there be any probability that we shall be profited by it? It is by the sadness of the countenance that the heart is made better. It is in consequence of the affliction being for the present not joyous, hut grievous, that, through the Divine blessing, it bringeth forth the peaceable fruits of righteousness in them that are exercised thereby.
II. Parents should refrain from immoderate and excessive grief for the death of their children, when they consider that this event flows from Gods wise and sovereign appointment. If our children be interested in that covenant which is ordered in all things and sure, let no one say that their death is premature or unseasonable. God hath a method, which we cannot explain, of ripening those for heaven whom He gathers into it in the beginning of their days.
III. Disconsolate parents should moderate their grief for the death of their children, when we consider that our loss is their unspeakable gain. Infant children, born as it were into this world only to suffer and to die, are striking evidence of the dreadful effects of sin. They are objects of compassion to the human heart, much more to the Father of mercies. It is natural, when our children are taken away, if their faculties have begun to unfold themselves, to review the little history of their lives, and to reflect with melancholy pleasure on many passages unheeded by others, but carefully marked and remembered by parents; and if any good thing towards the Lord was found in our child, the remembrance is full of comfort. If we found their hearts grateful and affectionate for our care, and submissive to our will, these were the seeds of an amiable and humble spirit. If they had a tenderness of conscience, so far as they knew good and evil, and stood in awe of offending; if they loved and hearkened to instruction; if they had a deep veneration for the Bible, as containing the revelation of Gods mercy and goodness to His children; if they had some views, however faint, of a state of blessedness into which pious and good children enter after death; in a word, if to the last they grew in favour with God and man, this is an anchor of hope to disconsolate and afflicted parents.
IV. Parents should moderate their grief for the death of their children, when they look forward to a joyful and blessed resurrection. Our children shall come again from the land of the enemy. The husbandman doth not mourn when he casteth his seed into the ground, because he soweth in hope. He commits it to the earth with the joyful expectation of receiving it again with great improvement; so when we commit the precious dust of our relations to the earth, we are warranted to exercise a joyful hope that we shall receive them again unspeakably improved at the resurrection.
V. Parents should moderate their grief for the loss of their children, when they consider what beneficial effects this is calculated to produce in their own souls. David thankfully acknowledges it is good for me that I have been afflicted. God deals with us as a wise parent deals with froward and undutiful children. When counsels and admonitions produce no effect, He finds it necessary to correct us with the rod; and when the strokes of providence inflicted on other families have been slightly regarded by us, He finds it necessary to smite us in our own bone and flesh. It would be highly ungrateful, then, to murmur against God when He acts a fathers part toward us, and is chastening and correcting us for our spiritual profit and advantage. The impatience with which we bear the stroke, is an evidence that our affections were rooted many degrees deeper in the creature than we were aware of. Our merciful Father doth not measure out one drop from the cup of affliction, nor inflict one stripe with His correcting rod, more than He sees indispensably necessary for His childrens profit and happiness. We should take in good part every trial with which we are visited, as coming from a parents hand and a parents heart. Conclusion–
1. Let us learn resignation to Divine providence under our affliction.
2. From the death of our children, let us learn to exercise a lively faith on that state of life and immortality which is brought to light by the Gospel.
3. The death of our children should teach us to live mindful of our own death. (J. Hay, D. D.)
There is hope in thine end, saith the Lord.
Good hope
There are some who cannot endure the thought of looking forward to the end; and this in a great variety of particulars. None but Christians contemplate with delight the end of their woes, and the reason is, that they have no well-grounded hope as to the end. If a hope exists, it becomes us closely to examine on what it is founded.
I. If I were asked what constitutes my hope as a child of God, as a Christian, as an heir of glory, I should not hesitate for one moment to state that it consists of three things–the constancy of my Fathers love, the official faithfulness of my Elder Brother to His engagements, and the ministerial operations of the Comforter, pledged for the eternal salvation of my soul
II. Notice how this is owned by Jehovah Himself. Saith the Lord. This is a phrase of personal importance. He hath not only said it here in the volume of inspiration, but He saith it repeatedly, continually, powerfully unto the souls of His people when He speaks to them. What paternal tenderness is here! what paternal condescension! There are numbers of little children in different families who would, in many instances, be disposed to disregard a great deal that a servant might say, or that a stranger or a visitor might say; but when the father speaks, his voice has some weight and authority. Moreover, when Jehovah thus speaks with paternal tenderness, there is hope in His name. Suppose the case of crosses and cares, trials and anxieties, difficulties and perplexities, threatened ruin or discomfort, or the loss of domestic harmony; only let the Lord speak, and there is hope in the end, saith the Lord. In the next place, just mark, that when Jehovah speaks, when Jehovah Himself comes with His Thus saith God, it is by revealing the hope of Israel. This is the express business and ministry of God the Holy Ghost, to reveal the glorious Person of the Redeemer, under the appellation of the hope of Israel, and the Saviour thereof in the time of trouble. I beseech you to mark one more point in connection with the Lords owning this hope to exist in reality in the soul; I refer to the testimony of the internal witness of the Holy Ghost. The Spirit Himself beareth witness with our spirits that we are the children of God. His testimonies have always a sanctifying tendency. (J. Irons.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 16. They shall come again from the land of the enemy.] This could not be said of the murdered innocents at Bethlehem; they never came again; but the Jews, who had gone into captivity, did come again from the land of their enemy to their own border.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The prophet in this and the following verses is brought in as one appointed of God to quiet and comfort the Rachel before mentioned, calling to her to quiet herself, and not to mourn so excessively, for God would recompense her for her afflictions, which are here understood by the term
work (as some think); but the Hebrew word is hardly found in Scripture taken for affliction: others therefore apply it to Rachel, for whose pietys sake God would show mercy to her children, as a reward of grace, though not of debt. The best interpreters think that the terms of work and reward are here used only to express the succession of a comfortable state to their miserable state in captivity, (as the wages use to follow the work,) which should make them amends for their long time of affliction; and so it is expounded by the last words of the verse.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
16. thy workthy parentalweeping for thy children [ROSENMULLER].Thine affliction in the loss of thy children, murdered for Christ’ssake, shall not be fruitless to thee, as was the case in thy givingbirth to the “child of thy sorrow,” Benjamin. Primarily,also, thy grief shall not be perpetual: the exiles shall return, andthe land be inhabited again [CALVIN].
come again (Ho1:11).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Thus saith the Lord, refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears,…. Though sorrow on such an occasion may be lawfully indulged, yet it ought to be moderated; and attention should be given to those things which may serve to relieve under it, and especially when they come from the Lord himself; then a stop is to be put to the mournful voice, and wet eyes are to be dried up:
for thy work shall be rewarded, saith the Lord; in bearing these children, and bringing them into the world, and expressing such an affectionate and tender concern for them; signifying, that the trouble of bearing and bringing them into the world, and nursing them the time they did live, should not, as it might seem, be fruitless, and to answer no end; but it should be seen hereafter, that all this was not in vain; nor should they think it so; but that they have an ample recompense of all their sorrow and trouble:
and they shall come again from the land of the enemy; meaning either Joseph, and Mary, and Jesus; who, by the warning of an angel, went into Egypt, the land of the enemy, where the Jewish fathers were once evilly entreated, just before this barbarity was committed; where they stayed till all danger was over, and then returned; see Mt 2:13; compared with Ho 11:1; or rather the murdered children, who, in the resurrection morn, shall return from the grave, the land of that “last enemy”, death, which shall be destroyed, 1Co 15:26; and so Rachel, and the Jewish mothers she represents, are comforted with the hopes of a better resurrection; see Heb 11:35.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Refrain, he says, thy voice from weeping The word is בכה beke: as he had mentioned this word before in the second place, “lamentation, the weeping of bitterness,” so he now repeats the same here, “Refrain thy voice from weeping,” that is, cease to complain and to bewail the death of thy children, and thine eyes from tears The meaning is, that the lamentation of Rachel would not be perpetual. We have said that a dead woman is introduced, but that this is done for the sake of solemnity and effect, so that the Jews, having the matter set as it were before their eyes, might be more touched and moved. But if we wish to understand the meaning of the Prophet without a figure it is this, — that the lamentation would not be perpetual, because the exiles would return, and that the land that had fallen to the lot of the children of Benjamin and of Joseph would again be inhabited.
And he says, for reward shall be to thy work He means that the sorrow of Rachel would at length happily come to an end, so as to produce some benefit. While the faithful, according to Isaiah, were complaining that they were oppressed with grief without hope, they said, “We have been in travail, and brought forth wind:” by these words they meant that they had experienced the heaviest troubles; and then they added, “without fruit,” as though a woman were in travail and suffered the greatest pain and anguish, and brought forth no living, but a dead child, which is sometimes the case. Now a woman who gives birth to a living child rejoices, as Christ says, because a man is born, (Joh 16:21) but when a woman after long pains brings forth a dead lump or something monstrous, it is an increase of sorrow. So the Prophet says, that the labor of Rachel, that is, of her country, would not be without fruit: there shall then be a reward to thy work The Scripture uses the same way of speaking in 2Ch 15:7, where the Prophet Azariah speaks to the King Asa,
“
Act manfully, and let not your hands be weakened, for there shall be a reward to your work.”
Then by work is to be understood trouble or sorrow, and by reward a joyful and prosperous issue. The meaning is, that though the whole country mourned miserably for a time, being deserted and bereaved of its inhabitants, yet the issue would be joyful, for the Lord would restore the exiles, so that the land would be like a mother having a numerous family, and delighting in her children, or in her offspring.
Now, were any one to apply this to satisfactions, he would be doing what is very absurd, as the Papists do, who say that by the punishment which we suffer we are redeemed from eternal death, and that then the vengeance of God is pacified, and satisfaction is made to his justice. But when the Prophet declares that there would be reward to the work, he does not commend the fruits of the punishment by which God chastised his people, as though they were, as they say, satisfactions; but he simply reminds them that their troubles and sorrows would not be useless, for a happier issue than the Jews hoped for would take place. But it is God’s gratuitous gift that there is a reward to our work, that is, when the miseries and calamities which he inflicts on us are made aids to our salvation. For doubtless whatever evils we suffer, they are tokens of God’s wrath; poverty, cold, famine, sterility, disease, and all other evils, are so many curses inflicted by God. When, therefore, there is a reward to our troubles and sorrows, that is, when they produce some benefit or fruit, it is as though God turned darkness into light; for naturally, as I have said, all these punishments are curses. But God promises that he will bless us, so that all these punishments shall turn out for our good and salvation, as Paul tells us in Rom 8:28.
Then he adds, they shall return from the land of the enemy By these words he refers to the restoration of the people, so that Rachel would again see her posterity inheriting the promised land. But there is no reason refinedly to dispute here, whether Rachel rejoiced at the return of her offspring, or whether that calamity was lamented by her; for the Prophet’s object was not to shew whether or not the dead are conscious of our affairs; but he speaks figuratively in order to render what he said more striking and forcible. It follows, —
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(16) Thy work shall be rewarded, saith the Lord.Literally, there-shall be a reward for thy work. The words are a reproduction of the old prophecy of Azariah, the son of Oded (2Ch. 15:7). Rachel, personifying the northern kingdom, perhaps even the collective unity of all Israel, is thought of as labouring in the work of repentance and reformation, as with a mothers care, and is comforted with the thought that her labour shall not be in vain. This seems a more satisfactory interpretation than that which refers the work of the weeping Rachel to the travail of child-birth.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
16. Thy work shall be rewarded Literally, there is a reward for thy work. Rachel weeps for the loss of her children; hence the reward spoken of must be their restoration.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Rachel’s Weeping Will, However, Be Rewarded, For Her Children Will Be Returned To Her, And They Will Come To YHWH In Repentance And Be Received By Him As A Beloved Son ( Jer 31:16-22 ).
The call now comes to the weeping ‘Rachel’ to cease her weeping, because her activity has been rewarded. Her children would return from the land of their enemies to within their own borders, giving hope for the future. For they have returned in repentance acknowledging the chastisement of YHWH, and YHWH is ready to receive them as His beloved children.
Jer 31:16
‘Thus says YHWH,’
YHWH continues to speak and bring about His will.
Jer 31:16-17
“Refrain your voice from weeping,
And your eyes from tears,
For your activity (work) will be rewarded,
The word of YHWH,
And they will come again from the land of the enemy,
And there is hope for your latter end,
The word of YHWH,
And your children will come again to their own border.”
In context the words are spoken to Rachel who was weeping for her children, whoever she was seen as representing. Her weeping is seen as being duly rewarded, on the sure word of YHWH. Her mourning and repentance will succeed. For she is assured that eventually (in around fifty years time) her children will come from the land of the enemy. She therefore has hope for her later days. And there would indeed have been some alive when the exiles returned who had been left as a remnant in Israel/Judah and could be seen as ‘Rachel’. They would see their hopes fulfilled at their ‘latter end’. And this on the sure word of YHWH. For their ‘children’ would come again to their own border within their lifetime.
Jer 31:18
“I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself,
‘You have chastised me, and I was chastised,
As a calf unaccustomed (to the yoke or to serving),
Turn you me, and I will be turned,
For you are YHWH my God.”
Ephraim is now pictured as bemoaning herself, and calling on YHWH, accepting that it is He Who has chastised them. That is why they have been chastised (the repetition emphasising the fact). They admit to being like a calf unaccustomed. either to the yoke or to service or to both, who needed to be chastened. And they thus call on YHWH as their God to ‘turn them’ (bring them to repentant response), for it is only if He does it that it will be successful. They recognise their own inability to save themselves (the first essential for conversion).
‘Ephraim’ may here refer to the repentant among the exiles of the northern kingdom, or more probably to the repentant among all the exiles both north and south. Either way the important lesson is that it was those who had repented who were now acceptable among YHWH’s people, those who had accepted that what had happened to them had happened as the chastening of YHWH. It is the remnant who repent and return, not the whole of Israel. Thus it is an Israel within Israel. This Israel within Israel is the constant theme of the Old Testament. They are ‘the holy seed’ (Isa 6:13). It will finally issue in the large remnant who will respond to Jesus Christ in repentance and faith forming the new nation of Israel in the time of Jesus and the Apostles (Mat 21:43).
(Note: It is often argued that no such repentance as this was obvious among the returning exiles as we look at the way in which they are depicted in Ezra/Nehemiah/Haggai/Zechariah/Malachi, but that is to overlook the fact that the returnees were very human and had huge obstacles to surmount. Their describe behaviour did not mean that underneath there was not genuine repentance in what mattered most. If we try to diminish the glory of the return from exile by pointing to the weak spiritual state of the returnees we would do well to ask how we ourselves compare, and how we would have reacted to their situation and hardships. YHWH certainly saw earthshaking events as taking place at the time of their return (Hag 2:21). And we should notice that it is regularly through such weakness that God accomplishes His work. Many of Paul’s churches were nothing to write home about, and when we look at the later church we have to be filled with wonderment that anything spiritual survived at all. And yet remarkably it did. It is therefore to be lacking in spiritual awareness to suggest that, because we know of many problems among the long stream of returning exiles, as brought to our notice by the writings of Ezra, Nehemiah and Malachi, there were not truly repentant groups among the exiles who returned who were activated by the Spirit of God, any more than we can say that the outward worldliness of the church means that there is no genuine spiritual element among them, or indeed that large numbers of even the less spiritual are not encompassed within God’s plan of salvation. Man looks at the outward appearance, and judges by earthly standards (and by an optimistic view of himself as compared with others), but God looks at the heart. And it is in fact God’s very boast that He works through the weak and the foolish (1Co 1:26-28). Those struggling returnees in fact formed the advanced battalion of a mighty army of weak, struggling saints who would eventually re-establish Israel, despite their weakness, and we should recognise that there must have been a great hunger for God among them for them to brave the perils of the return journey in order that they might worship YHWH in their own land. That is so whatever may have been their faults. (Nothing could be more unlike the case of modern Israel, for, apart from the initial few, the returnees of modern Israel mainly knew that they would be arriving in a prosperous and thriving modern nation. In contrast, the ancient exiles did not know to what they were returning. They simply struggled forward in faith).
We must remember that we only learn the worst of what happened among the returnees precisely because it was that that had to be rebuked. We can compare how in the Book of Judges it is the periods of failure of which we have details, not the periods of success marked by the words ‘then the land had rest for — years’. Furthermore the list of faithful witnesses in Hebrews 11 confirms that the faithful remnant were always there, shining out among the faithless, and known and treasured by God. It was they who were the Israel whom YHWH had restored, and who largely rallied to the Maccabees in Israel’s time of need. And many of them became a part of the martyrs listed in Hebrews 11.
And it was those who later followed them, inspire by a similar zeal, who would, in the days of Jesus and the Apostles, believe in the Messiah and form the new Israel in the face of much persecution from the cast off Jews. And it is they who, as ‘the church of the firstborn’, are the ones who at times have faithfully endured persecution ever since. They will all be among the multitude which no man can number who will enter into the everlasting kingdom (Rev 7:9; Rev 7:14). In a sense then the ‘return from exile’ has taken 2,500 years, but at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ our exile will be over. It is rather amusing to think that some see this weakness of the returnees as in some way being an argument for seeing these prophecies as pointing to a millennial kingdom, as though people then would be different from the exiles of Jeremiah’s time and not be weak and failing. And this is especially so when we know that the general view of that kingdom is that it will end in apostasy and Satanism. Where then is the difference? If it were truly referring to that it would be describing something even more spurious).
Jer 31:19
“Surely after I was turned, I repented,
And after I was instructed, I smote on my thigh,
I was ashamed, yes, even confounded,
Because I bore the reproach of my youth.”
We have here His people’s confession. Having been turned through YHWH’s chastening they have repented. Having been instructed by YHWH’s chastening, they have smitten their thighs in shame and anguish. They have been ashamed and confounded because they are bearing the reproach of their younger days. And they have humbled themselves before Him.
For a parallel example of smiting on the thigh we can compare an extract from Homer, ‘and then he groaned and smote on both his thighs, with headlong hands and thus in sorrow spoke.’
Jer 31:20
Is Ephraim my dear son?
Is he a darling child?
For as often as I speak against him,
I do earnestly remember him still,
Therefore my heart yearns for him,
I will surely have mercy on him,
The word of YHWH.”
YHWH’s response is one of love, the response of a father to a repentant wayward child. The questions are intended to be answered with a ‘yes’. Yes, ‘Ephraim’ (Israel/Judah) is His dear son. Yes, ‘Ephraim’ is His darling child. While He may have to speak against him and criticise him, even bring him, as it were, before the justices (fathers of the sub-clan as signifying the heavenly court?), He still earnestly remembers him as His son. Israel is not entirely cast off. And so YHWH’s heart yearns for his return to true sonship, with full willingness to have mercy upon him. This was the purpose of his arraignment. And this is the assured word of YHWH.
Jer 31:21
“Set you up road signs,
Make yourself guide-posts,
Set your heart toward the highway,
Even the way by which you went,
Turn again, O virgin of Israel,
Turn again to these your cities.”
So now that the Father is ready to receive the prodigal son He calls on him to prepare for his journey home. When a king or a wealthy man was going on a journey in those days, with his retinue, especially to an unknown country, there were those who could be sent ahead to set up indicators along the best road so that the way ahead would be smooth (they had no maps or satellite navigation). Alternately it might signify pioneers who left the road marks for those who followed. And they were to return by the way in which they went, the shortest route. For the virgin of Israel, now once again purified, were to return to their cities and to their obedience to YHWH. More detail is given in Jer 31:23-24.
Jer 31:22
“How long will you go hither and thither,
O you backsliding daughter?
For YHWH has created a new thing in the earth,
A woman will encompass a man.”
For there is no longer any need for them to be going hither and thither among the nations, as a backsliding daughter (the opposite of a virgin of Israel) powerless to help herself (compare Jer 15:4; Jer 24:9; Jer 29:18), for YHWH has done a new thing in the earth. He has enabled ‘the woman’ (virgin Israel), in every case in different parts of the world, to gain primacy over ‘the he man’, those who were in authority over them. With rare exceptions such an idea was inconceivable in those days, for women were very much dependent on men. But it will happen now for in each place of captivity the virgin daughter of Israel will ‘surround’ the man, the nations, the stronger than she (Jer 31:11), who had taken possession of her, like a victorious army surrounds a city. The weak and defenceless virgin of Israel will gain primacy over the strong who seek to override her, bringing them into submission so as to obtain her release.
It is in fact quite possible in this regard that there was a popular proverb declaring, ‘A man will encompass a woman’, indicating man’s superiority. If that be so, it is now turned topsy turvy, as Israel/Judah, YHWH’s ‘virgin’, causes the nations to yield to her desire for freedom.
‘A woman will encompass a man.’ Some, however, translate as ‘embrace’, and see it as signifying that the virgin of Israel will embrace YHWH, by responding to His will. It is a beautiful thought, but it is not quite clear how that can be seen as a totally new thing. We already know that she had embraced YHWH in the wilderness, so that this would not be a new thing (Jer 2:2-3). And women were in fact regularly embracing men.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Jer 31:16. For thy work shall be rewarded The Scriptures frequently allude to the years or days of a hireling: see Job 7 l, 2 Jer 14:6. Isa 16:4; Isa 40:10; Isa 62:11.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Jer 31:16 Thus saith the LORD; Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears: for thy work shall be rewarded, saith the LORD; and they shall come again from the land of the enemy.
Ver. 16. Refrain thy voice from weeping. ] Take up in time, O Rachel, and the rest; God comforteth the abject, 2Co 7:7 he restoreth comfort to his mourners. Isa 57:18
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
shall be rewarded = there exists a reward. Hebrew. yesh. See note on Jer 31:6.
come again: i.e. in resurrection. Compare Jer 31:15.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Refrain: Gen 43:31, Gen 45:1, Psa 30:5, Mar 5:38, Mar 5:39, Joh 20:13-15, 1Th 4:14
for: Rth 2:12, 2Ch 15:7, Ecc 9:7, Heb 6:10, Heb 11:6
they: Jer 31:4, Jer 31:5, Jer 23:3, Jer 29:14, Jer 30:3, Jer 30:18, Jer 33:7, Jer 33:11, Ezr 1:5-11, Eze 11:17, Eze 11:18, Eze 20:41, Eze 20:42, Hos 1:11
Reciprocal: Jer 30:5 – a voice Mat 5:4 – General Luk 7:13 – Weep not Rev 5:5 – Weep
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Jer 31:16. Having extended the tele-scope” (See illustration at Isa 1:1) to get a glimpse of an event many years in the future, the pronhet resumes his prediction of the return of Israel from Babylonian captivity. Refrain from- iveeping predicts the happiness that is to follow the return to their own land. Land <of the enemy refers to the Babylon eountry.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
The Lord comforted "Rachel" by assuring her that her children would return from exile. All the work she had expended on them was not in vain. There was hope for their future.