Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Jeremiah 32:42
For thus saith the LORD; Like as I have brought all this great evil upon this people, so will I bring upon them all the good that I have promised them.
Jer 32:42
All the good that I have promised.
The religion, of the promise
(with Num 10:29):–Obeying a true instinct, the Church of Christ has from the beginning understood the whole story of the transfer of the chosen people from the land of bondage to the land of promise as possessing, over and above its historical value, the preciousness of a divinely-planned allegory. For us, to-day, just as really as for them in days of old, the stimulus continues to be simply this–a promise. Heaven cannot be demonstrated. We merely take Gods Word for it. Not enough, in our times, is said–soberly and intelligently said, I mean–about heaven. Very many people have the feeling that the old-fashioned heaven of their childhoods thoughts and hopes has been explained away by the progress ex discovery. It seems to them as if heaven were pushed farther and farther off, just in proportion as the telescope penetrates farther and farther into space. The gates of pearl recede with the enlargement of the object-glass, and the search for tee Paradise of God, like that for the earthly Eden, seems to become more hopeless, the more accurate our knowledge of the map. The primitive Christians found it comparatively easy to think of heaven as a place just above the stars. To us, who have learned to think of the sun itself as but a star seen near at hand, and of the stars as suns, such localisation of the dwelling-place of the Most Highest is far from easy. Another, and a very different reason for keeping heaven, as it were, in the background, holding the mention of it in reserve, comes from those who believe that there is such a danger as that of cheapening and vulgarising sacred things by too much fluency in talking about them. It cannot be denied that there is a certain amount of reason for this fastidiousness, some strength in this protest. An indulgent rhetoric may throw open the gates with a freedom so careless as to make us wonder why there should be any gates at all; and lips to which the common prose speech of the real heaven would perhaps come hard, were they compelled to try it, can sing of Jerusalem the Golden, and of the Paradise for which tis weary waiting here with a glibness at which possibly the angels stand aghast. This is a second reason, a very different reason from the first, but still a reason, for observing reticence about heaven. And yet, m the face of both of these reasons, I think it is a sad pity, our hearing so little as we do about the hope of heaven as a motive power in human life. For after all that has been said, or can be said, these two facts remain indisputable; they stare us in the face: first, that this life of ours, however we may account for it, does bear a certain resemblance to a journey, in that the one is a movement through time, as the other is a movement through space; secondly, that any journey which lacks a destination is, and must of necessity be a dismal thing. Human nature being what it is, we need the attractive power of something to look forward to, as we say, to keep our strength and courage up to the living standard. Christians are men with a hope, men who have been called to inherit a blessing. Nor is the Old Testament lacking in this element of promise. It runs through the whole Bible. What book anywhere can you point to so forward-looking as that Book? As we watch the worthies of many generations pass in long procession onwards, from the day when the promise was first given of the One who should come and bruise the serpents head, down to the day when the aged Simeon in the Temple took the Child Jesus into his arms and blessed Him, we seem to see upon every forehead a glow of light. These men have a hope. They are looking for something, and they look as those look who expect in due time to find. If this be true of the general tone of the Old Testament Scriptures, doubly, trebly is it true of the New Testament. The coming of Christ has only quickened and made more intense in us that instinct of hope which the old prophecies of His coming first inspired. For when He came, He brought in larger hopes, and opened to us far-reaching vistas of promise, such as had never been dreamed of before. A solemn joy pervades the atmosphere in which apostle and evangelist move before our eyes. They are as men who, in the face of the wreck of earthly hopes, have yet no inclination to tears, because there has been opened to them a vision of things unseen, and granted to them a foretaste of the peace eternal. The glory that shall be revealed; the things eye hath not seen, prepared for those who love God; the house not made with hands, waiting for occupancy; the crown of righteousness, laid up–you remember how prominent a place these hold in the persuasive oratory of St. Paul. The complaint that the progress of human knowledge has made it difficult to think and speak of heaven as believing men used to think and speak of it, is a complaint to which we ought to return for a few moments; for, from our leaving it as we did, the impression may have been conveyed to some minds that the difficulty is insuperable. Let me observe, then, that while there is a certain grain of reasonableness in this argument for silence with respect to heaven and the things of heaven, there is by no means so much weight to be attached to it as many people seem to suppose. For after all, when we come to think of it, this changed conception of what heaven may be like is not traceable so much to any marvellous revolution that has come over the whole character of human thought since you and I were children, as it is to the changes which have taken place in our own several minds, and which necessarily take place in every mind in its progress from infancy to maturity. The really serious blow at old-time notions upon the subject was dealt long before any of us were born, when the truth was established beyond serious doubts that this planet is not the centre about which all else in the universe revolves. But the explanation of our personal sense of grievance at being robbed of the heaven we were used to believe in is to be sought in the familiar saying, When I was a child, I spake as a child, &c. We instinctively, and without knowing it, project this childish way of looking at things upon the whole thinking world that was contemporary with our childhood, and infer from the change that has come over our own mind that corresponding change has been going on in the mind of the world at large. This fallacy is the more easily fallen into, because it is a fact that, if we go back far enough in the history of thought, we do find even the mature minds seeing things much as we ourselves saw them in our early childhood. But let me try to strike closer home and meet the difficulty in a more direct and helpful way. I do it by asking whether we ought not to feel ashamed of ourselves, thus to talk about having been robbed of the promise simply because the Father of heaven has been showing us, lust as fast as our poor minds could bear the strain, to how immeasurable an area the Fatherhood extends. Instead of repining because we cannot dwarf Gods universe so as to make it fit perfectly the smallness of our notions, let us turn all our energies to seeking to enlarge the capacity of our faith so that it shall be able to hold more. What all this means is, that we are to believe better things of God, not worse things. It may turn out,–who can tell?–that heaven lies nearer to us than even in our childhood we ever ventured to suppose; that it is not only nearer than the sky, but nearer than the clouds. The reality of heaven, happily, is not dependent on the ability of our five senses to discover its whereabouts. Doubtless a sixth or seventh sense might speedily reveal much, very much of which the five we now have take no notice. Be this as it may, the reasonableness of our believing in Christs promise, that in the world whither He went He would prepare a place for us, is in nowise impugned by anything that the busy wit of man has yet found out, or is likely to find out. There is no period of life from which we can afford to spare the presence of this heavenly hope. We need it in youth, to give point and purpose and direction to the newly launched life. We need it in middle life to help us cover patiently that long stretch which parts youth from old age–the time of the fading out of illusions in the dry light of experience; the time when we discover the extent of our personal range, and the narrow limit of our possible achievement. Above all shall we find such a hope the staff of old age, should the pilgrimage last so long. But let us not imagine that we can postpone believing until then. Faith is a habit of the soul, and old men would be the first to warn us against the notion that it is a habit that may be acquired in a day. Those of us who are wise will take up the matter now, at whatever point of age the word may happen to have found us. (W. R. Huntington, D. D.)
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Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 42. Will I bring upon them all the good that I have promised] God’s word cannot fail. The Jews have never yet received the good that God has promised. Nothing like the fulfilment of these promises took place after their return from Babylon; therefore there remaineth yet a rest for these ancient people of God; and it is under the Christian dispensation that they are to have it.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
You shall find me as true to my promises as you have found me to my threatenings.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
42. (Jer31:28). The restoration from Babylon was only a slight foretasteof the grace to be expected by Israel at last through Christ.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
For thus saith the Lord, like as I have brought all this great evil upon this people,…. The Chaldean army now besieging them, the famine and pestilence among them, as well as their captivity, which was just at hand and certain:
so will I bring upon them all the good that I have promised them; in the preceding verses; as being their God, and they his people; giving them one heart, and one way; putting his fear into them; causing them to persevere to the end: rejoicing over them to do them good; and planting them in the land. God is as faithful to his promises as to his threatenings; and those who have seen the fulfilment of the one need not doubt of the accomplishment of the other; for if he has done all the evil things he threatened to do, which are his acts of justice, his strange acts, much more will he do the good things he has promised, which are his acts of grace and mercy, in which he delights.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
God shews here again to his Prophet that exile would be temporary as to the remnant; for we know that the greater part of the people had been wholly rejected; but it pleased the Lord, that his Church should survive, though very small in number. Then this promise is not to be extended indiscriminately to all the twelve tribes, but refers especially to the elect, as the event sufficiently proved, and Paul also is a most faithful interpreter of this truth. And this ought to be carefully borne in mind, because hypocrites always steal for themselves whatever God promises to his faithful people, while yet they falsely pretend his name. Let us then understand the design of God, even that his purpose was to support with strong confidence his chosen, lest despair should close up the avenue to prayer. Since, then, a portion of the people remained, that the Church might not wholly be cut off, this promise was fulfilled; and as we can never embrace the promise of mercy, except repentance and acknowledgment of sin precede, the two things are here referred to by the Prophet.
He says that God had made to come, or had brought, a dreadful calamity; and it then follows, that he would bring on them all the good that he had promised. By these words God intimates that what he had before promised would not be difficult for him to accomplish, because he could heal the wound which he had inflicted. Had the Chaldeans, as it had been said elsewhere, taken the city according to their own will, the remedy might have been difficult; but as God had employed the Chaldeans, and as they had fought, as it were, under his banner, it was an easy thing for him to restore the city, and to recall from exile those whom his righteous vengeance had banished.
We must notice especially what is said, I will render to them all the good which I have spoken concerning them. For God shews on what support the faithful were to rely in hoping for their liberation; he bids them to depend on his own mouth; for whatever men may promise is evanescent and without fruit. If, then, we would have our hope to be firmly fixed, so that it may not disappoint us, let us learn to rely on God’s promises, so that no one of us may presumptuously dream of this or that, as we thus often deceive ourselves; but let us acquiesce in the word of God. But when the evidence of God’s grace fails us, we may have recourse to many confidences, but it will be without profit. We now perceive why the Prophet expressly added this particular respecting God’s word. It follows, —
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
4. The assurance of Gods plan (Jer. 32:42-44)
TRANSLATION
(42) For thus says the LORD: As I have brought against this people all this great trouble, so I will bring upon them all the good which I have been speaking concerning them. (43) Fields shall be purchased in this land of which you are saying, It is a waste without man or beast, it is given into the hands of the Chaldeans. (44) They shall purchase fields for silver and write the deed, seal it, have it witnessed in the land of Benjamin, and the environs of Jerusalem, in the cities of Judah, in the cities of the hill country, in the cities of the lowland, and the cities of the Negev; for I will reverse their fortunes (oracle of the LORD).
COMMENTS
Up to this point two deductions have been made from The basic proposition that with God nothing is too hard. The argument takes a new direction in Jer. 32:42. Here God argues that the same degree of certainty which attends the threats of divine judgment also attends the promises of divine favor. The thought is the same as that in Jer. 31:28.
In view of the certainty of Gods promises of restoration the action of Jeremiah in purchasing the field in Anathoth was altogether fitting and proper. Normal business transactions would indeed again take place in the land (Jer. 32:43-44). The enumeration of the several regions of the kingdom is, according to Keil, rhetorical individualization for strengthening the thought.[288] God would reverse the fortunes of His people. He would bring them out of the shame and degradation of captivity and lead them home. This was the oracle of God!
[288] Keil, op. cit., II, 60. This same rhetorical device is used in Jer. 17:26.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
Jer 32:42 For thus saith the LORD; Like as I have brought all this great evil upon this people, so will I bring upon them all the good that I have promised them.
Ver. 42. So will I bring upon them. ] Jer 29:10 ; Jer 31:28 .
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Like: Jer 31:28, Jos 23:14, Jos 23:15, Zec 8:14, Zec 8:15, Mat 24:35
so: Jer 33:10, Jer 33:11
Reciprocal: 2Ch 36:17 – he brought 2Ch 36:22 – that the word Jer 29:10 – I will Jer 46:28 – but I will not Luk 15:5 – rejoicing
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Jer 32:42. Like as means only to make comparison of the certainty of Gods predictions. His threat of the punishment was fulfilled, so likewise his promises would be fulfilled in their appointed time.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
As surely as He had brought calamity on them, He would bring this blessing.