Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Jeremiah 33:3

Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.

3. great things, and difficult ] mg. Heb. fenced in. The word means lit. cut off, inaccessible. But certain MSS. of MT., not apparently supported, however, by LXX, read probably rightly (differing only by one letter, ntsroth for btsroth) hidden, as in Isa 48:6.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Mighty things – Or, as in the margin. The words are probably a quotation from Isa 48:6.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Jer 33:3

Call unto Me, and I win answer thee.

An invitation a promise-a revelation

I. A gracious invitation–Call unto Me implies all the constituents of successful prayer.

1. Penitence.

2. Contrition.

3. Humility.

4. Importunity.

5. Restitution.

6. Faith.

II. A precious promise–And I will answer thee. The invitation accepted, its conditions complied with, always brings the answer.

1. Gods word pledged.

2. Gods nature pledged.

3. Confirmed by the experience of His saints.

III. A glorious revelation–And will shew thee, &c.

1. The greatness of Gods love.

2. The power of Jesus to forgive sin.

3. The worth of the soul.

4. The joys and comforts of religion.

5. The victory of faith in death. (J. T. Davies.)

Prayer

I. The invitation to prayer.

1. Whose is it?

2. To whom is the invitation addressed?

3. What is the tenor of the invitation?

II. The promise.

1. It is general.

2. It is special. Apply

(1) Reprove the prayerless.

(2) Encourage the prayerful. (G. Brooks.)

The golden key of prayer

God s people have always in their worst conditions found out the best of their God. Those who dive into the sea of affliction bring up rare pearls.

I. Prayer commanded.

1. This is great condescension. So great is the infatuation of man on the one hand, which makes him need a command to be merciful to his own soul, and so marvellous the condescension of God on the other that He issues a command of love.

2. Our hearts so despond over our unfitness and guilt that but for the command we might fear to approach.

3. It is remarkable how much more frequently God calls us to Him in Scripture than we find there our sinfulness denounced!

4. Nor by the commands of the Bible alone are we summoned to prayer, but by the motions of His Holy Spirit.

II. An answer promised.

1. Gods very nature, as revealed in Jesus Christ, assures us that He will accept us in prayer.

2. Our own experience leads us to believe that God will answer prayer; e.g., the conversion of many a child has been an answer to parents pleadings with God.

3. Yet God does not always give the thing we ask. Lord Bolingbroke said to the Countess of Huntingdon, I cannot understand, your ladyship, how you can make out earnest prayer to be consistent with submission to the Divine will. My lord, she said, that is a matter of no difficulty. If I were a courtier of some generous king, and he gave me permission to ask any favour I pleased of him, I should be sure to put it thus: Will your majesty be graciously pleased to grant me such and such a favour; but at the same time, though I much desire it, if it would in any way detract from your majestys honour, or if in your majestys judgment it should seem better that I did not have this favour, I shall be quite as content to go without it as to receive it. So you see I might earnestly offer a petition, and yet might submissively leave it with the king.

III. Encouragement to faith.

1. Promised to Gods prophet, this specially applies to every teacher. The best way for a teacher or learner in Divine truth to reach the deeper things of God is to be much in prayer. Luther says, Bene orare est bene studuisse–To have prayed well is to have studied well

2. The saint may expect to discover deeper experience and to know more of the higher spiritual life, by being much in prayer.

3. It is certainly true of the sufferer under trial; if he waits on God he shall have greater deliverance than he ever dreamed of (Lam 3:57).

4. Here is encouragement for the worker. We know not how much capacity for usefulness there is in us. More prayer will show us more power.

5. This should cheer us in intercession for others.

6. Some are seekers for your own conversion. Pray, and see if God will not show you great and mighty things. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Prayer encouraged

The text belongs to every afflicted servant of God. It encourages him in a threefold manner.

I. To continue in prayer. Call unto Me!

1. Pray, though you have prayed (see Jer 32:16, &c.).

2. Pray concerning your present trouble. In Jer 32:24, the prophet mentions the mounts which were raised against Jerusalem, and in Jer 32:4 of this chapter the Lord answers on that very point.

3. Pray though you are still in prison after prayer. If deliverance tarries, make your prayers the more importunate.

4. Pray; for the Word of the Lord comes to you with this command.

5. Pray; for the Holy Spirit prompts you, and helps you.

II. To expect answers to prayer. I will answer thee, and shew thee.

1. He has appointed prayer, and made arrangements for its presentation and acceptance. He could not have meant it to be a mere farce: that were to treat us as fools.

2. He prompts, encourages, and quickens prayer; and surely He would never mock us by exciting desires which He never meant to gratify.

3. His nature is such that He must hear His children.

4. He has given His promise in the text; and it is often repeated elsewhere: He cannot lie, or deny Himself.

5. He has already answered many of His people, and ourselves also.

III. To expect great things as answers to prayer, I will shew thee great and mighty things We are to look for things–

1. Great in counsel; full of wisdom and significance

2. Mighty in work; revealing might, and mightily effectual.

3. New things to ourselves, fresh in our experience and therefore surprising. We may expect the unexpected.

4. Divine things: I will shew thee.

(1) Health and cure (Jer 32:6).

(2) Liberation from captivity (Jer 32:7).

(3) Forgiveness of iniquity (Jer 32:8). (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Prayer and its answer

A young engineer was being examined, and this question was put to him: Suppose you have a steam-pump constructed for a ship, under your own supervision, and know that everything is in perfect order, yet, when you throw out the hose, it will not draw; what should you think? I should think, sir, there must be a defect somewhere. But such a conclusion is not admissible; for the supposition is that everything is perfect, and yet that the pump will not work. Then, sir, replied the student, I should look over the side of the ship to see if the river had run dry. Even so it would appear that if true prayer is not answered the nature of God must have changed.

Instant in prayer

Sir Walter Raleigh one day asking a favour from Queen Elizabeth, the latter said to him, Raleigh, when will you leave off begging? To which he answered, When your Majesty leaves off giving. Ask-great things of God. Expect great things from God. Let His past goodness make us instant in prayer.

Prayer the souls wings

Thomas Brooks, alluding to the old classical myth of Daedalus, who, being imprisoned in the island of Crete, made wings for himself, by which he escaped to Italy, says, Christians must do as Daedalus, who, when he could not escape by a way upon earth, went by a way of heaven. Holy prayers are the wings of the souls deliverance. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Calling unto God

What is this calling unto God? Is it a verbal exercise? Is it a mere act of exclamation! Nothing can be further from the meaning. It is a call that issues from the heart; it is the call of need, it is the cry of pain, it is the agony of desire, it is enclosure with God in profound and loving communion. If we have received no answers, it is because we have offered no prayers. Ye have not because ye ask not or because ye ask amiss, you have been praying obliquely instead of directly; you have been vexing yourselves with circumlocution when your words ought to have been direct appeals, sharp, short, urgent appeals to Heaven: to such appeals God sends down richness of dew, wealth of blessing, morning brighter than noonday. God will shew His people great and mighty things. There is nothing little. The bird in the heavens upon its trembling wing is only little to us, it is not little to God. He counts the drops of dew, He puts our tears into His bottle, He numbers our sighs, and as for our groans, He distinguishes one from the other; these are not little things to Him, they are only little to our ignorance, and folly, and superficiality. God looks at souls, faces, lives, destinies, and the least child in the world He rocks to sleep and wakes in the morning, as if He had nought else to do; it is the stoop of Fatherhood, it is the mystery of the Cross. As to these continual revelations, they ought to be possible. God is infinite and eternal, man is infinite and transient in all his earthly relationships; it would he strange if God had told man everything He has to tell him, it would be the miracle of miracles that God had exhausted Himself in one effort, it would be incredible that the eternal God had crushed into the moment which we call time every thought that makes Him God. Greater things than these shall ye do; when He, the Paraclete, is come, He will guide you into all truth; grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ; add to your faith, until you scaffold yourselves up into brotherly love and charity, for from that pinnacle the next step is right into heaven. The question is, Are we in need of further revelation? Do we call for it? We may call for it speculatively, and no answer will he given; we may ask for it for the sake of mere intellectual delectation, and the heavens will be dumb and frowning: but if we try to outgrow God, then we shall know what God is in reality; He challenges the sacred rivalry, He appeals to our emulation to follow Him and study Him, and try to comprehend Him, and then how like a horizon He is, for we think we can touch Him in yonder top, but having climbed the steep the horizon is still beyond. To cleverness God has nothing to say; to vanity He is scornfully inhospitable; but to the broken heart, to the contrite spirit and the willing mind, to filial, tender, devout, obedience, He will give Himself in infinite and continual donation: To this man will I look, for I see My own image in him, My own purpose is vitalised in his experience–the man who is of a humble and contrite heart, and who trembleth at My word, not in servility, but in rapture and wonder at its grandeur and tenderness. (J. Parker, D. D.)

Gods gracious answers to our prayers

When poor men make requests to us we usually answer them as the echo does the voice; the answer cuts off half the petition. We shall seldom find among men Jaels courtesy, giving milk to those that ask water, except it be, as this was, an entangling benefit, the better to introduce a mischief. There are not many Naamans among us, that, when you beg of them one talent, will force you to take two; but Gods answer to our prayers is like a multiplying glass, which renders the request much greater in the answer than it was in the prayer. (J. Reynolds.)

Answers to prayer should be eagerly expected

One of the heathen poets speaks of Jupiter throwing certain prayers to the winds,–dispersing them in empty air. It is sad to think that we often do that for ourselves. What would you think of a man who had written and folded and sealed and addressed a letter, flinging it out into the street and thinking no more about it? Sailors in foundering ships sometimes commit notes in sealed bottles to the waves for the chance of them being some day washed on some shore. Sir John Franklins companions among the snows, and Captain Allen Gardiner dying of hunger in his cove, wrote words they could not be sure anyone would ever read. But we do not need to think of our prayers as random messages. We should therefore look for a reply to them and watch to get it. (J. Edmond.)

And shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.—

Prevailing prayer

There are different translations of these words. One version renders it, I will shew thee great and fortified things. Another, Great and reserved things. Now, there are reserved and special things in Christian experience: all the developments of spiritual life are not alike easy of attainment. There are the common frames and feelings of repentance, and faith, and joy, and hope, which are enjoyed by the entire family; but there is an upper realm of rapture, of communion, and conscious union with Christ, which is far from being the common dwelling-place of believers. We have not all the higher privilege of John, to lean upon Jesus bosom; nor of Paul, to be caught up into the third heaven. There are heights in experimental knowledge of the things of God which the eagles eye of acumen and philosophic thought hath never seen: God alone can bear us there; but the chariot in which He takes us up, and the fiery steeds with which that chariot is dragged, are prevailing prayers. Prevailing prayer is victorious over the God of mercy. By his strength he had power with God: yea, he had power over the angel, and prevailed: he wept, and made supplication unto Him: he found Him in Bethel, and there He spake with us. Prevailing prayer takes the Christian to Carmel, and enables him to cover heaven with clouds of blessing, and earth with floods of mercy. Prevailing prayer bears the Christian aloft to Pisgah, and shows him the inheritance reserved; it elevates us to Tabor and transfigures us, till in the likeness of our Lord, as He is, so are we also in this world. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 3. Call unto me, and I will answer thee] To me alone it belongs to reveal what is future; and the stupendous things which are now coming are known only to myself. These idolaters go to their gods to get information relative to the issue of the present commotions; but there is no light in them. Ask thou, O Jeremiah, and I will tell thee the great and mighty things which even thou knowest not.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

God either speaketh to the people to pray unto him, or to the prophet on the behalf of the people to pray, promising him he would show him great things.

Object. But how doth God say that Jeremiah did not know them, when God before this time had revealed them to the prophet, and the prophet had revealed them?

Solut. He did not know them before God had revealed them, and though God had revealed them, yet by his prayer in the former chapter it appears he did not fully understand them, or firmly believe them as he ought to have done.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

3. Call . . . I will answer(Jer 29:12; Psa 91:15).Jeremiah, as the representative of the people of God, is urged by Godto pray for that which God has determined to grant; namely, therestoration. God’s promises are not to slacken, but to quicken theprayers of His people (Psa 132:13;Psa 132:17; Isa 62:6;Isa 62:7).

mighty thingsHebrew,“inaccessible things,” that is, incredible, hard to man’sunderstanding [MAURER],namely, the restoration of the Jews, an event despaired of. “Hidden,”or “recondite” [PISCATOR].

thou knowest notYetGod had revealed those things to Jeremiah, but the unbelief of thepeople in rejecting the grace of God had caused him to forget God’spromise, as though the case of the people admitted of no remedy.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

Call unto me, and I will answer thee,…. This is spoken not to Jerusalem, and the inhabitants of it; but to the prophet, encouraging him to seek the Lord by prayer, promising an answer to him. So the Targum,

“pray before me, and I will receive thy prayer:”

and show thee great and mighty things; or, “fortified ones” p; which are like fortified cities, that cannot easily be come at, unless the gates are opened to enter into; and designs such as are difficult of understanding, which exceed human belief, and which reason cannot comprehend and take in; and such are the great things of the Gospel. Some copies read it, “things reserved” q; as the Targum; and so Jarchi, who interprets it of things future, of things reserved in the heart of God, and which he purposed to do; and very rightly:

which thou knowest not; until revealed; and from hence it appears, that by these great and hidden things are not meant the destruction of Jerusalem, and the seventy years’ captivity, and return from that, things which Jeremiah had been made acquainted with time after time, and had prophesied of them; but spiritual blessings hereafter mentioned, some of which the deliverance from Babylon were typical of Ben Melech interprets these of comforts great and strong.

p “munita”, Vatablus, Paganinus, Montanus; “fortia”, Tigurine version. q “abstrusa”, Junius Tremellius, Piscator “recondita”, so some in Vatablus.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

He afterwards adds, Cry to me, and I will answer thee, and I will announce to thee things magnificent and recondite, which thou hast not known It was not so much for the sake of the Prophet as of others that this was said. For the Prophet, no doubt, had earnestly prayed, and his prison must have inflamed his ardor, so as to intercede constantly with God. God then does not here reprove his torpor or his sloth by saying, Cry to me; but as I have said, the word is so directed to the Prophet, that God excites all the godly to pray. There is indeed here an implied reproof, as though he had said that it was their fault that God did not cheer their minds with a joyful and happy message, for they had closed the door against themselves, so as to prevent God from offering them that comfort which they yet especially wished; but men, while they expect God to be propitious to them, do not yet give entrance to his grace, because they bolt up, as it were, their hearts with unbelief. We hence see why it was said, Cry to me, and I will answer thee

But this passage ought especially to be noticed; for we may hence conclude, that whenever we pine away in sorrow, or are worn out by affliction, it is our own fault, because we are tardy and slow to pray: for every one who cries acknowledges that God is always nigh, as he promises in the Psalms, to those who truly call on him. That we are then sometimes worn out with long grief, and no comfort given to us, this happens, let us know, through our neglect and sloth, because we cry not to God, who is ever ready to answer us, as he here promises.

And he says, I will declare to thee great things, and of hidden things thou knowest not So are the words literally; but they cannot be thus suitably rendered: then we may read, “and things hidden which thou knowest not,” or, “I will make thee acquainted with hidden things which are unknown to thee.” It may, however, be asked, why God called those things hidden, of which Jeremiah had already prophesied? The answer is obvious, — that they had, as it were, made void all the promises of God, and the holy man might, have been even confounded, when he saw that God’s favor was thus rejected; for it was reasonable to conclude, that as the people obstinately rejected the hope of deliverance, it was all over with them, and that their condition was, as it were, hopeless. We hence see that those things are often hidden to us which God has again and again made known to us; for either they do not immediately penetrate into our minds, or the memory of them is extinguished, or faith is not so vigorous in us as it ought to be, or we are disturbed and confounded by obstacles thrown in our way.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

3. Mighty things Literally, things fortified, that is, inaccessible, hard to be found out. Ewald conjectures, that in the original word one letter, nun, ( ,) has been changed into another, beth, ( .) If this be true (which is by no means necessary) the reading would be hidden.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments