{"commentary":{"id":"jamieson-fausset-brown","name":"Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary","website":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamieson-Fausset-Brown_Bible_Commentary","licenseUrl":"https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/","licenseNotes":null,"licenseNotice":null,"englishName":"Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary","language":"eng","textDirection":"rtl","sha256":"db3d4c8b3c1f32ef9d1430a57392e02bda3a17aac1f9bbe398461de021a3cb13","availableFormats":["json"],"listOfBooksApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/books.json","listOfProfilesApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/profiles.json","numberOfBooks":66,"totalNumberOfChapters":1187,"totalNumberOfVerses":17056,"totalNumberOfProfiles":0,"languageName":"English","languageEnglishName":"English"},"book":{"id":"JER","commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","name":"Jeremiah","commonName":"Jeremiah","introduction":"JEREMIAH, son of Hilkiah, one of the ordinary priests, dwelling in Anathoth of Benjamin (Jer 1:1), not the Hilkiah the high priest who discovered the book of the law (Kg2 22:8); had he been the same, the designation would have been \"the priest\", or \"the high priest\". Besides, his residence at Anathoth shows that he belonged to the line of Abiathar, who was deposed from the high priesthood by Solomon (Kg1 2:26-35), after which the office remained in Zadok's line. Mention occurs of Jeremiah in Ch2 35:25; Ch2 36:12, Ch2 36:21. In 629 B.C. the thirteenth year of King Josiah, while still very young (Jer 1:5), he received his prophetical call in Anathoth (Jer 1:2); and along with Hilkiah the high priest, the prophetess Huldah, and the prophet Zephaniah, he helped forward Josiah's reformation of religion (2Ki. 23:1-25). Among the first charges to him was one that he should go and proclaim God's message in Jerusalem (Jer 2:2). He also took an official tour to announce to the cities of Judah the contents of the book of the law, found in the temple (Jer 11:6) five years after his call to prophesy. On his return to Anathoth, his countrymen, offended at his reproofs, conspired against his life. To escape their persecutions (Jer 11:21), as well as those of his own family (Jer 12:6), he left Anathoth and resided at Jerusalem. During the eighteen years of his ministry in Josiah's reign he was unmolested; also during the three months of Jehoahaz or Shallum's reign (Jer 22:10-12). On Jehoiakim's accession it became evident that Josiah's reformation effected nothing more than a forcible repression of idolatry and the establishment of the worship of God outwardly. The priests, prophets, and people then brought Jeremiah before the authorities, urging that he should be put to death for his denunciations of evil against the city (Jer 26:8-11). The princes, however, especially Ahikam, interposed in his behalf (Jer 26:16, Jer 26:24), but he was put under restraint, or at least deemed it prudent not to appear in public. In the fourth year of Jehoiakim (606 B.C.), he was commanded to write the predictions given orally through him, and to read them to the people. Being \"shut up\", he could not himself go into the house of the Lord (Jer 36:5); he therefore deputed Baruch, his amanuensis, to read them in public on the fast day. The princes thereupon advised Baruch and Jeremiah to hide themselves from the king's displeasure. Meanwhile they read the roll to the king, who was so enraged that he cut it with a knife and threw it into the fire; at the same time giving orders for the apprehension of the prophet and Baruch. They escaped Jehoiakim's violence, which had already killed the prophet Urijah (Jer 26:20-23). Baruch rewrote the words, with additional prophecies, on another roll (Jer 36:27-32). In the three months' reign of Jehoiachin or Jeconiah, he prophesied the carrying away of the king and the queen mother (Jer 13:18; Jer 22:24-30; compare Kg2 24:12). In this reign he was imprisoned for a short time by Pashur (Jer. 20:1-18), the chief governor of the Lord's house; but at Zedekiah's accession he was free (Jer 37:4), for the king sent to him to \"inquire of the Lord\" when Nebuchadnezzar came up against Jerusalem (Jer 21:1-3, &c.; Jer 37:3). The Chaldeans drew off on hearing of the approach of Pharaoh's army (Jer 37:5); but Jeremiah warned the king that the Egyptians would forsake him, and the Chaldeans return and burn up the city (Jer 37:7-8). The princes, irritated at this, made the departure of Jeremiah from the city during the respite a pretext for imprisoning him, on the allegation of his deserting to the Chaldeans (Jer 38:1-5). He would have been left to perish in the dungeon of Malchiah, but for the intercession of Ebed-melech, the Ethiopian (Jer 38:6-13). Zedekiah, though he consulted Jeremiah in secret yet was induced by his princes to leave Jeremiah in prison (Jer 38:14-28) until Jerusalem was taken. Nebuchadnezzar directed his captain, Nebuzar-adan, to give him his freedom, so that he might either go to Babylon or stay with the remnant of his people as he chose. As a true patriot, notwithstanding the forty and a half years during which his country had repaid his services with neglect and persecution, he stayed with Gedaliah, the ruler appointed by Nebuchadnezzar over Judea (Jer 40:6). After the murder of Gedaliah by Ishmael, Johanan, the recognized ruler of the people, in fear of the Chaldeans avenging the murder of Gedaliah, fled with the people to Egypt, and forced Jeremiah and Baruch to accompany him, in spite of the prophet's warning that the people should perish if they went to Egypt, but be preserved by remaining in their land (Jer. 41:1-43:13). At Tahpanhes, a boundary city on the Tanitic or Pelustan branch of the Nile, he prophesied the overthrow of Egypt (Jer 43:8-13). Tradition says he died in Egypt. According to the PSEUDO-EPIPHANIUS, he was stoned at TaphnÃ&brvbr or Tahpanhes. The Jews so venerated him that they believed he would rise from the dead and be the forerunner of Messiah (Mat 16:14).\n\nHAVERNICK observes that the combination of features in Jeremiah's character proves his divine mission; mild, timid, and susceptible of melancholy, yet intrepid in the discharge of his prophetic functions, not sparing the prince any more than the meanest of his subjects--the Spirit of prophecy controlling his natural temper and qualifying him for his hazardous undertaking, without doing violence to his individuality. Zephaniah, Habakkuk, Daniel, and Ezekiel were his contemporaries. The last forms a good contrast to Jeremiah, the Spirit in his case acting on a temperament as strongly marked by firmness as Jeremiah's was by shrinking and delicate sensitiveness. Ezekiel views the nation's sins as opposed to righteousness--Jeremiah, as productive of misery; the former takes the objective, the latter the subjective, view of the evils of the times. Jeremiah's style corresponds to his character: he is peculiarly marked by pathos, and sympathy with the wretched; his Lamentations illustrate this; the whole series of elegies has but one object--to express sorrow for his fallen country; yet the lights and images in which he presents this are so many, that the reader, so far from feeling it monotonous, is charmed with the variety of the plaintive strains throughout. The language is marked by AramÃ&brvbrisms, which probably was the ground of JEROME'S charge that the style is \"rustic\". LOWTH denies the charge and considers him in portions not inferior to Isaiah. His heaping of phrase on phrase, the repetition of stereotyped forms--and these often three times--are due to his affected feelings and to his desire to intensify the expression of them; he is at times more concise, energetic, and sublime, especially against foreign nations, and in the rhythmical parts.\n\nThe principle of the arrangement of his prophecies is hard to ascertain. The order of kings was--Josiah (under whom he prophesied eighteen years), Jehoahaz (three months), Jehoiakim (eleven years), Jeconiah (three months), Zedekiah (eleven years). But his prophecies under Josiah (the first through twentieth chapters) are immediately followed by a portion under Zedekiah (the twenty-first chapter). Again, Jer 24:8-10, as to Zedekiah, comes in the midst of the section as to Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, and Jeconiah (the twenty-second, twenty-third, twenty-fifth chapters, &c.) So the thirty-fifth and thirty-sixth chapters as to Jehoiakim, follow the twenty-seventh, twenty-eighth, twenty-ninth, thirty-third, thirty-fourth chapters, as to Zedekiah; and the forty-fifth chapter, dated the fourth year of Jehoiakim, comes after predictions as to the Jews who fled to Egypt after the overthrow of Jerusalem. EWALD thinks the present arrangement substantially Jeremiah's own; the various portions are prefaced by the same formula, \"The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord\" (Jer 7:1; Jer 11:1; Jer 18:1; Jer 21:1; Jer 25:1; Jer 30:1; Jer 32:1; Jer 34:1, Jer 34:8; Jer 35:1; Jer 40:1; Jer 44:1; compare Jer 14:1; Jer 46:1; Jer 47:1; Jer 49:34). Notes of time mark other divisions more or less historical (Jer 26:1; Jer 27:1; Jer 36:1; Jer 37:1). Two other portions are distinct of themselves (Jer 29:1; Jer 45:1). The second chapter has the shorter introduction which marks the beginning of a strophe; the third chapter seems imperfect, having as the introduction merely \"saying\" (Jer 3:1, Hebrew). Thus in the poetical parts, there are twenty-three sections divided into strophes of from seven to nine verses, marked some way thus, \"The Lord said also unto me\". They form five books: I. The Introduction, first chapter II. Reproofs of the Jews, the second through twenty-fourth chapters, made up of seven sections: (1) the second chapter (2) the third through sixth chapters; (3) the seventh through tenth chapters; (4) the eleventh through thirteenth chapters; (5) the fourteenth through seventeenth chapters; (6) the seventeenth through nineteenth and twentieth chapters; (7) the twenty-first through twenty-fourth chapters. III. Review of all nations in two sections: the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth through forty-ninth chapters, with a historical appendix of three sections, (1) the twenty-sixth chapter; (2) the twenty-seventh chapter; (3) the twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth chapters. IV. Two sections picturing the hopes of brighter times, (1) the thirtieth and thirty-first chapters; (2) the thirty-second and thirty-third chapters; and an historical appendix in three sections: (1) Jer 34:1-7; (2) Jer 34:8-22; (3) Jer. 35:1-19. V. The conclusion, in two sections: (1) Jer 36:2; (2) Jer 45:1-5. Subsequently, in Egypt, he added Jer 46:13-26 to the previous prophecy as to Egypt; also the three sections, the thirty-seventh through thirty-ninth chapters; fortieth through forty-third chapters; and forty-fourth chapter. The fifty-second chapter was probably (see Jer 51:64) an appendix from a later hand, taken from Kg2 24:18, &c.; Kg2 25:30. The prophecies against the several foreign nations stand in a different order in the Hebrew from that of the Septuagint; also the prophecies against them in the Hebrew (the forty-sixth through fifty-first chapters) are in the Septuagint placed after Jer 25:14, forming the twenty-sixth and thirty-first chapters; the remainder of the twenty-fifth chapter of the Hebrew is the thirty-second chapter of the Septuagint. Some passages in the Hebrew (Jer 27:19-22; Jer 33:14-26; Jer 39:4-14 Jer 48:45-47) are not found in the Septuagint; the Greek translators must have had a different recension before them; probably an earlier one. The Hebrew is probably the latest and fullest edition from Jeremiah's own hand. See on Jer 25:13. The canonicity of his prophecies is established by quotations of them in the New Testament (see Mat 2:17; Mat 16:14; Heb 8:8-12; on Mat 27:9, see on Introduction to Zechariah); also by the testimony of Ecclesiasticus 49:7, which quotes Jer 1:10; of PHILO, who quotes his word as an \"oracle\"; and of the list of canonical books in MELITO, ORIGEN, JEROME, and the Talmud. \n\n\n\nNext: Jeremiah Chapter 1\n\n","order":24,"numberOfChapters":52,"sha256":"c78e13c74a2800611f22cb60aa103f8a8343344fc49d4e0043f00d5c7e483f21","firstChapterNumber":1,"firstChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/JER/1.json","firstChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"JER","chapter":1},"lastChapterNumber":52,"lastChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/JER/52.json","lastChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"JER","chapter":52},"totalNumberOfVerses":1164},"chapter":{"number":31,"content":[{"type":"verse","number":2,"content":["Upon the grace manifested to Israel \"in the wilderness\" God grounds His argument for renewing His favors to them now in their exile; because His covenant is \"everlasting\" (Jer 31:3), and changes not. The same argument occurs in Hos 13:5, Hos 13:9-10; Hos 14:4-5, Hos 14:8. Babylon is fitly compared to the \"wilderness,\" as in both alike Israel was as a stranger far from his appointed \"rest\" or home, and Babylon is in Isa 40:3 called a \"desert\" (compare Jer 50:12). \n\nI went to cause him to rest--namely, in the pillar of cloud and fire, the symbol of God's presence, which went before Israel to search a resting-place (Num 10:33; Isa 63:14) for the people, both a temporary one at each halt in the wilderness, and a permanent one in Canaan (Exo 33:14; Deu 3:20; Jos 21:44; Psa 95:11; Heb 3:11).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":3,"content":["Israel gratefully acknowledges in reply God's past grace; but at the same time tacitly implies by the expression \"of old,\" that God does not appear to her now. \"God appeared to me of old, but now I am forsaken!\" God replies, Nay, I love thee with the same love now as of old. My love was not a momentary impulse, but from \"everlasting\" in My counsels, and to \"everlasting\" in its continuance; hence originated the covenant whereby I gratuitously adopted thee (Mal 1:2; Rom 11:28-29). Margin translates, \"from afar,\" which does not answer so well as \"of old,\" to \"in the wilderness\" (Jer 31:2), which refers to the olden times of Israel's history. \n\nwith loving kindness . . . drawn-- (Hos 11:4). Rather, \"I have drawn out continually My loving kindness toward thee.\" So Psa 36:10, \"Continue (Margin, 'Draw out at length') Thy loving kindness.\" By virtue of My everlasting love I will still extend My loving kindness to thee. So Isa 44:21, \"O Israel, thou shalt not be forgotten of Me.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":4,"content":["I will build . . . thou shalt be built--The combination of the active and passive to express the same fact implies the infallible certainty of its accomplishment. \"Build,\" that is, establish in prosperity (Jer 33:7). \n\nadorned with . . . tabrets-- (Sa1 18:6). Or, \"adorn thyself with thy timbrels\"; used by damsels on occasions of public rejoicings (Exo 15:20; Jdg 11:34). Israel had cast away all instruments of joy in her exile (Psa 137:4). \n\ndances--holy joy, not carnal mirth.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":5,"content":["Samaria--the metropolis of the ten tribes; here equivalent to Israel. The mountainous nature of their country suited the growth of the vine. \n\neat . . . as common--literally, \"shall profane,\" that is, shall put to common use. For the first three years after planting, the vine was \"not to be eaten of\"; on the fourth year the fruit was to be \"holy to praise the Lord withal\"; on the fifth year the fruit was to be eaten as common, no longer restricted to holy use (Lev 19:23-25; compare Deu 20:6; Deu 28:30, Margin). Thus the idea here is, \"The same persons who plant shall reap the fruits\"; it shall no longer be that one shall plant and another reap the fruit.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":6,"content":["The watchmen stationed on eminences (types of the preachers of the gospel), shall summon the ten tribes to go up to the annual feasts at Jerusalem (\"Zion\"), as they used to do before the revolt and the setting up of the idol calves at Dan and Beer-sheba (Eze 37:21-22). \n\nMount Ephraim--not one single mountain, but the whole mountainous region of the ten tribes. \n\nour God--from whom we formerly revolted, but who is now our God. An earnest of that good time to come is given in the partial success of the gospel in its first preaching in Samaria (John 4:1-42; Acts 8:5-25).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":7,"content":["The people are urged with praises and prayers to supplicate for their universal restoration. Jehovah is represented in the context (Jer 31:1, Jer 31:8), as promising immediately to restore Israel. They therefore praise God for the restoration, being as certain of it as if it were actually accomplished; and at the same time pray for it, as prayer was a means to the desired end. Prayer does not move God to grant our wishes, but when God has determined to grant our wishes, He puts it into our hearts to pray for the thing desired. Compare Psa 102:13-17, as to the connection of Israel's restoration with the prayers of His people (Isa 62:1-6). \n\nfor Jacob--on account of Jacob; on account of his approaching deliverance by Jehovah. \n\namong--\"for,\" that is, on account of, would more exactly suit the parallelism to \"for Jacob.\" \n\nchief of the nations--Israel: as the parallelism to \"Jacob\" proves (compare Exo 19:5; Psa 135:4; Amo 6:1). God estimates the greatness of nations not by man's standard of material resources, but by His electing favor.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":8,"content":["north--Assyria, Media, &c. (see on Jer 3:12; Jer 3:18; Jer 23:8). \n\ngather from . . . coasts of . . . earth-- (Eze 20:34, Eze 20:41; Eze 34:13). \n\nblind . . . lame, &c.--Not even the most infirm and unfit persons for a journey shall be left behind, so universal shall be the restoration. \n\na great company--or, they shall return \"in a great company\" [MAURER].\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":9,"content":["weeping--for their past sins which caused their exile (Psa 126:5-6). Although they come with weeping, they shall return with joy (Jer 50:4-5). \n\nsupplications--(Compare Jer 31:18-19; Jer 3:21-25; Zac 12:10). Margin translates \"favors,\" as in Jos 11:20; Ezr 9:8; thus God's favors or compassions are put in opposition to the people's weeping; their tears shall be turned into joy. But English Version suits the parellelism best. \n\nI will cause . . . to walk by . . . waters . . . straight way-- (Isa 35:6-8; Isa 43:19; Isa 49:10-11). God will give them waters to satisfy their thirst as in the wilderness journey from Egypt. So spiritually (Mat 5:6; Joh 7:37). \n\nEphraim--the ten tribes no longer severed from Judah, but forming one people with it. \n\nmy first-born-- (Exo 4:22; Hos 11:1; Rom 9:4). So the elect Church (Co2 6:18; Jam 1:18).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":10,"content":["The tidings of God's interposition in behalf of Israel will arrest the attention of even the uttermost Gentile nations. \n\nHe that scattered will gather--He who scattered knows where to find Israel; He who smote can also heal. \n\nkeep--not only will gather, but keep safely to the end (Joh 13:1; Joh 17:11). \n\nshepherd-- (Isa 40:11; Eze 34:12-14).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":11,"content":["ransomed . . . from . . . hand of . . . stronger--No strength of the foe can prevent the Lord from delivering Jacob (Isa 49:24-25).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":12,"content":["height of Zion-- (Eze 17:23). \n\nflow--There shall be a conflux of worshippers to the temple on Zion (Isa 2:2; Mic 4:1). \n\nto the goodness of . . . Lord--(See Jer 31:14). Beneficence, that is, to the Lord as the source of all good things (Hos 3:5), to pray to Him and praise Him for these blessings of which He is the Fountainhead. \n\nwatered garden-- (Isa 58:11). Not merely for a time, but continually full of holy comfort. \n\nnot sorrow any more--referring to the Church triumphant, as well as to literal Israel (Isa 35:10; Isa 65:19; Rev 21:4).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":13,"content":["young . . . old-- (Zac 8:4-5).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":14,"content":["my goodness-- (Jer 31:12).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":15,"content":["Ramah--In Benjamin, east of the great northern road, two hours' journey from Jerusalem. Rachel, who all her life had pined for children (Gen 30:1), and who died with \"sorrow\" in giving birth to Benjamin (Gen 35:18-19, Margin; Sa1 10:2), and was buried at Ramah, near Beth-lehem, is represented as raising her head from the tomb, and as breaking forth into \"weeping\" at seeing the whole land depopulated of her sons, the Ephraimites. Ramah was the place where Nebuzara-dan collected all the Jews in chains, previous to their removal to Babylon (Jer 40:1). God therefore consoles her with the promise of their restoration. Mat 2:17-18 quotes this as fulfilled in the massacre of the innocents under Herod. \"A lesser and a greater event, of different times, may answer to the single sense of one passage of Scripture, until the prophecy is exhausted\" [BENGEL]. Besides the temporary reference to the exiles in Babylon, the Holy Spirit foreshadowed ultimately Messiah's exile in Egypt, and the desolation caused in the neighborhood of Rachel's tomb by Herod's massacre of the children, whose mothers had \"sons of sorrow\" (Ben-oni), just as Rachel had. The return of Messiah (the representative of Israel) from Egypt, and the future restoration of Israel, both the literal and the spiritual (including the innocents), at the Lord's second advent, are antitypical of the restoration of Israel from Babylon, which is the ground of consolation held out here by Jeremiah. The clause, \"They were not,\" that is, were dead (Gen 42:13), does not apply so strictly to the exiles in Babylon as it does to the history of Messiah and His people--past, present, and future. So the words, \"There is hope in thine end,\" are to be fulfilled ultimately, when Rachel shall meet her murdered children at the resurrection, at the same time that literal Israel is to be restored. \"They were not,\" in Hebrew, is singular; each was not: each mother at the Beth-lehem massacre had but one child to lament, as the limitation of age in Herod's order, \"two years and under,\" implies; this use of the singular distributively (the mothers weeping severally, each for her own child), is a coincidence between the prophecy of the Beth-lehem massacre and the event, the more remarkable as not being obvious: the singular, too, is appropriate as to Messiah in His Egyptian exile, who was to be a leading object of Rachel's lamentation.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":16,"content":["thy work--thy parental weeping for thy children [ROSENMULLER]. Thine affliction in the loss of thy children, murdered for Christ's sake, shall not be fruitless to thee, as was the case in thy giving birth to the \"child of thy sorrow,\" Benjamin. Primarily, also, thy grief shall not be perpetual: the exiles shall return, and the land be inhabited again [CALVIN]. \n\ncome again-- (Hos 1:11).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":17,"content":["hope in . . . end--All thy calamities shall have a prosperous issue.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":18,"content":["Ephraim--representing the ten tribes. \n\nbemoaning himself--The spirit of penitent supplication shall at last be poured on Israel as the necessary forerunner of their restoration (Zac 12:10-14). \n\nThou hast chastised me, and I was chastised--In the first clause the chastisement itself is meant; in the second the beneficial effect of it in teaching the penitent true wisdom. \n\nbullock unaccustomed to . . . yoke--A similar image occurs in Deu 32:15. Compare \"stiff-necked,\" Act 7:51; Exo 32:9, an image from refractory oxen. Before my chastisement I needed the severe correction I received, as much as an untamed bullock needs the goad. Compare Act 9:5, where the same figure is used of Saul while unconverted. Israel has had a longer chastisement than Judah, not having been restored even at the Jews' return from Babylon. Hereafter, at its restoration, it shall confess the sore discipline was all needed to \"accustom\" it to God's \"easy yoke\" (Mat 11:29-30). \n\nturn thou me--by Thy converting Spirit (Lam 5:21). But why does Ephraim pray for conversion, seeing that he is already converted? Because we are converted by progressive steps, and need the same power of God to carry forward, as to originate, our conversion (Joh 6:44, Joh 6:65; compare with Isa 27:3; Pe1 1:5; Phi 1:6).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":19,"content":["after that I was turned, I repented--Repentance in the full sense follows, not precedes, our being turned to God by God (Zac 12:10). The Jews' \"looking to Him whom they pierced\" shall result in their \"mourning for Him.\" Repentance is the tear that flows from the eye of faith turned to Jesus. He Himself gives it: we give it not of ourselves, but must come to Him for it (Act 5:31). \n\ninstructed--made to learn by chastisement. God's Spirit often works through the corrections of His providence. \n\nsmote upon . . . thigh-- (Eze 21:12). A token of indignant remorse, shame, and grief, because of his past sin. \n\nbear . . . reproach of . . . youth--\"because the calamities which I bore were the just punishment of my scandalous wantonness against God in my youth\"; alluding to the idols set up at Dan and Beth-el immediately after the ten tribes revolted from Judah. His sense of shame shows that he no longer delights in his sin.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":20,"content":["Is Ephraim my dear son? &c.--The question implies that a negative answer was to be expected. Who would have thought that one so undutiful to His heavenly Father as Ephraim had been should still be regarded by God as a \"pleasant child?\" Certainly he was not so in respect to his sin. But by virtue of God's \"everlasting love\" (Jer 31:3) on Ephraim's being \"turned\" to God, he was immediately welcomed as God's \"dear son.\" This verse sets forth God's readiness to welcome the penitent (Jer 31:18-19), anticipating his return with prevenient grace and love. Compare Luk 15:20 : \"When he was yet a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion,\" &c. \n\nspake against--threatened him for his idolatry. \n\nremember--with favor and concern, as in Gen 8:1; Gen 30:22. \n\nbowels . . . troubled for him-- (Deu 32:36; Isa 63:15; Hos 11:8) --namely, with the yearnings of compassionate love. The \"bowels\" include the region of the heart, the seat of the affections.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":21,"content":["waymarks--pillars to mark the road for the returning exiles. Caravans set up pillars, or pointed heaps of stones, to mark the way through the desert against their return. So Israel is told by God to mark the way by which they went in leaving their country for exile; for by the same way they shall return. \n\nhighway-- (Isa 35:8, Isa 35:10).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":22,"content":["go about--namely, after human helps (Jer 2:18, Jer 2:23, Jer 2:36). Why not return immediately to me? MAURER translates, as in Sol 5:6, \"How long wilt thou withdraw thyself?\" Let thy past backslidings suffice thee now that a new era approaches. What God finds fault with in them is, that they looked hither and thither, leaning on contingencies, instead of at once trusting the word of God, which promised their restoration. To assure them of this, God promises to create a new thing in their land, A woman shall compass a man. CALVIN explains this: Israel, who is feeble as a woman, shall be superior to the warlike Chaldeans; the captives shall reduce their captors to captivity. HENGSTENBERG makes the \"woman\" the Jewish Church, and the \"man\" Jehovah, her husband, whose love she will again seek (Hos 2:6-7). MAURER, A woman shall protect (Deu 32:10, Margin; Psa 32:10) a man, that is, You need fear no foes in returning, for all things shall be so peaceful that a woman would be able to take man's part, and act as his protector. But the Christian fathers (Augustine, &c.) almost unanimously interpreted it of the Virgin Mary compassing Christ in her womb. This view is favored:--(1) By the connection; it gives a reason why the exiles should desire a return to their country, namely, because Christ was conceived there. (2) The word \"created\" implies a divine power put forth in the creation of a body in the Virgin's womb by the Holy Ghost for the second Adam, such as was exerted in creating the first Adam (Luk 1:35; Heb 10:5). (3) The phrase, \"a new thing,\" something unprecedented; a man whose like had never existed before, at once God and man; a mother out of the ordinary course of nature, at once mother and virgin. An extraordinary mode of generation; one conceived by the Holy Ghost without man. (4) The specification \"in the land\" (not \"earth,\" as English Version), namely, of Judah, where probably Christ was conceived, in Hebron (compare Luk 1:39, Luk 1:42, Luk 1:44, with Jos 21:11) or else in Nazareth, \"in the territory\" of Israel, to whom Jer 31:5-6, Jer 31:15, Jer 31:18, Jer 31:21 refer; His birth was at Beth-lehem (Mic 5:2; Mat 2:5-6). As the place of His nativity, and of His being reared (Mat 2:23), and of His preaching (Hag 2:7; Mal 3:1), are specified, so it is likely the Holy Spirit designated the place of His being conceived. (5) The Hebrew for \"woman\" implies an individual, as the Virgin Mary, rather than a collection of persons. (6) The restoration of Israel is grounded on God's covenant in Christ, to whom, therefore, allusion is naturally made as the foundation of Israel's hope (compare Isa 7:14). The Virgin Mary's conception of Messiah in the womb answers to the \"Virgin of Israel\" (therefore so called, Jer 31:21), that is, Israel and her sons at their final restoration, receiving Jesus as Messiah (Zac 12:10). (7) The reference to the conception of the child Messiah accords with the mention of the massacre of \"children\" referred to in Jer 31:15 (compare Mat 2:17). (8) The Hebrew for \"man\" is properly \"mighty man,\" a term applied to God (Deu 10:17); and to Christ (Zac 13:7; compare Psa 45:3; Isa 9:6) [CALOVIUS].\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":23,"content":["Jerusalem again shall be the metropolis of the whole nation, the seat of \"justice\" (Psa 122:5-8; Isa 1:26), and of sacred worship (\"holiness,\" Zac 8:3) on \"Mount\" Moriah.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":24,"content":["Judah . . . cities . . . husbandmen . . . they with flocks--Two classes, Citizens and countrymen, the latter divided into agriculturists and shepherds, all alike in security, though the latter were to be outside the protection of city walls. \"Judah\" here stands for the country, as distinguished from its cities.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":25,"content":["The \"weary, sorrowful,\" and indigent state of Israel will prove no obstacle in the way of My helping them.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":26,"content":["The words of Jeremiah: Upon this (or, By reason of this) announcement of a happy restoration, \"I awaked\" from the prophetic dream vouchsafed to me (Jer 23:25) with the \"sweet\" impression thereof remaining on my mind. \"Sleep\" here means dream, as in Psa 90:5.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":27,"content":["He shows how a land so depopulated shall again be peopled. God will cause both men and beasts in it to increase to a multitude (Eze 36:9-11; Hos 2:23).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":28,"content":["(Jer 44:27). The same God who, as it were (in human language), was on the watch for all means to destroy, shall be as much on the watch for the means of their restoration.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":29,"content":["In those days--after their punishment has. been completed, and mercy again visits them. \n\nfathers . . . eaten . . . sour grape . . . children's teeth . . . on edge--the proverb among the exiles' children born in Babylon, to express that they suffered the evil consequences of their fathers' sins rather than of their own (Lam 5:7; Eze 18:2-3).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":30,"content":["(Gal 6:5, Gal 6:7).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":31,"content":["the days . . . new covenant with . . . Israel . . . Judah--The new covenant is made with literal Israel and Judah, not with the spiritual Israel, that is, believers, except secondarily, and as grafted on the stock of Israel (Rom 11:16-27). For the whole subject of the thirtieth and thirty-first chapters is the restoration of the Hebrews (Jer 30:4, Jer 30:7, Jer 30:10, Jer 30:18; Jer 31:7, Jer 31:10-11, Jer 31:23-24, Jer 31:27, Jer 31:36). With the \"remnant according to the election of grace\" in Israel, the new covenant has already taken effect. But with regard to the whole nation, its realization is reserved for the last days, to which Paul refers this prophecy in an abridged form (Rom 11:27).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":32,"content":["Not . . . the covenant that I made with . . . fathers--the Old Testament covenant, as contrasted with our gospel covenant (Heb 8:8-12; Heb 10:16-17, where this prophecy is quoted to prove the abrogation of the law by the gospel), of which the distinguishing features are its securing by an adequate atonement the forgiveness of sins, and by the inworking of effectual grace ensuring permanent obedience. An earnest of this is given partially in the present eclectic or elect Church gathered out of Jews and Gentiles. But the promise here to Israel in the last days is national and universal, and effected by an extraordinary outpouring of the Spirit (Jer 31:33-34; Eze 11:17-20), independent of any merit on their part (Eze 36:25-32; Eze. 37:1-28; Eze 39:29; Joe 2:23-28; Zac 12:10; Co2 3:16). \n\ntook . . . by . . . hand-- (Deu 1:31; Hos 11:3). \n\nalthough I was an husband--(compare Jer 3:14; Hos 2:7-8). But the Septuagint, Syriac, and St. Paul (Heb 8:9) translate, \"I regarded them not\"; and GESENIUS, &c., justify this rendering of the Hebrew from the Arabic. The Hebrews regarded not God, so God regarded them not.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":33,"content":["will be their God-- (Jer 32:38).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":34,"content":["True, specially of Israel (Isa 54:13); secondarily, true of believers (Joh 6:45; Co1 2:10; Jo1 2:20). \n\nforgive . . . iniquity . . . remember . . . no more-- (Jer 33:8; Jer 50:20; Mic 7:18); applying peculiarly to Israel (Rom 11:27). Secondarily, all believers (Act 10:43).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":35,"content":["divideth . . . sea when . . . waves . . . roar . . . Lord of hosts . . . name--quoted from Isa 51:15, the genuineness of which passage is thus established on Jeremiah's authority.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":36,"content":["a nation--Israel's national polity has been broken up by the Romans. But their preservation as a distinct people amidst violent persecutions, though scattered among all nations for eighteen centuries, unamalgamated, whereas all other peoples under such circumstances have become incorporated with the nations in which they have been dispersed, is a perpetual standing miracle (compare Jer 33:20; Psa 148:6; Isa 54:9-10).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":37,"content":["(Compare Jer 33:22). \n\nfor all that they have done--namely, all the sins. God will regard His own covenant promise, rather than their merits.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":38,"content":["tower of Hananeel--The city shall extend beyond its former bounds (Neh 3:1; Neh 12:39; Zac 14:10). \n\ngate of . . . corner-- (Kg2 14:13; Ch2 26:9).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":39,"content":["measuring-line-- (Eze 40:8; Zac 2:1). \n\nGareb--from a Hebrew root, \"to scrape\"; Syriac, \"leprosy\"; the locality outside of the city, to which lepers were removed. \n\nGoath--from a root, \"to toil,\" referring to the toilsome ascent there: outside of the city of David, towards the southwest, as Gareb was northwest [JUNIUS].\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":40,"content":["valley of . . . dead--Tophet, where the bodies of malefactors were cast (Isa 30:33), south of the city. \n\nfields . . . Kidron--so Kg2 23:4. Fields in the suburbs reaching as far as Kidron, east of the city. \n\nhorse gate--Through it the king's horses were led forth for watering to the brook Kidron (Kg2 11:16; Neh 3:28). \n\nfor ever--The city shall not only be spacious, but both \"holy to the Lord,\" that is, freed from all pollutions, and everlasting (Joe 3:17, Joe 3:20; Rev 21:2, Rev 21:10, Rev 21:27).\n\n\n\n\nNext: Jeremiah Chapter 32\n\n"]}],"introduction":"CONTINUATION OF THE PROPHECY IN THE THIRTIETH CHAPTER. (Jer. 31:1-40)\n\nAt the same time--\"In the latter days\" (Jer 30:24). \n\nthe God of--manifesting My grace to (Gen 17:7; Mat 22:32; Rev 21:3). \n\nall . . . Israel--not the exiles of the south kingdom of Judah only, but also the north kingdom of the ten tribes; and not merely Israel in general, but \"all the families of Israel.\" Never yet fulfilled (Rom 11:26).\n\n"},"thisChapterLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/JER/31.json","thisChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"JER","chapter":31},"nextChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/JER/32.json","nextChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"JER","chapter":32},"previousChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/JER/30.json","previousChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"JER","chapter":30},"numberOfVerses":39}