Bible Commentaries
Lange's Commentary: Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical
Jeremiah 30
10. The Book of Consolation
A. The Tenth Discourse
Jeremiah 30, 31
The close of the prophetic discourses referring to the entire Theocracy is formed by two prophecies of exclusively consolatory purport, of which, at least, the first (chh30,31) was intended to be preserved as a special writing (and only as such. Comp. rems. on Jeremiah 30:1). It is quite natural that these consolatory prophecies should form the close of the discourses; for salvation and peace will in reality be the end of God’s ways.
The first of these consolatory prophecies is also the earlier in date. It is indeed one of the oldest parts of the whole book. The absence of any mention of the Chaldeans (the general “north country” occurs in Jeremiah 31:8) is a sure sign of its composition before the fourth year of Jehoiakim. This discourse moreover is so closely related in its subject-matter to the second discourse (chh3–6), or to its consolatory part ( Jeremiah 3:11-25), that we cannot but attribute it to the same period. We may indeed say that it is only a further development of the consolatory section mentioned. The relationship is seen both in general and in particulars. With respect to the first it may be remarked that Israel and Judah, here as there, form the ground of the division of the discourse, for as in Jeremiah 3:6-10 a comparison is instituted between Judah and Israel in reference to the past, and in Jeremiah 3:11-17 to the future, first of Israel, then (with a gradual transition) of Judah, and in Jeremiah 3:18-25 the future return of both is described, so in Jeremiah 30 the prophet directs his attention first to entire Israel, in Jeremiah 31:1-22 to Ephraim alone, in Jeremiah 31:23-26 to Judah, in Jeremiah 31:27-40 again to both. Though Jeremiah elsewhere also (Comp. rems. on Jeremiah 30:4) in single intimations views the nation according to its two divisions, yet he does this nowhere in so marked a manner as in chh3 and 30–31—Further, as in Jeremiah 3:14-20 the return of the two halves of the nation into the holy land is the basis of all further prosperity, so also in chh30,31. Compare Jeremiah 30:3; Jeremiah 30:10; Jeremiah 30:18; Jeremiah 31:2; Jeremiah 31:8; Jeremiah 31:12; Jeremiah 31:16; Jeremiah 31:21; Jeremiah 31:23.—As further in Jeremiah 3:21 sqq. the return is represented as the consequence of an honest inward turning, so also in Jeremiah 31:18 the sincere penitence of the people is the reason of the return graciously permitted them. It should here be especially observed that in the section Jeremiah 30:16-22 the prophet gives variations of the idea of שׁוּב in the same way as he did in Jeremiah 3. Comp. Exeg. rems. on Jeremiah 31:22. The way also in which the penitential return is described in Jeremiah 31:9; Jeremiah 31:18-19 reminds us at many points of Jeremiah 3:21. A series of expressions further may be specified which occur only in chh30, 31,3–4: עשׂה כלה only in Jeremiah 30:11 and Jeremiah 4:27; Jeremiah 5:10; Jeremiah 5:18, and besides in Jeremiah 46:28, as a quotation from Jeremiah 30:11.—תעדי only in Jeremiah 31:4 and Jeremiah 4:30. בכי ותחנונים only in Jeremiah 31:9 and Jeremiah 3:21. אָב used of Jehovah in reference to Israel only in Jeremiah 31:9 and Jeremiah 3:19.—-מֵעִים only in Jeremiah 31:20 and Jeremiah 4:19. עָרֵב in the sense of to be sweet only in Jeremiah 31:26 and Jeremiah 6:20.—עצמו of sins only in Jeremiah 30:14-15 and Jeremiah 5:6. תמררים only in Jeremiah 31:15 and Jeremiah 6:26.—בָּעַל to rule only in Jeremiah 31:32 and Jeremiah 3:14. We meet besides with expressions and utterances which are taken from chh1,2, which also belong to that initial period. Thus above all Jeremiah 31:28 coll. Jeremiah 1:10; Jeremiah 1:12; Jeremiah 31:3 coll. Jeremiah 2:2; Jeremiah 31:10 איים coll. Jeremiah 2:10 (the plural is found only in these two clauses)-—מנעי only in Jeremiah 31:16 and Jeremiah 2:25.—There are further many points of contact with chh22,23, which are, however, to be explained by the use of this chapter there. For as the prophet had occasion in Jeremiah 23:3-8 to deliver a glorious Messianic prophecy, it was natural that he should be thus reminded of the earlier one of similar purport. In the main point, indeed, the words referring to the person of the Messiah ( Jeremiah 30:9-10; Jeremiah 30:21 coll. Jeremiah 23:5-6), the similarity is only topical. With respect to expression, both prophecies retain their own individuality. Still in the less important points there is an agreement in expression: Jeremiah 30:13 coll. Jeremiah 22:16; Jeremiah 30:14 coll. Jeremiah 22:20; Jeremiah 22:22; Jeremiah 30:16 coll. Jeremiah 22:22; Jeremiah 30:5-6 coll. Jeremiah 22:23.—With respect to the verses Jeremiah 30:23-24, consult the Exposition.
On account of the undeniable specific relationship, which exists between the present chapters and the second discourse (chh3–4), especially the consolatory portion ( Jeremiah 3), I am convinced that chh30,31 owe their origin to the same time, the reign of Josiah (comp. Jeremiah 3:6).
With the exception of Jeremiah 30:22-24, I cannot discover any spurious elements in these chapters. Movers and Hitzig have thought they could repeatedly recognize the hand of the assumed Isaiah II, but have been so satisfactorily refuted by Graf, that I now only refer to him. Graf himself regards Jeremiah 31:35-40 as a latter addition. I think, however, that I have shown in the Exposition that these verses fit into the connection as integral parts, and that therefore, as the diction betrays no foreign traces, they are to be recognized as genuine and original.
The articulation of the discourse is as follows:—
The glorious Future of the People Israel at the end of days.
I. The Theme, Jeremiah 30:1-3.
II. The Deliverance of Entire Israel, Jeremiah 30:4-22.
1. The great day of judgment of the world and deliverance of Israel, Jeremiah 30:4-11.
2. The turn of affairs: The Lord for the chastised, against the chastiser, Jeremiah 30:12-17.
3. The consummation of salvation, Jeremiah 30:18-22.
III. The Special Distribution of Salvation to the two Halves of the Nation, Jeremiah 31:1-26.
a. Ephraim’s share, Jeremiah 31:1-22.
1. The decree of restoration, Jeremiah 31:1-6.
2. Its execution, Jeremiah 31:7-14.
3. The threefold turn, Jeremiah 31:15-22.
b. Judah’s share.
The blessing of the sanctuary, Jeremiah 31:23-26.
IV. The Entire Renewal, Jeremiah 31:27-40.
1. The new life, Jeremiah 31:27-30.
2. The new covenant, Jeremiah 31:31-40.
_________
The Glorious Future of the People Israel at the End of Days
I. The Theme
Jeremiah 30:1-3
1, 2The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord [Jehovah] saying, Thus speaketh the Lord [Jehovah] God of Israel, saying, Write thee all the words that I:3 have spoken unto thee in a book. For [Namely] lo, the days come, saith the Lord [Jehovah], that I will bring again the captivity of my people Israel, and Judah, saith the Lord [Jehovah]; and will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
The superscription is one of the greater sort. It pertains to chh30,31, a similar one not recurring till Jeremiah 32:1. Jeremiah had certainly received this prophecy before, as follows from the words that I have spoken in Jeremiah 30:2. Nevertheless Jeremiah 30:1 is not merely the announcement of what is said in Jeremiah 30:2-3, as Hitzig supposes, but the superscription of the oracle, for such superscriptions always stand as the introduction to the larger sections. As it here introduces the command to write and what is to be written directly follows ( Jeremiah 30:4 sqq.), the superscription refers to both. J. D. Michaelis is of opinion that we have here the expression mandatum to collect the prophecies into a book, and that this is the first book, which closes with Jeremiah 32. The Paralipomena, collected after the death of Jeremiah, form the second book. It is plain, however, that this view is altogether untenable, for this, apart from other reasons, that in Jeremiah 30:2-4 the command to write is referred to the next following prophecy, as Schnurrer has already proved against Michaelis. These chapters also cannot be parts of that book which Jeremiah was caused to write in the fourth year of Jehoiakim ( Jeremiah 36:2). For this book, according to Jeremiah 36:6 sqq, was intended to be read to the people, that they might hear “all the evil which the Lord purposed to do with them, that they might return every man from his evil way and the Lord might forgive them,” so that it appears merely to have contained an exhortation and threatening. This also explains the great displeasure occasioned by it. It was cut into pieces from the first to the last leaf and cast into the fire ( Jeremiah 36:23), which was certainly not the case with these chapters. Even Rosenmueller calls attention to the circumstance that Jeremiah here ( Jeremiah 30:2) receives the command, “non, ut ante concionem habere et quæ ab eo sint annuntianda ad populum per sermonem deferre, sed libro inscribere.” This prophecy was not to be delivered orally, but merely committed to writing, just as the prophecy against Babylon ( Jeremiah 51:60 sqq.). The people were not then in the mood to hear these great beaming predictions of salvation. These were to be bequeathed as written documents, that on the one hand they might serve to encourage the people in their deepest distress, and on the other hand it might be evident that the Lord and no other had brought about this favorable turn in their affairs ( Isaiah 48:5), but also, that the Lord had not afterwards altered His purpose, but already in the times of the deepest decline, when the people were receiving only threatening words from the mouth of the prophet, He had conceived and made known the plan of salvation. Comp. Isaiah 30:8; Job 2:2. The prophecy was thus preserved separately and only afterwards incorporated into the entire collection. It does not seem probable to me, as Graf thinks, that it was included in the second enlarged book ( Jeremiah 36:32). The words in Jeremiah 36:27 sqq. make throughout the impression that the second book in relation to the first contained only a heightened repetition. Nor can we see why, if these chapters are portions of a large book, they alone should bear at their head the special command to write them down. This command must either be found before all the single portions or only where the origin of the whole is mentioned. The special command to commit to writing which we find here ( Jeremiah 30:2) shows that here also we have to do with a special independent writing.
Jeremiah 30:3. For lo. The construction seems to require כִּי to be taken in a causal sense, for it would be somewhat harsh to take it in the sense of “that,” or “namely,” on account of the following הִנֵה and נְאֻם י׳, which seems rather to require לִאמֹרֹ before it. On the other hand, the causal rendering also has its difficulties. For then in Jeremiah 30:3 the main point is not expressed in the statement of the reason, viz.: the Lord wishes that when the good days come He may be able to point to the documentary evidence of His purpose of salvation, as a proof of His being the author of the present prosperity. This thought would have still to be supplied, while the words as they stand evidently state only the purport of the words, Jeremiah 30:2. It will therefore be correct here to take כִּי=“that” or “namely,” in the sense in which לאמרsaying, occurs elsewhere. This latter word would not be suitable after in a book, because it would have meant that the purport of what was to be written in the book was to be stated, whereas it is the tenor of the words already spoken which is to be quoted summarily. This was necessary in order to define the general phrase all the words, which was liable to be misunderstood. Hence I think that כִּי is to be taken here as introducing the direct statement, which radically also is used only for the more common לאמר. Comp. Naegelsb. Gr., § 109, 1 a. The original act of speaking itself is certainly not related here, but the purport of a discourse already delivered is quoted, by which the כִּי obtains the somewhat modified (explicative) meaning of namely. The words from הִנֵּה to וִירֵשׁוּהָ are therefore to be regarded as a quotation. Hence הִנֵּה and נְאֻם י׳. They are not found verbatim as a whole in the following chapters or anywhere in Jeremiah; but they are an accurate synopsis of the words and thoughts which form the heads of the following promise of prosperity. For in Jeremiah 30:18 sqq.; Jeremiah 31:27-32, the return of the whole people of Israel to their home is represented as the close of the mournful past and the basis of a new and glorious future. Comp. Jeremiah 3:14-18.—On bring again the captivity comp. Comm. on Jeremiah 29:14.—[“The four following chapters display a beautiful contrast to the three foregoing ones. The former denunciations of judgment and captivity for sin are here succeeded by promises of mercy and restoration to Jerusalem—promises to be fulfilled in the bringing back of all true Israelites to God by the Divine Deliverer and Redeemer, Jesus Christ. The joyful transition is marked by a sudden change from grave and mournful accents in solemn prose, to a jubilant outburst of poetic ecstasy.” Wordsworth.—S. R. A.]
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. Joh. Conr. Schaller, pastor at Cautendorf, says in his Gospel Sermons, (Hof1742, S. 628), “These chapters are like a sky in which sparkle many brilliant stars of strong and consolatory declarations, a paradise and pleasure-garden in which a believing soul is refreshed with delightsome flowers of instruction, and solaced with sweetly flavored apples of gracious promise.”
2. On Jeremiah 30:1-3. The people of Israel were not then capable of bearing such a prophecy, brimming over with happiness and glory. They would have misused it, hearing to the end what was promised them, and then only the more certainly postponing what was the only thing then necessary—sincere repentance. Hence they are not yet to hear this gloriously consolatory address. It is to be written, that it may in due time be perceived that the Lord, even at the time when He was obliged to threaten most severely, had thoughts of peace concerning the people, and that thus the period of prosperity has not come by chance, nor in consequence of a change of mind, but in consequence of a plan conceived from the beginning and executed accordingly.
3. On Jeremiah 30:7. The great and terrible day of the Lord ( Joel 3:4) has not the dimensions of a human day. It has long sent out its heralds in advance. Yea, it has itself already dawned. For since by the total destruction of the external theocracy judgment is begun at the house of God ( 1 Peter 4:17), we stand in the midst of the day of God in the midst of the judgment of the world. Then the time of trouble for Jacob has begun ( Jeremiah 30:7), from which he is to be delivered, when the fulness of the Gentiles is come in ( Romans 11.)
4. On Jeremiah 30:9. Christ is David in his highest potency, and He is also still more. For if we represent all the typical points in David’s life as a circle, and draw a line from each of these points, the great circle thus formed would comprise only a part of the πλήρωμα given in Christ. Nevertheless Christ is the true David, who was not chosen like Saul for his bodily stature, but only for his inward relation to God (comp. Psalm 2:7), whose kingdom also does not cease after a short period of glory, but endures forever; who will not like Saul succumb to his enemies, but will conquer them all, and will give to his kingdom the widest extent promised; all this however not without, like David, having gone through the bitterest trials.
5. On Jeremiah 30:11. “Modus paternæ castigationis accommodatus et quasi appensus ad stateram judicii Dei adeoque non immensus sed dimensus.” “Christus ecclesiam crucis suæ hæredem constituit. Gregor. M.” Förster.
6. On Jeremiah 30:14. “Cum virlutem patientiæ nostræ flagella transeunt, valde metuendum Esther, ne peccatis nostris exigentibus non jam quasi filii a patre, sed quasi hostes a Domino feriamur. Gregor. M. Moral. XIV:20, on Job 19:11.” Ghisler.
7. On Jeremiah 30:17. “Providentia Dei mortalibus salutifera, antequam percutiat, pharmaca medendi gratiâ componit, et gladium iræ suæ φιλανθρωπίᾳ acuit. Evagr. Hist. Ecclesiastes 4:6.”—“Quando incidis in tentationem, crede, quod nisi cognovisset te posse illam evadere, non permisisset te in illam incidere. Theophyl. in cap. 18 Joh.” Förster.—“Feriam prius et sanabo melius. Theophyl. in Hosea 11.” Ghisler.
8. On Jeremiah 30:21. “This church of God will own a, Prince from its midst—Jesus, of our flesh and blood through the virgin Mary, and He approaches God, as no other can, for He is God’s image, God’s Song of Solomon, and at the same time the perfect, holy in all His sufferings, only obedient son of man. This king is mediator and reconciler with God; He is also high-priest and fulfilled all righteousness, as was necessary for our propitiation. What glory to have such a king, who brings us nigh unto God, and this is our glory!” Diedrich.
9. On Jeremiah 31:1. “There is no greater promise than this: I will be thy God. For if He is our God we are His creatures, His redeemed, His sanctified, according to all the three articles of the Christian faith.” Cramer.
10. On Jeremiah 31:2. “The rough heap had to be sifted by the sword, but those who survived, though afflicted in the desert of this life, found favor with God, and these, the true Israel, God leads into His rest.” Diedrich.
11. On Jeremiah 31:3. “The love of God towards us comes from love and has no other cause above or beside itself, but, is in God and remains in God, so that Christ who is in God is its centre. For herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us ( 1 John 4:10).” Cramer. “Totum gratiæ imputatur, non nostris meritis. Augustine in Psalm 31.” Förster. “Before I had done anything good Thou hadst already moved towards me. Let these words be written on your hearts with the pen of the living God, that they may light you like flames of fire on the day of the marriage. It is your certificate of birth, your testimonial. Let me never lose sight of how much it has cost Thee to redeem me.” Zinzendorf. “God says: My chastisement even was pure love, though then you did not understand it; you shall learn it afterwards.” Diedrich. [“I incline to the construction given in the English version, both because the suffix to the verb is more naturally, ‘I have drawn thee,’ than ‘I have drawn out toward thee,’ and because there seems to be a tacit allusion to Hosea 11:4, ‘With loving kindness have I drawn thee.’—-A great moral truth lies in this passage so construed, viz., that the main power which humbles man’s pride, softens his hard heart and makes him recoil in shame and sorrow from sinning, comes through his apprehension of God’s love as manifested in Christ and His cross. It is love that, draws the fearful or stubborn soul to the feet of divine mercy.” Cowles.—S. R. A.]
12. On Jeremiah 31:6. “It is well: the watchmen on Mount Ephraim had to go to Zion. They received however another visit from the Jewish priests, which they could not have expected at the great reformation, introduced by John, and which had its seat among other places on Mount Ephraim. The Samaritans were not far distant, and Mount Ephraim had even this honor that when the Lord came to His temple He took His Seat as a teacher there.” Zinzendorf. [“God’s grace loves to triumph over the most inveterate prejudices… No words could represent a greater and more benign change in national feeling than these: Samaria saying through her spiritual watchmen, ‘Let us go up to Zion to worship, for our God is there.’ ” Cowles. “ ‘Ascendamus in Sion, hoc est in Ecclesiam’ says S. Jerome. According to this view, the watchmen here mentioned are the Preachers of the Gospel.” Wordsworth.—S. R. A.]
13. On Jeremiah 31:9. “I will lead them. It is an old sighing couplet, but full of wisdom and solid truth:—
‘Lord Jesus, while I live on earth, O guide me,
Let me not, self-led, wander from beside Thee.’ ”
—Zinzendorf.
14. On Jeremiah 31:10. “He who has scattered Israel will also collect it. Why? lie is the Shepherd. It is no wolf-scattering. He interposes His hand, then they go asunder, and directly come together again more orderly.” Zinzendorf.
15. On Jeremiah 31:12-14. “Gaudebunt electi, quando videbunt supra se, intra se, juxta se, infra se. Augustine.”—“Præmia cœlestia erunt tam magna, ut non possint mensurari, tam multa, ut non possint numerari, tam copiosa, ut non possint terminari, tam pretiosa, ut non possint æstimari. Bernhard.” Förster.
16. On Jeremiah 31:15. “Because at all times there is a similar state of things in the church of God, the lament of Rachel is a common one. For as this lament is over the carrying away captive and oppressions of Babylon, so is it also a lament over the tyranny of Herod in slaughtering the innocent children ( Matthew 2:1-7.)”Cramer. “Premuntur justi in ecclesia ut clament, clamantes exaudiuntur, exauditi glorificent Deum. Augustin.” Förster.—With respect to this, that Rachel’s lament may be regarded as a type of maternal lamentation over lost children, Förster quotes this sentence of Cyprian: non amisimus, sed præmisimus ( 2 Samuel 12:23). [On the application of this verse to the murder of the innocents consult W. L. Alexander, Connexion of the Old and New. Testament, p54, and W. H. Mill in Wordsworth’s Note in loc.—S. R. A.]
17. On Jeremiah 31:18. The conversion of man must always be a product of two factors. A conversion which man alone should bring about, without God, would be an empty pretence of conversion; a conversion, which God should produce, without man, would be a compulsory, manufactured affair, without any moral value. The merit and the praise is, however, always on God’s side. He gives the will and the execution. Did He not discipline us, we should never learn discipline. Did He not lead back our thoughts to our Father’s house which we have left ( Luke 15) we should never think of returning.
18. On Jeremiah 31:19. “The children of God are ashamed their life long, they cannot raise their heads for humiliation. For their sins always seem great to them, and the grace of God always remains something incomprehensible to them.”Zinzendorf. The farther the Christian advances in his consciousness of sonship and in sanctification, the more brilliantly rises the light of grace, the more distinctly does he perceive in this light, how black is the night of his sins from which God has delivered him. [“It is the ripest and fullest ears of grain which hang their heads the lowest.”—S. R. A.]
19. On Jeremiah 31:19. “The use of the dear cross is to make us blush ( Daniel 9:8) and not regard ourselves as innocent ( Jeremiah 30:11). And as it pleases a father when a child soon blushes, so also is this tincture a flower of virtue well-pleasing to God.” Cramer. “Deus oleum miserationis suæ non nisi in vas contritum et contribulatum infundit. Bernhard.”Förster.
20. On Jeremiah 31:19. The reproach of my youth. “The sins of youth are not easily to be forgotten ( Psalm 25:7; Job 31:18). Therefore we ought to be careful so to act in our youth as not to have to chew the cud of bitter reflection in our old age. It is a comfort that past sins of youth will not injure the truly penitent. Non nocent peccata præterita, cum non placent præsentia. Augustine. To transgress no more is the best sign of repentance.” Cramer.
21. On Jeremiah 31:20. “Comforting and weighty words, which each one should lay to heart. God loves and caresses us as a mother her good child. He remembers His promise. His heart yearns and breaks, and it is His pleasure to do us good.” Cramer. “lpsius proprium Esther, misereri semper et parcere.” Augustine.—“Major est Dei misericordia quam omnium hominum miseria.” Idem.
22. On Jeremiah 31:23. The Lord bless thee, thou dwelling-place of righteousness, thou holy mountain. “Certainly no greater honor was ever done to the Jewish mountains than that the woman’s seed prayed and wept on them, was transfigured, killed and ascended above all heaven.” Zinzendorf. “ It cannot be denied that a church sanctifies a whole place …. Members of Jesus are real guardian angels, who do not exist in the imagination, but are founded on God’s promise ( Matthew 25:40).” Idem.
23. On Jeremiah 31:29-30. “The Song of Solomon -called family curse has no influence on the servants of God; one may sleep calmly nevertheless. This does not mean that we should continue in the track of our predecessors, ex. gr., when our ancestors have gained much wealth by sinful trade, that we should continue this trade with this wealth with the hope of the divine blessing…. If this or that property, house, right, condition be afflicted with a curse, the children of God may soon by prudent separation deliver themselves from these unsafe circumstances. For nothing attaches to their persons, when they have been baptized with the blood of Jesus and are blessed by Him.” Zinzendorf.
24. On Jeremiah 31:29-30. “In testamento novo per sarguinem mediatoris deleto paterno chirographo incipit homo paternis debitis non esse obnoxius renascendo, quibus nascendo fuerat obligatus, ipso Mediatore di cente: Ne vobis patrem dicüis in terra ( Matthew 23:9). Secundum hoc utique, quod alios natales, quibus non patri succederemus, sed cum patre semper viveremus, invenimus.” Augustine, contra Julian, VI:12, in Ghisler.
25. On Jeremiah 31:31. “In veteribus libris aut nusquam aut difficile præter hunc propheticum locum legitur facta commemoratio testamenti novi, ut omnino ipso nomine appellaretur. Nam multis locis hoc significalur et prænuntiatur futurum, sed non ita ut etiam nomen lega’ ur expressum.” Augustine, de Spir. et Lit. ad Marcellin, Cap. 19 (where to Cap29 there is a detailed discussion of this passage) in Ghisler.—“In the whole of the Old Testament there is no passage, in which the view is so clearly and distinctly expressed as here that the law is only παιδαγαγός. And though some commentators have supposed that the passage contains only a censure of the Israelites and not of the Old Covenant, they only show thus that they have not understood the simple meaning of the words.” Ebrard. Comm. zum Hebräerbr. S. 275.
26. On Jeremiah 31:31, sqq. “Propter veteris hominis noxam, quæ per literam jubentem et minantem minime sanabatur, dicitur illud testamentum vetus; hoc antem novum propter novitatem spiritus, quæ hominem novum sanat a vitio vetustatis.” Augustine, c. Lit. Cap. 19.
27. On Jeremiah 31:33. “Quid sunt ergo leges Dei ab ipso Deo scriptæ in cordibus, nisi ipsa præsentia Spiritus sancti, qui est digitus Dei, quo præsente diffunditur charitas in cordibus nostrio, quæ plenitudo legis est et præcepti finis?” Augustine, l. c. Cap. 20.
28. On Jeremiah 31:34. “Quomodo tempus est novi testamenti, de quo propheta dixit: et non docebit unusquisque civem suum, etc. nisi quia rjusdem testamenti novi æternam mercedem, id est ipsius Dei beatissimam contemplationem promittendo conjunxit?” Augustine, l. c. Cap. 24.
29. On Jeremiah 31:33-34. “This is the blessed difference between law and Gospel, between form and substance. Therefore are the great and small alike, and the youths like the elders, the pupils more learned than their teachers, and the young wiser than the ancients ( 1 John 2:20 sqq.). Here is the cause:—For I will forgive their iniquities. This is the occasion of the above; no one can effect this without it. Forgiveness of sins makes the scales fall from people’s eyes, and gives them a cheerful temper, clear conceptions, a clear head.”Zinzendorf.
30. On Jeremiah 31:35-37. “Etsi particulares ecclesiæ intotum deficere possunt, ecclesia tamen catholica nunquam defecit aut deficiet. Obstant enim Dei amplissimæ promissiones, inter quas non ultimum locum sibi vindicut quæ hic habetur Jeremiah 31:37.” Förster.
31. On Jeremiah 31:38-40. “Jerusalem will one day be much greater than it has ever been. This is not to be understood literally but spiritually. Jerusalem will be wherever there are believing souls, its circle will be without end and comprise all that has been hitherto impure and lost. This it is of which the prophet is teaching, and which he presents in figures, which were intelligible to the people in his time. The hill Gareb, probably the residence of the lepers, the emblem of the sinner unmasked and smitten by God, and the cursed valley of Ben-Hinnom will be taken up into the holy city. God’s grace will one day effect all this, and Israel will thus be manifested as much more glorious than ever before.” Diedrich.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
1. On Jeremiah 30:5-9. Sermon on one of the last Sundays after Trinity or the second in Advent. The day of the judgment of the world a great day. For it is, (1) a day of anxiety and terror for all the world; (2) a day of deliverance from all distress for the church of the Lord; (3) a day of realization of all the happiness set in prospect before it.
2. On Jeremiah 30:10-12. Consolation of the church in great trial1. It has well deserved the trial ( Jeremiah 30:12); 2. it is therefore chastised, but with moderation; 3. it will not perish but again enjoy peace.
3. On [“The Restorer of mankind1. Faith in the Christian Sacrament and its attendant revelation of divine character alone answer the demand of the heart and reason of man for a higher state of moral perfection2. Christianity offers to maintain a communication between this world and that eternal world of holiness and truth3. It commends itself to our wants in the confirmation and direction of that principle of hope, which even in our daily and worldly life, we are perpetually forced to substitute for happiness, and4. By the adorable object, which it presents to our affections.” Archer Butler—S. R. A.]
4. On Jeremiah 31:1-2. Gesetz and Zeugniss (Law and Testimony) 1864, Heft. 1. Funeral sermon of Ahlfeld.
5. On Jeremiah 31:2-4. lb. 1865. Heft 1. Funeral sermon of Besser, S. 32ff.
6. On Jeremiah 31:3. C. Fr. Hartmann (Wedding, School, Catechism and Birth-day sermons, ed. C. Chr. Eberh. Ehemann. Tüb1865). Wedding sermon1. A grateful revival in the love of God already received2. Earnest endeavor after a daily enjoyment of this love3. Daily nourishment of hope.
7. On Jeremiah 31:3. Florey. Comfort and warning at graves. I. Bändchen, S. 253. On the attractions of God’s love towards His own children. They are, 1. innumerable and yet so frequently overlooked; 2. powerful and yet so frequently resisted; 3. rich in blessing and yet so frequently; unemployed. [For practical remarks on this text see also Tholuck, Stunden der Andacht, No11.—S. R. A.]
8. On Jeremiah 31:9. Confessional sermon by Dekan V. Biarowsky in Erlangen (in Palmer’s Evang. Casual-Reden, 2 te Folge, 1 Band. Stuttgart, 1850.) Every partaking of the Lord’s supper is a return to the Lord in the promised land, and every one who is a guest at the supper rises and comes1. How are we to come? (weeping and praying). 2. What shall we find? (Salvation and blessing, power and life, grace and help).
9. On Jeremiah 31:18-20. Comparison of conversion with the course of the earth and the sun1. The man who has fallen away is like the planet in its distance from the sun; he flees from God as far as he Song of Solomon 2. Love however does not release him: a. he is chastened (winter, cold, long nights, short days); b. he accepts the chastening and returns to proximity to the sun (summer, warmth, light, life). Comp. Brandt, Altes und Neues in i extemporirbaren Entwürfen. Nüremberg, 1829, II:5. [The stubborn sinner submitting himself to God. I. A description of the feelings and conduct of an obstinate, impenitent sinner, while smarting under the rod of affliction: He is rebellious—till subdued. II. The new views and feelings produced by affliction through divine grace: (a) convinced of guilt and sinfulness; (b) praying; (c) reflecting on the effects of divine grace in his conversion. III. A correcting but compassionate God, watching the result, etc., (a) as a tender father mindful of his penitent child; (b) listening to his complaints, confessions and petitions; (c) declaring His determination to pardon. Payson.—S. R. A.]
10. On Jeremiah 31:31-34. Sermon on 1 Sunday in Advent by Pastor Diechert in Gröningen, S. Stern aus Jakob. I. Stuttg1867.
11. On Jeremiah 31:33-34. Do we belong to the people of God? 1. Have we holiness? 2. Have we knowledge? 3. Have we the peace promised to this people? (Caspari in Predigtbuch von Dittmar, Erlangen, 1845).
12. On Jeremiah 31:33-34. By the new covenant in the bath of holy baptism all becomes new1. What was dead becomes alive2. What was obscure becomes clear3. What was cold becomes warm4. What was bound becomes free (Florey, 1862).
II. The Deliverance of Entire Israel ( Jeremiah 30:4-22)
1. The great day of judgment of the world and deliverance of Israel
Jeremiah 30:4-11
4 And these are the words which Jehovah hath spoken concerning1Israel and concerning Judah;
5 For thus saith Jehovah:
We have heard a cry of terror,2
Fear and no deliverance.
6 Ask ye now and see if a male is parturient?
Why do I then see every man with his hands on his hips like a parturient,
And all faces turned into paleness?3
7 Alas! for great is that day, with none like it,4
And it will be a time of trouble to Jacob,
But—he shall be delivered from it.
8 And it shall come to pass on that day, saith Jehovah Zebaoth,
I will break his yoke off from thy neck,
And I will tear asunder thy bonds,
And strangers shall no longer enslave him:5
9 But they shall serve Jehovah their God,
And David their king, whom I will raise up6 for them.
10 But fear thou not, my servant Jacob, saith Jehovah,
And be not dismayed, O Israel.
For behold, I will deliver thee from afar,
And thy seed from the land of their captivity;
And Jacob shall return and rest,
And be tranquil and undisturbed.
11 For I am with thee to deliver thee, saith Jehovah.
Though I make a full end7of all the nations,
Whither I have scattered them,
I will not make an end of thee;
But I will chastise thee according to justice,
And not leave thee unpunished.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
What was summarily comprised in Jeremiah 30:2 is now set forth in detail ( Jeremiah 30:4). Cry of terror, fear without a possibility of deliverance ( Jeremiah 30:5); all the men have their hands on their thighs like women in travail, all faces have become pale ( Jeremiah 30:6), for the great day of the Lord, a day with none like it, is breaking, a day which will be a time of dread even for Jacob, but yet at the same time the day of redemption ( Jeremiah 30:6), for on this day an end is to be put to Israel’s servitude ( Jeremiah 30:8). Israel is from thenceforward to serve only his God and his king David ( Jeremiah 30:9), Judah and Israel are then to be brought back from the lands of their captivity to a peaceful habitation of their home ( Jeremiah 30:10), for while the Lord will execute on all the Gentiles a judgment of destruction, He will indeed chastise Israel so as not to leave him unpunished, but will not destroy him.
Jeremiah 30:4-7. And these … delivered from it. Apart from some brief intimations ( Jeremiah 9:25; Jeremiah 11:10-17; Jeremiah 13:11; Jeremiah 23:6; Jeremiah 50:4) the prophet makes Israel and Judah, the two great halves of the Israelitish nation, the subject of his longer discourses, only here ( Jeremiah 30:3; Jeremiah 31:27), and in the second discourse (chs 3–6), which belongs to the time of Josiah.
Jeremiah 30:5. This for, which is logically indeed superfluous but not incorrect ( Jeremiah 30:4 announces the entirety of the following discourse as God’s word and כי, Jeremiah 30:5, introduces the particulars), has rhetorically the character of a certain solemn breadth. With dramatic vividness the prophet transports us into the midst of the future, which he describes, causing those who are concerned to be the speakers together with himself. It is clear that the day of terror which he describes cannot be the day of Jerusalem ( Psalm 137:7). For (1) the day of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans cannot be represented as at the same time a day of salvation for all Israel; (2) “ the great day of the Lord like which there is no other” always designates the divine judgment in its highest and most comprehensive sense. For even when Joel, who is the first to speak of the great and fearful days ( Jeremiah 2:11), understands by it primarily the day of the devastation by locusts, he yet beholds in this special act only the first act of the great drama of judgments ( Jeremiah 3:4), with which he first connects the idea of the redemption and restoration of Israel ( Jeremiah 4:1; Jeremiah 4:7). After him Hosea speaks of the great day of Jezreel ( Jeremiah 2:2), on which Judah and Israel will return again united under their common head. Afterwards the judicial activity of God is mirrored before the eyes of Isaiah in the judgment on Babylon ( Jeremiah 13:6), the return of the whole people being again connected with it ( Jeremiah 14:1 sqq.). Next before Jeremiah finally, the idea of the “day of the Lord” forms the central point of Zephaniah’s prophecy, and if he also understands primarily by the “ great day “ ( Jeremiah 1:14) the day of the judgment of Jerusalem, yet he also regards all the judicial acts of God as elements or stages of the whole, and to him also the consummation of the judgment is the turning-point of the deliverance and restoration of all Israel ( Jeremiah 3:10 sqq,; 20). After Jeremiah there is Malachi only who speaks in express words of “ the great and dreadful day of the Lord “ ( Jeremiah 4:5 ).—No deliverance. Comp. Jeremiah 6:14; Jeremiah 8:11; Ezekiel 7:25; Ezekiel 13:10„ 16.—Ask now, etc. Comp. Jeremiah 18:13. The prophet portrays with drastic vividness the effects of the terror by saying that he saw men behaving like women in the pangs of childbirth—pressing their hands on their loins. Comp. Isaiah 21:3; Jeremiah 6:24; Jeremiah 22:23; Jeremiah 49:24; Jeremiah 50:43.—That day. From that (ההוא) we see (1) that the prophet means a day not immediately impending, but (2) the same as was spoken of in Jeremiah 30:5-6—And it will be a time of trouble, etc. Israel also is not unaffected by the sufferings of that time (comp. Matthew 24:21-22); but for them it is only a crisis, which leads to salvation.
Jeremiah 30:8-9. And it shall come to pass … raise up for them. The deliverance announced in the concluding words of Jeremiah 30:7 is described more particularly. It has its negative and its positive side. The nation will no longer serve strangers ( Jeremiah 30:8) but their God alone, and the King granted them by God, the Messiah ( Jeremiah 30:9).—Thy bonds. Comp. Jeremiah 2:20; Jeremiah 5:5.—Enslave. Comp. Jeremiah 27:7; Jeremiah 25:14.—Serve Jehovah. For Israel to serve his God is at the same time his first duty and the fundamental condition of salvation. This salvation is to be communicated by the anointed of the Lord, the (second David. The Messiah is called David, not merely as a descendant of David still called by his name, but as a real David in the highest degree. As David was the founder of the earthly throne of David, so the Messiah as the fulfiller is the founder and occupant of the eternal throne of David. Jeremiah supports himself here chiefly on Hosea 3:5, coll. Isaiah 55:3, while after him Ezekiel Ezekiel 34:23-24; Ezekiel 37:24-25) leans on his predecessors, especially Jeremiah. The conception of the second David is analogous to that of the second Adam ( 1 Corinthians 15:45 sqq.) It is therefore altogether different from the Rabbinical doctrine of a double Messiah, Ben Joseph and Ben David, (comp. Oehler in Herzog, Real-Enc., IX. S440; BuxtorfLex., p1273) with which Haevernick seems (Coram, on Ezekiel, S. 557) to confound the Christian conception. It is accordingly clear that we must protest against the lower view, that Jeremiah it here speaking of a Davidic dynasty (Sanctius), or of Zerubbabel (Grotius; is David vocatur et hic et Ezech. Ezekiel 34:23; Ezekiel 37:24, nimirum sicut a Ptolemsæo orti Ptolemæi, a Cæsare Cæsares), or indeed of a personally resuscitated David (V. Ammon, Fortd. d. Chr. I, S. 178; Strauss, Glaubensl. II, S. 80). This latter conception is imputed by Hitzig to Ezekiel (ad loc. S. 245) as having thus interpreted the אָקִם of Jeremiah. As to the rest comp. Comm. on Jeremiah 30:21; Jeremiah 23:5; Hengstenberg, Christol. [Eng. Tr. II, p 413 sqq.]
Jeremiah 30:10-11. But fear thou not . . unpunished. Graf has called attention to the circumstance that these words are addressed to the people living in exile “in opposition to those delivered in Jeremiah 30:9.” More strictly we should say, that Jeremiah 30:8-9 announce the salvation objectively (whence also Israel is spoken of predominantly in the 3 d person), but in Jeremiah 30:10 the subjective application follows in the exhortation to be comforted and not to fear, but yet with a repetition of the objective basis. It is not however to be denied that the adversative rendering “thou however” is not appropriate. Meier translates “so fear thou nothing,” evidently not accurately, but in the correct feeling that the connection requires an inferential rather than an adversative sentence. Comp. Isaiah 44:1-2, which passage certainly occurred to the prophet, the words “fear not my servant Jacob” being taken from it verbatim, and we are thus led to think that instead of וְאַתָּה here we should read וְעַתָּה with which the passage in Isa. commences. The latter certainly would correspond better with the connection. Hitzig and Movers find in these two verses the idiom of Isaiah 2, and would therefore regard it as an interpolation by him. Graf however has satisfactorily shown that with the exception of the expression עבדי יעקב (I say, with the exception of אל־תיראע׳ י׳) all the rest betrays the older, and specifically Jeremiah’s, idiom. Why should not that evident quotation from Isaiah 44:2 be just as good an instance for the priority of the alleged Isaiah 2, in relation to the genuine Jeremiah? The union of Judah and Israel, which is here spoken of from Jeremiah 30:3 onwards, may have reminded the prophet of that passage in is, which declares this union. Other declarations of is, as Isaiah 51:7, may also have been in the mind of our prophet. Perhaps also passages like Isaiah 49:12; Isaiah 60:4; Isaiah 60:9.—Rest and be tranquil. Comp. Jeremiah 48:11.—Undisturbed. Comp. rems. on Jeremiah 7:33.—For I am with thee. Comp. Jeremiah 15:20; Jeremiah 42:11.—Chastise thee. The expression is found in Jeremiah 10:24 in the same sense. Whether in Isaiah 28:26 also is disputable. On לִ comp. Naegelsb. Gr., § 112, 5, b.—And not leave thee, etc. From Exodus 34:7; the expression is found in Numbers 14:18, in Nahum 1:3, and here.—Comp. further Jeremiah 46:27-28, where these two verses are reproduced.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. Joh. Conr. Schaller, pastor at Cautendorf, says in his Gospel Sermons, (Hof1742, S. 628), “These chapters are like a sky in which sparkle many brilliant stars of strong and consolatory declarations, a paradise and pleasure-garden in which a believing soul is refreshed with delightsome flowers of instruction, and solaced with sweetly flavored apples of gracious promise.”
2. On Jeremiah 30:1-3. The people of Israel were not then capable of bearing such a prophecy, brimming over with happiness and glory. They would have misused it, hearing to the end what was promised them, and then only the more certainly postponing what was the only thing then necessary—sincere repentance. Hence they are not yet to hear this gloriously consolatory address. It is to be written, that it may in due time be perceived that the Lord, even at the time when He was obliged to threaten most severely, had thoughts of peace concerning the people, and that thus the period of prosperity has not come by chance, nor in consequence of a change of mind, but in consequence of a plan conceived from the beginning and executed accordingly.
3. On Jeremiah 30:7. The great and terrible day of the Lord ( Joel 3:4) has not the dimensions of a human day. It has long sent out its heralds in advance. Yea, it has itself already dawned. For since by the total destruction of the external theocracy judgment is begun at the house of God ( 1 Peter 4:17), we stand in the midst of the day of God in the midst of the judgment of the world. Then the time of trouble for Jacob has begun ( Jeremiah 30:7), from which he is to be delivered, when the fulness of the Gentiles is come in ( Romans 11.)
4. On Jeremiah 30:9. Christ is David in his highest potency, and He is also still more. For if we represent all the typical points in David’s life as a circle, and draw a line from each of these points, the great circle thus formed would comprise only a part of the πλήρωμα given in Christ. Nevertheless Christ is the true David, who was not chosen like Saul for his bodily stature, but only for his inward relation to God (comp. Psalm 2:7), whose kingdom also does not cease after a short period of glory, but endures forever; who will not like Saul succumb to his enemies, but will conquer them all, and will give to his kingdom the widest extent promised; all this however not without, like David, having gone through the bitterest trials.
5. On Jeremiah 30:11. “Modus paternæ castigationis accommodatus et quasi appensus ad stateram judicii Dei adeoque non immensus sed dimensus.” “Christus ecclesiam crucis suæ hæredem constituit. Gregor. M.” Förster.
6. On Jeremiah 30:14. “Cum virlutem patientiæ nostræ flagella transeunt, valde metuendum Esther, ne peccatis nostris exigentibus non jam quasi filii a patre, sed quasi hostes a Domino feriamur. Gregor. M. Moral. XIV:20, on Job 19:11.” Ghisler.
7. On Jeremiah 30:17. “Providentia Dei mortalibus salutifera, antequam percutiat, pharmaca medendi gratiâ componit, et gladium iræ suæ φιλανθρωπίᾳ acuit. Evagr. Hist. Ecclesiastes 4:6.”—“Quando incidis in tentationem, crede, quod nisi cognovisset te posse illam evadere, non permisisset te in illam incidere. Theophyl. in cap. 18 Joh.” Förster.—“Feriam prius et sanabo melius. Theophyl. in Hosea 11.” Ghisler.
8. On Jeremiah 30:21. “This church of God will own a, Prince from its midst—Jesus, of our flesh and blood through the virgin Mary, and He approaches God, as no other can, for He is God’s image, God’s Song of Solomon, and at the same time the perfect, holy in all His sufferings, only obedient son of man. This king is mediator and reconciler with God; He is also high-priest and fulfilled all righteousness, as was necessary for our propitiation. What glory to have such a king, who brings us nigh unto God, and this is our glory!” Diedrich.
9. On Jeremiah 31:1. “There is no greater promise than this: I will be thy God. For if He is our God we are His creatures, His redeemed, His sanctified, according to all the three articles of the Christian faith.” Cramer.
10. On Jeremiah 31:2. “The rough heap had to be sifted by the sword, but those who survived, though afflicted in the desert of this life, found favor with God, and these, the true Israel, God leads into His rest.” Diedrich.
11. On Jeremiah 31:3. “The love of God towards us comes from love and has no other cause above or beside itself, but, is in God and remains in God, so that Christ who is in God is its centre. For herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us ( 1 John 4:10).” Cramer. “Totum gratiæ imputatur, non nostris meritis. Augustine in Psalm 31.” Förster. “Before I had done anything good Thou hadst already moved towards me. Let these words be written on your hearts with the pen of the living God, that they may light you like flames of fire on the day of the marriage. It is your certificate of birth, your testimonial. Let me never lose sight of how much it has cost Thee to redeem me.” Zinzendorf. “God says: My chastisement even was pure love, though then you did not understand it; you shall learn it afterwards.” Diedrich. [“I incline to the construction given in the English version, both because the suffix to the verb is more naturally, ‘I have drawn thee,’ than ‘I have drawn out toward thee,’ and because there seems to be a tacit allusion to Hosea 11:4, ‘With loving kindness have I drawn thee.’—-A great moral truth lies in this passage so construed, viz., that the main power which humbles man’s pride, softens his hard heart and makes him recoil in shame and sorrow from sinning, comes through his apprehension of God’s love as manifested in Christ and His cross. It is love that, draws the fearful or stubborn soul to the feet of divine mercy.” Cowles.—S. R. A.]
12. On Jeremiah 31:6. “It is well: the watchmen on Mount Ephraim had to go to Zion. They received however another visit from the Jewish priests, which they could not have expected at the great reformation, introduced by John, and which had its seat among other places on Mount Ephraim. The Samaritans were not far distant, and Mount Ephraim had even this honor that when the Lord came to His temple He took His Seat as a teacher there.” Zinzendorf. [“God’s grace loves to triumph over the most inveterate prejudices… No words could represent a greater and more benign change in national feeling than these: Samaria saying through her spiritual watchmen, ‘Let us go up to Zion to worship, for our God is there.’ ” Cowles. “ ‘Ascendamus in Sion, hoc est in Ecclesiam’ says S. Jerome. According to this view, the watchmen here mentioned are the Preachers of the Gospel.” Wordsworth.—S. R. A.]
13. On Jeremiah 31:9. “I will lead them. It is an old sighing couplet, but full of wisdom and solid truth:—
‘Lord Jesus, while I live on earth, O guide me,
Let me not, self-led, wander from beside Thee.’ ”
—Zinzendorf.
14. On Jeremiah 31:10. “He who has scattered Israel will also collect it. Why? lie is the Shepherd. It is no wolf-scattering. He interposes His hand, then they go asunder, and directly come together again more orderly.” Zinzendorf.
15. On Jeremiah 31:12-14. “Gaudebunt electi, quando videbunt supra se, intra se, juxta se, infra se. Augustine.”—“Præmia cœlestia erunt tam magna, ut non possint mensurari, tam multa, ut non possint numerari, tam copiosa, ut non possint terminari, tam pretiosa, ut non possint æstimari. Bernhard.” Förster.
16. On Jeremiah 31:15. “Because at all times there is a similar state of things in the church of God, the lament of Rachel is a common one. For as this lament is over the carrying away captive and oppressions of Babylon, so is it also a lament over the tyranny of Herod in slaughtering the innocent children ( Matthew 2:1-7.)”Cramer. “Premuntur justi in ecclesia ut clament, clamantes exaudiuntur, exauditi glorificent Deum. Augustin.” Förster.—With respect to this, that Rachel’s lament may be regarded as a type of maternal lamentation over lost children, Förster quotes this sentence of Cyprian: non amisimus, sed præmisimus ( 2 Samuel 12:23). [On the application of this verse to the murder of the innocents consult W. L. Alexander, Connexion of the Old and New. Testament, p54, and W. H. Mill in Wordsworth’s Note in loc.—S. R. A.]
17. On Jeremiah 31:18. The conversion of man must always be a product of two factors. A conversion which man alone should bring about, without God, would be an empty pretence of conversion; a conversion, which God should produce, without man, would be a compulsory, manufactured affair, without any moral value. The merit and the praise is, however, always on God’s side. He gives the will and the execution. Did He not discipline us, we should never learn discipline. Did He not lead back our thoughts to our Father’s house which we have left ( Luke 15) we should never think of returning.
18. On Jeremiah 31:19. “The children of God are ashamed their life long, they cannot raise their heads for humiliation. For their sins always seem great to them, and the grace of God always remains something incomprehensible to them.”Zinzendorf. The farther the Christian advances in his consciousness of sonship and in sanctification, the more brilliantly rises the light of grace, the more distinctly does he perceive in this light, how black is the night of his sins from which God has delivered him. [“It is the ripest and fullest ears of grain which hang their heads the lowest.”—S. R. A.]
19. On Jeremiah 31:19. “The use of the dear cross is to make us blush ( Daniel 9:8) and not regard ourselves as innocent ( Jeremiah 30:11). And as it pleases a father when a child soon blushes, so also is this tincture a flower of virtue well-pleasing to God.” Cramer. “Deus oleum miserationis suæ non nisi in vas contritum et contribulatum infundit. Bernhard.”Förster.
20. On Jeremiah 31:19. The reproach of my youth. “The sins of youth are not easily to be forgotten ( Psalm 25:7; Job 31:18). Therefore we ought to be careful so to act in our youth as not to have to chew the cud of bitter reflection in our old age. It is a comfort that past sins of youth will not injure the truly penitent. Non nocent peccata præterita, cum non placent præsentia. Augustine. To transgress no more is the best sign of repentance.” Cramer.
21. On Jeremiah 31:20. “Comforting and weighty words, which each one should lay to heart. God loves and caresses us as a mother her good child. He remembers His promise. His heart yearns and breaks, and it is His pleasure to do us good.” Cramer. “lpsius proprium Esther, misereri semper et parcere.” Augustine.—“Major est Dei misericordia quam omnium hominum miseria.” Idem.
22. On Jeremiah 31:23. The Lord bless thee, thou dwelling-place of righteousness, thou holy mountain. “Certainly no greater honor was ever done to the Jewish mountains than that the woman’s seed prayed and wept on them, was transfigured, killed and ascended above all heaven.” Zinzendorf. “ It cannot be denied that a church sanctifies a whole place …. Members of Jesus are real guardian angels, who do not exist in the imagination, but are founded on God’s promise ( Matthew 25:40).” Idem.
23. On Jeremiah 31:29-30. “The Song of Solomon -called family curse has no influence on the servants of God; one may sleep calmly nevertheless. This does not mean that we should continue in the track of our predecessors, ex. gr., when our ancestors have gained much wealth by sinful trade, that we should continue this trade with this wealth with the hope of the divine blessing…. If this or that property, house, right, condition be afflicted with a curse, the children of God may soon by prudent separation deliver themselves from these unsafe circumstances. For nothing attaches to their persons, when they have been baptized with the blood of Jesus and are blessed by Him.” Zinzendorf.
24. On Jeremiah 31:29-30. “In testamento novo per sarguinem mediatoris deleto paterno chirographo incipit homo paternis debitis non esse obnoxius renascendo, quibus nascendo fuerat obligatus, ipso Mediatore di cente: Ne vobis patrem dicüis in terra ( Matthew 23:9). Secundum hoc utique, quod alios natales, quibus non patri succederemus, sed cum patre semper viveremus, invenimus.” Augustine, contra Julian, VI:12, in Ghisler.
25. On Jeremiah 31:31. “In veteribus libris aut nusquam aut difficile præter hunc propheticum locum legitur facta commemoratio testamenti novi, ut omnino ipso nomine appellaretur. Nam multis locis hoc significalur et prænuntiatur futurum, sed non ita ut etiam nomen lega’ ur expressum.” Augustine, de Spir. et Lit. ad Marcellin, Cap. 19 (where to Cap29 there is a detailed discussion of this passage) in Ghisler.—“In the whole of the Old Testament there is no passage, in which the view is so clearly and distinctly expressed as here that the law is only παιδαγαγός. And though some commentators have supposed that the passage contains only a censure of the Israelites and not of the Old Covenant, they only show thus that they have not understood the simple meaning of the words.” Ebrard. Comm. zum Hebräerbr. S. 275.
26. On Jeremiah 31:31, sqq. “Propter veteris hominis noxam, quæ per literam jubentem et minantem minime sanabatur, dicitur illud testamentum vetus; hoc antem novum propter novitatem spiritus, quæ hominem novum sanat a vitio vetustatis.” Augustine, c. Lit. Cap. 19.
27. On Jeremiah 31:33. “Quid sunt ergo leges Dei ab ipso Deo scriptæ in cordibus, nisi ipsa præsentia Spiritus sancti, qui est digitus Dei, quo præsente diffunditur charitas in cordibus nostrio, quæ plenitudo legis est et præcepti finis?” Augustine, l. c. Cap. 20.
28. On Jeremiah 31:34. “Quomodo tempus est novi testamenti, de quo propheta dixit: et non docebit unusquisque civem suum, etc. nisi quia rjusdem testamenti novi æternam mercedem, id est ipsius Dei beatissimam contemplationem promittendo conjunxit?” Augustine, l. c. Cap. 24.
29. On Jeremiah 31:33-34. “This is the blessed difference between law and Gospel, between form and substance. Therefore are the great and small alike, and the youths like the elders, the pupils more learned than their teachers, and the young wiser than the ancients ( 1 John 2:20 sqq.). Here is the cause:—For I will forgive their iniquities. This is the occasion of the above; no one can effect this without it. Forgiveness of sins makes the scales fall from people’s eyes, and gives them a cheerful temper, clear conceptions, a clear head.”Zinzendorf.
30. On Jeremiah 31:35-37. “Etsi particulares ecclesiæ intotum deficere possunt, ecclesia tamen catholica nunquam defecit aut deficiet. Obstant enim Dei amplissimæ promissiones, inter quas non ultimum locum sibi vindicut quæ hic habetur Jeremiah 31:37.” Förster.
31. On Jeremiah 31:38-40. “Jerusalem will one day be much greater than it has ever been. This is not to be understood literally but spiritually. Jerusalem will be wherever there are believing souls, its circle will be without end and comprise all that has been hitherto impure and lost. This it is of which the prophet is teaching, and which he presents in figures, which were intelligible to the people in his time. The hill Gareb, probably the residence of the lepers, the emblem of the sinner unmasked and smitten by God, and the cursed valley of Ben-Hinnom will be taken up into the holy city. God’s grace will one day effect all this, and Israel will thus be manifested as much more glorious than ever before.” Diedrich.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
1. On Jeremiah 30:5-9. Sermon on one of the last Sundays after Trinity or the second in Advent. The day of the judgment of the world a great day. For it is, (1) a day of anxiety and terror for all the world; (2) a day of deliverance from all distress for the church of the Lord; (3) a day of realization of all the happiness set in prospect before it.
2. On Jeremiah 30:10-12. Consolation of the church in great trial1. It has well deserved the trial ( Jeremiah 30:12); 2. it is therefore chastised, but with moderation; 3. it will not perish but again enjoy peace.
3. On [“The Restorer of mankind1. Faith in the Christian Sacrament and its attendant revelation of divine character alone answer the demand of the heart and reason of man for a higher state of moral perfection2. Christianity offers to maintain a communication between this world and that eternal world of holiness and truth3. It commends itself to our wants in the confirmation and direction of that principle of hope, which even in our daily and worldly life, we are perpetually forced to substitute for happiness, and4. By the adorable object, which it presents to our affections.” Archer Butler—S. R. A.]
4. On Jeremiah 31:1-2. Gesetz and Zeugniss (Law and Testimony) 1864, Heft. 1. Funeral sermon of Ahlfeld.
5. On Jeremiah 31:2-4. lb. 1865. Heft 1. Funeral sermon of Besser, S. 32ff.
6. On Jeremiah 31:3. C. Fr. Hartmann (Wedding, School, Catechism and Birth-day sermons, ed. C. Chr. Eberh. Ehemann. Tüb1865). Wedding sermon1. A grateful revival in the love of God already received2. Earnest endeavor after a daily enjoyment of this love3. Daily nourishment of hope.
7. On Jeremiah 31:3. Florey. Comfort and warning at graves. I. Bändchen, S. 253. On the attractions of God’s love towards His own children. They are, 1. innumerable and yet so frequently overlooked; 2. powerful and yet so frequently resisted; 3. rich in blessing and yet so frequently; unemployed. [For practical remarks on this text see also Tholuck, Stunden der Andacht, No11.—S. R. A.]
8. On Jeremiah 31:9. Confessional sermon by Dekan V. Biarowsky in Erlangen (in Palmer’s Evang. Casual-Reden, 2 te Folge, 1 Band. Stuttgart, 1850.) Every partaking of the Lord’s supper is a return to the Lord in the promised land, and every one who is a guest at the supper rises and comes1. How are we to come? (weeping and praying). 2. What shall we find? (Salvation and blessing, power and life, grace and help).
9. On Jeremiah 31:18-20. Comparison of conversion with the course of the earth and the sun1. The man who has fallen away is like the planet in its distance from the sun; he flees from God as far as he Song of Solomon 2. Love however does not release him: a. he is chastened (winter, cold, long nights, short days); b. he accepts the chastening and returns to proximity to the sun (summer, warmth, light, life). Comp. Brandt, Altes und Neues in i extemporirbaren Entwürfen. Nüremberg, 1829, II:5. [The stubborn sinner submitting himself to God. I. A description of the feelings and conduct of an obstinate, impenitent sinner, while smarting under the rod of affliction: He is rebellious—till subdued. II. The new views and feelings produced by affliction through divine grace: (a) convinced of guilt and sinfulness; (b) praying; (c) reflecting on the effects of divine grace in his conversion. III. A correcting but compassionate God, watching the result, etc., (a) as a tender father mindful of his penitent child; (b) listening to his complaints, confessions and petitions; (c) declaring His determination to pardon. Payson.—S. R. A.]
10. On Jeremiah 31:31-34. Sermon on 1 Sunday in Advent by Pastor Diechert in Gröningen, S. Stern aus Jakob. I. Stuttg1867.
11. On Jeremiah 31:33-34. Do we belong to the people of God? 1. Have we holiness? 2. Have we knowledge? 3. Have we the peace promised to this people? (Caspari in Predigtbuch von Dittmar, Erlangen, 1845).
12. On Jeremiah 31:33-34. By the new covenant in the bath of holy baptism all becomes new1. What was dead becomes alive2. What was obscure becomes clear3. What was cold becomes warm4. What was bound becomes free (Florey, 1862).
Footnotes
2. THE TURN OF AFFAIRS: THE LORD FOR THE CHASTISED AND AGAINST THE CHASTISER
Jeremiah 30:12-17
12 For thus saith Jehovah, thy wound is incurable,8
Mortal thy stroke.
13 There is no one who undertaketh thy case,
For thy wound thou hast no remedies of bandages.9
14 All thy lovers have forgotten thee;
They ask not after thee;
For I have smitten them with the stroke of an enemy,
With cruel chastisement for the greatness of thy guilt;
Because thy sins are innumerable.10
15 Why criest thou over thy wound,
That thy sorrow is incurable?11
Because of the greatness of thy guilt,
Because thy sins are innumerable, I have done this.
16 Therefore all who devour thee shall be devoured,
And all thy oppressors shall go away together into captivity.
And they that spoil thee12 shall be a spoil,
And all thy plunderers will I give up to plunder.
17 For I will restore health unto thee,
And I will heal thee of thy wounds, saith Jehovah;
For they call thee “Outcast,”
“Zion, which no man asketh after.”
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
This whole strophe is most closely connected with Jeremiah 30:11, and explains the three thoughts expressed in this verse: that Zion is chastised according to its deserts, but is not to be destroyed, while destruction shall be the lot of its enemies. Thus Jeremiah 30:12-15 are a commentary on the words “chastise thee according to justice” in Jeremiah 30:11. For it is here set forth that Israel is given over to severe sickness without a protector and physician ( Jeremiah 30:12-13), that all friends have forsaken the people so severely chastised by God, ( Jeremiah 30:14), which people moreover have no right to complain of such treatment, for the Lord has done this on account of their sins ( Jeremiah 30:15). The sentence therefore, etc. ( Jeremiah 30:16), refers back to the declaration in the 11 th verse that the Lord will make an utter end of the nations, among whom He scattered Israel. The right of retribution is to be exercised on them in the fullest measure. Jeremiah 30:17 finally is connected with the third point in Jeremiah 30:11, viz., that Israel is to be healed of his wounds after he has been apparently outcast and forgotten.
Jeremiah 30:12-15. For thus saith Jehovah … I hare done this.—For introduces the proof that Israel will not really be left unpunished, but will be severely chastised, so that he will only not be utterly destroyed.—Mortal thy stroke. Comp. Jeremiah 10:19; Jeremiah 14:17. Jeremiah 30:13. There is no one, etc. Comp. Jeremiah 5:28; Jeremiah 22:16.—Thy lovers. Comp. Jeremiah 22:20; Jeremiah 22:22.—For … stroke of an enemy. When a man is forsaken by God his fellow-men also forsake him.—For the greatness, etc. In these and the following words to the end of Jeremiah 30:15 lies the confirmation of according to justice, Jeremiah 30:11 to Jeremiah 5:6; Jeremiah 13:22.—Why criest thou? Israel has no right to complain of severe treatment. The Lord deals with him, “according to justice,” Jeremiah 30:11.
Jeremiah 30:16. Therefore all … give up to plunder.—Therefore has no sense if we refer it to what immediately precedes. For it cannot be said that the .enemies are to be destroyed, because the Lord has punished His people according to the greatness of their guilt. For if only strict justice prevailed, Israel deserved the same punishment as, or even severer punishment than the heathen. Comp. Jeremiah 2:10 sqq. I therefore refer Therefore to Jeremiah 30:11, to which this whole passage is only a corollary, and particularly to the words Though I make a full end of all the nations, etc. Israel’s guilt is in the past, and cause of the present calamity, hence for in Jeremiah 30:12. The destruction of the heathen is future, and the effect of the judgment pronounced by God in Jeremiah 30:11, hence therefore, Jeremiah 30:16.—All who devour thee. Comp. rems. on Jeremiah 2:3; Jeremiah 10:25.—Go away together, etc. Comp. Jeremiah 22:22.—Shall be a spoil. Comp. Zephaniah 1:13; 2 Kings 21:14.—To plunder. Comp. Jeremiah 2:14.
Jeremiah 30:17. For I will restore … asketh after. This sentence also refers to Jeremiah 30:11, and to the words Will not make an end of thee. The Lord will not utterly destroy Israel, for He has in mind to heal the people of the blows to which they have been exposed.—I will restore, etc. Comp. rems. on Jeremiah 8:22.—For they call. The statement of the reason refers here to the thought that Israel needed healing.—Outcast. Comp. Isaiah 14:3-4; Micah 4:6; Zephaniah 3:19.—Zion, etc., a sentence of the object, dependent on a verbum dicendi contained in call.—Which no man asketh after=ea, quam nemo curat.
[ Jeremiah 30:12-15. “So desperate were the circumstances of the Jews in Babylon while enduring the punishment God had inflicted upon them for their crimes, that no human interposition which they would naturally expect, could avail for their deliverance. Egypt, Syria, Tyre, etc., which had formerly been their confederates, were all laid prostrate by the same haughty conqueror whose chains they themselves wore. They are accordingly represented under the metaphor of a body full of wounds, left entirely destitute of medical aid.” Henderson.—S. R. A.]
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. Joh. Conr. Schaller, pastor at Cautendorf, says in his Gospel Sermons, (Hof1742, S. 628), “These chapters are like a sky in which sparkle many brilliant stars of strong and consolatory declarations, a paradise and pleasure-garden in which a believing soul is refreshed with delightsome flowers of instruction, and solaced with sweetly flavored apples of gracious promise.”
2. On Jeremiah 30:1-3. The people of Israel were not then capable of bearing such a prophecy, brimming over with happiness and glory. They would have misused it, hearing to the end what was promised them, and then only the more certainly postponing what was the only thing then necessary—sincere repentance. Hence they are not yet to hear this gloriously consolatory address. It is to be written, that it may in due time be perceived that the Lord, even at the time when He was obliged to threaten most severely, had thoughts of peace concerning the people, and that thus the period of prosperity has not come by chance, nor in consequence of a change of mind, but in consequence of a plan conceived from the beginning and executed accordingly.
3. On Jeremiah 30:7. The great and terrible day of the Lord ( Joel 3:4) has not the dimensions of a human day. It has long sent out its heralds in advance. Yea, it has itself already dawned. For since by the total destruction of the external theocracy judgment is begun at the house of God ( 1 Peter 4:17), we stand in the midst of the day of God in the midst of the judgment of the world. Then the time of trouble for Jacob has begun ( Jeremiah 30:7), from which he is to be delivered, when the fulness of the Gentiles is come in ( Romans 11.)
4. On Jeremiah 30:9. Christ is David in his highest potency, and He is also still more. For if we represent all the typical points in David’s life as a circle, and draw a line from each of these points, the great circle thus formed would comprise only a part of the πλήρωμα given in Christ. Nevertheless Christ is the true David, who was not chosen like Saul for his bodily stature, but only for his inward relation to God (comp. Psalm 2:7), whose kingdom also does not cease after a short period of glory, but endures forever; who will not like Saul succumb to his enemies, but will conquer them all, and will give to his kingdom the widest extent promised; all this however not without, like David, having gone through the bitterest trials.
5. On Jeremiah 30:11. “Modus paternæ castigationis accommodatus et quasi appensus ad stateram judicii Dei adeoque non immensus sed dimensus.” “Christus ecclesiam crucis suæ hæredem constituit. Gregor. M.” Förster.
6. On Jeremiah 30:14. “Cum virlutem patientiæ nostræ flagella transeunt, valde metuendum Esther, ne peccatis nostris exigentibus non jam quasi filii a patre, sed quasi hostes a Domino feriamur. Gregor. M. Moral. XIV:20, on Job 19:11.” Ghisler.
7. On Jeremiah 30:17. “Providentia Dei mortalibus salutifera, antequam percutiat, pharmaca medendi gratiâ componit, et gladium iræ suæ φιλανθρωπίᾳ acuit. Evagr. Hist. Ecclesiastes 4:6.”—“Quando incidis in tentationem, crede, quod nisi cognovisset te posse illam evadere, non permisisset te in illam incidere. Theophyl. in cap. 18 Joh.” Förster.—“Feriam prius et sanabo melius. Theophyl. in Hosea 11.” Ghisler.
8. On Jeremiah 30:21. “This church of God will own a, Prince from its midst—Jesus, of our flesh and blood through the virgin Mary, and He approaches God, as no other can, for He is God’s image, God’s Song of Solomon, and at the same time the perfect, holy in all His sufferings, only obedient son of man. This king is mediator and reconciler with God; He is also high-priest and fulfilled all righteousness, as was necessary for our propitiation. What glory to have such a king, who brings us nigh unto God, and this is our glory!” Diedrich.
9. On Jeremiah 31:1. “There is no greater promise than this: I will be thy God. For if He is our God we are His creatures, His redeemed, His sanctified, according to all the three articles of the Christian faith.” Cramer.
10. On Jeremiah 31:2. “The rough heap had to be sifted by the sword, but those who survived, though afflicted in the desert of this life, found favor with God, and these, the true Israel, God leads into His rest.” Diedrich.
11. On Jeremiah 31:3. “The love of God towards us comes from love and has no other cause above or beside itself, but, is in God and remains in God, so that Christ who is in God is its centre. For herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us ( 1 John 4:10).” Cramer. “Totum gratiæ imputatur, non nostris meritis. Augustine in Psalm 31.” Förster. “Before I had done anything good Thou hadst already moved towards me. Let these words be written on your hearts with the pen of the living God, that they may light you like flames of fire on the day of the marriage. It is your certificate of birth, your testimonial. Let me never lose sight of how much it has cost Thee to redeem me.” Zinzendorf. “God says: My chastisement even was pure love, though then you did not understand it; you shall learn it afterwards.” Diedrich. [“I incline to the construction given in the English version, both because the suffix to the verb is more naturally, ‘I have drawn thee,’ than ‘I have drawn out toward thee,’ and because there seems to be a tacit allusion to Hosea 11:4, ‘With loving kindness have I drawn thee.’—-A great moral truth lies in this passage so construed, viz., that the main power which humbles man’s pride, softens his hard heart and makes him recoil in shame and sorrow from sinning, comes through his apprehension of God’s love as manifested in Christ and His cross. It is love that, draws the fearful or stubborn soul to the feet of divine mercy.” Cowles.—S. R. A.]
12. On Jeremiah 31:6. “It is well: the watchmen on Mount Ephraim had to go to Zion. They received however another visit from the Jewish priests, which they could not have expected at the great reformation, introduced by John, and which had its seat among other places on Mount Ephraim. The Samaritans were not far distant, and Mount Ephraim had even this honor that when the Lord came to His temple He took His Seat as a teacher there.” Zinzendorf. [“God’s grace loves to triumph over the most inveterate prejudices… No words could represent a greater and more benign change in national feeling than these: Samaria saying through her spiritual watchmen, ‘Let us go up to Zion to worship, for our God is there.’ ” Cowles. “ ‘Ascendamus in Sion, hoc est in Ecclesiam’ says S. Jerome. According to this view, the watchmen here mentioned are the Preachers of the Gospel.” Wordsworth.—S. R. A.]
13. On Jeremiah 31:9. “I will lead them. It is an old sighing couplet, but full of wisdom and solid truth:—
‘Lord Jesus, while I live on earth, O guide me,
Let me not, self-led, wander from beside Thee.’ ”
—Zinzendorf.
14. On Jeremiah 31:10. “He who has scattered Israel will also collect it. Why? lie is the Shepherd. It is no wolf-scattering. He interposes His hand, then they go asunder, and directly come together again more orderly.” Zinzendorf.
15. On Jeremiah 31:12-14. “Gaudebunt electi, quando videbunt supra se, intra se, juxta se, infra se. Augustine.”—“Præmia cœlestia erunt tam magna, ut non possint mensurari, tam multa, ut non possint numerari, tam copiosa, ut non possint terminari, tam pretiosa, ut non possint æstimari. Bernhard.” Förster.
16. On Jeremiah 31:15. “Because at all times there is a similar state of things in the church of God, the lament of Rachel is a common one. For as this lament is over the carrying away captive and oppressions of Babylon, so is it also a lament over the tyranny of Herod in slaughtering the innocent children ( Matthew 2:1-7.)”Cramer. “Premuntur justi in ecclesia ut clament, clamantes exaudiuntur, exauditi glorificent Deum. Augustin.” Förster.—With respect to this, that Rachel’s lament may be regarded as a type of maternal lamentation over lost children, Förster quotes this sentence of Cyprian: non amisimus, sed præmisimus ( 2 Samuel 12:23). [On the application of this verse to the murder of the innocents consult W. L. Alexander, Connexion of the Old and New. Testament, p54, and W. H. Mill in Wordsworth’s Note in loc.—S. R. A.]
17. On Jeremiah 31:18. The conversion of man must always be a product of two factors. A conversion which man alone should bring about, without God, would be an empty pretence of conversion; a conversion, which God should produce, without man, would be a compulsory, manufactured affair, without any moral value. The merit and the praise is, however, always on God’s side. He gives the will and the execution. Did He not discipline us, we should never learn discipline. Did He not lead back our thoughts to our Father’s house which we have left ( Luke 15) we should never think of returning.
18. On Jeremiah 31:19. “The children of God are ashamed their life long, they cannot raise their heads for humiliation. For their sins always seem great to them, and the grace of God always remains something incomprehensible to them.”Zinzendorf. The farther the Christian advances in his consciousness of sonship and in sanctification, the more brilliantly rises the light of grace, the more distinctly does he perceive in this light, how black is the night of his sins from which God has delivered him. [“It is the ripest and fullest ears of grain which hang their heads the lowest.”—S. R. A.]
19. On Jeremiah 31:19. “The use of the dear cross is to make us blush ( Daniel 9:8) and not regard ourselves as innocent ( Jeremiah 30:11). And as it pleases a father when a child soon blushes, so also is this tincture a flower of virtue well-pleasing to God.” Cramer. “Deus oleum miserationis suæ non nisi in vas contritum et contribulatum infundit. Bernhard.”Förster.
20. On Jeremiah 31:19. The reproach of my youth. “The sins of youth are not easily to be forgotten ( Psalm 25:7; Job 31:18). Therefore we ought to be careful so to act in our youth as not to have to chew the cud of bitter reflection in our old age. It is a comfort that past sins of youth will not injure the truly penitent. Non nocent peccata præterita, cum non placent præsentia. Augustine. To transgress no more is the best sign of repentance.” Cramer.
21. On Jeremiah 31:20. “Comforting and weighty words, which each one should lay to heart. God loves and caresses us as a mother her good child. He remembers His promise. His heart yearns and breaks, and it is His pleasure to do us good.” Cramer. “lpsius proprium Esther, misereri semper et parcere.” Augustine.—“Major est Dei misericordia quam omnium hominum miseria.” Idem.
22. On Jeremiah 31:23. The Lord bless thee, thou dwelling-place of righteousness, thou holy mountain. “Certainly no greater honor was ever done to the Jewish mountains than that the woman’s seed prayed and wept on them, was transfigured, killed and ascended above all heaven.” Zinzendorf. “ It cannot be denied that a church sanctifies a whole place …. Members of Jesus are real guardian angels, who do not exist in the imagination, but are founded on God’s promise ( Matthew 25:40).” Idem.
23. On Jeremiah 31:29-30. “The Song of Solomon -called family curse has no influence on the servants of God; one may sleep calmly nevertheless. This does not mean that we should continue in the track of our predecessors, ex. gr., when our ancestors have gained much wealth by sinful trade, that we should continue this trade with this wealth with the hope of the divine blessing…. If this or that property, house, right, condition be afflicted with a curse, the children of God may soon by prudent separation deliver themselves from these unsafe circumstances. For nothing attaches to their persons, when they have been baptized with the blood of Jesus and are blessed by Him.” Zinzendorf.
24. On Jeremiah 31:29-30. “In testamento novo per sarguinem mediatoris deleto paterno chirographo incipit homo paternis debitis non esse obnoxius renascendo, quibus nascendo fuerat obligatus, ipso Mediatore di cente: Ne vobis patrem dicüis in terra ( Matthew 23:9). Secundum hoc utique, quod alios natales, quibus non patri succederemus, sed cum patre semper viveremus, invenimus.” Augustine, contra Julian, VI:12, in Ghisler.
25. On Jeremiah 31:31. “In veteribus libris aut nusquam aut difficile præter hunc propheticum locum legitur facta commemoratio testamenti novi, ut omnino ipso nomine appellaretur. Nam multis locis hoc significalur et prænuntiatur futurum, sed non ita ut etiam nomen lega’ ur expressum.” Augustine, de Spir. et Lit. ad Marcellin, Cap. 19 (where to Cap29 there is a detailed discussion of this passage) in Ghisler.—“In the whole of the Old Testament there is no passage, in which the view is so clearly and distinctly expressed as here that the law is only παιδαγαγός. And though some commentators have supposed that the passage contains only a censure of the Israelites and not of the Old Covenant, they only show thus that they have not understood the simple meaning of the words.” Ebrard. Comm. zum Hebräerbr. S. 275.
26. On Jeremiah 31:31, sqq. “Propter veteris hominis noxam, quæ per literam jubentem et minantem minime sanabatur, dicitur illud testamentum vetus; hoc antem novum propter novitatem spiritus, quæ hominem novum sanat a vitio vetustatis.” Augustine, c. Lit. Cap. 19.
27. On Jeremiah 31:33. “Quid sunt ergo leges Dei ab ipso Deo scriptæ in cordibus, nisi ipsa præsentia Spiritus sancti, qui est digitus Dei, quo præsente diffunditur charitas in cordibus nostrio, quæ plenitudo legis est et præcepti finis?” Augustine, l. c. Cap. 20.
28. On Jeremiah 31:34. “Quomodo tempus est novi testamenti, de quo propheta dixit: et non docebit unusquisque civem suum, etc. nisi quia rjusdem testamenti novi æternam mercedem, id est ipsius Dei beatissimam contemplationem promittendo conjunxit?” Augustine, l. c. Cap. 24.
29. On Jeremiah 31:33-34. “This is the blessed difference between law and Gospel, between form and substance. Therefore are the great and small alike, and the youths like the elders, the pupils more learned than their teachers, and the young wiser than the ancients ( 1 John 2:20 sqq.). Here is the cause:—For I will forgive their iniquities. This is the occasion of the above; no one can effect this without it. Forgiveness of sins makes the scales fall from people’s eyes, and gives them a cheerful temper, clear conceptions, a clear head.”Zinzendorf.
30. On Jeremiah 31:35-37. “Etsi particulares ecclesiæ intotum deficere possunt, ecclesia tamen catholica nunquam defecit aut deficiet. Obstant enim Dei amplissimæ promissiones, inter quas non ultimum locum sibi vindicut quæ hic habetur Jeremiah 31:37.” Förster.
31. On Jeremiah 31:38-40. “Jerusalem will one day be much greater than it has ever been. This is not to be understood literally but spiritually. Jerusalem will be wherever there are believing souls, its circle will be without end and comprise all that has been hitherto impure and lost. This it is of which the prophet is teaching, and which he presents in figures, which were intelligible to the people in his time. The hill Gareb, probably the residence of the lepers, the emblem of the sinner unmasked and smitten by God, and the cursed valley of Ben-Hinnom will be taken up into the holy city. God’s grace will one day effect all this, and Israel will thus be manifested as much more glorious than ever before.” Diedrich.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
1. On Jeremiah 30:5-9. Sermon on one of the last Sundays after Trinity or the second in Advent. The day of the judgment of the world a great day. For it is, (1) a day of anxiety and terror for all the world; (2) a day of deliverance from all distress for the church of the Lord; (3) a day of realization of all the happiness set in prospect before it.
2. On Jeremiah 30:10-12. Consolation of the church in great trial1. It has well deserved the trial ( Jeremiah 30:12); 2. it is therefore chastised, but with moderation; 3. it will not perish but again enjoy peace.
3. On [“The Restorer of mankind1. Faith in the Christian Sacrament and its attendant revelation of divine character alone answer the demand of the heart and reason of man for a higher state of moral perfection2. Christianity offers to maintain a communication between this world and that eternal world of holiness and truth3. It commends itself to our wants in the confirmation and direction of that principle of hope, which even in our daily and worldly life, we are perpetually forced to substitute for happiness, and4. By the adorable object, which it presents to our affections.” Archer Butler—S. R. A.]
4. On Jeremiah 31:1-2. Gesetz and Zeugniss (Law and Testimony) 1864, Heft. 1. Funeral sermon of Ahlfeld.
5. On Jeremiah 31:2-4. lb. 1865. Heft 1. Funeral sermon of Besser, S. 32ff.
6. On Jeremiah 31:3. C. Fr. Hartmann (Wedding, School, Catechism and Birth-day sermons, ed. C. Chr. Eberh. Ehemann. Tüb1865). Wedding sermon1. A grateful revival in the love of God already received2. Earnest endeavor after a daily enjoyment of this love3. Daily nourishment of hope.
7. On Jeremiah 31:3. Florey. Comfort and warning at graves. I. Bändchen, S. 253. On the attractions of God’s love towards His own children. They are, 1. innumerable and yet so frequently overlooked; 2. powerful and yet so frequently resisted; 3. rich in blessing and yet so frequently; unemployed. [For practical remarks on this text see also Tholuck, Stunden der Andacht, No11.—S. R. A.]
8. On Jeremiah 31:9. Confessional sermon by Dekan V. Biarowsky in Erlangen (in Palmer’s Evang. Casual-Reden, 2 te Folge, 1 Band. Stuttgart, 1850.) Every partaking of the Lord’s supper is a return to the Lord in the promised land, and every one who is a guest at the supper rises and comes1. How are we to come? (weeping and praying). 2. What shall we find? (Salvation and blessing, power and life, grace and help).
9. On Jeremiah 31:18-20. Comparison of conversion with the course of the earth and the sun1. The man who has fallen away is like the planet in its distance from the sun; he flees from God as far as he Song of Solomon 2. Love however does not release him: a. he is chastened (winter, cold, long nights, short days); b. he accepts the chastening and returns to proximity to the sun (summer, warmth, light, life). Comp. Brandt, Altes und Neues in i extemporirbaren Entwürfen. Nüremberg, 1829, II:5. [The stubborn sinner submitting himself to God. I. A description of the feelings and conduct of an obstinate, impenitent sinner, while smarting under the rod of affliction: He is rebellious—till subdued. II. The new views and feelings produced by affliction through divine grace: (a) convinced of guilt and sinfulness; (b) praying; (c) reflecting on the effects of divine grace in his conversion. III. A correcting but compassionate God, watching the result, etc., (a) as a tender father mindful of his penitent child; (b) listening to his complaints, confessions and petitions; (c) declaring His determination to pardon. Payson.—S. R. A.]
10. On Jeremiah 31:31-34. Sermon on 1 Sunday in Advent by Pastor Diechert in Gröningen, S. Stern aus Jakob. I. Stuttg1867.
11. On Jeremiah 31:33-34. Do we belong to the people of God? 1. Have we holiness? 2. Have we knowledge? 3. Have we the peace promised to this people? (Caspari in Predigtbuch von Dittmar, Erlangen, 1845).
12. On Jeremiah 31:33-34. By the new covenant in the bath of holy baptism all becomes new1. What was dead becomes alive2. What was obscure becomes clear3. What was cold becomes warm4. What was bound becomes free (Florey, 1862).
Footnotes
3. THE CONSUMMATION OF SALVATION
Jeremiah 30:18-24
18 Thus saith Jehovah.
Behold, I will turn the captivity of Jacob’s tents13
And have mercy on his dwelling-places;
And [the] city14 shall be built on its own heap,15 [of ruins]
And the palace shall be inhabited according to its right.16
19 And out of them shall proceed thanksgiving,
And the voice of them that rejoice;
And I will increase them, and they shall not be diminished,
And honor them, and they shall not be small.
20 Their children also shall be as aforetime,
And their congregation shall be established before me;
And I will punish all their oppressors.
21 And their ruler shall be of themselves,
And their prince shall proceed from the midst of them;
And I will bring him near and he shall approach me,
For who is Hebrews, who would have pledged his heart to approach me? saith Jehovah,
22 And ye shall be my people,
And I will be your God.
23 Behold, a tempest of Jehovah, fury is loose,
Whirl-winds17—it will roll on the head of the ungodly.
24 The fierceness of Jehovah’s anger will not return,
Till he do and execute the plans of his heart.
In the end of days ye will consider it.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
The restored nation will in every respect present, the picture of a flourishing commonwealth. The ruined dwellings will be rebuilt ( Jeremiah 30:18), praise and rejoicing will be heard from them, the number of the inhabitants and the honor of the State will be great ( Jeremiah 30:19); the latter will regain its former importance and preserve it, but all its oppressors shall be chastised ( Jeremiah 30:20); the ruler of the State shall no more be a stranger, but a native, who will at the same time stand in the closest relation to Jehovah ( Jeremiah 30:21); the people will be God’s people, and the Lord his people’s God ( Jeremiah 30:22). All this, however, applies only to the Israel which submits to the Lord. The day of the Lord will break upon the ungodly ( Jeremiah 30:5-7) like a tempest and destroy them ( Jeremiah 30:23-24).
Jeremiah 30:18-20. Thus saith Jehovah … oppressors. It is evident that the phrase turn the captivity may be taken here in a figurative sense, from its application to the ruined buildings. Comp. rems. on Jeremiah 29:4.—Graf refers out of them, Jeremiah 30:19, to the allies, Hitzig to the palaces, but in the sense that he regards the Israelites as the subject of the egression, in the sense of Jeremiah 31:4; Jeremiah 31:13; Jeremiah 33:10-11.—The latter could not well be excluded. But why should not the sound of sacred joy be heard from the dwellings of Israel in any sense, and therefore in the sense, that it proceeds from those who are within? This is at the same time a further adornment of the houses themselves, to which, in a collective sense, out of them is to be referred. These thus become, as it were, instruments of sacred music.— Isaiah 51:3.—Of them that rejoice. Comp. Jeremiah 15:17; Jeremiah 31:4—Diminished. Comp. Jeremiah 29:6.—As aforetime. As formerly “sub Davide et Salomone rerum statu florentissimo.” Rosenmueller. Comp. Psalm 74:2; Lamentations 5:21.—Their congregation. Comp. 2 Samuel 7:10; Psalm 102:29; Proverbs 16:12; 1 Kings 2:12.
Jeremiah 30:21-22. And their ruler …yourGod. The description of the glorious future is crowned by the declaration of the relation of the prince to Jehovah. He is called מֶלֶךְ, king, in Jeremiah 30:9, here אַדִּיר, ruler, and משֵׁל, prince. This is not a low predicate, as J. D. Michaelis supposes, but a high one. For not every king may be thus called. There are counterfeit kings ( Ecclesiastes 4:13; Ecclesiastes 10:16). This king, however, is a אַדִּיר, a predicate which is given to the King of all kings ( Psalm 8:2, 10; 93:4), and משֵׁל for the מִשׂרָה is on his shoulder ( Isaiah 9:5), and the key of David ( Isaiah 22:22), that he may open and no man shut, and shut and no man open. Comp. Micah 5:1. This powerful ruler is of Israel’s flesh and blood, no foreigner, no representative of the empire hostile to God’s people. And not merely is this declared, but also that proceeding from the midst of the people, he may approach unto Jehovah. The mediatorial position of the king is here announced.—Him after bring refers to the king. Hitzig has correctly remarked that altogether too little would be said of the king if his Israelitish origin merely were set forth, but besides this negative reason, we have also in our rendering of ממנוfrom themselves, and מקרבוfrom their midst, a positive necessity of referring the suffix to the king. Ὁ μεσίτης ἐνὸς οὐκ ἔστιν, Galatians 3:20. He proceeds from the midst of the people and approaches God. An intimation has been rightly found in bring near and approach of priestly attributes ( Exodus 24:2; Numbers 16:5). The sentence with For states the reason why the Lord leads the prince to Himself. The reason is a negative one: there is no other who would be capable of entering into this relation of nearness and communion to God. All here depends especially on the correct understanding of the expression עָרַב אֶת־לִבּוֹ, pledge his heart. The verb עָרַב, with the accusative, may signify two things only. Either “to stand, be a surety for some one, to vouch, guarantee” (comp. Genesis 43:9 coll. Genesis 44:32. עָרַב זָרspopondit pro alieno, Proverbs 11:15; Proverbs 20:16; Proverbs 27:13 coll. Job 17:3; Isaiah 38:14), or “to pledge something.” For the latter meaning we can appeal only to Nehemiah 5:3. The meanings “applicare (Vulg.), convertere (Syr.), lubentem reddere (so in sense the LXX, Chald. and others), accommodare, formare (Calvin),” have no grammatical basis, and are all occasioned by לִבּוֹ. If we adhere to the two meanings which are proved, the second, as we have shown, rests only in the authority of one passage in the book of Nehemiah. It is not, however, to be used directly, but the meaning must first be derived from it “to stake, risk, venture.” לֵבheart, must then be taken as=נֶפֶשׁ, soul life. Graf has adduced analogies in favor of this ( Jeremiah 4:18 coll. Jeremiah 4:10; Exodus 9:14; Psalm 84:3 coll. Psalm 16:9; Psalm 31:10; Psalm 63:2), but of these only the first is of consequence, and even these passages only prove that the physical heart may also be designated as the aim of the sword which is threatening the life. There may be other cases where the connection allows the heart to be set for the life, but this is not the case here. Every one feels that here to say “heart” for “life,” would be harsh. I therefore think that we must take עָרַב in the sense of “to be bail, to stand for another.” We should then have to translate: for who stands bail for his heart, to approach to me? Ought we to take לֵב in the sense of “courage” as Hitzig does? There are passages where it gets this meaning from the context ( Genesis 42:28; 1 Samuel 17:32; 2 Samuel 7:27; 2 Samuel 17:10; Job 41:15), but this is not its direct meaning. I think then that it must be taken here in its general sense as the seat of moral volition. The prophet wishes to say: Who can stand for his heart, that it approach me? and this can certainly be taken in the sense; that it has the will, the power, the courage, to approach me? The point of the thought is evidently in the antithesis, bring him and pledge his heart, i. e., between the divine causality and human spontaneity. No man can undertake to be a mediator between God and man in his own strength. For if one should even have the courage to begin this difficult undertaking, he cannot vouch for himself that he will have the power to carry it out. The nearer the man came to the glory of God, the lower would his courage fall. God alone confers the power to approach him, and he will confer it on him whom he has chosen to be a mediator. In so far now as approaching God is represented as something unattainable by human strength, it is clear that the prophet has not the ordinary priests’ approaching to God in mind. The answer to the question: Who is he who would give his heart as surety, to approach me?—must evidently be: No one. Now not every Israelite indeed, but every normally created member of the priestly or high priestly family would be justified and authorized to approach God as a priest in the sense of the Mosaic law. Even these, however, are excluded by the no one, which the question requires as answer. Consequently the promised mediator can only be an extraordinary personage. Our text gives no further information, as to how the divine causality renders it possible for him to approach God, for this may be done in different ways, from without or from within, in a mechanical or an organic way.
Jeremiah 30:22. And ye, etc. The thought certainly accords well with Jeremiah 30:21, since the inward communion between God and the people, which is predicted in Jeremiah 30:22, is not otherwise possible, even in view of the question, For who is he?etc., than by a mediator; it is however the necessary glorious result of his ministry (comp. Hebrews 8). Since, however, Jeremiah 30:23-24 are decidedly to be regarded as a later addition (Vid. infra,) the thought of our verse appears to be repeated immediately afterwards in Jeremiah 31:1. Such a repetition of these words in immediate sequence is indeed surprising, but not impossible. Since in both instances the words are highly appropriate, in the first as the close of the prophecy relating to the whole, in the second as the beginning of that relating to the first main division, and since further in Jeremiah 31:1 the inversion of the clauses of the sentence is designed to avoid monotony, I regard it as probable that the words are authentic in both instances. If they are to be accounted spurious in one case, I would vindicate the genuineness of Jeremiah 31:1, since here they occur in a characteristic setting. Observe the words to all the families of Israel, which evidently correspond to concerning Israel and concerning Judah, Jeremiah 31:4, and give Jeremiah 31:1 the appearance of being a superscription to the following section.
Jeremiah 30:23-24. Behold, a tempest … consider it. The words are repeated with slight variations from Jeremiah 23:19-20. As chh30,31belong to the reign of Josiah ( Jeremiah 3:6 Comp. Introd.), and the prophecy, Jeremiah 23:9-40, from which our verses are taken, cannot have originated before the first four years of Jehoiakim, it is clear that verses23,24cannot have stood originally in this place. Did then Jeremiah himself add them subsequently? I do not regard this as probable, since the words do not correspond to the general character of these chapters. These contain only a prediction of salvation; they represent the brightest and most joyful, we might say, the only untroubled moment in Jeremiah’s life (comp. on Jeremiah 31:26). The verses23,24accordingly have the effect of a dissonance. Whence, in such a time as the prophet describes, are רֶשָׁעִיםwhirl-winds to come (comp. Jeremiah 31:18-19)? And what thoughts of anger is Jehovah to carry out at a time when He has already turned the captivity of His people? I regard it as not impossible that some later writer thought himself compelled to separate the essentially equivalent words in Jeremiah 30:22 and Jeremiah 31:1 by sentences which he deemed appropriate.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. Joh. Conr. Schaller, pastor at Cautendorf, says in his Gospel Sermons, (Hof1742, S. 628), “These chapters are like a sky in which sparkle many brilliant stars of strong and consolatory declarations, a paradise and pleasure-garden in which a believing soul is refreshed with delightsome flowers of instruction, and solaced with sweetly flavored apples of gracious promise.”
2. On Jeremiah 30:1-3. The people of Israel were not then capable of bearing such a prophecy, brimming over with happiness and glory. They would have misused it, hearing to the end what was promised them, and then only the more certainly postponing what was the only thing then necessary—sincere repentance. Hence they are not yet to hear this gloriously consolatory address. It is to be written, that it may in due time be perceived that the Lord, even at the time when He was obliged to threaten most severely, had thoughts of peace concerning the people, and that thus the period of prosperity has not come by chance, nor in consequence of a change of mind, but in consequence of a plan conceived from the beginning and executed accordingly.
3. On Jeremiah 30:7. The great and terrible day of the Lord ( Joel 3:4) has not the dimensions of a human day. It has long sent out its heralds in advance. Yea, it has itself already dawned. For since by the total destruction of the external theocracy judgment is begun at the house of God ( 1 Peter 4:17), we stand in the midst of the day of God in the midst of the judgment of the world. Then the time of trouble for Jacob has begun ( Jeremiah 30:7), from which he is to be delivered, when the fulness of the Gentiles is come in ( Romans 11.)
4. On Jeremiah 30:9. Christ is David in his highest potency, and He is also still more. For if we represent all the typical points in David’s life as a circle, and draw a line from each of these points, the great circle thus formed would comprise only a part of the πλήρωμα given in Christ. Nevertheless Christ is the true David, who was not chosen like Saul for his bodily stature, but only for his inward relation to God (comp. Psalm 2:7), whose kingdom also does not cease after a short period of glory, but endures forever; who will not like Saul succumb to his enemies, but will conquer them all, and will give to his kingdom the widest extent promised; all this however not without, like David, having gone through the bitterest trials.
5. On Jeremiah 30:11. “Modus paternæ castigationis accommodatus et quasi appensus ad stateram judicii Dei adeoque non immensus sed dimensus.” “Christus ecclesiam crucis suæ hæredem constituit. Gregor. M.” Förster.
6. On Jeremiah 30:14. “Cum virlutem patientiæ nostræ flagella transeunt, valde metuendum Esther, ne peccatis nostris exigentibus non jam quasi filii a patre, sed quasi hostes a Domino feriamur. Gregor. M. Moral. XIV:20, on Job 19:11.” Ghisler.
7. On Jeremiah 30:17. “Providentia Dei mortalibus salutifera, antequam percutiat, pharmaca medendi gratiâ componit, et gladium iræ suæ φιλανθρωπίᾳ acuit. Evagr. Hist. Ecclesiastes 4:6.”—“Quando incidis in tentationem, crede, quod nisi cognovisset te posse illam evadere, non permisisset te in illam incidere. Theophyl. in cap. 18 Joh.” Förster.—“Feriam prius et sanabo melius. Theophyl. in Hosea 11.” Ghisler.
8. On Jeremiah 30:21. “This church of God will own a, Prince from its midst—Jesus, of our flesh and blood through the virgin Mary, and He approaches God, as no other can, for He is God’s image, God’s Song of Solomon, and at the same time the perfect, holy in all His sufferings, only obedient son of man. This king is mediator and reconciler with God; He is also high-priest and fulfilled all righteousness, as was necessary for our propitiation. What glory to have such a king, who brings us nigh unto God, and this is our glory!” Diedrich.
9. On Jeremiah 31:1. “There is no greater promise than this: I will be thy God. For if He is our God we are His creatures, His redeemed, His sanctified, according to all the three articles of the Christian faith.” Cramer.
10. On Jeremiah 31:2. “The rough heap had to be sifted by the sword, but those who survived, though afflicted in the desert of this life, found favor with God, and these, the true Israel, God leads into His rest.” Diedrich.
11. On Jeremiah 31:3. “The love of God towards us comes from love and has no other cause above or beside itself, but, is in God and remains in God, so that Christ who is in God is its centre. For herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us ( 1 John 4:10).” Cramer. “Totum gratiæ imputatur, non nostris meritis. Augustine in Psalm 31.” Förster. “Before I had done anything good Thou hadst already moved towards me. Let these words be written on your hearts with the pen of the living God, that they may light you like flames of fire on the day of the marriage. It is your certificate of birth, your testimonial. Let me never lose sight of how much it has cost Thee to redeem me.” Zinzendorf. “God says: My chastisement even was pure love, though then you did not understand it; you shall learn it afterwards.” Diedrich. [“I incline to the construction given in the English version, both because the suffix to the verb is more naturally, ‘I have drawn thee,’ than ‘I have drawn out toward thee,’ and because there seems to be a tacit allusion to Hosea 11:4, ‘With loving kindness have I drawn thee.’—-A great moral truth lies in this passage so construed, viz., that the main power which humbles man’s pride, softens his hard heart and makes him recoil in shame and sorrow from sinning, comes through his apprehension of God’s love as manifested in Christ and His cross. It is love that, draws the fearful or stubborn soul to the feet of divine mercy.” Cowles.—S. R. A.]
12. On Jeremiah 31:6. “It is well: the watchmen on Mount Ephraim had to go to Zion. They received however another visit from the Jewish priests, which they could not have expected at the great reformation, introduced by John, and which had its seat among other places on Mount Ephraim. The Samaritans were not far distant, and Mount Ephraim had even this honor that when the Lord came to His temple He took His Seat as a teacher there.” Zinzendorf. [“God’s grace loves to triumph over the most inveterate prejudices… No words could represent a greater and more benign change in national feeling than these: Samaria saying through her spiritual watchmen, ‘Let us go up to Zion to worship, for our God is there.’ ” Cowles. “ ‘Ascendamus in Sion, hoc est in Ecclesiam’ says S. Jerome. According to this view, the watchmen here mentioned are the Preachers of the Gospel.” Wordsworth.—S. R. A.]
13. On Jeremiah 31:9. “I will lead them. It is an old sighing couplet, but full of wisdom and solid truth:—
‘Lord Jesus, while I live on earth, O guide me,
Let me not, self-led, wander from beside Thee.’ ”
—Zinzendorf.
14. On Jeremiah 31:10. “He who has scattered Israel will also collect it. Why? lie is the Shepherd. It is no wolf-scattering. He interposes His hand, then they go asunder, and directly come together again more orderly.” Zinzendorf.
15. On Jeremiah 31:12-14. “Gaudebunt electi, quando videbunt supra se, intra se, juxta se, infra se. Augustine.”—“Præmia cœlestia erunt tam magna, ut non possint mensurari, tam multa, ut non possint numerari, tam copiosa, ut non possint terminari, tam pretiosa, ut non possint æstimari. Bernhard.” Förster.
16. On Jeremiah 31:15. “Because at all times there is a similar state of things in the church of God, the lament of Rachel is a common one. For as this lament is over the carrying away captive and oppressions of Babylon, so is it also a lament over the tyranny of Herod in slaughtering the innocent children ( Matthew 2:1-7.)”Cramer. “Premuntur justi in ecclesia ut clament, clamantes exaudiuntur, exauditi glorificent Deum. Augustin.” Förster.—With respect to this, that Rachel’s lament may be regarded as a type of maternal lamentation over lost children, Förster quotes this sentence of Cyprian: non amisimus, sed præmisimus ( 2 Samuel 12:23). [On the application of this verse to the murder of the innocents consult W. L. Alexander, Connexion of the Old and New. Testament, p54, and W. H. Mill in Wordsworth’s Note in loc.—S. R. A.]
17. On Jeremiah 31:18. The conversion of man must always be a product of two factors. A conversion which man alone should bring about, without God, would be an empty pretence of conversion; a conversion, which God should produce, without man, would be a compulsory, manufactured affair, without any moral value. The merit and the praise is, however, always on God’s side. He gives the will and the execution. Did He not discipline us, we should never learn discipline. Did He not lead back our thoughts to our Father’s house which we have left ( Luke 15) we should never think of returning.
18. On Jeremiah 31:19. “The children of God are ashamed their life long, they cannot raise their heads for humiliation. For their sins always seem great to them, and the grace of God always remains something incomprehensible to them.”Zinzendorf. The farther the Christian advances in his consciousness of sonship and in sanctification, the more brilliantly rises the light of grace, the more distinctly does he perceive in this light, how black is the night of his sins from which God has delivered him. [“It is the ripest and fullest ears of grain which hang their heads the lowest.”—S. R. A.]
19. On Jeremiah 31:19. “The use of the dear cross is to make us blush ( Daniel 9:8) and not regard ourselves as innocent ( Jeremiah 30:11). And as it pleases a father when a child soon blushes, so also is this tincture a flower of virtue well-pleasing to God.” Cramer. “Deus oleum miserationis suæ non nisi in vas contritum et contribulatum infundit. Bernhard.”Förster.
20. On Jeremiah 31:19. The reproach of my youth. “The sins of youth are not easily to be forgotten ( Psalm 25:7; Job 31:18). Therefore we ought to be careful so to act in our youth as not to have to chew the cud of bitter reflection in our old age. It is a comfort that past sins of youth will not injure the truly penitent. Non nocent peccata præterita, cum non placent præsentia. Augustine. To transgress no more is the best sign of repentance.” Cramer.
21. On Jeremiah 31:20. “Comforting and weighty words, which each one should lay to heart. God loves and caresses us as a mother her good child. He remembers His promise. His heart yearns and breaks, and it is His pleasure to do us good.” Cramer. “lpsius proprium Esther, misereri semper et parcere.” Augustine.—“Major est Dei misericordia quam omnium hominum miseria.” Idem.
22. On Jeremiah 31:23. The Lord bless thee, thou dwelling-place of righteousness, thou holy mountain. “Certainly no greater honor was ever done to the Jewish mountains than that the woman’s seed prayed and wept on them, was transfigured, killed and ascended above all heaven.” Zinzendorf. “ It cannot be denied that a church sanctifies a whole place …. Members of Jesus are real guardian angels, who do not exist in the imagination, but are founded on God’s promise ( Matthew 25:40).” Idem.
23. On Jeremiah 31:29-30. “The Song of Solomon -called family curse has no influence on the servants of God; one may sleep calmly nevertheless. This does not mean that we should continue in the track of our predecessors, ex. gr., when our ancestors have gained much wealth by sinful trade, that we should continue this trade with this wealth with the hope of the divine blessing…. If this or that property, house, right, condition be afflicted with a curse, the children of God may soon by prudent separation deliver themselves from these unsafe circumstances. For nothing attaches to their persons, when they have been baptized with the blood of Jesus and are blessed by Him.” Zinzendorf.
24. On Jeremiah 31:29-30. “In testamento novo per sarguinem mediatoris deleto paterno chirographo incipit homo paternis debitis non esse obnoxius renascendo, quibus nascendo fuerat obligatus, ipso Mediatore di cente: Ne vobis patrem dicüis in terra ( Matthew 23:9). Secundum hoc utique, quod alios natales, quibus non patri succederemus, sed cum patre semper viveremus, invenimus.” Augustine, contra Julian, VI:12, in Ghisler.
25. On Jeremiah 31:31. “In veteribus libris aut nusquam aut difficile præter hunc propheticum locum legitur facta commemoratio testamenti novi, ut omnino ipso nomine appellaretur. Nam multis locis hoc significalur et prænuntiatur futurum, sed non ita ut etiam nomen lega’ ur expressum.” Augustine, de Spir. et Lit. ad Marcellin, Cap. 19 (where to Cap29 there is a detailed discussion of this passage) in Ghisler.—“In the whole of the Old Testament there is no passage, in which the view is so clearly and distinctly expressed as here that the law is only παιδαγαγός. And though some commentators have supposed that the passage contains only a censure of the Israelites and not of the Old Covenant, they only show thus that they have not understood the simple meaning of the words.” Ebrard. Comm. zum Hebräerbr. S. 275.
26. On Jeremiah 31:31, sqq. “Propter veteris hominis noxam, quæ per literam jubentem et minantem minime sanabatur, dicitur illud testamentum vetus; hoc antem novum propter novitatem spiritus, quæ hominem novum sanat a vitio vetustatis.” Augustine, c. Lit. Cap. 19.
27. On Jeremiah 31:33. “Quid sunt ergo leges Dei ab ipso Deo scriptæ in cordibus, nisi ipsa præsentia Spiritus sancti, qui est digitus Dei, quo præsente diffunditur charitas in cordibus nostrio, quæ plenitudo legis est et præcepti finis?” Augustine, l. c. Cap. 20.
28. On Jeremiah 31:34. “Quomodo tempus est novi testamenti, de quo propheta dixit: et non docebit unusquisque civem suum, etc. nisi quia rjusdem testamenti novi æternam mercedem, id est ipsius Dei beatissimam contemplationem promittendo conjunxit?” Augustine, l. c. Cap. 24.
29. On Jeremiah 31:33-34. “This is the blessed difference between law and Gospel, between form and substance. Therefore are the great and small alike, and the youths like the elders, the pupils more learned than their teachers, and the young wiser than the ancients ( 1 John 2:20 sqq.). Here is the cause:—For I will forgive their iniquities. This is the occasion of the above; no one can effect this without it. Forgiveness of sins makes the scales fall from people’s eyes, and gives them a cheerful temper, clear conceptions, a clear head.”Zinzendorf.
30. On Jeremiah 31:35-37. “Etsi particulares ecclesiæ intotum deficere possunt, ecclesia tamen catholica nunquam defecit aut deficiet. Obstant enim Dei amplissimæ promissiones, inter quas non ultimum locum sibi vindicut quæ hic habetur Jeremiah 31:37.” Förster.
31. On Jeremiah 31:38-40. “Jerusalem will one day be much greater than it has ever been. This is not to be understood literally but spiritually. Jerusalem will be wherever there are believing souls, its circle will be without end and comprise all that has been hitherto impure and lost. This it is of which the prophet is teaching, and which he presents in figures, which were intelligible to the people in his time. The hill Gareb, probably the residence of the lepers, the emblem of the sinner unmasked and smitten by God, and the cursed valley of Ben-Hinnom will be taken up into the holy city. God’s grace will one day effect all this, and Israel will thus be manifested as much more glorious than ever before.” Diedrich.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
1. On Jeremiah 30:5-9. Sermon on one of the last Sundays after Trinity or the second in Advent. The day of the judgment of the world a great day. For it is, (1) a day of anxiety and terror for all the world; (2) a day of deliverance from all distress for the church of the Lord; (3) a day of realization of all the happiness set in prospect before it.
2. On Jeremiah 30:10-12. Consolation of the church in great trial1. It has well deserved the trial ( Jeremiah 30:12); 2. it is therefore chastised, but with moderation; 3. it will not perish but again enjoy peace.
3. On [“The Restorer of mankind1. Faith in the Christian Sacrament and its attendant revelation of divine character alone answer the demand of the heart and reason of man for a higher state of moral perfection2. Christianity offers to maintain a communication between this world and that eternal world of holiness and truth3. It commends itself to our wants in the confirmation and direction of that principle of hope, which even in our daily and worldly life, we are perpetually forced to substitute for happiness, and4. By the adorable object, which it presents to our affections.” Archer Butler—S. R. A.]
4. On Jeremiah 31:1-2. Gesetz and Zeugniss (Law and Testimony) 1864, Heft. 1. Funeral sermon of Ahlfeld.
5. On Jeremiah 31:2-4. lb. 1865. Heft 1. Funeral sermon of Besser, S. 32ff.
6. On Jeremiah 31:3. C. Fr. Hartmann (Wedding, School, Catechism and Birth-day sermons, ed. C. Chr. Eberh. Ehemann. Tüb1865). Wedding sermon1. A grateful revival in the love of God already received2. Earnest endeavor after a daily enjoyment of this love3. Daily nourishment of hope.
7. On Jeremiah 31:3. Florey. Comfort and warning at graves. I. Bändchen, S. 253. On the attractions of God’s love towards His own children. They are, 1. innumerable and yet so frequently overlooked; 2. powerful and yet so frequently resisted; 3. rich in blessing and yet so frequently; unemployed. [For practical remarks on this text see also Tholuck, Stunden der Andacht, No11.—S. R. A.]
8. On Jeremiah 31:9. Confessional sermon by Dekan V. Biarowsky in Erlangen (in Palmer’s Evang. Casual-Reden, 2 te Folge, 1 Band. Stuttgart, 1850.) Every partaking of the Lord’s supper is a return to the Lord in the promised land, and every one who is a guest at the supper rises and comes1. How are we to come? (weeping and praying). 2. What shall we find? (Salvation and blessing, power and life, grace and help).
9. On Jeremiah 31:18-20. Comparison of conversion with the course of the earth and the sun1. The man who has fallen away is like the planet in its distance from the sun; he flees from God as far as he Song of Solomon 2. Love however does not release him: a. he is chastened (winter, cold, long nights, short days); b. he accepts the chastening and returns to proximity to the sun (summer, warmth, light, life). Comp. Brandt, Altes und Neues in i extemporirbaren Entwürfen. Nüremberg, 1829, II:5. [The stubborn sinner submitting himself to God. I. A description of the feelings and conduct of an obstinate, impenitent sinner, while smarting under the rod of affliction: He is rebellious—till subdued. II. The new views and feelings produced by affliction through divine grace: (a) convinced of guilt and sinfulness; (b) praying; (c) reflecting on the effects of divine grace in his conversion. III. A correcting but compassionate God, watching the result, etc., (a) as a tender father mindful of his penitent child; (b) listening to his complaints, confessions and petitions; (c) declaring His determination to pardon. Payson.—S. R. A.]
10. On Jeremiah 31:31-34. Sermon on 1 Sunday in Advent by Pastor Diechert in Gröningen, S. Stern aus Jakob. I. Stuttg1867.
11. On Jeremiah 31:33-34. Do we belong to the people of God? 1. Have we holiness? 2. Have we knowledge? 3. Have we the peace promised to this people? (Caspari in Predigtbuch von Dittmar, Erlangen, 1845).
12. On Jeremiah 31:33-34. By the new covenant in the bath of holy baptism all becomes new1. What was dead becomes alive2. What was obscure becomes clear3. What was cold becomes warm4. What was bound becomes free (Florey, 1862).
Footnotes
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