Jeremiah

Jeremiah 31

40 verses · Major Prophets · Old Testament

1“At that time,” says Yahweh, “I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they will be my people.”

2Yahweh says, “The people who survive the sword found favor in the wilderness; even Israel, when I went to cause him to rest.”

3Yahweh appeared of old to me, saying,

“Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love. Therefore I have drawn you with loving kindness. 4I will build you again, and you will be built, O virgin of Israel. You will again be adorned with your tambourines, and will go out in the dances of those who make merry. 5Again you will plant vineyards on the mountains of Samaria. The planters will plant, and will enjoy its fruit. 6For there will be a day that the watchmen on the hills of Ephraim cry, ‘Arise! Let’s go up to Zion to Yahweh our God.’ ”

7For Yahweh says,

“Sing with gladness for Jacob, and shout for the chief of the nations. Publish, praise, and say, ‘Yahweh, save your people, the remnant of Israel!’ 8Behold, I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the uttermost parts of the earth, along with the blind and the lame, the woman with child and her who travails with child together. They will return as a great company. 9They will come with weeping. I will lead them with petitions. I will cause them to walk by rivers of waters, in a straight way in which they won’t stumble; for I am a father to Israel. Ephraim is my firstborn.
10“Hear Yahweh’s word, you nations, and declare it in the distant islands. Say, ‘He who scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him, as a shepherd does his flock.’ 11For Yahweh has ransomed Jacob, and redeemed him from the hand of him who was stronger than he. 12They will come and sing in the height of Zion, and will flow to the goodness of Yahweh, to the grain, to the new wine, to the oil, and to the young of the flock and of the herd. Their soul will be as a watered garden. They will not sorrow any more at all. 13Then the virgin will rejoice in the dance; the young men and the old together; for I will turn their mourning into joy, and will comfort them, and make them rejoice from their sorrow. 14I will satiate the soul of the priests with fatness, and my people will be satisfied with my goodness,” says Yahweh.

15Yahweh says:

“A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping, Rachel weeping for her children. She refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more.”

16Yahweh says:

“Refrain your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears; for your work will be rewarded,” says Yahweh. “They will come again from the land of the enemy. 17There is hope for your latter end,” says Yahweh. “Your children will come again to their own territory.
18“I have surely heard Ephraim grieving thus, ‘You have chastised me, and I was chastised, as an untrained calf. Turn me, and I will be turned; for you are Yahweh my God. 19Surely after that I was turned. I repented. After that I was instructed. I struck my thigh. I was ashamed, yes, even confounded, because I bore the reproach of my youth.’ 20Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he a darling child? For as often as I speak against him, I still earnestly remember him. therefore my heart yearns for him. I will surely have mercy on him,” says Yahweh.
21“Set up road signs. Make guideposts. Set your heart toward the highway, even the way by which you went. Turn again, virgin of Israel. Turn again to these your cities. 22How long will you go here and there, you backsliding daughter? For Yahweh has created a new thing in the earth: a woman will encompass a man.”

23Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, says: “Yet again they will use this speech in the land of Judah and in its cities, when I reverse their captivity: ‘Yahweh bless you, habitation of righteousness, mountain of holiness.’ 24Judah and all its cities will dwell therein together, the farmers, and those who go about with flocks. 25For I have satiated the weary soul, and I have replenished every sorrowful soul.”

26On this I awakened, and saw; and my sleep was sweet to me.

27“Behold, the days come,” says Yahweh, “that I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man and with the seed of animal. 28It will happen that, like as I have watched over them to pluck up and to break down and to overthrow and to destroy and to afflict, so I will watch over them to build and to plant,” says Yahweh. 29“In those days they will say no more,

“ ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.’ 30But everyone will die for his own iniquity. Every man who eats the sour grapes, his teeth will be set on edge. 31“Behold, the days come,” says Yahweh, “that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: 32not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which covenant of mine they broke, although I was a husband to them,” says Yahweh. 33“But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” says Yahweh: “I will put my law in their inward parts, and I will write it in their heart. I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34They will no longer each teach his neighbor, and every man teach his brother, saying, ‘Know Yahweh;’ for they will all know me, from their least to their greatest,” says Yahweh: “for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” 35Yahweh, who gives the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, who stirs up the sea, so that its waves roar; Yahweh of Armies is his name, says: 36“If these ordinances depart from before me,” says Yahweh, “then the offspring of Israel also will cease from being a nation before me forever.” 37Yahweh says: “If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, then I will also cast off all the offspring of Israel for all that they have done,” says Yahweh.

38“Behold, the days come,” says Yahweh, “that the city will be built to Yahweh from the tower of Hananel to the gate of the corner. 39The measuring line will go out further straight onward to the hill Gareb, and will turn toward Goah. 40The whole valley of the dead bodies and of the ashes, and all the fields to the brook Kidron, to the corner of the horse gate toward the east, will be holy to Yahweh. It will not be plucked up or thrown down any more forever.”

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What others are saying

4 commentators · 92 notes on this chapter

Matthew HenryEnglish Puritan / Nonconformist · 1708–17145

Writes as a pastor rather than a critic. Expect devotional and practical application over historical or linguistic analysis, read through a Reformed covenantal frame — and expect the Old Testament to be read forward toward Christ throughout.

Why this voice is here: The most widely read English commentary for three centuries. Included as a baseline: where Henry and a modern voice diverge, the divergence itself is usually the interesting part.

v. 1–9

God here assures his people, I. That he will again take them into a covenant relation to himself, from which they seemed to be cut off. At the same time, when God's anger breaks out against the wicked (Jer 30:24), his own people shall be owned by him as the…

v. 10–17

This paragraph is much to the same purport with the last, publishing to the world, as well as to the church, the purposes of God's love concerning his people. This is a word of the Lord which the nations must hear, for it is a prophecy of a work of the Lord…

v. 18–26

We have here, I. Ephraim's repentance, and return to God. Not only Judah, but Ephraim the ten tribes, shall be restored, and therefore shall thus be prepared and qualified for it, Hos 14:8. Ephraim shall say, What have I do to any more with idols? Ephraim the…

John GillParticular Baptist / High Calvinist · 1746–176340

The most exhaustive and the most doctrinally committed here. Expect high — even supralapsarian — Calvinism applied consistently, and unusually heavy use of rabbinic and Talmudic sources for Jewish context. Where a passage bears on election or the will, Gill will read it in one direction, and knowing that in advance is the point.

Why this voice is here: The strongest Calvinist reading available in the public domain, and the best on Jewish background. Read alongside Clarke, not instead of him — between them you get both sides of the argument.

v. 1

At the same time, saith the Lord,.... The time of the Messiah, the Gospel dispensation, the latter days; when the Jews shall consider the prophecies of the Old Testament, and observe how they have been fulfilled in Jesus; and shall reflect upon their…

v. 2

Thus saith the Lord, the people which were left of the sword,.... Which were not consumed by the sword of Pharaoh, who perished not through his cruel edicts, and by his sword, when drawn at the Red sea; nor by the sword of the Amalekites and Amorites; or of…

v. 3

The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying,.... Either to the prophet, bidding him say to the church what follows, so Jarchi: or to Christ, who was from eternity with the Father; lay in his bosom; between whom the council of peace was; with whom the…

Keil & DelitzschGerman Lutheran, conservative-critical · 1861–18758

The technical one, and Old Testament only. Expect Hebrew grammar, textual argument, and direct engagement with nineteenth-century critical scholarship — closer to a scholarly apparatus than a devotional read. Where a modern critic claims a text is late or composite, this is where the conservative counter-argument was made.

Why this voice is here: Old Testament only, and heavy going — but the place to look when someone asserts a passage cannot mean what it appears to.

v. 1–6

The Salvation for all the Families of Israel. - Ewald has well stated the connection of this chapter with the conclusion of the preceding, as follows: "In order that the old form of blessing, found in the books of Moses, and here given in Jer 31:22, may be…

v. 7–14

The restoration of Israel. - Jer 31:7. "For thus saith Jahveh: Shout for joy over Jacob, and cry out over the head of the nations! Make known, praise, and say, I Jahveh, save Thy people, the remnant of Israel! Jer 31:8. Behold, I will bring them out of the…

v. 15–22

Changing of sorrow into joy, because Ephraim will turn to the Lord, and the Lord will lead him back. - Jer 31:15. "Thus saith Jahveh: A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation, bitter weeping, Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for…

Jamieson, Fausset & BrownScottish Presbyterian / Reformed · 187139

The concise option. Three authors split the canon, so the voice shifts between sections. Expect brief, sober, conservative notes that resolve difficulties rather than dwelling on them — useful for orientation, thinner than Gill or Clarke where a passage is genuinely contested.

Why this voice is here: The quickest way to see what the mainstream Reformed reading of a passage is. Start here, then go to Gill or Clarke when it matters.

v. 2

Upon the grace manifested to Israel "in the wilderness" God grounds His argument for renewing His favors to them now in their exile; because His covenant is "everlasting" (Jer 31:3), and changes not. The same argument occurs in Hos 13:5, Hos 13:9-10; Hos…

v. 3

Israel gratefully acknowledges in reply God's past grace; but at the same time tacitly implies by the expression "of old," that God does not appear to her now. "God appeared to me of old, but now I am forsaken!" God replies, Nay, I love thee with the same…

v. 4

I will build . . . thou shalt be built--The combination of the active and passive to express the same fact implies the infallible certainty of its accomplishment. "Build," that is, establish in prosperity (Jer 33:7). adorned with . . . tabrets-- (Sa1 18:6)…

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